Learning to be Together Again! – Using Virtual Breakout Rooms to Fill the Communication and Cognitive Gap in Online Classrooms

Abstract

The present study investigates Higher Education Learners’ views on virtual breakout rooms and the extent to which they can enhance their disposition, class participation, communication and cognitive level in online teaching environments. Additionally, the research aimed to detect the students’ opinion on the use of virtual breakout rooms in general. The research, with a number of 327 university student participants, was conducted following a mixed method approach (qualitative and quantitative). For the purposes of the research, semi-structured interviews were conducted with some learners as well as four focus groups with ten randomly selected learners per department, all randomly selected. A questionnaire, relevant to the research issues, was also administered to all learners aiming to detect their opinion and provide possible answers to the research questions. The findings of the results indicate students’ positive response towards the use of virtual breakout rooms. The students also make very interesting suggestions on how breakout rooms could be improved. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.