Insights into Students’ Learning Initiative in General Chemistry Online Teaching

With the advancement of educational technology, online teaching has garnered increasing attention. In China, virtually every college possesses its own online teaching platform and a multitude of online courses. Nevertheless, due to a low learning initiative of students, the quality of teaching is unsatisfactory. In this work, online teaching of General Chemistry in recorded and broadcast lessons was conducted on the Chaoxing platform. Comprehensive statistical analysis was conducted on students’ learning activity participation, including online check-in, watching instructional videos, topic discussions, classwork, and the distribution of final exam scores, to explore the underlying reasons affecting students’ learning initiative. Under the relatively ample learning freedom provided by the online learning mode, the fear of difficulties was identified as the primary reason for insufficient learning initiative. The deep-seated causes of this fear of difficulties in learning lie in the lack of learning interest and loss of sense of responsibility. Based on advancements in educational technology and the existence of such underlying causes, this work ultimately provides directions for future teaching practices and expresses anticipation for the roles of teachers and schools in the future.