










































English Language Teaching Educational Journal   ISSN 2621-6485 

Vol. 5, No. 1, 2022, pp. 16-31  

         10.12928/eltej.v5i1.5770                             http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index           eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id 

Psychosocial learning environments: EFL learners’ voices 

during a pandemic 

Bora Demira,1,*, Scott L. Walkerb,2  
aÇanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, School of Foreign Languages, Çanakkale, Turkey  

b Northwest Vista College, San Antonio, Texas, United States 
1dbora76@yahoo.com*; 2swalker6@alamo.edu 

* Corresponding author 

 

A R T I C L E  I N F O 

 

ABST RACT   

 

 

Article history 

Received 17 February 2022 

Revised 23 April 2022 

Accepted 27 April 2022 

 The aim of this study was to investigate university students’ psychosocial 
apperceptions between face-to-face and emergency remote learning 
environments they experienced in the same academic term during the 
2019-nCoV (coronavirus) pandemic of 2020. Utilizing a mixed methods 
study design, our investigation involved quantitative data collection with 
the DELES-TR instrument, followed by online focus group interviews 
with questions derived from the survey results to gain a deeper 
understanding of students’ perspectives of both educational 
environments. English as a Foreign Language students (N=687) from 
Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey participated in the study. 
The results indicated that students preferred the face-to-face environment 
over emergency remote learning due to difficulty in communication with 
instructors and peers and requiring students to take an active, responsible, 
and accountable role in their own learning in the remote learning 
environment.  

 

This is an open access article under the CC–BY-SA license. 

    

 

 
Keywords 

Psychosocial learning environments 

Distance Education Learning 

Environments Survey (DELES) 

Turkish higher education 

COVID-19 pandemic 

 

 

 

How to Cite: Demir, B., & Walker, S. L. (2022). Psychosocial learning environments: EFL learners’ 
voices during a pandemic. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 5(1), 16-31. 

1. Introduction  

Like many other countries under the threat of pandemic in early 2020, Turkey shifted to emergency 
remote learning with the aim of keeping both students and faculty safe. However, the hastily 
developed emergency remote learning experience, offered as a part of general precautions taken for 
the public health, was distinctive from well-planned online learning experiences since the 
administrators, instructors, and students were not prepared for emergency remote teaching (Hodges et 
al., 2020). Exceptionally, the students had to experience both face-to-face and remote education in 
one single academic term. Due to the nature of this unprecedented circumstance, we were without 
previous psychosocial learning environments research on which to fall back or review at the onset of 
this investigation, as affirmed by Hagedorn et al. (2022). However, the situation enabled us to make 
a comparison between these two modes of learning; face-to-face and remote. Through in-depth 
analyses of both quantitative and qualitative data, this study provides evidence from students’ voices 
to the question whether the shift from in-class learning to emergency remote learning during the 
COVID-19 crisis worked for students or not, and to what extent.  

1.1. School Closures and Sequestration during Crisis Events 

School closures during crisis events are nothing new. For instance, in the 14thcentury the Black 
Death infected students and teachers at Winchester Grammar School in Oxford, England, closing the 

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ISSN 2621-6485 English Language Teaching Educational Journal 17 
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 Demir, B. & Walker, S.L., (Psychosocial learning environments …..) 

school (Boothman & Cook, 2012). The 1918 “Spanish Flu” influenza virus closed schools in Sweden 
(Holtenius & Gillman, 2014) and elsewhere. Similarly, other crises have impacted instruction and 
have caused need for rapid instructional modifications. For example, in Hungary “…in the last two 
school years of World War II, many students did not attend school for more than 5 months…” (Illéyi, 
2020, para. 1). Rather, teachers who were not defending the country were guided to use “circular 
letters”—letters from teachers to students, then back to teachers—to keep in communication with their 
students (Hungarian Spectrum, 2020, para. 5). An earlier societal crisis caused a rapid shift from face-
to-face learning to distance education. During World War I the French Ministry of Education quickly 
shifted to distance learning by forming the Centre National d’Enseignement à Distance (CNED) in 
1939 to educate children whose schools had closed due to the war (Holmberg, 2008).  

1.2. School Closures and Rapid Shifts in Education During the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic 

School systems in China began to close as early as February 8, 2020, due to the outbreak of what 
we now know as the 2019-nCoV (novel coronavirus) (CDC, 2020). By March 31, 2020, most school 
systems around the world, including tertiary-level schools, were closed, affecting over 1.6 billion 
learners (UNESCO, 2020)—an unprecedented number of students, their instructors, administrators, 
and support staff. Turkey experienced a nationwide school shutdown on March 16, 2020, impacting 
over 24.9 million students, 7.2 million (28.9%) of those students were post-secondary level learners 
(UNESCO, 2020). By March 23, Turkey’s Ministry of Education began teaching primary and 
secondary education online and through the Education Information Network television (Turkish 
Ministry of Education, 2020). However, unlike primary and secondary schools, universities in Turkey 
had to resort to continuing the school year on their own accord. Like much of the rest of the world, 
Turkish universities rapidly shifted to emergency remote learning rather than ending the academic 
year unfinished. One Turkish university, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (ÇOMÜ), began 
offering coursework in synchronous and asynchronous formats on March 30, 2020, where the 
synchronous lessons were conducted via Microsoft Teams (SonDakika.com, 2020). Unlike school 
closures due to long-term crisis events in previous centuries, post-secondary education relied heavily 
on technology to finish out the academic year in early 2020. 

