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Determinants of Zoom Fatigue among Graduate Students

This study examined factors that contribute to Zoom fatigue among 109 graduate students in the Philippines. The students reported moderate levels of Zoom fatigue overall. Two key findings were: 1) A sense of being physically trapped during Zoom meetings, unable to move freely, strongly predicted higher fatigue levels. 2) Expending extra cognitive effort to produce non-verbal cues like facial expressions and gestures during video calls also significantly predicted more fatigue. The study adds to research showing that aspects of videoconferencing that disrupt natural communication styles can increase exhaustion from virtual interactions.

Education◦
Determinants of Zoom Fatigue among Graduate Students of Teacher Education Program Ryan Michael F. Oducado, PhD1 Baby Rose G. Robles, PhD1, Daisy A. Rosano, PhD1, Rome B. Moralista, PhD2 1West Visayas State University, Philippines 2Guimaras State College, Philippines
INTRODUCTION The rapid transition to online learning in all levels of education including the graduate program during the global coronavirus disease outbreak resulted in a boom of videoconference applications use (Massner, 2021; Wiederhold, 2020). It has been observed that Zoom meeting participants increased by 2900 percent during the COVID-19 outbreak (Iqbal, 2021).
A new phenomenon of feeling tired and exhausted during virtual meetings or Zoom fatigue began to emerge (Fauville et al., 2021). Given that this new phenomenon appeared only recently with the pandemic, there is still limited data about Zoom fatigue especially in graduate education. There is a need to explore Zoom fatigue in the educational context particularly among graduate students as online remote learning is likely to play a substantial role in teaching and learning even beyond the pandemic (de Oliveira Kubrusly Sobral et al., 2022; Massner, 2021)
• There are growing body of evidences on the likely negative physical and psychological consequences of Zoom meetings (Oducado et al., 2021; Poskakalova et al., 2021; Salim et al., 2021; Usta Kara & Ersoy, 2022). • Evidence also shows that students find it harder to focus and are often less responsive during online synchronous Zoom classes that undesirably affects the nonverbal dynamics in online classes (Peper et al., 2021). • Identifying and addressing the factors that contribute to videoconference exhaustion experience of graduate students is necessary.
OBJECTIVES This study determined the level of Zoom fatigue among graduate students in the Philippines. This study also tried to examine if attitude toward virtual meetings and non-verbal factors are significantly associated with Zoom fatigue in the context of graduate teacher education.
METHODS RESEARCH DESIGN Descriptive-correlational Cross-sectional PARTICIPANTS 109 A-priori sample size calculator: 97 6 predictors .05 desired probability level .15 anticipated effect size 80% desired statistical power level Average age: 29 years old 82.6% 17.4% Master’s = 75.2% Doctoral = 24.8% Graduate students Teacher Education
INTRUMENT & DATA COLLECTION Zoom Exhaustion & Fatigue scale by Fauville et al. (2021) Online survey (Google Forms) March 2022 DATA ANALYSIS SPSS v26 Mean, SD, f, % Pearson’s r Multiple linear regression analysis Level of significance set at .05
RESULTS Level of Zoom fatigue Zoom fatigue Mean SD Description General 3.80 .73 High Visual 3.61 .96 Moderate Motivational 3.51 .97 Moderate Social 3.11 1.16 Moderate Emotional 2.81 1.06 Moderate ZEF score 3.37 .79 Moderate
• It was demonstrated in this research that graduate students generally had moderate level of Zoom fatigue. • Virtual platform communication is said to be more mentally exhausting than traditional face-to-face communication (Tobing et al., 2022). • About comparable levels of fatigue were noted from the Standford study (Fauville et al., 2021), Indonesian university students (Salim et al., 2021) and among Filipino teachers (Oducado et al., 2022) and this study.
Correlational analysis Variables Pearson’s r p-value Attitude -.301 .001 Non-verbal mechanisms Cognitive load in producing non-verbal cues .397 .000 Sense of being physically trapped .386 .000 Hyper gaze .320 .001 Mirror anxiety .240 .012 Cognitive load in interpreting non-verbal cues -.104 .284
Regression analysis Variables B t p-value (Constant) 2.107 2.702 .008 Sense of being physically trapped .379 3.478 .001 Cognitive load in producing non-verbal cues .156 2.044 .044 Attitude -.175 -1.514 .133 Mirror .082 .878 .382 Hyper gaze .065 .769 .444 Cognitive load in interpreting non-verbal cues -.129 -1.741 .085 R Square = .304, F = 7.419, p = .000
• The result replicates the findings of prior research abroad (Fauville et al., 2021) and in the Philippines (Oducado et al., 2021; Oducado et al., 2022) wherein sense of being physically trapped was the strongest predictor of Zoom fatigue. • Being nonresponsive when attending synchronous Zoom class can exacerbate Zoom fatigue symptoms that may decrease learning capacity and attention (Peper & Yang, 2021).
Zoom users need to stay within the field view of the camera resulting to reduced mobility when sitting down and staring straight ahead for most of the time during videoconferencing (Bailenson, 2021).
• Moreover, cognitive load in producing non-verbal cues predicted higher levels of fatigue. • This finding corroborates with that of the finding from Standford (Fauville et al., 2021) and studies conducted in the Philippines (Oducado et al., 2021; Oducado et al., 2022).
Zoom users need to work harder to send nonverbal signals contributing to higher levels of fatigue (Bailenson, 2021).
• This research also demonstrated that while not significant predictors, hyper gaze and mirror anxiety were significantly correlated with Zoom fatigue.
• Higher level of hyper haze was associated with great levels of fatigue. • In video conferencing platforms, people get the front-on views of all other people for hours consecutively and the amount close-up eye contact can be intense (Bailenson, 2021). Hyper gaze Zoom fatigue
• This study also found that higher levels of mirror anxiety was linked to higher levels of fatigue. • It has been explained that seeing a mirror image of oneself for several hours in virtual meeting can likely lead to negative self-focused attention (Bailenson, 2021; Ratan et al., 2022). Mirror anxiety Zoom fatigue
• This study also noted that more negative attitude towards videoconferences was significantly correlated with higher levels of Zoom fatigue. • Similar findings were found in other studies conducted in other countries (Fauville et al., 2021) and among undergraduate students and teachers in the Philippines (Oducado et al., 2021; Oducado et al., 2022). • Understanding the role of attitudes is important because it may likely influence strength of intention and acceptance or use of videoconferencing platform in the future (Fishman et al., 2021; Pedroso et al., 2021). Attitude Zoom fatigue
CONCLUSION • This study highlights that the present study generally supports previous research on the association of attitude toward videoconferences and the role of non- verbal mechanisms specific to the use of virtual conference on Zoom fatigue experience. • While videoconferencing applications supported educational activities during the global disease outbreak, it is recommended to be mindful of the non- verbal factors that contribute to Zoom fatigue and know how to optimize current features on Zoom to help minimize the exhaustion during virtual meetings.
• Despite the significant findings, this research has limitations that could influence the generalizability and reliability of our findings. • This study only involves a sample of students in graduate teacher education in one university in the Philippines, used cross-sectional design that cannot establish causal effect between variables, and employed questionnaires that can lend itself to self-report bias. • Despite these limitations, our research adds to the body of knowledge on Zoom fatigue and can also be useful in informing the design of effective strategies against the unintended negative effects of videoconferencing tools.
Determinants of Zoom Fatigue among Graduate Students