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With an increased interest in makerspace in K‐12 education, professional development (PD) is needed to equip teachers with the knowledge, skills and dispositions to effectively incorporate makerspace and maker technology in teaching. This study examined a virtual PD programme to improve K‐12 teachers' knowledge, attitudes and beliefs in teaching with maker technology. Data were collected from 43 in‐service schoolteachers through project artefacts, survey questionnaires and reflection journals. Results of the qualitative and quantitative analyses show that the PD experience effectively improved participants' knowledge in maker technology and the associated pedagogy, as well as their attitudes and beliefs towards teaching with maker technology. Implications for designing and implementing a virtual maker‐centred teacher PD programme and directions for future research are discussed. Practitioner notesWhat is currently known about this topic Makerspaces and maker technology have been increasingly introduced to K‐12 settings to promote student learning.Teachers struggle to effectively design and implement maker‐centred instruction.Empirical research was very limited on preparing in‐service teachers for maker‐centred instruction.Maker resource deficiency in rural areas and the COVID‐19 pandemic added pressure for researchers and educators to develop alternative models for digitalizing maker‐centred professional development (PD).What this paper adds This study designed and implemented virtual maker‐centred PD activities to prepare K‐12 schoolteachers for integrating maker technology in classroom teaching.Both quantitative and qualitative results show that virtual maker‐centred PD activities significantly improved teachers' knowledge of maker technology and the associated pedagogy, and also improved their attitudes and beliefs toward teaching with maker technology.This paper provides a practical example of how maker‐centred PD for in‐service teachers could be accomplished through a virtual programme.Implications for practitioners It is beneficial for teachers to have hands‐on experience through making to better understand what maker technology can do and what the learning process is in making.Domain and context‐specific making contributed to the development of making‐associated pedagogy skills, as well as attitudes and beliefs towards maker technology.PD programmes should focus on maker knowledge and skills first to improve teachers' attitudes and beliefs.For at‐a‐distance making, it is important to provide access to a collection of tools and give teachers an immersive experience in an authentic makerspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many educational institutions have adopted online assessment in recent years. Previous studies on online assessment have often been tied to studies on learning management systems. As such, questions of online assessment acceptance have typically been overshadowed by a focus on the acceptance of learning management systems in general. The focus of the present research on online assessment is relatively rare. This paper describes the validation of an instrument to measure online assessment adoption by lecturers in higher education. A total of 213 participants responded to a 20‐item online questionnaire. With the data collected and the model fit, the instrument developed was able to meet the expectations to measure online assessment. The preliminary evidence of the validity of the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model, based on its reliability found in the current study, supports the use of the instrument as a technology acceptance framework for online assessment systems. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model has been found to be a reliable and robust model to study and explain technology acceptance and use across various educational contexts.In the UTAUT model, performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI) and facilitating conditions are direct determinants of user acceptance and use behaviour.Subsequent validation by Venkatesh et al. (2003) in a longitudinal study found that the UTAUT model was a competent model that explained the relationships between PE, EE, SI and user behavioural intention (BI).What this paper adds An extended UTAUT model has been proposed, with the removal of EE as many UTAUT studies have shown that its influence has not been as consistent as compared to that of the other original constructs. In its place, constructs such as usability and learnability have been added as potential influences on both BI and use behaviour.Attitude as a construct has been added, as this was first included in an earlier Technology Acceptance Model but absent in the original UTAUT model.Development of a validated instrument suitable for assessing educators' acceptance of online assessment based on the extended UTAUT model.Implications for practice and/or policy The instrument proposed in this study can be used as a tool to examine educators' perception on online assessment.The instrument can also be used as a tool to inform educational institutions the factors that influence the successful implementation of online assessment or assessment‐related systems.Based on its reliability found in the current study, this study supports the use of the instrument as a technology acceptance framework for online assessment systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the topics discussed within the issue is presented, focusing on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education, including online aviation program in China and Hong Kong, attitudes of teachers and students toward emergency remote teaching and bibliometrics of online teaching.