1.3. Remote Education Learning Environments 

In this paper we distinguish between emergency remote learning and distance/online learning. 
Distance education has a substantially long history interceded by online learning at a distance that 
involves web-based digital tools and learning environments. In many higher education settings, 
distance learning has strong support and has become an institutionally embedded standard of higher 
education. Emergency remote learning, on the other hand, was a result of a sudden shift midway 
through the first term of 2020. This was a crisis-driven higher education situation that involved a rapid 
shift from face-to-face classes to classes reliant on synchronous digital tools and environments most 
higher education instructors were not prepared for or even interested in participating (Craig, 2020; 
Hodges et al., 2020). Likewise, in the emergency remote learning scenario, students who were enrolled 
in face-to-face classes at the beginning of the 2020 academic year were also not prepared, necessarily 
interested in, or adept at learning through synchronous and asynchronous digital environments.  

The focus of this paper is concerned with students’ apperceptions-making sense of a new 
experience by assimilating it with prior experience-of the psychosocial environment initiated by the 
sudden shift to emergency remote learning.  

1.4. Psychosocial Learning Environments 

The history of inquiry into psychosocial learning environments reaches back to the 1970s with 
Anderson and Walberg (1974), and Moos (1976). Moos noted that “the growth of new institutional 
environments has increased the need for accurate descriptions of these environments.” He expanded 
that notion by stating, “…currently available descriptions of social environments are inadequate. The 
environment is usually described as it is seen by a small and unrepresentative sample of the people in 
it… In addition, no ‘feel’ of how the environment actually functions is provided” (Moos, 1976, p. 
351). 

Moos’ declaration concerning new institutional environments was just as relevant in the 2020 
pandemic-fueled learning milieu as it was five decades ago.  



18 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   ISSN 2621-6485 

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Psychosocial environments are durable human ecology qualities that give social spaces their 
vulnerability and strengths. Moos outlined this social ecosystem as having three enduring dimensions 
of: (1) relationship, (2) personal growth, and (3) system maintenance and change (Moos, 1974, 2002). 
These dimensions tend to be preserved in the settings in which we find ourselves, including 
educational environments. Further, these dimensions are “highly salient for the people who live and 
work in them…and profoundly influence their morale and behavior” (Moos, 1996, p. 194).  

In terms of psychosocial learning environments, there are positive links between the environment 
and student outcomes, where positive student perceptions of their learning environment tend to 
support positive student outcomes (Fraser, 2018). Thus, by measuring the extent to which students 
perceive relationships, personal growth, and system maintenance and change in the classroom, we can 
learn a lot about the potential for positive student outcomes and work to adjust learning environment 
dimensions in order to support students in the short term and “…to develop better theories about 
environments’ underlying patterns and dynamics” (Moos, 1996, p. 195) in the longer term.  

Measurement of psychosocial learning environments has a 30-year history and is often investigated 
using survey instruments to gauge students’ first-hand perceptions of their environment. Student 
viewpoints are strong indicators of their learning environment given that they themselves are experts 
in learning environments, having spent over “20,000 hours” as learners in a variety of learning 
environments by the time they complete a university degree (Fraser, 2018, p. 2). 

While research on psychosocial learning environments have focused on learner perceptions about 
using such educational settings, this study differs from previous research in that it aims to understand 
the change in learners’ opinions about learning English by using both physical (face-to-face) and 
emergency remote learning during the same academic term. On the other hand, the majority of the 
related research try to provide conceptualizations of the relationship between both modes of learning. 
However, most of them fail to make comparisons by focusing either on physical or psychosocial 
learning environments (Baars et al., 2021). This study also establishes comparisons of the two learning 
environments by focusing on various sub-dimensions namely, instructor support, student interaction, 
collaboration, personal relevance, authentic learning, active learning, and student autonomy 
(Hagedorn et al., 2022).  

The present study also differs from previous research on psychosocial learning environments since 
it covers several student and teacher related factors. While previous research has also provided several 
findings for learner psychology (Olawale et al., 2021), learner experiences (Oliveira et al., 2021), and 
general psychological impacts of distance teaching (Romeo et al., 2021), this study is significant in 
providing findings by focusing on several aspects of psychosocial learning environments in a single 
study. 

1.5. Aim of this Study 

The aim of this study was to quantitatively and qualitatively ascertain students’ psychosocial 
learning environment apperceptions during a pandemic. We investigated students’ views of their face-
to-face learning environment and the same students’ views after the shift to emergency remote 
learning using a validated survey instrument. Using an economical and efficient survey instrument 
offered insight related to a broad picture of the extent of “what” students perceived. We followed the 
quantitative study (Phase I) with a set of focus group interviews (Phase II) of a sample of the same 
students in order to gain a more nuanced student perspective of “why” they perceived what they did. 

The contributions of our study are the (1) demonstration of applied mixed-methods research to 
give voice to students through focus groups, to (2) demonstrate a method of rapidly gathering 
psychosocial perspectives from a representative sample of a large student body for practical relevance 
in the institute.  

For the quantitative phase of our study, we worked from the hypothesis that students would 
perceive the remote class psychosocial learning environment less favorable than the face-to-face 
learning environment. Because we estimated that owing to the sudden shift from face-to-face-to 
learning to emergency remote learning, the instructors would have difficulty in modifying the new 
learning environment in terms of teaching materials, methods, and online teaching skills which in turn 
would create an obstacle for establishing an efficient learning environment. 



ISSN 2621-6485 English Language Teaching Educational Journal 19 
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 Demir, B. & Walker, S.L., (Psychosocial learning environments …..) 

Immediately following the shift to emergency remote teaching the institution organized online 
meetings for the instructors on topics such as the effective use of the online teaching platform, 
designing materials for online use, and outlining methods for assessment. Specifically, for the English 
as a Foreign Language course, the School of Foreign Languages provided the content of the course 
textbook, implemented the use of Microsoft Teams, and reframed the class in a more simplified 
version since many of the students were relying on their smartphones to participate in the class. 

2. Method 

To analyze students’ apperceptions regarding psychosocial learning environment characteristics 
between face-to-face and emergency remote learning during the 2020 global 2019-nCoV pandemic, 
we gathered quantitative and qualitative data from students at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University in 
Çanakkale, Turkey. Our investigation utilized a mixed methods study design that involved 
quantitative data collection with a survey instrument followed by interviews of students with 
questions derived from the survey results. The sections below outline each of the two phases of the 
study.  

 

2.1. Instruments 

2.1.1. Phase I Quantitative Study: Survey Instrument 

For the quantitative data collection phase of our study, we administered a modified version of the 
Turkish language Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES-TR) which is a 34-
item psychosocial learning environment instrument designed specifically to measure university 
students’ apperceptions about the distance education learning environment in which they are 
immersed (Author, 2020). The original English-language DELES has six psychosocial scales: 
Instructor Support (8 items), Student Interaction and Collaboration (6 items), Personal Relevance 
(7 items), Authentic Learning (5 items), Active Learning (3 items), and Student Autonomy (5 items) 
(see Table 1). The response choices were: 1 = Never, 2 = Seldom, 3 = Sometimes, 4 = Often, and 
5 = Always.   

Participants were asked, using the modified DELES-TR administered online via Qualtrics Core 
XM (2020), to provide responses to each of 34 items for the pre-pandemic face-to-face context of their 
class and then the emergency remote learning context in which they experienced after the university 
shifted to emergency remote learning. Hence, the survey included 68 psychosocial items in total, not 
including demographic items. Sample items that were piloted with a small group of students prior to 
the study (N=170), read as (translated to English):  

In this class, during… 

1a. Classroom learning: When I have a question, the teacher devotes enough time to answer. 

1b. Emergency remote learning: When I have a question, the teacher devotes enough time to 
answer. 

Each item utilized the five-point response scale of the original DELES, thereby resulting in one 
34-itemdata set related to the pre-pandemic face-to-face version of the class and a second 34-item data 
set related to class experience during emergency remote learning, allowing for a comparative analysis 
of students’ perceptions of the two learning environments for the same class with the same instructor.  

2.1.2. Survey Population 

Our sample frame was the entire population of all freshman students enrolled in 117 English as a 
Foreign Language (EFL) classes in ÇOMÜ during the spring 2020 semester when the 2019-nCoV 
pandemic occurred. As a part of the measures taken for the pandemic, after five weeks of face-to-face 
education, the EFL course was migrated to a combination synchronous and asynchronous emergency 
remote learning format. We administered the instrument six weeks after the shift to remote teaching 
while students were still taking their classes. The EFL class population was estimated at 6,200 
students. Thus, to achieve a probability sample with a 95% confidence level and 5% confidence 
interval, we aimed to collect survey responses from a minimum of 362 students.  



20 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   ISSN 2621-6485 

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Table 1.  DELES Scales, Descriptions, and Items in Relation to Moos’ Social Ecology Dimensions 

Moos’ Dimension Scale Scale Description Items 

Relationship – Individuals are involved in the 

environment and support/help each other; 

personal relationships between inhabitants; 
involvement, affiliation, support, assistance, 

peer cohesion 

Instructor          

Support 

Extent to which an instructor is 

approachable and responds 

quickly with feedback 

8 

Student Interaction 
& Collaboration 

Extent to which students have 

opportunities to interact with 
one another, exchange 

information and engage in 

collaboration 

6 

Personal Development – Opportunity 
afforded by the environment for self-

enhancement and development of self-

esteem; personal growth and development; 

autonomy, independence, intellectuality, 
academic achievement, competition 

Personal Relevance 

Relationship between students’ 

out-of-school experience and 
their classroom experience 

7 

Authentic Learning 

Extent to which students have 

the opportunity to solve real-

world problems that are 

authentic 

5 

Active Learning 
Extent to which students have 
the opportunity take an active 

role in their learning 

3 

System Maintenance & Change – The 

environment is orderly, clear in expectation, 

control, responsive to change, order, 
organization, clarity, control 

Student Autonomy 

Extent to which students have 

opportunities to initiate ideas 

and make their own learning 
decisions, and the locus of 

control is student oriented 

5 

     (Walker, 2020) 

2.1.3. Phase II Qualitative Study: Focus Group Interviews 

In addition to the quantitative data collection, we conducted online focus groups of survey 
participants using a stratified purposeful sampling approach. We used focus group interviews since 
they establish a natural environment for discussion in contrast to single interviews (Krueger& Casey, 
2000) and provide further interpretation of survey results (Merton, 1987). We organized three groups 
of four students each for triangulation purposes and to avoid groupthink (Hennink, 2014; Ruiz, 2017).  

