Black Tiles Instead of Smiles – Key Reasons and Effects of Students’ Webcam Use During Online Lectures

Despite being socialized with digital media, a significant proportion of students choose to disable their cameras during video seminars. An exploratory mixed-methods approach, including seven focus group analyses with 55 students and survey data from 1,134 students across universities and programs, identified the main reasons for not using webcams in online lectures. Lack of perceived usefulness emerged as the most important reason in the quantitative analysis. In addition, causal mediation analyses were conducted on the quantitative data to examine the effects of non-use. The bootstrapped analyses confirm a significant positive effect of webcam use on academic performance, with the effect partially mediated by enjoyment of learning and social academic integration. Notably, videoconferencing fatigue also positively mediates academic performance, while technostress appears to have no effect. The study has scholarly and practical implications.