The annual instructional virtual team Project X brings together professors and students from across the globe to engage in client projects. The 2020 project was challenged by the global disruption of the COVID‐19 pandemic. This paper draws on a quantitative dataset from a post‐project survey among 500 participating students and a qualitative narrative inquiry of personal experiences of the faculty members. The findings reveal how innovative use of a variety of collaboration and communication technologies helped students and their professors in building emotional connection and compassion to support each other in the midst of the crisis, and to accomplish the project despite connectivity disruptions. The results suggest that the role of an instructor changed to a coach and mentor, and technology was used to create a greater sense of inclusion and co‐presence in student‐faculty interactions. Ultimately, the paper highlights the role of technology to help the participants navigate sudden crisis affecting a global online instructional team project. The adaptive instructional teaching strategies and technologies depicted in this study offer transformative potential for future developments in higher education. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic The modern workplace calls for cross‐cultural, digital collaboration skills, and this need has increased potentially after the impacts of the pandemic on moving a lot of work to remote settings—permanently.While instructional virtual teams are being used as part of diverse curricula to add an international, experiential element for students, universities still struggle helping students to acquire the whole spectrum of skills needed for the global digital workplace: virtual teamwork, project management, and comfort on working with digital business collaboration platforms.Virtual team research has studied impacts of the pandemic on organizational teams but there is little research on instructional online teams during the pandemic crisis.What this paper adds This paper adds evidence‐based knowledge how virtual instructional teams, and their instructors navigated the broken connectivity situation when a global external health crisis forced students to transition from campuses to home environments in the middle of the collaboration project.It offers practical ideas how faculty used technology to connect with students and maintain class community in cases of inequal access to technology from home environments by using multiple platforms, and both, computer, and mobile enabled communication.It offers examples of student‐centered, coaching‐like teaching strategies and how these were applied when the global health crisis affected students in instructional teams.Implications for practice and policy The study offers implications for development of digital pedagogies for future; specifically, how to develop students' virtual intelligence and to promote intercultural awareness and collaboration skills in future higher education.The pandemic experiences shed additional light on the need to develop and acquire soft skills among students, for them to be able to navigate struggles and crisis in global, digital real workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aimed to provide a holistic view of research that investigated online learning in higher education around the globe during COVID‐19 utilizing a bibliometric analysis. The researchers used co‐citation analysis and text mining afforded by VOSviewer to document and analyze research patterns and topics reported in peer‐reviewed documents published between January 2020 and August 2021. Findings of this study indicated that scholars from 103 countries or regions from the Global North and Global South investigated a wide array of topics, such as use of various technologies and strategies, redesigned curriculum, student perceptions and psychological impacts of the pandemic‐imposed online learning. Many researchers applied technology acceptance theories and structural equation modeling to investigate factors associated with adoption and impacts of the pandemic‐imposed online learning. Of the large quantity of research, medical education and chemical education were the most investigated disciplines. Inquiry‐based learning, discovery learning, hands‐on learning and collaborative learning emerged as instructional approaches frequently discussed or utilized across the target studies. This paper discussed (a) ongoing and emerging challenges to online higher education, (b) placing innovative pedagogies at the forefront of online learning, and (c) rapid, but imbalanced distribution of evolving literature based on the findings. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Online learning had attracted growing traction as a flexible and affordable means to complement traditional higher education prior to COVID‐19.Higher education institutions (HEIs), faculty and students around the globe have encountered various challenges and opportunities regarding online teaching and learning during COVID‐19.What this paper adds A bird's‐eye‐view perspective of how HEIs around the globe responded to the pandemic‐imposed online teaching and learning using the bibliometric methodology.Identifications of a large body of research (n = 1061 documents) conducted by scholars from 103 countries or regions that investigated the pandemic‐imposed online higher education, indicating an unprecedented level of participation in this area.An analysis of distinct themes arising from research on the pandemic‐imposed online learning, such as medical education and psychological impact, chemistry curriculum and laboratory‐based instruction and technology acceptance model.Implications for practice and/or policy The large corpus of studies on online higher education from different aspects can provide cross‐disciplinary information guiding future research and design of online learning.With technology often conceptualized as the solution to support online learning, it is imperative to put innovative pedagogy at the forefront of the design of online teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the last 28 years, one of the leading international science education organisations has regularly provided a week‐long summer school experience for doctoral students. In summer 2020, the COVID‐19 pandemic prevented international travel and close‐contact interactions between scholars. This required the transformation and relocation of learning interactions between mentors and doctoral students online through a virtual week‐long summer school. All doctoral participants, from across the five continents, were invited to reflectively comment on their educative experience after the online event. This paper consequently presents the perspectives of these science education PhD students who engaged with the transformed virtual summer school to consider how the range of varied online interactions maintained the learning opportunities for them and enabled their introduction to an established research community. The study indicates how the digital activities facilitated and maintained high‐quality learning exchanges through a varied array of intellectual activities involving both experienced and novice scholars. The findings demonstrate how successful academic outcomes can be achieved remotely while minimising international travel and significantly reducing financial outlay. This was achieved through creatively structuring a week‐long virtual experience and combining a series of synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities for different groupings of participants within the international summer school community. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Doctoral students often feel that studying for their research degree is a very solitary experience.Supporting doctoral students to discuss their research with peers and more experienced others can address the feelings of isolation.The pandemic restricting face‐to‐face interaction constrains how learning can unfold in online contexts.It is possible to provide doctoral support through online means, however, the exact nature of such is not clearly defined.What this paper adds Clear evidence that doctoral learning communities [involving university students and tutors] can be successfully developed through online virtual environments.That online working can afford and extend doctoral learning, develop beginning researcher identities and provide students the opportunity to become part of an international research community whatever their geographical setting and prior socio‐cultural experiences.Clarity about the nature of online activities that ensure an appropriate blend of the kind of synchronous and asynchronous interactions that effectively support virtual online doctoral learning.The Community of Practice COP theoretical framework can offer a useful way of looking at different dimensions of higher degree learning.Implications for practice and/or policy This paper provides advice for those who would like to develop their own virtual learning networks that bring together learners from universities and wider organisations to develop a community of learning.That an appropriate blend of synchronous and asynchronous interactions can mediate and support doctoral students, aiding them to effectively become more knowledgeable members of an international research community within a short space of time.That international virtual events can successfully achieve learning outcomes while also minimising overseas travel, significantly reducing financial expenditure and individual carbon footprints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stress has become one of the major reasons for many mental health related issues among students of all age groups, which has resulted in devastating personal losses including suicide. Societal and familial pressure to succeed is high, particularly in developing countries where education is highly valued as a key enabler. As part of stress management during the COVID‐19 pandemic, demand for online intelligent virtual advisors has risen and, consequently, the need for personalised explanation that is culturally sensitive to the user's context is essential to improve the user's understanding of and trust in the recommendations provided by the virtual advisor. This paper presents the mAnaging stRess at University embodied conversational agent (ECA) that has been adapted for Indian university students from an explainable agent that was found to help Western students reduce their stress by providing study tips with explanations based on the student's beliefs and/or goals. We conducted a research study with sixty students which measured the impact of providing three different patterns of tailored explanations (belief‐based, goal‐based, and belief and goal‐based explanation) on the students' intentions to change the recommended behaviours and the relationship built with the ECA. The experimental results indicate that there was stress reduction across all student groups provided with different types of explanations. Further, the students showed trust and a good working alliance with the conversational agent, along with an intention to change behaviour across all types of explanations. However, it was observed that the user context played an important role in behaviour change intention and hence explanations could be tailored further, making them culturally more relevant to Indian students. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicEmbodied conversational agents (ECAs) have been mostly developed, applied and shown to be effective in developed countries. Hence, their design and development are mostly guided by the intended user's needs and preferences.In a Western context, ECAs have been found to be beneficial for reducing study stress in university students.There is a pertinent need for use of low cost, effective technology that can aid academic stress reduction in higher educational institutions in developing countries owing to their high youth populations, lack of adequate mental healthcare facilities and associated social stigma.What this paper addsThe adaptation and use of ECAs to reduce study stress in higher education students in a developing country is evaluated.The ECA technology is adapted for an Indian context in terms of its physical appearance, colour, speech dialect and dialog content so that it is culturally more aligned to the target population.The ECA engages in an empathic conversation tailored for the Indian students and their COVID‐19 context providing them with explanation‐backed behaviour recommendations that take their beliefs and goals into account.The ECA provides three types of explanation: belief‐only; goal‐only; and both belief and goal.Results of a study carried out in an Indian university