Study of the relationship between affect and cognition in the migration from face-to-face to remote learning ^{3 4}

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between affective and cognitive dimensions in higher education during the transition from face-to-face to virtual learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is based on the principles of the historical-cultural approach. The objective is to analyze the intrinsic relationship between affectivity and cognition, the modes of action experienced, apprehended, and objectified by participants in higher education pedagogical processes in the movement of structural and methodological changes. The following procedures were adopted for data production and collection: online focus groups, reports, questionnaires, and document analysis. The research method was inspired by historical-dialectical materialism, and the field research approximates the case study procedure. The data were analyzed in stages, and the results were grouped into three analytical axes. Essential objective conditions for the development of online pedagogical processes were revealed, along with challenges and contradictions in the planning and execution of pedagogical actions. Feelings of fear, anguish, and concern stand out. A qualitative leap in pedagogical processes is observed, enabling the development and integration of practical knowledge gained during the pandemic with theoretical knowledge through a praxis. The dialectical interrelation between affectivity and cognition is revealed in the professors’ search for improvements in pedagogical practice, in the encounter as an important mediation, and in meeting the academic and professional needs of professors and students. The need for the professionalization of pedagogical processes is evident, especially when mediated by digital technology, where rigor and generosity coexist dialectically, constituting the conscious expression of the unity of affect and cognition in pedagogical activity.

Keywords:
Affect-cognition; Online remote teaching; Covid-19; Higher education; Pedagogical activity.

Resumo

Este artigo investiga a relação entre as dimensões afetiva e cognitiva no ensino superior durante a migração do ensino presencial para o virtual, no contexto da pandemia de Covid-19. Fundamenta-se nos princípios do enfoque histórico-cultural. O objetivo é analisar a relação intrínseca entre afetividade e cognição, os modos de ação vivenciados, apreendidos e objetivados pelos participantes de processos pedagógicos do ensino superior no movimento de mudanças estruturais e metodológicas. Para a produção e coleta de dados, adotou-se os seguintes procedimentos: grupos focais on-line, relatos, questionários e análise documental. O método de investigação foi inspirado no materialismo histórico-dialético e a pesquisa de campo aproxima-se do procedimento de estudo de caso. Os dados foram analisados por etapas, e os resultados agrupados em três eixos analíticos. Revelaram-se condições objetivas essenciais para o desenvolvimento de processos pedagógicos on-line, juntamente com desafios e contradições no planejamento e na execução das ações pedagógicas. Destacam-se os sentimentos de medo, angústia e preocupação. Observa-se a possibilidade de salto qualitativo nos processos pedagógicos para desenvolver e integrar o conhecimento prático experienciado no período pandêmico ao conhecimento teórico, em um movimento de práxis. A inter-relação dialética entre afetividade e cognição se revela na busca dos professores por melhorias na prática pedagógica, no encontro como mediação importante e no atendimento de necessidades acadêmicas e profissionais de professores e alunos. Evidencia-se a necessidade de profissionalização dos processos pedagógicos, sobretudo quando intermediados pela tecnologia digital, em que rigorosidade e generosidade estejam dialeticamente presentes, sendo a expressão consciente da unidade afeto-cognição na atividade pedagógica.

Palavras-chave:
Ensino remoto on-line; Covid-19; Ensino superior; Atividade pedagógica.

Introduction

While the discussion about affectivity in education has been growing, it is common to relate it to the competencies to be developed. For Estormovski and Silva (2024), in the current neoliberal context, emotions have been instrumentalized to satisfy the needs of capitalism. This falls on the school as a responsibility to form a set of affects to direct behavior, moving away from the understanding of the integral human being.

In the conception of the historical-cultural approach and historical-dialectical materialism, on which the research is based, the human being is understood as omnilateral, integrating the whole being. For Marx (1818-1883) and Vygotski (1896-1934), the human being is a social being constituted in relation to society, which is historically and culturally determined, in a dialectical process in which the subject and society are intertwined.

This understanding becomes more relevant in contexts of change. In 2020, remote teaching was instituted in many educational institutions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This article presents the results of a doctoral research (Barbosa, 2024), whose objective is to analyze the intrinsic relationship between affectivity and cognition, as well as the modes of action experienced, apprehended and objectified by participants in teaching and learning processes in higher education in the movement of structural and methodological changes resulting from the migration from face-to-face to virtual teaching, amidst the public health and social crisis. The field research was conducted with eight professors and 47 students from a public higher education institution in the State of São Paulo, between March and April 2021.

To this end, the study analyzes the relationship between affect and cognition from a historical-cultural perspective, and the objectification of affective and cognitive dimensions in higher education during remote learning.

