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During the COVID‐19 crisis, digital informal learning is important for students' academic engagement. Although scholars have highlighted the importance of students' digital competence in improving digital informal learning (DIL), the mediating role of DIL between digital competence and academic engagement has remained ambiguous. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between students' digital competence and their academic engagement with the mediating role of DIL in the higher education context. This study used a descriptive correlational design, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The study sample included 308 students from Shiraz University, Iran. The results showed that digital competence positively and significantly correlated with students' DIL and their academic engagement. Furthermore, DIL, as the mediator variable, was found to mediate the relationship between students' digital competence and their academic engagement. Since higher education institutions have a key role in improving students' academic engagement, particularly in the COVID‐19 pandemic, academic administrators should pay more attention to students' digital competencies and provide them with efficient and user‐friendly DIL platforms that can increase their academic engagement. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: One of the challenges of online learning environments is students' engagement especially in the COVID‐19 crisis.The role of digital informal learning (DIL) in the students' engagement is ambiguous.Little work has been done to support the relationship between digital competence, DIL and academic engagement. What this paper adds: The structural equation model of academic engagement, digital competence, and DIL was examined.There is a significant relationship between digital competence and DIL of students.The engagement of students will increase both with the use of digital competencies and DIL. Implications for practice and/or policy: Administrators should provide efficient DIL platforms to increase students' academic engagement.Educators should consider students' digital competencies to increase their academic engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Understanding self‐regulated learning (SRL) is complicated due to the different measures used to identify the key SRL processes. There is a growing trend in applying event measures of SRL (microanalysis and trace) but aptitude measures (questionnaires) continue to be widely used in medical education. A major concern is whether aptitude measures are a valid approach to capture the dimensions of SRL processes. This study examined correlations between SRL microanalysis, SRL trace and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and how these measures were associated with biomedical science performance. Methods: An SRL microanalysis assessment interview was administered to 76 first‐year medical students individually when performing a biomedical science learning task. All written materials by students were collected for further trace analysis. Students completed an MSLQ 2 weeks before completing their biomedical science course. Correlation analyses were used to determine the correlations between the three SRL assessment measures. Bivariate and multiple analyses were conducted to compare students on different course or task performance using the three SRL assessment measures. Results: Microanalytic metacognitive monitoring (κ = 0.30, P <.001) and causal attributions (κ = 0.17, P =.009) had statistically significant correlations with use of the SRL trace strategy. MSLQ self‐efficacy correlated with microanalytic self‐efficacy (r =.39, P =.001). Bivariate tests showed that microanalytic metacognitive monitoring, causal attributions and adaptive inferences, and SRL trace strategy use had significant associations with task performance (P <.05). Microanalytic self‐efficacy, metacognitive monitoring and causal attributions, SRL trace strategy use and MSLQ self‐efficacy had significant associations with course performance (P <.05). Measures of use of the SRL trace strategy and MSLQ subscales did not show significant associations with task and course outcomes in multiple analyses (P >.05). Conclusions: Event measures, specifically SRL microanalysis, had greater associations with both task and course outcomes compared with the MSLQ measure. The SRL microanalysis is recommended for the assessment of SRL in biomedical science learning. However, to fully understand medical students' SRL a multidimensional assessment approach that combines event and aptitude measures should be used. Trying to measure engagement in self‐regulated learning? This paper stresses the value of prioritizing microanalysis given relationships with biomedical science learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undergraduate students' experience of assessment in universities is usually of summative assessment which provides only limited information to help students improve their performance. By contrast, formative assessment is informative and forward-looking, possessing the leverage to inform students of their day-to-day progress and inform teachers of how to better tailor their instruction to students' immediate learning needs. Despite these potentials, studies carried out on the use of formative assessment in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts are somehow rare. The current study reports on incorporating formative assessment in an L2 writing course in Iran. The analysis of data from pre- and post-study writing tasks, pre- and post-study questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews revealed that first-year undergraduate students were offered opportunities to improve various aspects of their writing and to develop positive attitudes toward writing as well as formative assessment. However, the students reported several challenges that could have implications for the further implementation of formative assessment in similar contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]