IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijnvor/v6y2009i2p123-139.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Empathy in virtual learning environments

Author

Listed:
  • Judith Molka-Danielsen
  • Bryan W. Carter
  • Alastair Creelman

Abstract

How do we engage teachers and learners in the learning process and what are the benefits of this? How do we get students to learn? Many academic institutions of all levels are asking these questions. Throughout the years new teaching methodologies and strategies have been explored and applied (Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Dewey, 1997). In assessments of these, some have been associated with improving the targeted students' levels of knowledge, understanding, functionality and motivations (Gulbahar and Tinmaz, 2006; Kjellin and Stenfors, 2003). In this study we review a variety of teaching methodologies and introduce a research hypothesis that these methodologies have an unlike potential for supporting empathic aspects of the teacher and learner relationship and that, further, Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) will have strong potential for empathic support. We set up an evaluation framework using a qualitative approach to examine the empathic factor in VLEs. Finally, we identify design factors for VLEs that could impact learning and suggest these as the focus for future study.

Suggested Citation

  • Judith Molka-Danielsen & Bryan W. Carter & Alastair Creelman, 2009. "Empathy in virtual learning environments," International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 6(2), pages 123-139.
  • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijnvor:v:6:y:2009:i:2:p:123-139
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=22971
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijnvor:v:6:y:2009:i:2:p:123-139. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=22 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.