The focus group questions were based on the results of our quantitative survey comparison of 
means analysis arranged by DELES-TR scales to facilitate organization and comparison. Three 45 to 
60-minute interviews were recorded and transcribed in order to allow for a content analysis using 
QDA Miner 4 Lite (2020) and to identify themes and categories (Miles et al., 2014).  

3. Findings  

This section outlines our two-phase study, presenting the quantitative results first, followed by 
the qualitative results. We developed customized qualitative items and sampling based on the results 
of the DELES-TR instrument administration.  

3.1. Phase I Quantitative Study: Survey Instrument Results 

We distributed the instrument to approximately 4,000 students and received 933 DELES-TR 
responses (23%) during a one-week administration period and analyzed those data using JASP 12.2 
(2020). Of those responses 687(73.6%) were complete and usable. Most of the non-usable responses 
followed a partial non-response pattern, likely the result of respondent fatigue due to the nature of a 
68-item survey where the mean response time was slightly over 10 minutes.  

3.1.1. Demographics Results 

Of the population sampled, 261 students were male (38%) and 426 were female (62%). The mean 
student age was 20 years old in a range of 18 years old to 45 years old. We determined that 56% of 
the students accessed the emergency remote learning portion of their class by smartphone, followed 
by 31% using a computer to access the class. The remainder used a tablet device or a combination of 
devices. 



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 Demir, B. & Walker, S.L., (Psychosocial learning environments …..) 

3.1.2. Validity and Reliability Results 

Considering that we applied the DELES-TR in a non-standard manner—usually it is administered 
to collect psychosocial learning environments perceptions of 100% distance education classes—we 
conducted exploratory factor analysis to determine if the a priori scales held up in this unique 
situation. We treated the data as two subsets: one pre-pandemic face-to-face class subset and the 
other during-pandemic emergency remote learning subset. We refer to these subsets here as Before 
and After data.  

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Test of sampling adequacy for the Before-data subset was 0.89, 
while the Bartlett’s Sphericity Test resulted inp<.001. Similarly, the After-data subset also proved 
adequate (KMO=0.95, Bartlett’s Sphericity Test p<.001).  

Factor loadings for the face-to-face class portion (Before subset) demonstrated strong a priori 
loads (0.57 to 0.78) on the scale of Instructor Support and scale of Student Interaction & 
Collaboration. However, the scales of Personal Relevance and Authentic Learning did not support 
the a priori model and loaded strong on the same factor (0.57 to 0.74). Likewise, data for the scales 
of Active Learning and Student Autonomy loaded strong as one factor (0.53 to 0.71).  

Correspondingly, factor loadings for the emergency remote learning portion of the class (After 
subset) also demonstrated strong a priori loading (0.65 to 0.80) on the scale of Instructor Support and 
scale of Student Interaction & Collaboration; similarly, the scales of Personal Relevance and 
Authentic Learning loaded high on the same factor (0.56 to 0.70), diverging from the a priori 
structure. Comparably, data for the scales of Active Learning and Student Autonomy loaded strong 
as one factor (0.60 to 0.76). Thus, for the remaining analyses and the qualitative design we combined 
scales as presented in Table 2. 

Reliability of our refined DELES-TR was strong using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient as the 
measure. Coefficients ranged from 0.87 to 0.96 across scales (see Table 2) and was calculated as .96 
for the entire data set (Before subset α=0.95, After subset α=0.97).  

Table 2.  Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficients by Scale 

Revised DELES-TR Scales Number of Items α 
Instructor Support before  8 .91 

Instructor Support after 8 .93 
Student Interaction & Collaboration before 6 .91 

Student Interaction & Collaboration after 6 .92 

Personal Relevance + Authentic Learning before 12 .94 

Personal Relevance + Authentic Learning after 12 .96 
Active Learning + Student Autonomy before 8 .87 

Active Learning + Student Autonomy after 8 .91 
      N=687 

 

3.1.3. Comparison of Means Results 

In order to investigate the hypothesis that students would perceive the emergency remote learning 
psychosocial learning environment less favorable than the face-to-face learning environment we 
conducted a comparison of means analysis using a paired-samples t-test and descriptive analyses using 
the revised scales of the DELES-TR. The data subsets were normal where in the Before subset M = 
3.8, Mdn = 3.8, RKU = -0.11, skewness = -0.34 and in the After subset M = 3.2, Mdn = 3.3, RKU = -
0.63, skewness = -0.14. As presented in Table 3, there is a drop in mean for each before/after scale 
were 1 = Never, 2 = Seldom, 3 = Sometimes, 4 = Often, and 5 = Always. The correlation between scale 
subsets was positive, significant, and strong with the exception of the Active Learning + Autonomy 
scale, which also has the least difference in means. 