The relationship between affect and cognition from a historical-cultural perspective

Affect and cognition are part of the psychological system, which comprises various systems and functions interconnected by links and relationships. Both the functions and the relationships between them change throughout an individual’s development.

Vigotski (2009a, pp. 479-80, italics in the original) states that: “Behind every thought, there is an affective-volitional tendency, which holds the answer to the last why in the analysis of thinking.” Affect and volition are the basis of thought. The subject acts in the world based on their thoughts, which are intertwined with affect. Action follows the reverse path, carrying the subject’s impressions to thought. This process occurs from action to thought and from thought to action, in a back-and-forth motion.

Vygotski draws on Spinoza’s theory to develop his thinking on the relationship between affect and intellect. For Spinoza (2020), the idea is the mind’s action, and this idea refers to the body and the external affections it experiences. The subject’s affects, the affections of the body, as the subject perceives them, are always present in thoughts. Thus, affects must be understood from the perspective of their affectation in the subject, and not in an absolute way. Indeed, everything will depend on the subject’s relationship to a particular thing, since this relationship is always mediated by an idea that results from an affection.

For Vygotski (1997b), there is a dependence between intellect and affect from the most elementary forms. Both develop, as does the relationship. Changes in this relationship are related to interfunctional changes and to the place each occupies in consciousness across the various phases of development. They form a unit, they constitute each other, they affect each other, without, however, one being the other.

There is a profound relationship between affects and the concepts that define them, since we feel through the mediation of concepts and the social environment, without thereby excluding the biological basis of their existence:

[…] our affects act in a complex system with our concepts and he who does not know that the jealousy of a man who is bound up by the Islamic concepts about women’s fidelity and of a man who is bound up by a system of opposite conceptions about women’s fidelity is different, does not understand that this feeling is historical, that it changes its essence in different ideological and psychological environments, although there undoubtedly remains a certain basic biological component on the basis of which this emotion develops (Vygotski, 1997a, p. 87).

Concepts mediate human beings’ relationship with the world. The internalization of what has been experienced is related to the concepts apprehended and subjectified. The importance of language stands out, as it mediates the subject’s relationship with other subjects and with himself. By naming what they feel, subjects do so through concepts. By becoming consciously aware of this feeling, it becomes present in thought.

Concepts are historical; their meanings change over time and must be understood within specific contexts, cultures, and societies. Thus, if meanings change and the affects establish a dialectical unity with cognition, which, in turn, is related to culturally signified concepts, it can be stated that affects also change over time, depending on the historical-cultural context.

Drawing on Spinoza, Vygotski (1997a) states that awareness of our affects alters them, transforming them into active states. That reason can modify the connections between emotions, thereby creating new emotions and feelings. Upon becoming aware of a particular affect, the entire psychic system is altered: “That I think about objects that exist outside myself does not change anything in them, but that I think about my affects, that I place them in other relationships to my intellect and other processes, changes much in my mental life.” (Vygotski, 1997a, p. 87).

On the other hand, Oliveira and Rego (2003) point out that, for Vygotski, reason controls emotional impulses in behavior, thereby generating self-regulation in the adult cultural human being. The authors explain that “[…] with development, reason is at the service of affective life, insofar as it is an instrument for the elaboration and refinement of feelings” (Oliveira; Rego, 2003, p. 22). Thus, the subject would have more conditions to act upon themselves, with greater control over their conduct.

According to Spinoza (2020), the subject is active, acting when it is an adequate cause and clearly understands what occurs within or outside of it. Conversely, when they understand partially or inadequately, they suffer. Therefore, the importance of knowledge about what affects them and what causes a particular feeling or emotion, to be able to act, is demonstrated. For the author, affect is related to the power of the human being, and can increase the power to act or stimulate it when related to an affect of joy, or decrease the power to act or restrain it when it is a sad affect. For the philosopher, joy and sadness are not determined a priori, but always in relation to what they cause in the subject.

In the human psyche, elementary and higher psychological functions are present alongside other systems. While elementary functions are present from birth, higher functions develop during ontogeny, as the subject integrates into culture and society. As Vigotski (2000, p. 34) states, “culture creates special forms of behavior, modifies the activity of mental functions and adds new stories to the developing system of human behavior.” These are social relations internalized and given meaning by the subject, based on their subjectivity.

The set of relationships and connections between higher psychological functions is called the interfunctional unit. Vygotski (2001) explains that psychic development occurs as a whole rather than in isolated functions, through interactions and connections established in interfunctional relationships that also modify higher psychological functions.

