Between freedom and frustration: Students weigh online learning’s trade-offs

As Queen’s moves away from the traditional lecture hall, students are turning to online courses for flexibility—but many say the experience comes with unexpected frustrations.

Overwhelmed with mandatory lecture times clashing with her degree and post-graduate requirements, Gabriela Villate, ArtSci ’27, turned to online classes to manage the overload.

Villate explained that scheduling conflicts often left her with few choices. “I find that a lot of classes are only offered online, or they’re only offered in-person once this academic year, and it has an overlap with other classes that are in the same situation,” Villate said in an interview with The Journal.

While students like Villate turn to online classes out of necessity, the University frames the expansion of online learning as a matter of choice and accessibility.

Queen’s offers more than 120 online courses spanning a wide range of learning experiences, but most students remain in Kingston completing in-person degrees, Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) William Nelson said in a statement to The Journal.

The variety in course formats, from self-paced modules to live lectures, shapes how much time students actually spend engaging with online material.

While Arts and Science Online Learning recommends 10–15 hours per week for each online course, Villate reports spending closer to six hours, plus extra time reviewing for assignments and tests. Nelson explained that course formats vary, with some allowing fully self-paced work and others including live lectures, highlighting the flexibility online learning is meant to provide.

Villate said that in science-specific classes like ANAT100, she approached online learning by carving out free time during the week, tackling readings and course content at her own pace each day. But over time, her schedule became crowded not just with in-person lectures and tutorials, but also with ungraded discussion posts she viewed as largely unnecessary, tasks meant to foster peer engagement that often felt more like an added burden than a benefit.

In her PSYC100 class, Villate explained how she had to complete four discussion posts, one herself and replying to three others, in order to have her work for the week graded. “The discussion boards become a waste of time, and it’s a pretty demotivating feeling,like you and your discussion members don’t actually care and are just forced to respond to each other,” Villate said.

While Villate found the discussion posts frustrating and disengaging, program administrators say they serve as a substitute for the interactive elements of in-person classes and offer additional opportunities for support.

Director of the Bachelor of Health Sciences program Nikki Philbrook wrote in a statement to The Journal that discussion modules are often used to facilitate group discussions amongst students that would typically take place in an in-person class, and many professors also provide office hours or optional tutorials to connect and support students.

While some online courses, like those in health sciences, offer structured support and interactive opportunities, Villate’s experience in a humanities course highlighted how online formats can vary widely, leaving students to navigate less guided, more subjective work on their own.

This year, Villate decided to take an online humanities course, RELS131, and found the online format to be a stark contrast to her typical science classes. With less guidance from professors on how to navigate the assignments, she struggled to adapt to the more subjective grading style of humanities courses.

“I find it really difficult as a STEM major to be confident in my work that is more subjective in grading,” Villate said. “I don’t have any guidance when working on the assignments, and emailing the professor 10 questions a day isn’t exactly an option [when you are taking a class online].”

Villate sees a broader issue with online learning in the lack of immediate feedback and face-to-face interaction, which makes it harder for students to clarify expectations and build confidence. In in-person classes, she often stays after lectures or tutorials to ask professors or teaching assistants questions—an opportunity that is largely unavailable in both synchronous and asynchronous online courses.

Based on her experience, Villate finds professors often try to address this through online discussion forums, but she finds them ineffective and slow, preferring virtual office hours to get timely answers and guidance. “Having a TA or classmate answer your question two days after asking it feels different from lining up after lecture to ask your professor,” Villate said.

Villate’s struggles with delayed feedback highlight the challenges students face as online learning becomes an increasingly central part of Queen’s course offerings.

The role of online classes at Queen’s has only extended in recent years. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Queen’s has expanded their online learning offerings where students can complete degrees without ever setting foot on the Queen’s campus, according to Philbrook.

There are several degrees that can be completed fully online, including the Bachelor of Health Sciences program, which is now offered both fully online and fully in person, with both formats having the same curriculum and requirements to graduate. For the online program, students often complete their courses with online modules developed through the Course Development Unit, a learning development design to create engaging online learning modules.

