Impact of emotional vulnerabilities on the students’ engagement in online courses during the lockdown period in SARS-COV2 pandemic crisis

Abstract

Our study investigated the association between the severity of impact of the SARS-COV2 pandemic crisis, the level of vulnerability (depression, anxiety, anger-hostility and somatic symptoms), emotional regulation (cognitive reappraisal and emotional suppression) and the level of engagement in online courses at the beginning of the SARS-COV2 crisis, during the lockdown period. A number of 931 participants, students in various Romanian universities, completed measures for the impact of events, emotional symptoms, emotional regulation and engagement in online course. The correlations show that the impact of the pandemic as traumatic event was associated with higher levels of vulnerability to psychopathology in our sample but did not have a highly negative impact on student engagement in online education. In turn, higher severity of psychopathological symptoms, especially hostility, was associated with lower engagement. Emotional regulation strategies had only a small effect on both vulnerability to psychopathology and trauma effects, with cognitive reappraisal being associated with higher engagement in online education.