We conducted a paired-samples t-test to compare the before and after means on the four scales of 
the modified DELES-TR. There was a significant difference in the means for all subscales as presented 
in Table 4. The t-test results demonstrate that shifting from a face-to-face learning environment to an 
emergency remote learning environment resulted in students viewing the face-to-face psychosocial 
learning environment more favorably than they did the resulting emergency remote learning 
environment.  



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 Demir, B. & Walker, S.L., (Psychosocial learning environments …..) 

Table 3.  Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations, and Significance by Scale 

Revised DELES-TR Scales M Δ SD r p 

Instructor Support before 4.13 
.54 

0.23 
.86 .006 

Instructor Support after 3.59 0.30 

Student Interaction & Collaboration before 3.32 
.77 

0.21 
.98 .000 

Student Interaction & Collaboration after 2.55 0.24 

Personal Relevance + Authentic Learning before 3.76 
.75 

0.16 
.72 .008 

Personal Relevance + Authentic Learning after 3.01 0.15 

Active Learning + Student Autonomy before 3.99 
.38 

0.16 
.54 .163 

Active Learning + Student Autonomy after 3.61 0.15 

        N=687 

 

Table 4.  Results of a Paired-Samples T-Test 

Revised Scales M SD SEM Lower Upper t df p 

Instructor Support 0.54 0.16 0.06 0.4 0.67 9.51 7 .000 

Student Interaction & 

Collaboration 
0.77 0.05 0.02 0.71 0.82 36.37 5 .000 

Personal Relevance & Authentic 
Learning 

0.75 0.12 0.03 0.68 0.82 22.25 11 .000 

Active Learning & Student 

Autonomy 
0.38 0.15 0.05 0.25 0.5 7.13 7 .000 

N=687, p = two tailed. 

 

Overall, after data analyses, we reduced the original DELES-TR scales from six to four and 
determined good instrument and scale reliability. Comparison of means data suggest a drop in 
students’ apperceptions of their English as a Foreign Language class learning environment when it 
shifted from face-to-face to remote as visualized in Figure 1. Instructor Support had the strongest 
Before mean (4.13, Often occurring) and remained relatively strong after shifting to emergency remote 
learning (M=3.59, just above Sometimes occurring). In contrast, Student Interaction and Collaboration 
was low to begin with (M=3.32, Sometimes occurring) and fell even lower (M=2.55, just above Seldom 
occurring) during emergency remote learning. The least difference in means was that occurring on the 
scale of Active Learning + Student Autonomy (Before M=3.99, Often; After M=3.61, nearly Often 
occurring). 

1.6. Phase II Qualitative Method: Interviews 

This section presents findings of the qualitative analysis based on focus group interviews in 
accordance with each scale of the modified DELES-TR. Each section provides existing links between 
the t-test results obtained from the survey data and the themes and categories obtained from the 
analysis of the focus group interviews.  

Question 1:  What are the differences between face-to-face and emergency remote learning 
regarding instructor support? 

 

 

Fig. 1. Means of the modified DELES-TR Scale data before and after subsets. 



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 Demir, B. & Walker, S.L., (Psychosocial learning environments …..) 

The results of the content analysis with reference to the first question had the most input and 
revealed eight different themes under four main categories (see Table 5). These categories are 
interaction with instructors, communication problems, technical problems, and lack of motivation. 

Table 5.  Categories and Themes for Responses to Question 1 

Category Theme Description Count Frequency 

Interaction with 

instructors 

gestures and body 
language 

Students understand better 

when they observe (see) 
instructors teaching in the 

classroom. 

7 11.1% 

feeling away from 

instructors 

Remote education feels like 

learners are not close to 

instructors. 

7 11.1% 

eye contact with 

instructors 

Students learn better when 
they have eye contact with 

instructors in the classroom. 

9 14.3% 

Communication 

problems 

hard to communicate 

Students think that remote 

education is not an easy way 

to communicate with 
instructors. 

7 11.1% 

hesitate for 

communication 

Students think participating 

in remote learning might 

interrupt the lesson due to 

time limitations. 

13 20.6% 

Technical problems 
internet connection 

problems 

Students cannot follow the 
online classes because of 

internet problems. 

4 6.3% 

Lack of motivation 

demotivated instructors 

Instructors are less motivated 

in remote education when 

compared to face-to-face 
education. 

5 7.9% 

demotivated learners 
Learners think remote 

learning is not motivating.  
11 17.5% 

 

The first category, “interaction with instructors” includes three main themes, namely gestures and 
body language, feeling distant from instructors, and eye contact with instructors. Findings suggest that 
a remarkable number of the participants provided responses that included expressions, pointing out 
the importance of observing the instructors in the classroom as they were teaching (f=16). Students 
emphasized the importance of seeing the instructor in the classroom during face-to-face learning. 
However, many believed the lack of eye contact and physical interaction in the remote education 
environment as obstacles to learning and mutual understanding. 

S:“…when we were in the classroom, the instructors were able to get feedback from our eyes, 

gestures, and mimics. But in emergency remote learning most of the students do not turn their 

webcams on. However, in face-to-face learning, you cannot hide your facial expressions. It is 

easier both for the students and the instructors to understand each other with physical 

support”. 