with 61 students, randomly assigned to one of the explanation types, to capture their demographics, study stress statistics, behaviour change intentions and trust/working alliance with the conversational agent.The major findings include stress reduction across all explanation groups, development of a positive relationship between the ECA and the students regardless of its explanation pattern, and changes in behaviour intentions across all types of explanations for all recommended behaviours. However, differences in change intentions for certain behaviours indicate further tailoring of explanations is required based on the user context.Implications for practice and/or policyThe ECA technology has shown promise in terms of stress reduction amongst Indian students.Higher Education Institutions in developing countries could utilise low‐cost and widely accessible ECAs to overcome lack of access to human‐based support and reluctance to use available services due to stigmatized attitudes to mental health issues.This technology can be further improved and deployed into a larger number of Indian educational institutions leading to a widespread impact on overall student health and wellbeing.Digital technologies to support mental health have become more prominent during the COVID‐19 pandemic, at least in Western countries. The ECA technology evaluated in our study demonstrates its viability and potential value for use in developing countries, with appropriate tailoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open online education experiences persistently high dropout rates, and the efficacy of dropout interventions has been questioned. Despite considerable research, dropout reasons are not fully understood, and further in‐depth investigation has been called for. Prior qualitative retention studies have frequently relied on smaller samples that are unable to generate deeper appreciation of dropout reasons. Over 200 in‐depth interviews were therefore conducted with students that had dropped out of open online education. The probability‐based qualitative sample facilitated capture of subthemes down to a 5% incidence level or frequency of occurrence. Thematic analysis revealed 41 subthemes within 10 broad dropout reasons. While the broad dropout themes have been identified previously, the subthemes are new and provide richer understanding. This study also captured students' suggestions for what might have prevented their dropout. Thematic analysis identified 19 subthemes within 5 broad intervention themes that respond to the root dropout causes. Many intervention subthemes address personal and learner context dropout factors that have often been considered uncontrollable and unavoidable. This paper therefore redefines dropout in open online education and offers new insights for improving retention. It also provides a strategic framework for evaluating dropouts and prioritising student‐informed interventions that respond to the main dropout causes. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Persistently high open online education dropout suggests existing interventions are ineffective.Prior qualitative retention studies identified the main dropout reasons, but small sample sizes failed to generate deeper insights and more in‐depth investigation has been called for.What this paper adds A probability‐based qualitative sample of 226 participants captured dropout subthemes down to a 5% level of incidence or frequency of occurrence.Thematic analysis identified 41 subthemes, within 10 broad dropout reasons. These subthemes are new and offer richer understanding.Thematic analysis also identified 19 subthemes within 5 broad dropout intervention areas that students suggested could have prevented their dropout. These include new insights for addressing dropout causes that have often previously been considered unavoidable.Implications for practice and/or policy The strategic framework provides a retention management approach that prioritises responding to the main dropout causes with student‐informed interventions.This approach and the deeper understanding afforded by robust qualitative investigation should help reduce persistently high dropout rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A discussion of the relative lack of research into e-leadership in educational technology in education is followed by an outline of selected prior literature in the field. The paper proposes that, as part of a natural evolution of educational technology research, considerably more attention needs to be focused on research and development in e-leadership. Building on selected prior literature, an updated framework of principles for effective 'e-leadership' of educational technology is proposed, with specific reference to higher education, building on selected insights derived from e-leadership literature and on the author's experience of 30 years of professional practice, scholarship and research into educational technologies and leadership in education. The paper proposes the development of a new fifth 'age' of educational technology research in which it is argued that more critical, selective, strategic e-leadership approaches to the adoption and use of educational technology need to be progressed through research, development and training as the field matures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the publication of research papers from the Asia-Pacific region concerning developments in distance education. It states that a survey of 695 papers published between 2000 and 2008 in five education journals found that 80 percent of the papers originated from the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, Australia and China, and that only a third of contributions to the "British Journal of Educational Technology" came from the Asia-Pacific region. It comments on the expansion of distance education in the Asia-Pacific and integration of information and communications technology in open and conventional schooling. It talks about reasons for rejected papers including questionable research methodologies and data analysis and a lack of coherence, persuasiveness and logic in arguments.

An introduction is presented wherein the authors discuss various reports within the issue on topics, including the use of digital media in early childhood education, its benefits, and the effects and a critical view of media consumption in early childhood.

