When no one can go to school: does online learning meet students’ basic learning needs?

What will happen if students cannot go to school and can rely on online learning? This study aimed to examine whether students’ basic learning needs could be met when teaching and learning can only be conducted through online mode. According to Ormrod (2011 Ormrod, J. E. (2011). Human learning (6th ed.). Pearson. [Google Scholar]), the four basic learning needs are arousal, autonomy, relatedness and competence, which were used as the theoretical framework for this study. Mixed methods were used to evaluate whether basic learning needs were met. A total of 118 school students were recruited to a validated questionnaire and 36 of them joined an individual in-depth interview. Results showed that the basic learning needs of autonomy and competence were met through online learning but not the need of relatedness. Autonomy was found to have direct relationship with competence but not relatedness nor there was any relationship between arousal and other learning needs. It was so found that positive and adequate negative arousal could serve as a catalyst to facilitate effective online learning.