"It's hard to feel a part of something when you've never met people": defining "learning community" in an online era.

Feeling part of a community of learners has been shown to foster students' engagement and sense of belonging, leading to higher retention and achievement of learning outcomes. The pivot to online teaching caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a reappraisal of all aspects of the student experience, including students' capacity and opportunity to engage in meaningful learning communities online. There has been some emergent literature which considers how to facilitate online learning communities in the emergency remote teaching context prompted by COVID-19. However, there is a notable lack of literature which considers how learning communities are defined, understood, and negotiated by students in this unique teaching context. Given how students' perceptions of learning communities contributes to Higher Education policy (e.g. through the National Student Survey), this is important to understand. In the present study (N = 309), we qualitatively investigated students' understanding and definition of the term "learning community" during a time of emergency pivot to online teaching and learning. A reflexive thematic analysis of students' first-hand responses generated three dominant themes: "Feeling connected: Bridging the gap whilst physically distanced", "Feeling included: Visible and valued", and "Feeling together: Mutuality and the shared experience". We discuss the implications for these conceptualisations of an online learning community and suggest ways forward for Higher Education pedagogy.

Supporting students during the transition to university in COVID-19: Five key considerations and recommendations for educators

As coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) continues to disrupt pretertiary education provision and examinations in the United Kingdom, urgent consideration must be given to how best to support the 2021-2022 cohort of incoming undergraduate students to higher education. In this paper, we draw upon the "Five Sense of Student Success" model to highlight five key evidence-based, psychology-informed considerations that higher education educators should be attentive to when preparing for the next academic year. These include the challenge in helping students to reacclimatize to academic work following a period of prolonged educational disruption, supporting students to access the "hidden curriculum" of higher education, negotiating mental health consequences of COVID-19, and remaining sensitive to inequalities of educational provision that students have experienced as a result of COVID-19. We provide evidence-based, psychology-informed recommendations to each of these considerations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Constructions of family relationships in a COVID Christmas: An analysis of television advertisements on YouTube

Christmas time is a site of intensified domesticity, a reliance on traditional norms, and centring of family relationships. Christmas in the year 2020 was unique in this regard, given how the COVID-19 pandemic widely disrupted home life and shifted family relationships. Feminist researchers have previously noted how analysis of contemporary cultural artefacts, such as online media, can be a useful way of exploring how different relationships are constructed to serve various functions. Therefore, we thematically analysed 11 television advertisements on YouTube to investigate how family relationships are constructed through a lens of feminist psychology in the context of a COVID-19 Christmas. Our analysis generated three dominant themes. First, the television advertisements in our sample constructed nostalgia as women's work. Second, family relationships were positioned as a means of reclaiming power and purpose in an effort to instil a new normal. Lastly, television advertisements constructed family relationships as a critical site for representing gendered norms. We discuss these themes in relation to feminist scholarship on the function of family relationships, during COVID-19 and beyond.

"I feel more protective over my body:" A brief report on pregnant women's embodied experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered the experiences of pregnant people. For example, the pandemic has disrupted access to healthcare, social distancing has reduced social support, and vaccine rollout has led to safety concerns. Consistent with the Developmental Theory of Embodiment, which posits that our experiences of our bodies are influenced by social factors, studies have revealed an uptick in body dissatisfaction and disordered eating during this time. However, research on pregnant people's experiences of their body and body image during the pandemic has been largely overlooked. In this exploratory qualitative study, we aimed to broadly understand how the pandemic and quarantine have impacted the way pregnant women (N = 190) in the US and UK relate to their bodies. We used Consensual Qualitative Research-Modified (CQR-M) to analyze pregnant women's brief textual accounts of their embodied experiences during the pandemic and identified eight core domains across the dataset. Some participants reported no change in their embodied experiences, whereas others reported accounts of appearance and weight concerns, health behavior self-judgment, gratitude for isolation, body appreciation, maternal healthcare concerns, COVID health concerns, and health and safety strategies. We conclude with implications and recommendations for supporting pregnant people and their embodied well-being during health crises.

Encouraging Feminist Discussion in Asynchronous Online Teaching

The article presents the discussion on cultivating lively debate and discussion at the core of feminist teaching and scholarship. Topics include feminist teaching regularly involving hands-on activities, group-based discussions, or collaborative working exploring the nuances and complexities of the psychology of women;and adding to the challenge of cultivating engaged feminist debate and discussion in the online classroom.

“A More Personal Way to Learn During Such an Isolating Time”: The Value of Live Lectures in Online Teaching

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a shift to online teaching, which has dramatically affected all facets of the student experience. In this practice report, we reflect on the synchronous delivery of a popular final-year module “Face Perception” in a United Kingdom (UK) psychology undergraduate degree. In the module, students learned via live lectures hosted on the virtual learning environment and content was consolidated interactively using online polls and small group discussions. We collected students’ qualitative feedback on the live lecture delivery (n=28), from which we observed three core themes: technology-enhanced engagement, logistical barriers, and togetherness in live lectures. Taken together, this feedback suggests that whilst there are additional technological and logistical challenges that must be navigated in the delivery of “live” online lectures, they can be useful in instilling a sense of togetherness online. This is particularly important, given the threats to student success and engagement that COVID-19 poses.

Teaching the social psychology of interpersonal relationships in an online setting

Research demonstrates the pedagogical value in stressing the 'real world' applicability of subject-specific content in a psychology programme. The move to online teaching prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic has given way to more creative uses of technology to enhance the student experience. In this paper, we demonstrate the value in applied approaches to teaching psychology content, in a way that acknowledges and responds to students' lived experiences. We share a case study of an online seminar, in which students first reflect on their social connections in an online context, before participating in a mock interactive experiment that demonstrates the theory of proximity and familiarity in developing interpersonal relationships. The use of creative, interactive methods to connect social psychology theory to students' lived experiences of learning during Covid-19 may be a useful avenue for future teaching. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

Students' Perceptions of Online Lecture Delivery: An Empirical Mixed-Methods Investigation

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shape and disrupt teaching provision in Higher Education, educators have responded with a swift pivot to online teaching for the 2020-2021 academic year. The debate surrounding the pedagogic utility of pre-recorded 'asynchronous' versus live 'synchronous' lecture modality continues to grow among teachers of psychology. We surveyed 279 students from across an undergraduate Psychology programme and investigated their preference for (a)synchronous lecture delivery, perceptions of online lectures, and self-reported lecture-watching behaviours. Overall, our results demonstrated that students enjoy both the structured nature of live lectures and the flexibility of pre-recorded lectures. Live lectures are useful at instilling social connections, but pre-recorded are more useful for understanding subject content. Taken together, students show a strong preference for a hybrid approach to online learning of both live and pre-recorded teaching sessions. However, students highly value enthusiastic, engaging lecturers, which largely outweighs any preference for specific delivery modalities.

Supporting students during the transition to university in COVID-19: Five key considerations and recommendations for educators

As coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) continues to disrupt pretertiary education provision and examinations in the United Kingdom, urgent consideration must be given to how best to support the 2021?2022 cohort of incoming undergraduate students to higher education. In this paper, we draw upon the ?Five Sense of Student Success? model to highlight five key evidence-based, psychology-informed considerations that higher education educators should be attentive to when preparing for the next academic year. These include the challenge in helping students to reacclimatize to academic work following a period of prolonged educational disruption, supporting students to access the ?hidden curriculum? of higher education, negotiating mental health consequences of COVID-19, and remaining sensitive to inequalities of educational provision that students have experienced as a result of COVID-19. We provide evidence-based, psychology-informed recommendations to each of these considerations.