Most research on learning technology uses clickstreams and questionnaires as their primary source of quantitative data. This study presents the outcomes of a systematic literature review of empirical evidence on the capabilities of multimodal data (MMD) for human learning. This paper provides an overview of what and how MMD have been used to inform learning and in what contexts. A search resulted in 42 papers that were included in the analysis. The results of the review depict the capabilities of MMD for learning and the ongoing advances and implications that emerge from the employment of MMD to capture and improve learning. In particular, we identified the six main objectives (ie, behavioral trajectories, learning outcome, learning‐task performance, teacher support, engagement and student feedback) that the MMLA research has been focusing on. We also summarize the implications derived from the reviewed articles and frame them within six thematic areas. Finally, this review stresses that future research should consider developing a framework that would enable MMD capacities to be aligned with the research and learning design (LD). These MMD capacities could also be utilized on furthering theory and practice. Our findings set a baseline to support the adoption and democratization of MMD within future learning technology research and development. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic Capturing and measuring learners' engagement and behavior using MMD has been explored in recent years and exhibits great potential.There are documented challenges and opportunities associated with capturing, processing, analyzing and interpreting MMD to support human learning.MMD can provide insights into predicting learning engagement and performance as well as into supporting the process.What this paper adds Provides a systematic literature review (SLR) of empirical evidence on MMD for human learning.Summarizes the insights MMD can give us about the learning outcomes and process.Identifies challenges and opportunities of MMD to support human learning.Implications for practice and/or policy Learning analytics researchers will be able to use the SLR as a guide for future research.Learning analytics practitioners will be able to use the SLR as a summary of the current state of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces reports within the issue on topics, including the implications of materialism and other posthumanist views of learning within education, a discussion of the notion of critical posthuman literacy, and an analysis of digital and non-digital painting materialities.

The paper contributes to design discourse by drawing on Educational Design Research (EDR) that has been conducted into what we call a Zone of Possibility (ZoP) over the past seven years. We define a ZoP as a place where individuals can overcome the constraints of expectations and power structures to effect desired change. Specifically, this paper presents details of how our initial research question (RQ1) has evolved to the one presented in the conclusions (RQ2); both RQs are summarised below in the section "Research Questions." To describe this evolution, the paper is presented as 3 cases (Confer, ZoP Stokes Croft and Google Lens in HE) that have provided insights to explore the concept of the ZoP and its implications for EDR. Specifically, one of the main conclusions is the importance of bridging positioning practices as "successful communication" and an understanding of social context in hybrid contexts (ie, the ZoP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes an approach to history education which leverages augmented reality (AR). Currently, most learning interventions with AR are designed from the paradigm of an expert‐led model of teaching, where the AR artefact is created by a domain expert; under such a paradigm, the learner has limited ownership of the process of artefact production. The project reported in this paper aimed to broaden the application of AR in education, specifically to history education, by exploring the affordances of such technology in mediating student‐led learning activities, using an approach known as learner‐generated augmentation. The current Singapore Secondary History syllabus adopts an inquiry‐based approach. The need to memorize key facts is still an important part in formulating historical arguments. The study involved the design of a learning activity to help students memorize historical information more effectively by building upon the established memory technique of Memory Palace/method of loci. In this activity, students used a free AR mobile application—Just a Line—to sketch out memory palaces of key information from a prose passage. This activity was trialled on student‐teachers who are majoring in History at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. After they had sketched their memory palaces in three dimensions, they were interviewed on their experience. Samples of their learning artefacts (their sketches) and analyses of their comments, are reported. No claim is made with respect to the absolute efficacy of the approach, given the limited number of participants in the study. The intent of this paper is instead to invite exploration and debate around the wider affordances of AR for learning. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic So far, initiatives which use augmented reality (AR) in learning have been designed from the paradigm of an expert‐led, rather than student‐centred, model of teaching.The learner‐generated augmentation approach offers a possible way of designing student‐centred learning interventions with AR technology.One of the known challenges of learning history is the accurate recall of historical facts.Memory palace/method of loci is one strategy that can be used to aid memorization, but it suffers from certain limitations.What this paper adds The study described in this paper aims to address the challenges of accurately recalling historical facts, through the use of freely‐available cross‐platform AR software for smartphones.The study takes advantage of the affordances of AR to improve the memory palace/method of loci strategy by providing ways for learners to represent their tacit imaginations of the memory palace more explicitly.Learners can be encouraged to understand that their everyday environments are actually potential contexts for more authentic learning.Implications for practice and/or policy This study demonstrates the possibility of using AR technologies