Thus, in the same way that thought develops, affect also develops, and the relationships and connections between them develop, as Vygotski explains (1997b, p. 271):

We have seen that the intellectual and the affective processes are a unity; but this unity is not a constant, static thing. It changes. The most important thing for the whole of psychological development is the changing relationship between affect and intellect.

In the relationship between affect and cognition, Vygotski questions the nature of affect, whether it is a higher psychological function. According to Pino Sirgado (2000), in interpreting Vygotski’s thought, once a function is developed, it becomes part of the subject’s structure, but not in a static way, as it remains in constant development. The concrete conditions of life, historical and cultural conditions, are the material basis for the production of the content of these functions, such as ideas, speech, and memories. Thus:

In this concept of function, the act of functioning and functioning in a certain way merge without becoming confused; the act of producing and the product of that act. Thus, the functions of thinking, speaking, and remembering are realized in the act of thinking, speaking, or remembering something whose meaning may not be the same at each instant (Pino Sirgado, 2000, p. 70).

In short, the function carries historicity and the social, and is constituted by complex forms of activity, in which various elements integrate and act, based on a similarly complex structure.

That said, it is understood that emotions and feelings are characterized as functions. Often, they are protagonists and stand out from cognitive functions. Even so, the cognitive dimension is present, pointing to the logic of thought related to that emotion. Vygotski (2017) explains that emotions develop like other psychic functions:

In the same way as other psychic functions, […] emotions establish new relationships with other elements of spiritual life, new systems emerge, new fusions of psychic functions arise, unions of a higher order emerge, in which special regularities, interdependencies, and new forms of connection and movement predominate (Vygotski, 2017, p. 340, emphasis added).

On the other hand, affectivity permeates and relates to the other functions. For Vygotski (1997b), higher psychological functions possess an intellectual and an affective nature in equal measure:

A conscious function also acquires different possibilities of action. Becoming aware means, to a certain extent, mastering. To the same degree, a distinct intellectual nature and a distinct affective nature are characteristic of higher psychological functions. This is because thought and affect constitute parts of a single whole - human consciousness (Vygotski, 1997b, p. 268, emphasis added).

From the above, it is understood that affectivity is also a dimension, just like the cognitive one, and is present in all functions, permeating and guiding them. In the same way that functions conceived as cognitive also possess an affective nature, the affective function also possesses a cognitive nature. To understand this problem, dialectical logic is necessary, since cognition and affectivity are dimensions that mutually constitute one another, intertwined.

The process of affectation is constituted from the concrete conditions of the historical context, with the pandemic being an important determinant for those who experienced it.

Remote higher education during the pandemic period

In 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, remote teaching was instituted in formal education. In many higher education institutions, teaching and learning processes began to be carried out through Digital Information and Communication Technologies (DICT).

DICTs revolutionized the modes of material production, knowledge, access to and production of information, communication, and relationships between people, and life in general. According to Castells (1999), the third industrial revolution took place at the end of the 20^th century, driven by advances in information technology. For Brito (2017), we are going through the fourth industrial revolution, marked, among other aspects, by artificial intelligence.

An industrial revolution is characterized by the insertion of new characteristics in all spheres of human life. These transformations affect the objective and subjective dimensions of reality, altering culture and the way subjects give meaning to reality and to themselves. Their thoughts, feelings, and actions are mediated by new means of production, information, and communication.

Technology only develops from material and psychological conditions, from the development of the human being itself, and from concrete conditions in force in society (Vigotski, 2009b). According to Moraes (2010, p. 324):

Technology is the fruit of human labor; it contains the synthesis of objectified work, transposed to the machine. Technology is nothing other than materialized intellectual work, giving visibility to the process of converting science, a spiritual power, into material power, translated and produced by patents and copyrights, thus maintaining, as highlighted by Saviani (2005), Dupas (2007), and Mészáros (2003), the dominance of capital over the social.

As the author points out, in the capitalist system we live in, the power of human beings and their labor are converted into capital. The benefits of the most advanced technologies do not encompass everyone; they are presented as possibilities.

While the precarious connectivity faced by many students and education professionals, as well as the lack of specific training for online education and multidisciplinary teams to develop and implement the migration to remote teaching, have been recognized as central difficulties, revealing historical, social, and economic determinants, the problem of integrating DICTs into educational processes is argued as more complex. Such integration requires consideration of the contradictions inherent in it and cannot, therefore, be carried out uncritically, as if technology, in itself, constituted a sufficient solution to educational challenges. DICTs are part of a means of domination by large economic and political groups over people’s subjectivity, as Mill explained:

Through universal access, the internet also fosters a power relationship between capital and the individual, in their home intimacy and internally, rather than just collectively, as with more traditional media (television or radio, for example). It should be noted, however, that while capital has direct access to subjectivity and demographic unity (the singularity of the individual subject), the opposite is not necessarily true (Mill, 2012, p. 15).