According to Philbrook, students have varied reasons for choosing the online program, but one of the most common is the flexibility provided by online courses.

“One of the common themes we do see is that students appreciate the opportunity to complete a degree that offers the level of flexibility that our online courses provide while also not being required to uproot their lives to move to Kingston,” Philbrook said.

Although the University promotes the integration of fully online students into campus life, the AMS doesn’t recognize online students as members, meaning they’ve no representation in the AMS assembly or other levels of student government, including faculty societies.

AMS President Jana Amer wrote in a statement to The Journal that fully online students aren’t considered to be AMS members because full-time online students aren’t fully connected to the spectrum of AMS services and supports. Students can choose to optinto an AMS membership if they’re taking at least one in-person class.

“Students who qualify [by being in at least one in-person class] and opt in gain all rights and privileges of membership, including the ability to vote in AMS elections, access AMS services, and benefit from programs like the Health & Dental Plan and Bus-It pass,” Amer said.

Amer notes that fully online students can access the mental health service Empower Me and benefit from the broader University resources.

While online students can access services like Empower Me, the rise of online learning affects not just individual experiences like Villate’s but thousands of students across Queen’s, with 1, 572 undergraduate distance studies students as of the 2021-22 academic year.

Hayley Yap, ArtSci ’27, has taken several online courses while completing her in-person degree, choosing them for the flexibility to manage her schedule and learn at her own pace from home. However, she often finds that online modules contain too much information to process effectively, making the content harder to digest. With less ability to gauge student comprehension, professors rarely revisit material that students find challenging, according to Yap.

In a statement to The Journal, Yap said she generally finds her online courses easier than in-person classes. However, she often struggles with motivation and procrastination, since modules typically lack firm deadlines beyond assignments, requiring students to hold themselves accountable each week. While she attributes much of this to personal discipline, she also believes course structure could be improved by reducing filler content and making online material more engaging.

The self-discipline required for online learning extends to professor-student interactions, according to Yap. She explains that while she doesn’t feel there’s less interaction overall, professors rarely initiate contact, making it essential for students to reach out. She also noted that online professors generally respond more quickly to e–mails and discussion board posts than those who teach exclusively in person.

Like Yap, Kalan Morris-Poolman, CompSci ’27, appreciates the flexibility online courses offer, highlighting how elective options can make navigating a busy schedule easier while still engaging with interesting material.

In a statement to The Journal, Morris-Poolman said he’s taken both ASTR 101 and PHAR101 online, noting, like Yap, that online courses are generally easier in content since recorded lectures can be revisited to clarify material. However, he echoed Yap’s point that without immediate deadlines, it can be harder to stay motivated, which can lead to work piling up.

“It can be quite challenging at times to find the motivation to work through the coursework when there is nothing immediately due, which can lead to work piling up and, in turn, exacerbate the difficulty of finding motivation, triggering a cycle,” Morris-Poolman said.

He added that online courses could be improved by reducing the amount of required reading and emphasizing pre-recorded lectures from professors, which he believes would lessen student isolation and help them feel more connected to their instructors.

According to Vice-Provost (Teaching and Learning) Gavan Watson in a statement to The Journal, Queen’s has recently worked to innovate and improve online courses through tools like OnQ, a learning management system where both in-person and online students can access content, homework, and assignments, and FeedbackFruits, a platform within OnQ designed to enhance student engagement.

A quick glance online reveals that Queen’s is also working to improve online course structures through initiatives like the Working Group on Class Classification and Definitions, formed under the Senate Committee on Academic Development and Procedures, which is examining whether online courses should be delivered synchronously or asynchronously.

Looking ahead, Watson said Queen’s is developing a growing number of professional and graduate programs specifically for online delivery, with a focus on maintaining academic rigour in these courses.

As the University expands its online offerings, the format is also becoming an increasingly central part of many undergraduate students’ experiences.

While online courses have changed dramatically over the last five years, for many, online courses remain a double-edged sword,offering flexibility to students at the sacrifice of connection wondering whether the trade-off is worth it.