Self-Care and Online Learning During COVID-19: Why Filipino Students Needed Time, Space, Support, and Internet

Article information

Cleofas, J. V. (2021). Self-care practices and online student engagement during Covid-19 in the Philippines: A mixed methods study. Issues in Educational Research, 31(3), 699-717. http://www.iier.org.au/iier31/cleofas.pdf 

What this study is about

When COVID-19 forced schools to move online, students did not simply shift from classrooms to Zoom or learning management systems. Their whole daily life changed. They studied at home, lost access to campus spaces, stopped meeting friends in person, spent long hours online, and dealt with stress, uncertainty, and quarantine restrictions. 

This study asks: How were Filipino college students practicing self-care during the pandemic, and how was self-care connected to their engagement in online classes?

The study focuses on self-care practices, meaning the everyday activities students use to support their physical, emotional, social, and mental well-being. It also examines online student engagement, or how actively and meaningfully students participate in online learning.

The paper’s central insight is simple but important: students need self-care to stay engaged in online learning, but online learning itself can also make self-care harder.

Why this matters

During the pandemic, many students experienced anxiety, depression, psychological distress, sleep problems, and academic strain. Online learning allowed education to continue, but it also created new pressures: longer screen time, heavier workloads, blurred boundaries between home and school, unstable internet, and fewer opportunities for rest. 

Self-care became important because it could protect students from stress and help them stay engaged. But self-care was not easy to practice. Many usual self-care activities—meeting friends, going outside, exercising outdoors, going to church, eating out, visiting salons or spas, traveling, or simply resting after school—were disrupted by quarantine.

What the researcher did

This was a convergent mixed methods study. That means the study collected both quantitative data and qualitative responses at the same time, then brought them together to understand the issue more deeply. 

The study included 202 undergraduate students from a private university in the Philippines. Data were collected through an online survey from January to February 2021. 

The quantitative part measured:

• self-care practices, using the Mindful Self-Care Scale;
• online student engagement, using the Online Student Engagement Scale; and
• background characteristics such as age, gender, year level, income, and internet quality. 

The qualitative part asked students how they practiced self-care before COVID-19, how these practices changed during pandemic online classes, and how they felt about those changes. The study framework in Figure 1 on page 3 shows how self-care, student characteristics, online engagement, and barriers to self-care were examined together. 

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What the study found

1) Students still practiced self-care, but unevenly

According to Table 1 on page 6, students reported the highest self-care score for supportive relationships. This means connection with friends, family, and significant others remained one of their strongest forms of care. 

The lowest score was for physical care, which includes exercise, healthy eating, hydration, and body-based practices. This makes sense because quarantine limited outdoor movement, gyms, sports, walking routes, and other physical activities.

Students also reported high online student engagement overall. This means many were still participating actively in online classes despite the difficulties of pandemic learning. 

2) Self-care was linked to online student engagement

The study found that five self-care domains were significantly related to online student engagement:

• physical care;
• supportive relationships;
• self-compassion and purpose;
• mindful relaxation; and
• supportive structures. 

The strongest relationship was with supportive structures, which refers to managing time, space, routines, and organization. In simple terms, students who were better able to structure their lives were also more engaged online.

This finding is practical. Online learning requires more than motivation. Students need routines, rest, organization, emotional support, and spaces that help them function.

3) Mindful awareness was shaped by social position

Older students, female students, and students from poorer households had lower scores in mindful awareness. The study explains this through students’ lived situations. Older and female students may have had more household responsibilities, while students from poorer families may have had fewer resources to outsource chores or protect study time. 

This is important because self-care is often treated as an individual responsibility. But the study shows that self-care is also shaped by gender, age, household income, domestic labor, and family expectations.

4) Internet quality affected self-care

Internet connection was associated with several self-care domains, including supportive relationships, mindful awareness, self-compassion and purpose, and supportive structures. Students with poor internet had lower self-care scores in several areas. 

Poor internet did not only affect class attendance. It also affected rest, sleep, stress, communication, time management, and connection with others. Some students had to work late at night because that was when internet speed was better. This disrupted sleep and reduced time for self-care.

5) Quarantine created barriers to self-care

The qualitative findings identified quarantine-related barriers as one major theme. Students lost access to social interaction, outdoor activities, travel, restaurants, cinemas, salons, spas, churches, and other spaces they used for relaxation and emotional recovery. 