Thus, it is fundamental that both the integration of DICTs into individuals’ daily lives and their appropriation by educational institutions be discussed, so that individuals and society can develop and reach their maximum human potential, towards human emancipation rather than alienation.

In this context, when the concrete conditions for the teaching and learning process to occur are altered, the understanding that properly organized teaching must intervene in the field of possibilities so that students have the conditions to learn is recovered. As Vigotski (2007) states, it is about pedagogical action that intervenes beyond what the student can do alone, but can achieve with the necessary support, enabling the student to grasp the object of study and, subsequently, perform it independently. Thus, pedagogical action must intervene in students’ Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) through concrete conditions that are conducive to learning.

The activities of the professor and the students are carried out amid the adversities inherent in the pandemic moment, altering the field of possibilities in which teaching and learning are aimed. Therefore, the conditions for organizing the modes of action of pedagogical activity change.

Pedagogical activity is understood as the dialectical unity between the professor’s and the student’s activities (Bernardes, 2009). In the teaching activity, the professor is responsible for planning and organizing instruction so that students engage in an activity that, when objectified in social practice, assumes the condition identified as a study activity. In essence, the professor’s activities in Distance Education (DE), blended learning, or remote learning do not differ from those in face-to-face learning. However, the different teaching configurations have their own specificities, which demand mastery of the tools and the development of appropriate pedagogical strategies.

Online remote teaching was carried out in a rather peculiar way, due to the urgency and the need to adapt face-to-face teaching. Although it used tools and knowledge of DE practices, it was neither planned nor structured for this purpose. Hodges et al. (2020) note that, although good practices emerged, the process was very stressful for many professors.

During this period, social and economic inequalities became more evident. The report by the NGO Todos Pela Educação and Instituto Unibanco (2020) highlighted that the international literature drew attention to the fact that the disorganization of learning processes contributed to the deepening of educational inequalities, increased dropout rates, and school absenteeism.

Given this scenario, along with other social and economic determinants, it is evident that the pandemic was experienced differently by individuals, with many excluded from educational processes. As Sawaia (2001) asserts, exclusion is a socio-historical process, a product of the system’s functioning, that affects all spheres of life; however, it is felt by the subject as needs, affections, and actions. The conditions of access to material life affect the subject in their subjectivity, constituting their meaning and their affective and cognitive dimension regarding lived experience.

Faced with the numerous difficulties encountered during the period, the participating institution oscillated between allowing or not the continuation of pedagogical processes through remote teaching. When the decision was made to continue teaching, the campuses had autonomy to reorganize teaching, subject to guidelines.

The campus participating in the study developed a 36-hour mini-course on the Learning and Teaching Environment (LTE) adopted by the institution. Participation was optional and was offered twice.

The main objective of the course was to acquire technical skills from LTE tools. However, it included discussions about online pedagogical processes, highlighting the possibility and necessity of collaborative practices.

Considering that this training may have contributed to the development of remote teaching by the professors who completed this mini-course, those who completed the course in the last offering of the course in one of the classes, and their respective students, were invited to participate in the study.

Methodological procedures and study subjects

Elements of the case study method (Yin, 2015) were considered to achieve the research objective, consistent with the historical-cultural approach. The field research was carried out between March and April 2021, when the first year of remote teaching, which began in June 2020, was ending. The Ethics Committees of the University of São Paulo and the participating institution approved the study. Eight professors who taught in higher education and 47 of their students participated in the research. The professors were trained in humanities, exact sciences, or teaching. The students participated in courses in the areas of teaching, bachelor’s, or technological degrees.

For the production and collection of data, the following methodological procedures were adopted: 1. Focus group (Gomes, 2005), which consists of forming groups that have had similar experiences to discuss a subject related to that experience, through a script of questions. Three online meetings were held in 2021 with each of the two professor groups between March 22 and April 12; 2. Written account of the experience by the professors; 3. Questionnaire answered by the students between March 24 and April 19; and 4. documentary research.

The first three procedures are characterized as narratives, in which participants reconstruct their experiences and, in this process, can make new elaborations about what they have lived through, leading to changes in their understanding of themselves and others (Cunha, 1997). Documentary research, conducted through the analysis of virtual learning and teaching environments (LTE) used in classes, contributes contextualized evidence and information (Cellard, 2012).

