In recent years, the urgent discussion about teaching at colleges and universities online has triggered a rapid redesign of courses using modern media.

In the summer semester 2021, and 2023 respectively, the pedagogical-didactic goal was to enable three groups of students of an online-course on social science research methods to acquire practice-oriented knowledge about working methods in social science research with a participatory, research-based teaching approach and to involve them cognitively and affective-emotionally.  They should implement these working methods in a research project of their own choice.

In addition, a data-based evaluation was carried out on the quality of the online course with regard to the personal relevance (Balwant, 2017) of the content, the development of the criteria of research-based learning (Reitinger, 2016), as well as their social science competencies.

Studies by Eccles and Wigfield (2020, p. 59) have shown that student performance depends on positive emotions of those students. These emotions, in turn, are largely based on perceived control within courses, as well as the perceived value of the course content. Loderer, Pekrun and Lester (2020) as well as Pekrun and Linnenbrink-Garcia (2012) were also able to show for the tertiary education sector how the perceived control of learning arrangements and the ascribed value correlate with the cognitive and motivational engagement as well as the cognitively and emotionally conditioned behavior of students.

Value and control remain the precursors of learning emotions online (Loderer, Pekrun & Lester, 2020, p. 2), whereby in the online situation, external factors, such as dependence on the internet connection or technical possibilities, or disturbing environmental influences can have a negative effect on the control factor. On the other hand, benefits such as dislocated learning, time saving, etc. can have a positive impact on learners' perceived control.

Due to the possibility of individualisation and self-determination (Reitinger, 2016), inquiry-based learning seemed to be a suitable concept for the design of personally relevant teaching. Having a choice (Reeve, 2004), exploring authentically, hypothetising, and discussing ideas, processes, or results are crucial to inquiry based learning. At the same time, these are elements of self-determined learning that take into account the interests and concerns of the learners. In this way, inquiry based  learning can provide valuable learning opportunities that allow the learner a great deal of control over the learning process.

The challenge was to implement this in the online situation.

Accordingly, three research questions emerged:

To what extent do students experience a participatory, research-based learning process in online lessons?

To what extent do students experience the course content in online lessons as personally relevant?

Does this practice-oriented social science project also provide students with theoretical knowledge of social sciences´ research principles?

In this quantitative empirical study, a questionnaire was filled out by the students at the end of the course (n=56). It contained three parts: Personal Involvement (PII), Inquiry based learning (CILI), and course specific knowledge concerning research methods in social sciences. The Personal Involvement Inventory (PII) is based on Zaichkowsky's concept of involvement (1994) in terms of personal relevance. Zaichkowsky's understanding of involvement focuses on the affective and cognitive relationship between the person and his or her activity. This view of involvement finds parallels in the study of emotions in the educational context (Pekrun et al., 2009). The personal relevance of courses was tested by 5 items of 2 categories based on the valid PII from the advertising industry: (1) Affective factors: engaging, exciting, stimulating, interesting, intriguing (2) Cognitive factors: significant, relevant, important, valuable, useful The questionnaire CILI, Criteria based Inquiry learning inventory (Reitinger, 2016), was used to test whether the online lessons gave students opportunities for research-based learning. It is based on 4 criteria which emerge, when inquiry learning takes. This inventory was used to test, whether the students experienced situations that allowed for these criteria to emerge. Finally, 10 items of the questionnaire aimed at the knowledge of the participants regarding methods in social sciences.

The PII was used to measure the personal relevance of the course content for the students. All values of all five cognitive and five affective items are above the statistical standard. The course had a high value and benefit for the students. In addition, the affective items show that the positive emotions relevant to the learning process strongly predominated. The CILI questionnaire (Reitinger, 2016) contains 12 items, i.e. 3 items for each of the four criteria of research-based learning. The results show that all criteria of research-based learning were developed. During the course, the criteria of hypothetizing and critical discourse were particularly pronounced, followed by the opportunity to explore authentically in a self-determined way. The data also show that the course objective, namely the teaching of methodological skills in social science research, has been achieved. Factors of success were defined by the students themselves: these were the work in small groups by means of break-out sessions, independence and self-determination and the relatively free management of time. All these are factors that confirm the high level of control students have over their own learning process. The study shows, that positive emotions relevant for learning and personal involvement can be triggered successfully by inquiry based learning arrangements in online higher education teaching.

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