TABLE 1.
Reasons undergraduate students gave for not turning on their video cameras during synchronous online class meetings in a survey given in an introductory biology laboratory course at a four‐year PhD‐granting institution at the end of the spring 2020 semester
| Reasons for not turning on camera | All students | URM | Non‐URM | Male | Female | Freshman | Non‐Freshman |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I was concerned about my appearance | 41% | 45% | 38% | 36% | 43% | 38% | 49% |
| I was concerned about other people being seen behind me | 26% | 38% | 24% | 20% | 32% | 28% | 22% |
| My internet connection was weak | 22% | 32% | 20% | 15% | 27% | 23% | 18% |
| Other [with space to enter text] | 19% | 15% | 20% | 18% | 20% | 18% | 25% |
| I felt like everyone was looking at me the whole time | 17% | 20% | 17% | 16% | 18% | 18% | 14% |
| I was concerned about my physical location being seen behind me | 17% | 26% | 13% | 9% | 21% | 16% | 20% |
| I was concerned about distracting my classmates | 17% | 12% | 21% | 16% | 19% | 17% | 20% |
| I was concerned about distracting my lab instructor | 12% | 14% | 13% | 14% | 12% | 13% | 12% |
| Not Applicable ‐ I always had my camera on | 10% | 8% | 11% | 12% | 9% | 10% | 10% |
| I didn't want to be seen not paying attention | 8% | 8% | 7% | 9% | 7% | 7% | 10% |
| I didn't want to be seen walking away from my computer | 7% | 11% | 6% | 8% | 7% | 7% | 10% |
| I didn't want to be seen doing other things on my computer | 7% | 8% | 7% | 10% | 5% | 7% | 10% |
| My webcam was not working. | 2% | 3% | 2% | 3% | 2% | 3% | 0% |
| Number of students | 276 | 66 | 187 | 99 | 164 | 215 | 51 |
Each student that indicated they did not always have their camera on could select more than one reason. Reasons are broken down by underrepresented minorities (URM) in science and engineering status, gender, and Freshman or non‐Freshman (sophomores, juniors, and seniors) and are sorted in descending order according to all student respondents combined.