The data analysis was carried out through a set of actions organized into five stages. For the first and second stages, it approximated the first two stages of the Nuclei of Meaning procedure (Aguiar; Soares; Machado, 2015). The following stages were developed during the research, based on the adopted framework and the characteristics of the data collected. The stages were:

1. 1. Selection of excerpts from the transcripts of the focus group speeches and the students’ essay responses, in search of evidence of the participants’ ways of feeling, thinking, and acting regarding their experience in remote teaching, independently for each group (focus group 1, focus group 2, and students);

2. 2. Grouping of the selected excerpts into content categories, followed by the articulation between the content categories of the three groups.

3. 3. Aggregation of the produced content into analytical axes.

4. 4. Based on content aggregation in the axes, the content was revisited to rearrange and group it around themes within three analytical axes, resulting in greater analytical quality and closer alignment with the theoretical framework.

5. 5. Discussion of the themes of the analytical axes and incorporation of other collected and produced materials, as they related to the research problem.

The transition between stages was not linear, with returns to the initial data whenever necessary to confirm or confront the analyses. The professors received fictitious names and acronyms corresponding to the focus group they participated in: 1 or 2 (GF1 or GF2). The students were numbered and categorized by area: A (student) + B (bachelor’s degree), L (licentiate degree), or T (technological degree) + identification number (for example, AB1 for bachelor’s degree 1).

The development and objectification of affective and cognitive dimensions during remote teaching in higher education

In the analytical axis “The planning and execution of pedagogical activity, mediated by the social context,” the following themes are discussed: a) objective conditions for remote teaching and b) the organization of the teaching and learning process in remote teaching.

The institution’s direction during this period emerges as an objective condition that mediates the teaching and learning process. For the participating professors, the implemented model was open and confusing, lacking guidance and support for the migration from face-to-face to virtual learning, including the implementation of the LTE platform. As can be seen in the statement of Professor Bento (GF1, first meeting, March 22, 2021):

There were some guidelines, and then the professors actually navigated within their possibilities. So, I actually see this as a criticism; I think the model was too open. And I think from an administrative point of view, we managed to resolve the situation. Let’s say, we managed to resume classes, right? To organize that. But I have serious doubts from a pedagogical point of view, right?

The insecurity generated by the given reality, in the face of the need for such a profound change, is inferred. The individual work of the professors is revealed, unlike what is expected in courses planned to be DE. Individual effort is not always sufficient in the face of the complexity of pedagogical processes. Group studies, mediated by theoretical knowledge, favor changes of circumstances and the subjects involved, i.e., they enable the development of praxis (Vázquez, 2011).

The need for greater institutional direction may seem, at first, to be contrary to professors’ teaching freedom. But, as Vigotski (2000, p. 35)⁵ explains: “[…] the dynamics of personality are drama. […] Drama is always the struggle of such connections (duty and feeling, passion, etc.). Otherwise, it can’t be drama, that is, a clash of systems.”

In this dynamic, emotions play a decisive role in the subject taking one path or another. The contradiction lies between the desire for freedom to teach and the need for institutional guidance, which enables greater identity and unity in pedagogical work. Along with the need for greater guidance, questions arise about the guidelines received. However, teaching freedom can contain guidelines, as long as they allow for freedom of creation.

The participating professors and students pointed out specific conditions for remote teaching that differ from, or at least are not fundamental to, face-to-face teaching. Economic and social inequalities have led to unequal access to the material conditions for remote online teaching, with connectivity an obstacle, especially for public schools. The need to consider the quality of internet access and the devices used is confirmed.

For the professors, some of the students adapted well because they had the necessary conditions. While there was a need for an adequate material base, the work of the professors and other educators involved, supported on this base, also stands out, alongside the organization and execution of studies by students in an integrated and intentional way.

During the pandemic, the routines of professors and students were disrupted, with academic, family, and personal demands overlapping. As a result, family support and acceptance emerge as important mediators in students’ engagement in their studies. Student L15’s response illustrates the importance of the family: “[…] an understanding environment at home to respect the need for silence and unavailability during classes.”

The family’s recognition of study can foster joyful affections, which, according to Spinoza (2020), increase the power of being, thereby helping students remain engaged in their studies. The family constitutes an important social group that the subject integrates and establishes affective relationships with, being one of the determinants for the meaning of education for the subject. The significance of the family being understanding is related to the relevance of the “other” for understanding the role one occupies and what is expected of oneself, as highlighted by Pino Sirgado (2000).

Given the difficulty of reconciling the demands of the various spheres of life, the institution’s space emerges as a framework for organizing students’ routines. By attending the institution, they could have suspended their other social roles. Despite the problems in the physical spaces, the academic space was missed, especially because of the social relationships established there.