as part of student‐centred learning.This study demonstrates the feasibility of applying the Learner‐Generated Augmentation approach to subject disciplines such as the Social Sciences, which emphasize the socially‐constructed interpretation of events.The study demonstrates the feasibility of using AR technology to build upon the memory palace/method of loci strategy, so that the effectiveness of the latter is less dependent on the abilities of the learner for abstract imagination, thereby making the subject discipline more accessible to a wider cohort of learners.The study suggests that the memory palaces which result from the approach may be used by learners and their peers/teachers as part of Assessment for Learning.As this is the second application of the approach of Learner‐Generated Augmentation to a subject discipline (the original application being in Chemistry) the study suggests that the approach may be translated beyond its original application in the Natural Sciences to the Social Sciences as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of immersive virtual field trips (VFTs) with head‐mounted displays (HMDs) on the presence and perceived learning. A mixed‐method approach was used to obtain an overall understanding of students' experiences with this immersive technology in an elementary classroom. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 27 elementary‐school students through presence surveys and reflection papers. Statistical analyses were performed to compare immersive VFTs with traditional VFTs regarding students' virtual presence. Further, an inductive content analysis was performed to analyze reflection papers. The results showed an overall enhancement in virtual presence with the use of immersive VFTs. However, students felt that learning was not favorable with HMDs. The result of this study provides practical implications for the use of immersive VFTs in classroom settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes an interdisciplinary approach combining digital education with disability theory to investigate disabled children's digital use practices for formal learning. Evidence suggests that children's lives have been transformed through engagement with digital technologies, eg, computers, laptops and mobile devices. Even so, empirical studies about disabled children's uses of technology remain limited, particularly studies that engage with disabled children's own views in context. In response, an exploratory, participatory research study was designed to gain up‐to‐date insights into how visually impaired children, as an illustrative case, experienced digital technologies for learning within the context of inclusive education policy. Disabled children and teachers were interviewed in mainstream schools in England; results were analysed using social practice theory to identify digital use practices characterised as digital learning and digital accessibility practices alongside children's experiences. Outcomes were mixed. Youngsters saw benefits to using digital technologies, particularly tablets, for learning. Nevertheless, digital accessibility practices were potentially stigmatising and carried an extra task load to overcome barriers that occurred when teachers had not developed inclusive digital pedagogy. The paper discusses the implications of these findings and calls for further research to guide schools to use digital technologies to support inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education and education research are experiencing increased digitization and datafication, partly thanks to the rise in popularity of massively open online courses (MOOCs). The infrastructures that collect, store and analyse the resulting big data have received critical scrutiny from sociological, epistemological, ethical and analytical perspectives. These critiques tend to highlight concerns and/or warnings about the lack of the infrastructures' and builders' understanding of various nontechnical aspects of big data research (eg seeing data as neutral rather than as products of social processes). These critiques have primarily come from outside of the builder community, rendering the conversation largely one‐sided and devoid of the voices of the builders themselves. The purpose of this paper is to re‐balance the conversation by reporting the results of interviews with 11 data infrastructure builders in higher education institutions. The interviews reveal that builders engage deeply with the issues the critiques outline, not only thinking about them, but also developing practices to address them. The paper focuses the findings on three themes: designing a productive science, navigating ubiquitous ethics and achieving real human impact. Researchers, policymakers and infrastructure builders can use these accounts to better understand the building process and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent Tutoring systems (ITSs) and Intelligent Learning Environments (ILEs) have been developed and evaluated over the last 40 years. Recent meta‐analyses show that they perform well enough to act as effective classroom assistants under the guidance of a human teacher. Despite this success, they have been criticised as embodying a retrograde behaviourist technology. They have also been caught up in broader controversies about the role of Artificial Intelligence in society and about the entry of big data companies into the education market and the harvesting of learner data. This paper concentrates on rebutting the criticisms of the pedagogy of ITSs and ILEs. It offers examples of how a much wider range of pedagogies are available than their critics claim. These wider pedagogies operate at both the screen level of individual systems, as well as at the classroom level within which the systems are orchestrated by the teacher. It argues that there are many ways that such systems can be integrated by the teacher into the overall experience of a class. Taken together, the screen‐level and orchestration‐level dramatically enlarge the range of pedagogies beyond what was possible with the "Skinner Box." