Social Interaction Anxiety and Its Influence on Learning Engagement of Students During COVID-19

Individuals with social interaction anxiety often tend to hold specious beliefs about the level to which others experience symptoms of social anxiety and how others evaluate people who appear to be anxious. The purpose of this study was to: (a) to gauge the level of social interaction anxiety among students to find out how it will affect them in the long run with the adoption of the virtual platform (b) to examine the relationship between social interaction anxiety and learning engagement. The study has thus looked into the relationship between the factors like social interaction anxiety, COVID fear and student engagement. A theoretical model was developed using selected variables and the model was then tested with the help of a structured questionnaire which was circulated among 300 respondents of which 250 responses were received. Analysis of the model using WarpPLS-SEM pointed to few important constructs that resulted in social interaction anxiety. Results depicted that a vast majority of individuals experience symptoms of social interaction anxiety from time to time. We have analyzed the social interaction anxiety on student engagement and from the result, we have found out that due to COVID fear, the social interaction anxiety has increased resulting in the decrease of student learning engagement.