For Vigotski (2010), the integration of physical space with the relationships between subjects forms the social environment, which can be a source of development. Pinto and Buffa (2009) highlight the importance of adequate environments in higher education institutions.

According to Saviani (2011), the object of education is to identify what needs to be learned and the most appropriate ways to do so. In remote teaching, it was necessary to adapt the plans for face-to-face teaching. Professors realized that the most appropriate methods for face-to-face teaching did not fit this new environment, generating anxiety and fear.

For professors involved in the pedagogical process, this change prompted them to seek alternatives, develop teaching actions, and, over time, evaluate and implement the changes they deemed necessary. The relevance of the presentation method and diversification of content supports, as well as the distribution between synchronous and asynchronous classes, is evident. These data align with what Moore and Kearsley (2011) consider relevant for DE.

In the analytical axis “The affective and volitional basis present in remote teaching,” the following themes are discussed: a) needs and reasons for the objectification of pedagogical activity and b) affects constituted in remote teaching.

The data point to insecurity in the face of the new and unexpected. The imminent adoption of remote teaching had a significant impact on professors. Spinoza (2020) emphasizes that we are more strongly affected by something in the future that we imagine is about to happen. Unlike face-to-face teaching, professors did not know or master the necessary tools. Thus, in-person teaching is referenced as a safe and familiar method, as evidenced in Professor Bento’s statement (GF1, oral record, first meeting, March 22, 2021, emphasis added):

So I was very clear that I was a good professor in the sense of giving good classes, in short. […], But I had a lot of control and clarity about my work. So I knew how to do my job very well, right? So it was okay if I made some mistakes, but I knew I was giving a good class and doing a good job. I have many doubts about this in remote teaching, right? If I’m managing to be as good a professor as I was in in-person teaching. Of course, I’ve been trying very hard, right?

The professors’ questioning of their own ability to teach in the virtual environment is evident in their taking responsibility for the entire pedagogical process. They felt fear, tension, and pressure, revealing the strong relationship between cognition and affectivity. It can be inferred that the need to continue pedagogical work motivated the professors to take the LTE course and to continually analyze the pedagogical process.

Leontiev (1961) explains that the need is constituted in life in society, but it is the motive that drives the subject to become active. The professors who became active at that moment had a common goal: students’ learning, but their motives differed, because, as Bozhovich (1978) explains, the motives for the same activity can be many and contradictory. The affective and cognitive dimensions are present in the emergence of these new motives. The constitution of motives passes through the prism of the professor’s subjectivity, in which the relationship the professor has with his work, with pedagogical activity, with students, and with the institution is present. Faced with the new social situation, higher psychological functions were mobilized, and new connections and relationships were created so that professors could respond to needs and direct their own behavior (Vigotski, 2000).

Initially, there was an attempt to transition from face-to-face to virtual learning. Subsequently, the need for learning and improvement became evident, demonstrating the complexity of changing from one teaching method to another.

The professors felt more confident at the end of the second semester. They learned through their own experience, supported by student feedback, and indicated that they improved the teaching process. Professor Celso (GF1, written record) highlights in his written account the necessary path to improve teaching during the process, emphasizing the learning inherent in the experience: “A writer said that the path is made by walking! We are feeling our difficulties, feeling the difficulties of our students, the failures of the system, and learning to correct the course.” It is understood that practice enables learning, but it must be integrated with theoretical knowledge to develop praxis, which is fundamental to pedagogical activity.

In this movement of improvement, creativity reveals itself through the reworking of what has been produced. According to Vigotski (2009b, p. 40), it is the imbalance with the surrounding world that makes creation possible:

If the life around you does not present you with human tasks, if your habitual and inherited reactions place you in complete equilibrium with the world around you, then there is no basis for creation to arise; a being totally adapted to the world around it could not desire anything, nor aspire to anything, and naturally, could not create anything. Therefore, the basis of creation is always the form of maladjustment from which needs, aspirations, and desires arise.

Some professors linked student engagement to the improvements and adjustments they made in the subjects. This correlation reveals the objectification of pedagogical activity, since the professor’s praxis involves the proper organization of teaching and the purpose of transforming the individuals (Bernardes, 2009).

Professors’ awareness that their work is a determinant of student engagement is important for them to evaluate and develop their teaching practices. Furthermore, student engagement with the subject affects the professor and can motivate them to remain active. It is understood that professors and students affect each other.

