Approaches to e-learning

E-learning has made its entrance into educational institutions. Compared to traditional learning methods, e-learning has the benefit of enabling educational institutions to attract more students. E-learning not only opens up for an increased enrollment, it also gives students who would otherwise not be able to take the education to now get the possibility to do so. This paper introduces Axel Honneth’s theory on the need for recognition as a framework to understand the role and function of interaction in relation to e-learning. The paper argues that an increased focus on the dialectic relationship between recognition and learning will enable an optimization of the learning conditions and the interactive affordances targeting students under e-learning programs. The paper concludes that the engagement and motivation to learn are not only influenced by but depending on recognition.