Free Inquiry #3 Does physical distance in online learning environments make it harder to express honest opinions?
1. Introduction
I shared two guiding questions in the previous post. For this post, I want to focus on the second question:
Does physical distance in online learning environments make it harder to express honest opinions?
2. Personal Experience
I personally find myself speaking much less in online learning environments than in face-to-face settings. I think physical distance seems to play a role in this. In one of the courses I took in the past, we worked on a group project, and I noticed that I could express my opinions far more comfortably during in-person meetings. However, when the meetings were online, I often hesitated to speak, and sometimes I avoided participating altogether because it felt awkward to give my thoughts through a screen. This experience made me wonder whether physical distance in online learning environments makes it harder to express honest opinions.
3. Insights From Research on Physical Distance and Participation
Research suggests that physical distance plays an important role in shaping learners’ willingness to express genuine opinions in online learning (Ho, Sa’adi, He, & Hoon, 2023). Physical distance affects not only how much students participate, but also how honestly they express their views. Studies identify several mechanisms through which physical distance makes authentic expression more difficult:
- weakened social presence — peers feel less real and less connected
- reduced interpersonal trust and familiarity
- greater fear of misunderstanding due to absence of non-verbal cues
- higher perceived emotional and social cost of disagreement
- encouragement of safe participation rather than authentic viewpoints
These factors help explain why many students remain silent even when they have opinions to share. This theoretical explanation aligns closely with my own experience, where expressing disagreement in online settings felt socially risky and uncomfortable compared to face-to-face interactions.
4. Where I Want to Go Next
Based on what I learned from my first and second posts, I would like to use my next post to explore the following question:
What might be the missing pieces that help learners feel safe enough to express unpopular or different opinions in online learning settings?
I used ChatGPT to help with wording and organization in this post
References
Ho DGE, Sa’adi M, He D, Hoon CY. Silence over the wire: student verbal participation and the virtual classroom in the digital era. Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. 2023 Mar 10:1–17. doi: 10.1007/s12564-023-09834-4. Epub ahead of print. PMCID: PMC9999334. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9999334/