The professors’ meanings about the students’ actions that affected them at that moment were produced from this experience, but through the prism of their subjectivities, in which previously constituted senses and meanings mediate their apprehension of reality. In this context, expectations regarding student behavior are present, as observed in this dialogue between professors at the beginning of the second meeting (GF2, April 5, 2021, emphasis added):

Give me just a minute, I have to find this camera because I never use it. No, because my students don’t use it, I don’t use it (Alfredo).

I’ve always taught with my camera on, because I hope that encourages the students, right? (Danilo).

So… Another colleague criticized. He said: ‘No, you should teach with the camera on, because it attracts more attention, right?’ I don’t know, but I never turn on the camera, they don’t turn it on, I don’t turn it on, and I think there’s no expectation that I’ll teach with a camera. I think, I don’t know… But with or without a camera, let’s move on (Alfredo).

For students, remote learning demanded more effort and dedication, revealing the difficulty of maintaining study activity. It is understood that the more consolidated the affective and volitional basis for studies, the greater the chance that students will remain engaged in studies, which is associated with the material conditions for this.

The beginning of remote teaching was the most difficult period for professors, marked by feelings of fear, worry, tension, and anguish. Spinoza (2020) relates the feeling of fear to an image we have of the future or the past that affects the subject as something present, even if that thing does not exist. Worry (Dicio, 2024) is the loss of peace of mind related to accountability.

The fear in the face of the imminence of remote teaching reveals doubt about the near future, associated with feelings of sadness. In contrast, worry reveals the feeling of responsibility for the teaching and learning process. In the search for strategies to make teaching effective, new effects were possible, and some feelings were overcome or transformed.

Professors recognized their actions as successful when teaching strategies favored student engagement and learning. Highlighting the amalgam produced between cognition, affect, and action. Even if the set of actions was not sufficient to achieve the desired quality, it still enabled some achievement.

Each improvement in the process generated feelings of joy, which undoubtedly increases the professors’ ability to act. It is evident that, gradually, the professors began to act not only on the basis of sad feelings but also on pleasurable ones that generated satisfaction and well-being. As Bozhovich (1978, p. 30-31) emphasizes: “The child (and also the adult), in seeking to prolong, relive or intensify these emotions, begins to improve the object that satisfies the need or to look for new ways to do so.”

Among the students, feelings of loneliness, frustration, and discouragement were revealed, as well as joy at the adaptation and surprise at those who came to like this format. The responses elucidate how the social situation of remote teaching affected individuals in distinct ways, with objective and subjective factors across the personal, social, economic, and academic spheres mediating the formation of these feelings.

The analytical axis “Interpersonal relationships as a mediator of the affective and cognitive constitution of pedagogical activity” discusses the following themes: a) interpersonal relationships between professors and students in remote teaching and b) divergences between virtual and face-to-face academic environments.

Physical distancing impacted the relationship between students and professors. Pedagogical activity carried out in person reveals itself as the totality of the classroom, with all the richness, diversity, and difficulties brought about by coexistence. The research revealed the difficulty of establishing joyful encounters (in Spinozan terms) in the virtual environment, permeated by good relationships. Professor Bernardo’s statement (GF2, oral recording, third meeting, April 12, 2021) illustrates the interaction in face-to-face meetings, which was not replicated in the virtual setting:

[reflection based on the web conference image] […] What came to mind was the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Rear Window.

It’s like standing in front of a building and seeing the life of each person. Like, compartmentalized, right? A kind of strange thing, right? But individual experiences are not compartmentalized. We can’t think of the sum of each part as the same thing as the whole, right? In a classroom, you have the whole, you treat the student holistically, you treat the class holistically. Here, you have several parts; it’s different, right? (emphasis added).

Among the students, the feeling of belonging and security present in the face-to-face environment contributes to their own involvement with the pedagogical activity, as expressed in the excerpt: “I missed the classroom environment, I felt more comfortable asking questions and more motivated to learn.” (A B2, written record, emphasis added).

The greatest difficulty in interaction was felt by professors in classes that had not established closer social relationships, especially in incoming classes that did not know each other in person, revealing the difficulty of creating affective bonds in the virtual environment. As Kenski (2010) explains, there is a need to develop strategies for creating group identities in virtual environments. Evidently, the quality of interaction between students and professors is potentially better when closer and more affective relationships have been established among the students themselves.

The synchronous class emerges as a potential enhancer of relationships between professors and students and, consequently, of pedagogical activity. However, the interaction was not achieved in the best possible way. The use of a closed camera and the low student participation were identified as obstacles. The inability to see and hear the students hindered teaching, as it made it difficult to regulate the class and distance the professors from their understanding of what a good class would be. Despite low student participation, the data reveal that students valued the classes and would like more interactive meetings.