Many students missed friends. Some said online interaction was not the same as seeing people in person. Others missed walking outside, jogging, swimming, playing sports, traveling, going to church, or simply being outside to breathe and decompress.

This shows that self-care was not only something students did alone. Many self-care practices depended on mobility, place, social contact, and public spaces.

6) Online classes also became barriers to self-care

The second major theme was online-class-related barriers. Students described online classes as time-consuming and psychologically exhausting. 

Some said requirements felt endless. Others said their rest time disappeared because assignments could be posted anytime. Several reported sleeping late, losing routines, and feeling that home no longer felt like home because it had become a school space.

Students also described fatigue from screen exposure, notifications, dizziness, stress, and the constant feeling of being “always in school.” This made it harder to exercise, meditate, sleep properly, create art, dance, write, or relax.

7) Self-care and online learning had a complicated relationship

One of the strongest insights of the study is that self-care and online engagement had both a supportive and conflictingrelationship.

On one hand, students who practiced more self-care tended to be more engaged in online classes. On the other hand, the demands of online classes reduced the time and energy students had for self-care. 

This is why the paper describes the relationship as nuanced. Students may need self-care to learn well, but online learning systems must also be designed so students have enough time, space, energy, and support to care for themselves.

Bottom line

This study shows that self-care matters for online student engagement, but self-care cannot be reduced to telling students to “take care of themselves.” During the pandemic, students’ ability to practice self-care was shaped by quarantine, internet access, household conditions, workload, gendered responsibilities, income, and the emotional strain of online learning. 

The key message is clear: student self-care is not only an individual habit. It is also an educational, social, and structural issue.

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Policy/practice recommendations

1. Design online classes with self-care time in mind
   Faculty should avoid overwhelming students with nonstop requirements, unclear deadlines, or tasks that erase rest time.
2. Support students with poor internet access
   Schools should provide flexible deadlines, asynchronous options, downloadable materials, and low-bandwidth alternatives.
3. Do not use one-size-fits-all self-care programs
   Students have different barriers depending on income, gender, age, household responsibilities, internet quality, and living space.
4. Treat supportive structures as a learning support
   Schools can teach students time management, study routines, boundary-setting, sleep protection, and workspace organization.
5. Protect social connection
   Since supportive relationships were a strong self-care domain, universities should create safe ways for students to maintain peer connection and belonging.
6. Recognize the gendered and household burden of online learning
   Female students and older students may carry more domestic responsibilities, which can reduce their ability to practice mindful self-care.
7. Promote self-care as part of student engagement strategy
   Self-care should not be treated as separate from learning. It helps students participate, perform, and remain emotionally available for study.

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Glossary of key terms

• Self-care — Everyday practices that help people care for their physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual well-being.
• Mindful self-care — Self-care practices done with awareness, intention, and attention to one’s body, emotions, relationships, and needs.
• Physical care — Self-care activities involving the body, such as exercise, healthy eating, hydration, sleep, and body-based practices.
• Supportive relationships — Self-care through meaningful connection with friends, family, romantic partners, or other significant people.
• Mindful awareness — Calm awareness of one’s thoughts, emotions, body, and present experience.
• Self-compassion and purpose — Treating oneself with kindness, accepting challenges, and maintaining a sense of meaning.
• Mindful relaxation — Active relaxation practices such as meditation, prayer, breathing exercises, hobbies, or quiet rest.
• Supportive structures — Organizing one’s time, space, routines, and environment in ways that support well-being.
• Online student engagement — Students’ active involvement in online learning, including skills, emotions, participation, and performance.
• Convergent mixed methods design — A research design where quantitative and qualitative data are collected during the same period, analyzed separately, and integrated.
• Mindful Self-Care Scale / MSCS — A scale used to measure different domains of self-care.
• Online Student Engagement Scale / OSE — A scale used to measure students’ engagement in online classes.
• Quarantine-related barriers — Barriers caused by lockdown restrictions, such as reduced social interaction, limited mobility, and closure of self-care spaces.
• Online-class-related barriers — Barriers caused by the demands of online learning, such as workload, screen fatigue, poor internet, and psychological exhaustion.
• Supportive structure — The self-care domain most strongly linked to online student engagement in this study.
• Digital learning fatigue — Tiredness or exhaustion caused by prolonged online classes, screen use, notifications, and digital academic work.
• Student well-being — The overall condition of students’ mental, emotional, social, and physical functioning.