Belonging, wellbeing and stress with online learning during COVID-19

S. Blignaut; G. Pheiffer; A. Visser; L. Le Grange; S. Maistry; L. Ramrathan; S. Simmonds

doi:10.20853/36-6-5525

S. Blignaut Dep Postgraduate Studies, NMMU
G. Pheiffer Heriot-Watt University Dubai https://orcid.org/
A. Visser Education & Human Rights in Diversity Research - NWU
L. Le Grange Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch
S. Maistry University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
L. Ramrathan University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban
S. Simmonds Education & Human Rights in Diversity Research - NWU

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20853/36-6-5525

Keywords: university students, sense of belonging, perceived stress, wellbeing, platform pedagogy

Abstract

Sense of belonging, perceived stress and wellbeing are reported factors that influence students’ university experience and learning. The COVID-19 pandemic and shift to online emergency remote teaching were likely to exacerbate these affective dimensions of student experience. This article employed a quantitative survey research design to determine how students’ sense of belonging, perceived stress and wellbeing were influenced during the pandemic. An online questionnaire was administered to 537 South African students at one residential university. Data analysis was performed using multiple regression analysis. The results indicated that platform pedagogy was a significant predictor of belonging, perceived stress, and wellbeing, while lecturers’ pedagogical competence was not. Lived learning experience of online learning was a significant predictor of perceived stress, and communication was a significant predictor of belonging. The importance of the learning environment in student belonging and wellbeing is key to student success and this study provides insights for developing targeted interventions.

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Author Biographies

G. Pheiffer, Heriot-Watt University Dubai

Gary Pheiffer is an Occupational Psychologist and registered with the BPS and HCPC (UK), Chartered Occupational Psychologist (BPS) Practitioner Psychologist (HCPC), and Chartered CIPD member and a fellow of the HEA. His PhD was exploring the role of adult attachment styles in teams. He has extensive experience in teaching Psychology, Work/Business Psychology and HRM programmes, with extensive academic management and international educational experience and with teaching international student cohorts.

Gary is currently with the University of Law in London, UK. From October 2017 to August 2022, he was with the University of Hertfordshire, where was the Course Leader for MA HRM, and undertook PhD supervision, research and consulting in the area of Work Psychology and HRM. Current areas of research work were teacher wellbeing, student engagement and experience, cosmopolitan learning, organisational change, wellbeing and adult attachment styles in the workplace. Leading international projects in these areas across ten countries.

From September 2000 to October 2017 he was with London Metropolitan University as a Principal Lecturer; Occupational Psychology; Director of the Work Psychology Group and Course leader for MSc Occupational Psychology, Business Psychology and Consumer Psychology programmes. He started his academic career with Thames Valley University (1992 – 2000) where he was a senior lecturer teaching on professional and PG programmes in the UK and internationally, and part of various research teams, with consultancy experience in Assessment and Development.

Before his academic career he had industry experience as a Human Resource Manager with key responsibilities for all strategic and operational HRM.

L. Le Grange, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch

Department of Curriculum Studies, Faculty of Education.

Lesley Le Grange is a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University. He has 238 publications to his credit and serves on editorial boards of eleven peer-reviewed journals. He has delivered 176 academic presentations (70 as an invited speaker) and is a recipient of several academic awards/prizes.

In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (UK) and in 2019 elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf). In 2018 he was appointed member of the Council on Higher Education (CHE) by the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology and is also member of the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC). After serving two terms as Vice-President, he was elected President of the International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (IAACS) in 2020. In 2021 he was appointed as a South African Council for Educators (SACE) Councilor by the Minister of Basic Education. Prof Le Grange is rated as an internationally acclaimed researcher by the National Research Foundation (NRF) in South Africa.

His current research interests include: Sustainability education, education in a post-human(ist) world; history of school biology in South Africa; relationship between science and indigenous knowledge; Ubuntu as ecosophy and its implications for education; curriculum change in South Africa, with reference to life sciences and environmental education; decolonising the university curriculum.

S. Maistry, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban

Commerce Education.

Suriamurthee Maistry (University of KwaZulu-Natal) is a curriculum scholar who leads three major research initiatives. The first of these is “The South African Textbook Research Project” that looks at ideological discourses in school textbooks. The second is the “Higher Education Pedagogy Project” – a series of case studies of curriculum and pedagogy in selected university Economic and Business Sciences programmes. His third research project entitled “Decolonising postgraduate supervision: towards a pedagogy of ethical care” focuses on supervision practices in the College of Humanities at UKZN in the context of decolonization debates. He is also a co-investigator in a project titled “Pre-service teachers as agents of change: About deliberative encounters and a pedagogy of discomfort in a teacher education programme”.

L. Ramrathan, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban

Teacher Development Studies, School of Education, Education Studies Cluster.

Labby Ramrathan is a Professor at the School of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a NRF rated researcher. He is currently the editor of the Journal of Education. His areas of scholarship include curriculum studies, teacher development and higher education. He is the co-editor of the Springer Series on Key thinkers in Education and has published extensively in both national and international publications with six edited books published and 60 journal articles and book chapters published in accredited publications. He has supervised to completion more than 100 post-graduate students, including 35 at the PhD level. Currently he is leading the College of Humanities curriculum transformation process within the context of decolonization. He served in several leadership positions within Education Faculty/School and has engaged in several institutional, national and international research projects.

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Belonging, wellbeing and stress with online learning during COVID-19

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