This highlights a contradiction in the interpersonal relationships established in remote teaching: professors and students agreed that interaction was an important factor in the objectification of the pedagogical activity, yet it did not materialize.

For the objectification of a closer relationship, objective and subjective conditions are necessary and interact with each other. The historical and social moment resulting from the pandemic cannot be disregarded. Thus, it can be inferred that there are many reasons why students do not turn on their cameras, varying for each student. For Máximo (2021, p. 245): “Turning on the camera is assuming a commitment to interaction, even if in silence. And all interaction is performative. […]. Quickly, the students understood that they could dispense with this performative demand by turning off their cameras.”

The lack of face-to-face interaction, felt by professors and students, involves the mobilization of the different senses and languages of individuals who have come to experience everything through a screen. Face-to-face interaction encompasses oral communication and the totality of human senses, integrated with the social environment to which they belong. Pino Sirgado (2006) highlights that, through the sense organs (socially and culturally developed), human beings perceive reality and attribute meaning to it. In the virtual environment, the perception of reality dispenses with the totality of these senses.

However, in-person classes do not, in themselves, guarantee the establishment of favorable encounters for the pedagogical process. Thus, the professors’ perception of the relationships established in in-person teaching appears idealized, in contrast to the turbulent, unplanned, concrete situation of teaching mediated by digital technology.

The highly individualized attention in remote learning and the simultaneous use of multiple digital communication tools pose greater challenges than those in face-to-face group instruction. Although individualized attention is seen as higher quality, the group’s relevance for the development of the pedagogical activity is evident, without diminishing the importance of individualized attention, supporting the relevance of the other for learning. Vigotski’s (2007) concept of the zone of proximal development underscores the importance of collaborative practices from the professor’s teaching organization, in which students perform actions together and subsequently perform them independently.

Final considerations

What emerges from this study is the need for the professionalization of pedagogical processes, in which, dialectically, rigor and generosity coexist, constituting the conscious expression of the unity of affect and cognition in pedagogical activity. Rigor is related to qualified pedagogical processes, committed to scientific knowledge, and generosity is the Spinozan one, of the desire to help others, considering their needs and the common good.

Professionalization encompasses the training of university professors, in which pedagogical aspects are part of the constitution of the professorial role, alongside the specific knowledge of their field. The study revealed that when institutional instructions conflict with professors’ meanings, they become a source of suffering, paralyzing and hindering the creation of practices that align with the new instructions. Institutional determinations and freedom of teaching are not mutually exclusive; they can coexist. The determinations can guarantee freedom for creation, and a theoretical understanding of these instructions is necessary.

The effective implementation of pedagogical activity, with the active participation of professors and students, requires adequate material conditions, planning, pedagogical strategies appropriate to the environment (face-to-face or virtual), and the execution of a set of actions that also plan interpersonal relationships.

The amalgamation between affections and the professor’s activity is revealed, in which adverse situations provoked sad and disempowering feelings, leading them to question their professional ability during the pandemic. This experience offers clues on how to face conflicting situations in daily university life. The collective search for solutions, associated with formative processes, fosters joyful feelings that enhance professors’ actions.

The desire of professors and students to be reciprocated and to have their academic and professional needs met is evident in a dialectical intertwining of motives, needs, and cognitive and affective aspirations.

An environment conducive to the development of individuals in pedagogical processes is understood as involving the feeling that their objective and subjective academic and professional needs are met, including the objectification of teaching, through the organization and work around systematized knowledge and the interpersonal relationships established for the appropriation of knowledge.

The contentment felt by professors and students in the analyzed teaching and learning process reveals the needs of a cognitive and affective nature. This confirms Vygotski’s thesis that every higher psychic function has an affective and cognitive nature, as well as Spinoza’s proposition that we form ideas based on how we have been affected, i.e., how the body is affected.

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• *
  English version by João Anacleto. The authors take full responsibility for the translation of the text, including title of books/articles and the quotations originally published in Portuguese.
• 4
  Research data: The entire dataset supporting the results of this study is available on Data Scielo and can be accessed at https://data.scielo.org/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.48331/SCIELODATA.06RVBA
• 5
  According to Delari Junior (2011), the term drama takes on different meanings in Vygotski’s work. In Collected Works IV (2006), it appears as developmental drama.

Edited by

• Editor:
  Prof. Dr. Fernando L. Cássio.

Data availability

Research data: The entire dataset supporting the results of this study is available on Data Scielo and can be accessed at https://data.scielo.org/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.48331/SCIELODATA.06RVBA

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  01 June 2026
• Date of issue
  2026

History

• Received
  08 Oct 2025
• Reviewed
  12 Dec 2025
• Accepted
  09 Feb 2026