Students’ Emotional Transfers in Online Environment
Firat Sarsar
Georgia State University
United States
firatsarsar@gmail.com
Tarik Kisla
Ege University
Turkey
tarik.kisla@ege.edu.tr
Abstract:Emotion is a very important aspectof understanding of people’ feelings in both
online and real life. This initial study is structured to investigate how people are flexible not
only transferring their emotion but also receiving their friends’ emotions.This nonexperimental and descriptive research was conducted on 808 people during the years 20092010 in Turkey from universities. The questionnaires were submitted online and the data was
collected online. The result shows that students are trying to understand others’ feelings, and
they are willing to be understood in online environments. The data also showed that emoticons
are one of the important indicators of not only transferring emotions but also receiving the
emotional messages. The other results will be discussed during the presentation.
Introduction
Communication affects not only learning but also relationships between two students and between students
and teachers. One of the main roles of teachers is to be a good communicator for understanding their students’
needs; however communication in online environments is not as easy or flexible as face to face environment. Online
environments have some limitations on communication such as transferring emotions, reflecting the impressions,
etc. Emotion is one of the important parts of communication, so it is directly related to learning. Emotions can be
transferred in many ways such as using facial expressions and gestures, verbal impression( Marinetti, Moore,
Lucas, & Parkinson, 2011),using meanings of the words (Farrell, 2012), using typing strategies (Dweck, Mangels, &
Good, 2004) and using emoticons (Sarsar,2008).
Students in learning environments are interacting with each other cognitively, socially, and emotionally
(Spanoudis & Kyza, 2009). Emotions are important for learning (Schutz & Pekrun, 2007). The environmental
changes may affect the nature of emotional transfer within online learning environments. One of the ways of
transferring emotion in online environment is emoticons. People use emoticons to express both positive and negative
feelings in social contexts more than task oriented context (Derks, Bos, & Grumbkow, 2007). Heeyoung and
Johnson (2012) also stated that emotional ability is important to communication with students’ friends in online
learning environments. This study is structured to investigate how people are flexible not only by transferring their
emotion but also by receiving their friends’ emotions in online environment.
Methodology
In this initial study, we used a survey method adoptingnon-experimental and descriptive research method.
Survey methodology is the field that studies the sampling of individuals from a population with a view towards
making statistical inferences about the population using the sample.
Participants and Data Collection Tool
The initial study was conducted on 808 people during the years 2009-2010 in Turkey from universities. The
questionnaires were submitted online and the data was collected online. The demographic characteristics of the participants
were shown in Table 1.
The data was analyzed by using SPSS 15.0 for Windows to reveal and summarize the data. Descriptive
statistics were used to describe and summarize the properties of the mass of data collected from the respondents. In
order to develop the questionnaire, an extensive literature research was done by the researchers. After preparing the
set of items, this draft of the questionnaire that includes about 50 items was sent to seven experts in the field of
instructional technology as well as communication and psychology, from different universities to determine its
content validity. After this process, the final form of 5-likert type questionnaire was comprised with considerations
of experts' views and their suggestions. The final version of the questionnaire consists of 2 parts. The first part
includes 6 items for demographic characteristics and the last part of the questionnaire consists of 36 items for
investigating the emotions transfer in online environments.
N
%
Male
334
41.3
Female
474
58.7
18-20
226
28.0
21-23
278
34.4
24-26
168
20.8
27-29
73
9.0
30+
63
7.8
591
73.1
Gender
Age
Education Level
University Student
University Graduated
217
26.9
Less than 1 hour
80
9.9
1-3 hours
326
40.4
3-6 hour
239
29.6
6-9 hour
94
11.6
More than 9 hours
69
8.5
808
100
The use of Internet
Total
Table1.Characteristics of the Participants
Findings
The result of the data analysis is detailed item by item below. One of the questions of the survey was: “I
use emoticons for transferring my feelings in online environments”. The majority of the participants mentioned that
they use emoticon for transferring their feelings (See Table 2). This result can be interpreted that emoticons are one
of the important elements to reflect the emotions.
N
%
Strongly Disagree
62
7,7
Disagree
78
9,7
Neutral
68
8,4
Agree
441
54,6
Strongly Agree
159
19,7
I use emoticons for transferring my feelings in online environments
Table2. Using Emoticons
The other question of the survey was “It is difficult to me to reflect my feelings in online environment”.
Results in Table 3 were shown that the majority of participants think that they can easily reflect their feelings in
online environment. The emoticons might be the one of the reasons to help them to reflect their emotion easily.
N
%
Strongly Disagree
213
26,4
Disagree
293
36,3
Neutral
120
14,8
Agree
130
16,1
52
6,4
It is difficult to me to reflect my feelings in online environment
Strongly Agree
Table 3. Reflecting the Feelings
The other question of the survey was: “I can understand the feelings of the person who I communicate with
in online environment”. The result shows in Table 4that almost 40% of the participants agree with this statement,
however the contributions of the data show that 50% of the participants are either neutral or disagree about the
statement. The participant might think that their experiences of understanding people is not as easy as reflecting
their feelings.
I can understand the feelings of the person who I communicate with in
N
%
78
9,7
Disagree
108
13,4
Neutral
220
27,2
Agree
320
39,6
82
10,1
online environment
Strongly Disagree
Strongly Agree
Table 4. Understanding the Feelings
“My current feelings affect when I communicate with somebody in online environment” was asked to
participants as a part of survey. The majority of participants think that their feelings in real life can affect their
communication in virtual life (See Table 5). This data shows that participantsact relatively the same way in online
environments.
My current feelings affect when I communicate with somebody in online
N
%
Strongly Disagree
71
8,7
Disagree
94
11,5
Neutral
159
19,7
Agree
385
47,5
99
12,2
environment.
Strongly Agree
Table 5. Feelings in both real and online environments
The other question of the survey was: “I pay attention to the feelings of the person who I communicate with
in online environment.”. The huge portion of data in Table 6 shows the participants consider the feelings the people
communicated with in online enviroment are important.
I pay attention to the feelings of the person who I communicate with in online
N
%
Strongly Disagree
72
8,9
Disagree
76
9,4
environment.
Neutral
159
19,7
Agree
397
49,0
Strongly Agree
104
12,7
Table 6. Concerning other people’s feelings
Discussion and Conclusion
The majority of the participants indicated that they use emoticons for expressing their feelings. More than
50% of the participants stated that they can reflect their feelings in online environments. Furthermore, 50% of the
participants reported that they can understand the feelings of people during communication in online environments.
About 60% of the participants said that their current (real life) feelings affect their communication in online
environments. Finally, over than 60% of participants indicated that they pay attention to the feelings of people in
online environment.
Emotion is very important to understand peoples’ feelings in both online and real life. In online classroom
settings, teachers should pay attention to their students’ feelings to understand them better. As all results highlighted,
people are trying to understand others’ feelings, and they are willing to be understood. The other important result is
about using emoticons. Data shows that emoticons are one of the key tools for transferring emotion in online
environment. Emotional messages in online learning environments might make messages more personalized.
Personalized messages in education are also affected students’ motivation; therefore using emotions might increase
motivation and make students feel better. The majority of students in this study mentioned that they use emoticons
in online environment, so it should be a good idea to integrate emoticons into online teaching.
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