Silence over the wire: student verbal participation and the virtual classroom in the digital era

Abstract

This paper addresses the pervasive absence of verbal student participation in the online class, a phenomenon observed by many lecturers and instructors expressing the frustrating and uncomfortable experiences of encountering silence from their students, particularly when it came to responding to their questions. Added to the frustration is the observed preference of students to not turn on their videos. Whilst studies on student silence in classroom discourse have been well documented in the research literature, this phenomenon has taken on new significance in the virtual classroom, the new norm in the learning context during, and most likely after, the COVID-19 situation. This study attempts to capture the perceptions of the students themselves on student silence in terms of frequency, reasons and its impact on classroom communication and meaningful learning. A questionnaire was distributed to students at a local university, followed by student focus group interviews. Data collected were then subjected to a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis. The results show that student silence is a common feature in the online classroom and that students do perceive their silence to negatively affect the flow of communication both between themselves and with their lecturers. However, the question of whether meaningful learning still occurs despite the silence is more complex and less clear, raising questions not only about what is meant by meaningful learning but also the claim by classroom discourse studies and writings that student verbal participation is key to successful learning.