Secondary Students’ Identities in the Virtual Classroom

Abstract

Though researchers have paid attention to the social aspect of students’ virtual and online learning, little attention has been paid to their identity. The present research intends to do so by studying students’ identities when learning high-level mathematics in the virtual classroom. Fourteen secondary school students participated in the research. Data were collected using interviews with the participants before and after participating in the virtual mathematics classroom. Data analysis was done using inductive and deductive content analysis, where the deductive analysis utilized the narrative framework developed by Sfard and Prusak. The research results indicated that the virtual identities of high-level mathematics students were impacted by three factors: the design of the virtual classroom, the teacher’s interactions with the student, and the personal characteristics of the student. In addition, the research results indicated that students’ identities, in terms of features and narratives, changed in the case of some students, but continued to be the same in the case of other students. The reasons behind the change or the absence of change were the three above factors and their interaction. It is concluded that the virtual course design needs to take into consideration the interaction aspect of students’ learning alongside factors that encourage their substantive learning.