Using Video Technologies To Understand Students’ Anxieties Towards Real-life Scenarios

This study uses video technologies to understand students' anxieties towards an emergent life situation, which is the potential presence of concealed firearms on campus. An experiment was conducted (N =203) using three video presentations to manipulate the degree of visibility (low vs. moderate vs. high visibility) of the concealed firearms. Results showed visibility of the concealed weapon, classification of participant, and participant's general feelings toward gun significantly affected the participant's classroom anxiety level. Specifically, participants felt much more anxious in the high visibility of concealed weapon condition than the low and moderate visibility conditions. Seniors reported significantly lower classroom anxiety than freshmen, sophomores, and juniors across all visibility conditions. Furthermore, the more comfortable the participant felt toward guns in general, the less classroom anxiety he or she experienced. Last, participants felt more afraid and nervous as the proximity of the gun increased. The result showed that new technologies could potential serve as an important tool to help facilitate critical thinking and better understand and solve real-life problems.