Mental Health and Online Learning - Systematic Review Dataset

Authors

Stephanie L. Moore PhD, University of New Mexico - Main CampusFollow
George Veletsianos, Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC, CanadaFollow
Michael Barbour, Touro University CaliforniaFollow

Document Type

Dataset

Publication Date

2022

Abstract

While there has been a lot of debate over the impact of online and remote learning on mental health and well-being, there has been no systematic syntheses or reviews of the research on this particular issue. In this paper, we review the research on the relationship between mental health / well-being and online or remote learning. Our review shows that little scholarship existed prior to 2020 with most studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. We report four findings: (a) pandemic effects are not well-controlled for in most studies; (b) studies present a very mixed picture, with variability around how mental health and well-being are measured and how / whether any causal inferences are made in relation to online and remote learning, (c) there are some indications that certain populations of students may indeed struggle more in an online context, and (d) research that does not assume a direct relationship between mental health and online provides the best insight into both confounding factors and possible strategies. Our review shows that 75.5% of published research on this topic either commits the “correlation does not equal causation” error or even fails to establish a correlation but still asserts a causal relationship. Based on this study, we suggest that researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and administrators exercise extreme caution around making generalizable assertions with respect to the impacts of online/remote learning and mental health. We encourage further research to better understand effects on specific learner sub-populations and on course- and institution-level strategies to support mental health.

This open publication is the dataset from the above study. You can access the full article through OTESSA Journal at _________.

Publisher

OTESSA Journal

Publication Title

A synthesis of research on mental health and remote learning: How pandemic grief haunts claims of causality

Keywords

mental health, online learning, remote education, anxiety, stress, well-being, wellness

Recommended Citation

Moore, Stephanie L. PhD; George Veletsianos; and Michael Barbour. "Mental Health and Online Learning - Systematic Review Dataset." A synthesis of research on mental health and remote learning: How pandemic grief haunts claims of causality (2022). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ulls_fsp/190

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Comments

This is the data set that available as an open companion to the full article at _________.