Interestingly, very few participants (f=4) reported their Internet connection problems as a 
hindrance for getting instructor support in emergency remote learning. However, in the few cases 
where they did have difficulty, they seemed to “check out” of learning. 

B: “…during online classes the Internet quality gets weaker and I have to close the video 

stream and only have the chance to listen to the instructor. However, sometimes it is even 

worse. I find myself disconnected from the class. This is so annoying that I do not even try to 

reconnect to the team”. 

Additionally, some of the participants (f=20) stated that they found it hard to communicate in the 
emergency remote learning environment and they avoided asking questions or making comments due 



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to time limitations. According to the participants, it is also clear that both the learners and the 
instructors were less motivated to communicate compared to the face-to-face educational environment 
(f=16). 

Question 2:  What are the differences between face-to-face and emergency remote learning 
regarding student communication and collaboration? 

The analysis addressing the second question revealed five different themes under two main 
categories (see Table 6). These categories were socialization (f=16) and student collaboration (f=13). 

Table 6.  Categories and Themes for Responses to Question 2 

 Categor

y 

Theme Description Count Frequency 

Socialization  

no social time with friends 
Students are not happy with 
remote learning since they 

cannot meet their friends. 

6 20.7% 

less communication with 

friends 

Students have less 

communication with their 

classmates during remote 
education. 

7 24.1% 

less fun 
Students do not enjoy remote 

education. 
3 10.3% 

Student 
collaboration 

ineffective collaboration 

Students believe that online 

collaboration is not effective 

and is time consuming. 

10 34.3% 

less opportunity for 

collaboration 

Students think they have less 
opportunity for collaboration in 

remote learning. 

3 10.3% 

 

For the socialization category, the participants’ arguments mostly focused on the social aspect of 
face-to-face learning (f=16). Most of the participants complained about lack of social contact with 
peers during remote education. Since they do not have the opportunity to meet their friends, they think 
it is not as fun of a way of learning. 

M:“...I can still ask questions to my friends by using Whatsapp. However, that is not the point. 

We cannot meet and chat anymore. We used to go to social places together before, but 

unfortunately, we don’t have that chance in emergency remote learning”.  

The participants also reported similar complaints about remote collaboration (f=13). They believed 
that although there are several means of communication available, none of them are as effective as 
face-to-face collaboration and trying to learn from others is time consuming when they are remote. 

K:“…when we had face-to-face interaction, information exchange was much faster. As we 

were discussing a problem, others could contribute and share their ideas, so we were able to 

find quick solutions. Also, we used to gather for doing assignments and projects at the library. 

However, things are harder in emergency remote learning. You cannot get answers to your 

questions all the time. When we were at school, we could collaborate more effectively and 

solve our problems with the help of others”. 

Question 3:  What are the differences between face-to-face and emergency remote learning 
regarding personal relevance and authentic learning? 

The results of the analysis related to the third question revealed four different themes under two 
main categories namely authentic learning (f=16), and personal relevance (f=8) (see Table 7).  

The analysis revealed (f=16) students’ criticism of remote education for not being a genuine 
learning experience. In general, they stated that emergency remote learning failed in offering language 
practice opportunities such as interactive classroom activities, pair work, and role playing—an issue 
related to instruction rather than delivery mode. As a result, they considered remote education as an 
unreal way of language learning since they have less opportunity to use and practice the foreign 
language they learn. 



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 Demir, B. & Walker, S.L., (Psychosocial learning environments …..) 

A:“…learning English in the classroom was what I would prefer. Because, we were able to 

use English in the classroom by the help of role-play activities. In remote education, we didn’t 

have any pair or group work activities. I think this is not a realistic way of learning a foreign 

language. Languages are best learnt with interaction”. 

Table 7.  Categories and Themes for Responses to Question 3 

Category Theme Description Count Frequency 

Authentic 

learning 

not an active way of 

language learning  

Interactive classroom activities 

cannot be performed in remote 

education. 

4 16.7% 

no practical application 
Students cannot practice what 
they learn in remote learning. 

5 20.8% 

no real learning 
Remote learning does not feel 
like real learning. 

7 29.2% 

Personal relevance less sharing of experiences 

Less opportunity for transferring 

their experiences into remote 

classes. 

8 33.3% 

 

As for the personal relevance category, the participants reported that they thought sharing their 
experiences or their prior knowledge during remote classes was irrelevant since it might be time 
consuming or not suitable for an emergency remote learning setting. 

B:“…when we were learning in the classroom, we had more chances of giving examples or 

mentioning something relevant to the topic. However, in [remote] classes I feel that giving 

extra information based on my prior knowledge would not be suitable and even time 

consuming. We have limited time and I feel like I would bother others if I take extra turns. As 

a result, I stay silent instead of making a contribution to the lesson”.  

Question 4:  What are the differences between face-to-face and emergency remote learning 
regarding active learning and student autonomy? 

The analysis addressing the fourth question revealed three different themes under two main 
categories (see Table 8). These categories were active learning (f=4) and student autonomy (f=16). 

Table 8.  Categories and Themes for Responses to Question 4 

Category Theme Description Count Frequency 

Active learning 
opportunity for active 
learning 

Students believe remote 

education supports active 
learning since they are on their 

own. 

