Video conferencing during emergency distance learning impacted student emotions during COVID-19

Research during the pandemic has demonstrated that the rapid shift to emergency distance learning has impacted students' emotions. What explains this link remains a sparsely explored question. Because many students report negative experiences while video conferencing during emergency distance learning, one avenue that has yet to be explored is whether students' attitudes towards video conferencing may explain the link between video conferencing and students’ emotions. As such, to explore this question, a total of 558 college students and 219 parents or guardians of K-12 students completed a survey about their video conferencing attitudes while emergency distance learning and their positive and negative emotions while video conferencing during emergency distance learning. Across both samples, even after controlling for student learning and teacher evaluations, when students held the attitude that video conferencing during emergency distance learning felt like a forced interaction, students reported greater negative emotions. Because instructors can use the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to improve distance learning in the future, video conferencing attitudes that are most strongly related to negative emotions should continue to be explored.