CAMERA USAGE
IN ONLINE CLASSES

          Through interviewing CGU students and asking about their online class experience, we have gained a lot of insightful responses and got the chance to understand their rationale behind the camera usage preferences. In general, most students experienced more distractions than they have had in in-person classrooms, including the use of electronic devices or the presence of someone else in the house. One of the most frequently mentioned weaknesses of the online class is the lack of visual interaction with others thus decreasing the level of engagement, especially when others turned their cameras off during the class. Mostly, students felt obligated to turn their cameras on to show respect to peers and professors. In particular, they were more willing to use their cameras in a smaller-sized conference or class rather than a large lecturing-typed course. Many of them stated that even though it is not required, they feel more connected to their peers who keep their cameras on. However, it was still understandable for them to turn it off based on the fact that it is a personal choice. As one of our participants mentioned in the interview, forcing other students to turn on the camera does not act as encouragement of helping them engage in the class. On the opposite, it might add more pressure to students thus preventing them from staying interested in the course.

          Although our study intends to apply multiple methods to gain a comprehensive understanding of how students prefer to use their cameras and avoid unnecessary biases, it is still inevitable for researchers to encounter some obstacles along the way. At the early stage of our study, we have encountered difficulties in asking permission for conducting observation in classes. Many instructors turned us down due to the intention of protecting students’ online class experience and concerning that our observation might be distracting or disturbing especially when the online class environment is still novel to many students. We had to observe only those who gave us permission no matter the class size or settings. Similarly, recruiting participants was also very challenging because we are unable to reach out to many students who turned their cameras on and off during the observation. The classes we observed and participants we recruited were collected using convenient sampling, making the conclusion limited by only available resources. Moving further, we might consider conducting the study on multiple sides to compare and contrast students’ experiences in other educational institutions.

          During our observation, we encountered several problems that can impact our field notes. One of the biggest challenges is that we are unable to predict the moment students turn their cameras off, thus missing the critical behaviors before they switch it off. Although later in the interview, we tried to encourage them to recall the reason for their camera usage on that day, their memory or self-report might not be as accurate a few days after the observation. Therefore, obtaining instant information seemed to be impossible for researchers to understand what happened at the moment. Similarly, students’ behaviors can change while researchers were taking notes or observing others. Capturing these instantaneous moments precisely was one of the biggest challenges.

          In the interviews, participants were asked about their attitudes and preferences of virtual background on Zoom. However, two of the researchers were using a virtual background before we realized this can affect how participants answer this question. Although both of us stopped using the virtual background in the rest of the interviews, it is still possible that previous participants hesitated to report their dislike if they see the researcher is currently using it. Out of being polite or feeling the pressure to be aligned with researchers’ expectations, participants might provide different answers than their true preferences.

          In our study, researchers tried their best to use a standardized scale or interpreting participants’ behaviors and analyzing their responses. We persist in frequent communication and information exchange processes throughout the whole research study. However, it is impossible for us to eliminate researcher bias and detach from unconsciously adding any personal thoughts to the data. Most of the questions in our interview were open-ended ones, which means participants cannot answer them by giving us a number. All of our researchers tried to avoid adding personal interpretation by confirming or paraphrasing their phases along with the interview, but implying our thoughts became almost inevitable when recording the data.

          In addition, instructors can think of using other methods to assist them in staying concentrated and engaging in the class. Wu and Xie (2018) conducted a study regarding using time pressure and note-taking strategy to enforce university students’ focus on learning and prevent digital distraction. The authors concluded that adding appropriate time pressure on students’ note-taking process can successfully reduce the possibility of digital distraction because they need to take time to absorb the information and filter out the valuable information to take notes. This strategy can effectively prevent class-irrelevant online browsing behaviors and help students concentrating on the lecture.

          Another strategy can be making the lecture more interactive rather than a lecture-heavy setting to enhance the participation of students in the class. Camera usage should not be a requirement or expectation from the instructors but instead should serve as a way of visual interaction and communication among all members of the class. Instructors should carry the responsibility of facilitating an interactive and friendly online class setting by encouraging more camera usage but do not apply pressure or expectation to students that will prevent them from enjoying the interaction with others.