4 20% 

Student autonomy 

not suitable for my 

approach to learning  

The flexible schedule of classes is 

not suitable for some students’ 

approaches to learning since they 
feel like they have less control on 

their learning. 

9 45% 

requires much 

responsibility 

Students think they are more 

responsible for their own learning 

in remote learning. 

7 35% 

 

It is interesting to note that the participants commented in favor of emergency remote learning only 
for the active learning category. Some of the participants believed that remote education supported 
active learning since they were on their own and actively solved their own problems. According to 
those participants, emergency remote learning led them to become more involved and responsible for 
their learning when compared to the face-to-face learning environment. 

A:“I never felt myself active in the classroom. Because, there was someone asking or 

answering the questions, taking notes, or helping on assignments. However, in emergency 



26 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   ISSN 2621-6485 

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 Demir, B. & Walker, S.L., (Psychosocial learning environments …..) 

remote learning you don’t have these advantages since you are in front of the screen on your 

own. It didn’t take too long for me to realize that I would fail if I did not become active”. 

Similarly, the participants had the idea that emergency remote learning required a good deal of 
learner responsibility when compared with in-class learning. Some participants used the word 
“responsibility” in a negative sense while others used it as something positive that referred to their 
self-efficacy and being a better learner. 

F:“When we were in the classroom, we could ask instant questions to our friends and 

instructors easily. But now it is not always possible to find someone to help from home. This 

led me to try hard to find my own answers by doing research on the Web. I feel more 

responsibility about my own learning, and I believe I am doing well so far. I feel more confident 

about my capacity to learn something by myself”. 

Additionally, the majority of the students (f=9) in this category reported emergency remote 
learning as unsuitable for their learning approaches since they felt as if they lost the control of their 
learning. 

S:“I am kind of a student who prefers to keep control of his learning by planning his time. 

During face-to-face learning this was easy because we had a fixed weekly program and we 

could plan the rest of the day according to that. However, in [remote] learning, our program 

is flexible and depends mostly on the availability of the teachers. I find this quite demotivating 

for individual study. I feel like I have lost the control of my own learning”. 

Almost all the participants’ apperceptions related to remote education were negative. Many found 
it exhausting to spend a long time in front of their screen, even though the average time this age group 
spends online is more than seven hours per day (Phipps et al., 2020). As a new psychosocial learning 
environment, they were pessimistic, even about some of the advantages of emergency remote learning 
such as the opportunity to watch recorded class videos at their leisure. They thought that being able to 
watch the content as a recorded video at any time made them less thoughtful during remote classes 
and demotivated them to actively take notes, which they were doing in face-to-face classes. 

 

4. Discussion 

With no contemporary investigations of pandemic induced rapid shifts in global education upon 
which to rely at the onset of our study (Hagedorn et al. 2022), aside from non-peer reviewed situational 
descriptions such as those of Craig (2020) and Hodges et al. (2020), we had no psychosocial learning 
environments research to compare or contrast our work prior to our study. Therefore, we relied upon 
well-established qualitative (ex. Krueger & Casey, 2000; Merton, 1987, Ruiz, 2017) and quantitative 
(ex. Anderson & Walberg, 1974; Fraser, 2018, Moos, 1976, 1996) methods to investigate the situation 
at hand. However, post research several studies emerged and could be categorized into these broad, 
semi-related categories: student stress and wellness (Co et al., 2021; Olawale et al., 2021), teacher 
affect (Zou et al., 2021), general exploratory student experience investigations (Hagedorn et al., 2022; 
Oliveira et al., 2021; McMaughan et al., 2021), and general psychosocial impacts such as those related 
to employment and work-home environments (Romeo et al., 2021). However, none of these studies 
looked exclusively at psychosocial learning environments. McMaughan et al. (2021, p. 10), however, 
came to the conclusion that students had “neutral feelings” related to online learning, which did not 
align with our results.  

In our study of the unprecedented and rapid shift from a face-to-face learning environment to an 
emergency remote learning environment during a global pandemic, university-level students’ 
apperceptions measured with the DELES-TR (Phase I) confirmed our hypothesis that students would 
perceive the remote class psychosocial learning environment less favorably than the face-to-face 
learning environment. The Phase II qualitative follow-up study component substantiated why.  

On the scale of Instructor Support students began rating the learning environment at M=4.13 
(Often) and ended the term in the emergency remote learning environment at M=3.59 (close to 
Sometimes). Many of the focus group respondents attributed this drop to their own hesitation to 
interrupt in a videoconference learning environment. This situation could be mitigated through 
instructional methods, to include the instructor stopping more frequently to ask for questions or 



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 Demir, B. & Walker, S.L., (Psychosocial learning environments …..) 

establishing a social environment that encourages interruption for questions. Further, in contrast to 
students in the United States, where “…an untold number of college and university students [were] 
living in homes without a broadband connection” (Campus Technology, 2020, para. 1) and many 
without any Internet access, including instructors (McMurtrie, 2020), ÇOMÜ students reported few 
problems with Internet connectivity—over half of the sample accessing their remote class via 
smartphone.  

The scale of Student Interaction & Collaboration demonstrated the weakest learning environment 
characteristic (M=3.32, Sometimes occurring) in the face-to-face environment and fared even worse 
in the remote scenario (M=2.55, halfway between Seldom and Sometimes), the largest drop in student 
apperception amongst the four scales. The majority responded that the emergency remote learning 
environment was simply not effective, and any collaboration was time consuming. However, this 
characteristic being low both before and after the change in learning environment suggests that 
instructors may want to consider how to increase student interaction and collaboration in all 
instructional scenarios.  

Personal Relevance + Authentic Learning, two scales of the original DELES-TR that we combined 
into one considering their factor loadings, also demonstrated a substantial decrease in psychosocial 
characteristics in the eyes of the students—moving from nearly Often occurring (M=3.76) to only 
Sometimes occurring (M=3.01). Personal Relevance, which was related to students solving their own 
problems, seeking their own answers, and exploring their own learning strategies, despite being 
statistically related to Authentic Learning, appeared to have had the strongest impression (f=33.3%) 
upon students who reported having reservations about conveying their prior knowledge primarily due 
to time limitations and the less spontaneous video conference-oriented emergency remote learning 
environment. Nearly as strong, a theme of “no real learning” (f=29.2%) emerged where students 
perceived the learning environment as being disingenuous due to the lack of collaborative abilities 
found in a face-to-face setting.  

Active Learning + Student Autonomy, two more combined scales, had the least difference between 
means, M=3.99 (Often occurring) and 3.61 (about halfway between Sometimes and Often occurring) 
respectively. Results demonstrated these were strong psychosocial learning environment 
characteristics to begin with and remained so after the shift to emergency remote learning. Despite the 
smallest drop in means, nearly half (f=45%) of the students interviewed reflected that emergency 
remote learning was not suited to their learning preferences due to a loss in locus of control. In 
contrast, 20% of them reported the only positive comments related to emergency remote learning, that 
it supported their opportunities for active learning, leading us to believe some students favor active, 
involved learning where autonomy was concurrently available. In relation, a theme of responsibility 
surfaced from the students; it seems they may have used the term somewhat backhanded as if they 
knew they should be responsible for their learning and the remote environment forced them into more 
accountability than they wanted.  

 

5. Conclusion 

The largest take away from this study is evident—students who enrolled in a required face-to-face 
EFL class in a Turkish university context preferred the face-to-face version over the crisis-induced 
emergency remote learning scenario to the extent that their apperceptions were supported by both 
statistical and practical significance. Major themes of (1) difficulty in communication with both 
instructors and peers was evident, as was what appears to be requiring students to take (2)an active, 
responsible, and accountable role in their own learning.  

A pandemic of this magnitude was unprecedented and rather than completely closing down higher 
education across the globe that might have occurred in this situation thirty years ago, colleges and 
universities attempted to march on by rapidly shifting to using variations of synchronous and 
asynchronous digital tools many face-to-face instructors were not accustomed to using, either 
methodologically or practically. Of the psychosocial learning environment scales examined with the 
DELES-TR, indications are that attention needs to be addressed toward instructor-student and student-
student communication and interaction. Without a relatively easy to correct, clear, and overt 
instructor-recognized communication strategy, students’ negative views tended to bleed over from the 



28 English Language Teaching Educational Journal   ISSN 2621-6485 

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 Demir, B. & Walker, S.L., (Psychosocial learning environments …..) 

social ecology dimension of Relationship to that of Personal Development (see Table 1) that lends 
itself to students shutting down because they can no longer actively participate with peers.  

Our study contributed what may be a once in a lifetime, real-time analysis of a massive and rapid 
shift in global higher education from which we can learn. On a less exuberant scale we have 
demonstrated another practical application of the 17-year-old DELES as research instrument that, 
while not holding true to all a priori scales in our study, was flexible enough to allow us an adroit 
glimpse into the psychosocial nature of students’ views of their learning environment as they interpret 
it, followed by an unprecedented qualitative examination that gave voice to the students’ views and 
increased the depth and nuance of the entire study.  

6. Limitations 

Limitations of our study include the fact that we did not have actual pre-pandemic quantitative data 
from the DELES-TR, rather we had students’ apperceptions after the fact. Given that any future 
pandemic or global crisis would be difficult to predict, recommendations for future research are 
difficult to suggest other than attempting to gather data prior to a rapid-onset crisis event. Also, the 
target population of our study comprised students from a public university. Different findings could 
be obtained by using participants from a larger population. 

7. Suggestions 

Due to the limited amount of evidence concerning the comparison of psychosocial and face-to-
face learning environments, follow-up studies are needed to explore this relationship. Further studies 
may focus on perceptions of learners from different countries to find out the effect of cultural 
differences on the comparison of the two modes of learning. Also, unlike our study, further research 
may focus on perceptions of learners from primary and secondary education since their approach to 
learning might vary owing to various reasons. 

 

Acknowledgment   

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all participants of this study and all parties who 
have contributed to the completion of this research and the publication of this article. 

Declarations  

Author contribution : The first author initiated the research ideas, was in charge of 
resources, investigation, data collection, and writing; the second 
author was in charge of conceptualization, supervision, data analysis, 
writing, and editing. 

Funding statement : The research did not receive any funding. 

Conflict of interest : The authors declare no conflict of interest. 

Additional information : The authors declare no conflict of interest. 

 

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