International students’ emotional engagement with, and well-being during, an online EAP pre-sessional course

Haghi, I. (2023) International students’ emotional engagement with, and well-being during, an online EAP pre-sessional course. International Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 3(2), pp. 97-114. (doi: 10.3828/ijeap.2023.6)

Abstract

This study investigated students’ engagement with an online EAP pre-sessional course from a psychological perspective according to which engagement consists of four dimensions, namely behaviour, cognition, emotion, and conation (Kahu, 2013). This small-scale case study focused on the emotional dimension of engagement in the aforementioned course that is usually ignored in the end-of-course evaluation surveys, which often only ask one question about overall satisfaction with a course. The emotional dimension was measured here in relation to immediate emotions such as enjoyment and interest (Furlong et al., 2003) as well as relationships and sense of belonging (Libbey, 2004). The study investigated how students perceived their emotional engagement with and their well-being during this online course, as well as what factors they considered as contributing to their emotional engagement and well-being while completing this course remotely. In doing so, a group of international students who took the course completed an online survey and attended follow-up focus groups to share their reflections on their emotional engagement and well-being (perceived stress) with a summer pre-sessional EAP course offered at a university in the U.K. The findings suggest that despite considering this online course experience as relatively stressful, the participants perceived emotional engagement with this course as high. However, among different aspects of emotional engagement investigated in this study, the sense of belonging to the course was rated comparatively low. This paper provides insights in relation to students’ emotional engagement with similar academic language courses and short courses alike to inform future online course design to enhance the student experience.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Haghi, Dr Ide
• Authors: Haghi, I.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > Language Centre
• Journal Name: International Journal of English for Academic Purposes
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press
• ISSN: 2634-4610
• ISSN (Online): 2634-4610
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 Liverpool University Press
• First Published: First published in International Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3(2):97-114
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence