Article: Role conflicts at home: a qualitative case study on college students' online learning during COVID-19 based on the social role theory Journal: International Journal of Innovation and Learning (IJIL) 2024 Vol.36 No.4 pp.389 - 403 Abstract: The outbreak of COVID-19 at the end of 2019 led to large-scale online learning at home among college students. Because of the overlap between being a student and other roles when they are at home, students need to play a variety of roles. With the social role theory as the theoretical framework, this qualitative case study had an in-depth investigation on seven college students' current self-role and current learning situation at home during COVID-19. The findings highlighted that college students mainly faced the following three role conflicts: the conflicts caused by difficulties in adapting to multiple roles, the conflicts caused by different role expectations on their behaviours, and the conflicts caused by insufficient role comprehension on role cognition. This study also revealed that these role conflicts would have a certain negative impact on college students' learning and living. However, college students had positive attitudes towards the role conflicts and challenges. They still worked hard to overcome role conflicts, positively took the family and social responsibilities, and tried to realise their own values when fighting against the pandemic. Implications are discussed in detail. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: Role conflicts at home: a qualitative case study on college students' online learning during COVID-19 based on the social role theory

Authors: Luying Qiu; Mingxia Hao; Taotao Long

Addresses: College of Education, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China ' Faculty of Artificial Intelligence in Education, Central China Normal University, 7051, Nanhu Building,384 Xiongchu St, Hongshan District, Wuhan, Hubei, 430079, China ' Faculty of Artificial Intelligence in Education, Central China Normal University, 7051, Nanhu Building,384 Xiongchu St, Hongshan District, Wuhan, Hubei, 430079, China

Abstract: The outbreak of COVID-19 at the end of 2019 led to large-scale online learning at home among college students. Because of the overlap between being a student and other roles when they are at home, students need to play a variety of roles. With the social role theory as the theoretical framework, this qualitative case study had an in-depth investigation on seven college students' current self-role and current learning situation at home during COVID-19. The findings highlighted that college students mainly faced the following three role conflicts: the conflicts caused by difficulties in adapting to multiple roles, the conflicts caused by different role expectations on their behaviours, and the conflicts caused by insufficient role comprehension on role cognition. This study also revealed that these role conflicts would have a certain negative impact on college students' learning and living. However, college students had positive attitudes towards the role conflicts and challenges. They still worked hard to overcome role conflicts, positively took the family and social responsibilities, and tried to realise their own values when fighting against the pandemic. Implications are discussed in detail.

Keywords: online learning; social role theory; role conflict.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIL.2024.142083

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2024 Vol.36 No.4, pp.389 - 403

Accepted: 01 May 2023
Published online: 07 Oct 2024 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article

Title: Role conflicts at home: a qualitative case study on college students' online learning during COVID-19 based on the social role theory

Keep up-to-date