Switching from In-person to Online Learning: Emotion and Temporal Focus in the Egyptian Tertiary Student Experience

Responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Egyptian government closed universities and ordering teachers online. Adjusting to online teaching was difficult for learners. This study of 26 students at a private Egyptian university used Voyant Tools and LIWC to explore their psychometric and cognitive responses to the first few weeks of online learning. Results indicate that stress and anxiety were common. Despite more time with family, social and cognitive process words were less frequent than the norm. Time words focused more on the present and the past than the future. Work words were more frequent than, but mentions of leisure less frequent than the norm. Since the pandemic, tertiary teaching and learning has made increasing use of online platforms. This is likely to continue in future. Negative emotions and the past temporal focus of these students highlights time as a problem for online learning, because virtual time has no boundaries, and may be experienced subjectively as ongoing in an unbounded or unlimited manner. In combination with social isolation, this will tend to enhance negative emotions. This highlights the need for online teaching to manage virtual boundaries, as clock time has in classroom teaching. Qualitative data analysis will remain a frontline tool in assessing learners’ experiences online, as universities go forward with this teaching delivery mode.