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Effects of Virtual Education on Research Papers of Students

The modernity of yesterday is the tradition of today. The same happens with virtual education. Virtual learning was a modern trend in the past that has now become a tradition. Due to online education, student can maximize their chances of learning new skills. However, the practice of learning research paper writing skills through the online mode of education has many breaches as well. This article aims to highlight the pros as well as cons of virtual education in the process of research paper writing.

A Brief Introduction To Virtual Education:

Virtual education refers to the educational setting in which teachers and students are separated by time or space. The mode of transfer of information between them may be any ITC-based method such as the internet, resources, videoconferencing, and multimedia. Commonly, virtual education is known by the term ‘distance learning,’ ‘online learning,’ or ‘online mode of education. No matter what you call it, all these terms refer to the same educational setup that is entirely different from the face-to-face process of getting an education. On one side, virtual education gave back to our educational system during the course of the pandemic. On the other hand, it has a remarkable negative effect on the performance of both students as well as teachers. Different educationalists of a PhD dissertation help service have described the virtual education in different ways:

Virtual Education Quality Management Using Modern Theories Of Education:

Virtual education brings ease to the field of education. It allows us to exchange quality information within the comfort of our own homes. Moreover, the quality of education in virtual classrooms depends on the proper use of digital technologies in compliance with modern educational theories such as behaviorism, cognitivism, and social constructivism. Behaviorism means to evaluate how students behave in online classes (the teacher’s attitude can also be evaluated by using the theory of behaviorism).

Cognitivism improves the quality of education by taking into account the mind and cognitive processes in learning. Simultaneously, social constructivism explains the teaching and learning process as a completed interactive social phenomenon. Hence, social constructivism helps improve the learning activities based on sharing, team working, collaboration, and experience.  Thus, to improve the quality of education in an online setting, proper use of technology and application of theories are important.

Effects (Positive) Of Virtual Education:

If the quality of education in the distant learning is well-monitored by applying modern technologies and educational theories, then the virtual education can positively affect students in the following ways:

  1. It gives remote access to unlimited educational courses of student’s choice.
  2. Virtual learning made it possible for all of us to learn the best international practices to write a research paper.
  3. Online learning platforms allow you to personally hire a tutor to work on your shortcomings.
  4. It allows students to learn even in their spare time.

In a few simple words, virtual education is inexpensive, time-effective, and manageable for students belonging to all classes of society.

Cons Of Virtual Education:

On flipping the picture, above mentioned pros of virtual education can only be achieved by fulfilling some essential requirements. These requirements include efficient technology, using techniques for creating a conducive online environment, and minimizing the effect of social isolation. If any of these requirements are unable to complete, the students learning performance may suffer in the many ways:

  1. Learning good research skills depends on students’ involvement. The more a student involves in a learning activity, the more he/she will learn. However, online learning by limiting social interaction makes it difficult for students to get full command of research activities.
  2. The limited knowledge and availability of technology are also among some factors that limit the scope of online teaching as compared to physical classrooms. Software updates, computers-boost up time, heavy internet connections, and lack of knowledge to handle the advanced technologies increase the cost of learning in terms of money as well as time.
  3. Measuring the degree of the involvement of the student also becomes difficult in an online setup. The irresponsive or lack of seriousness toward learning research skills is a major problem in virtual classes.
  4. In physical classrooms, the teacher is not the only source for teaching. Rather, we came to learn even more from the students of the same age sitting next to us. Class decorum, activities, and other curricular exercises also teach us a lot. In virtual classrooms, the teacher is the only source of information. In case the student fails to develop an affiliation with this only source of information, he/she will learn nothing.
  5. Virtual learning increases screen time per day. The blue lights on screens are damaging to a large extent. It not only damages the eyes, but it may also lead to many other health issues. Thus, limited use of screens in the physical classrooms teaches more by taking our mind and body strong.

The Overall Effect Of Virtual Education On Research Paper Writing:

For writing a good research paper, students must have full command of three basic things: good academic writing skills, proper knowledge of research gates, and outstanding editing abilities. Distance learning can better demonstrate the proper use of research gates with the help of video lectures. However, learning academic writing skills such as decision making (for topic selection), Critical thinking (for evaluating the quality of the information in the collected evidence), and analytical thinking (for extracting useful consequences) online is a bit difficult.

Students getting an education online do not only suffer in the development of academic writing skills, but the long distance between the teacher and students also limits their level of commitment to work. On the same ground, editing and proofreading is also an important aspect of research paper writing. Getting command of these editorial skills online is a time-consuming process; thus, research students also face problems in learning editing skills in short- sources or video demonstration sessions of virtual education.

Final Thoughts: 

Research writing demands expertise from students. It needs us to manage several things side by side. In light of the pros and cons of virtual learning, we can conclude that getting research skills by using any online mode of education has advantages as well as disadvantages. One side of the picture depicts that online learning saves students time, energy, and money and allows them to learn faster or quicker.

Simultaneously, the other side explains that achieving something big in life by solely depending on virtual education is not advisable. Learning on your laptop/mobile screen has a number of negative effects on student commitment to work. Students cannot involve in hands-on activities and learn through participation. Thus, online students face difficulties in writing a research paper due to less developed decision-making, critical thinking, analytical thinking, or other editorial skills.

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