Schrödinger's Cat—Parallel experiences: exploring the underlying mechanisms of undergraduates' engagement and perception in online learning

The emergence of e-learning had an intense, immediate, and disruptive transformation in the education system. While education aims to seek more interactions and learning engagement between teachers and students, it turns out that it takes lots of work to achieve the goal in the online classroom.This study aims to explore the underlying mechanisms and implications that emerge from the influence of the new features of online learning, drawing on students' real-life experiences, to construct a comprehensive theoretical model.From July 2023 to October 2023, 56 undergraduates, including 18 male and 38 female, participated in the data collection process either face-to-face or online.The study constructs a substantive theoretical model by employing the approaches of The Grounded Theory, three level-coding constant comparative method, theoretical sampling, core category distillation and storyline collation.(1) The elements involved in the process of online learning exhibit underlying logical correlations, driven by profound underlying factors, ultimately resulting in a parallel experience akin to Schrödinger's Cat. (2) Online features lead to students' motivation mainly depending on whether they are self-regulated. (3) Teacher-student interactions and self-regulation shape different learning contexts and types by being moderated by internal and external effects.Students had a parallel experience similar to that of Schrödinger's Cat: they were constantly dissatisfied with “rational” learning and “perceptually” satisfied with online learning. The variation in the satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs necessities college students in online learning leads to parallel experiences.