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital data are transforming higher education (HE) to be more student‐focused and metrics‐centred. In the UK, capturing detailed data about students has become a government priority, with an emphasis on using student data to measure, compare and assess university performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the governmental and commercial drivers of current large‐scale technological efforts to collect and analyse student data in UK HE. The result is an expanding data infrastructure which includes large‐scale and longitudinal datasets, learning analytics services, student apps, data dashboards and digital learning platforms powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Education data scientists have built positive pedagogic cases for student data analysis, learning analytics and AI. The politicization and commercialization of the wider HE data infrastructure is translating them into performance metrics in an increasingly market‐driven sector, raising the need for policy frameworks for ethical, pedagogically valuable uses of student data in HE. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic Learning analytics, education data science and artificial intelligence are opening up new ways of collecting and analysing student data in higher education.UK government policies emphasize the use of student data for improvements to teaching and learning.What this paper adds A conceptual framework from "infrastructure studies" demonstrates how political objectives and commercial aims are fused to HE data systems, with data infrastructure becoming a key tool of government reform.A critical infrastructure analysis shows that student data processing technologies are being developed and deployed to measure university performance through student data.Implications for practice and/or policy Educators and managers in universities need to prepare robust institutional frameworks to govern their use of student data.Learning analytics practitioners, data scientists, learning scientists and social science researchers need to collaborate with the policy community and education technology developers on new policy frameworks to challenge narrow uses of student data as performance metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning analytics (LA) has demonstrated great potential in improving teaching quality, learning experience and administrative efficiency. However, the adoption of LA in higher education is often beset by challenges in areas such as resources, stakeholder buy‐in, ethics and privacy. Addressing these challenges in a complex system requires agile leadership that is responsive to pressures in the environment and capable of managing conflicts. This paper examines LA adoption processes among 21 UK higher education institutions using complexity leadership theory as a framework. The data were collected from 23 interviews with institutional leaders and subsequently analysed using a thematic coding scheme. The results showed a number of prominent challenges associated with LA deployment, which lie in the inherent tensions between innovation and operation. These challenges require a new form of leadership to create and nurture an adaptive space in which innovations are supported and ultimately transformed into the mainstream operation of an institution. This paper argues that a complexity leadership model enables higher education to shift towards more fluid and dynamic approaches for LA adoption, thus ensuring its scalability and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disparities in the technology practices, skills and knowledge of school students still exist, despite widespread investment, and use in schools. In order to understand why inequalities remain, we first need a more nuanced understanding of students' technology practice, including understanding how their backgrounds, circumstances and experiences shape their perceptions of and engagement with technology. This paper proposes that research in the field of educational technology would benefit from a sociological framing in order to highlight how and why students use technology at school and in their everyday lives. The paper reports on a qualitative embedded case study of 13–16‐year‐old students in two Australian secondary schools. In‐depth case studies of two selected students illustrate the complex nature of students' technology practice. Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital are used as a lens through which to view and understand inequalities in students' technology practice. The findings demonstrate the utility of sociological theory in educational technology research by highlighting systems and structures of reproduction and transformation. Furthermore, the findings can inform an approach to teaching and learning that considers students' varied experiences, knowledge, perspectives and backgrounds relating to technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses the various articles published within the issue on such topics as children and digital technologies, smart toys and children, and children's learning using tablets.

Abstract: Learning styles (LS) have been used for classifying students by their preferences relative to taking information in, processing it and demonstrating their ability in the context of education. This paper investigates the role of LS in K‐12 education by considering the manner in which student LS are assessed and the extent to which they have informed K‐12 instruction. The paper illustrates the impact of LS on teachers, pedagogy, student engagement and assessment. The theoretical framework of LS theory is discussed. Furthermore, this paper identifies a gap in the literature regarding LS and assessment; specifically the development of assessments based on LS. The authors suggest adapting student assessment utilizing technology‐enhanced items (TEIs) developed based on students' LS may provide a more reliable measure of student ability. Implications for practice and limitations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction for the issue is presented discussing the focus of reports on collaborative learning and mobile technology.

Abstract: Young children from around the world are accessing the internet in ever increasing numbers. The rapid increase in internet activity by children aged 4–5 years in particular is due to the ease access enabled them by touchscreen internet‐enabled tablet technologies. With young children now online, often independently of adult supervision, the need for early childhood cyber‐safety education is becoming urgent. In this paper, we report the early findings from a project aimed at examining the development of cyber‐safety education for young children. We argue that cyber‐safety education for young children cannot be effectively developed without first considering young children's thinking about the internet. In this paper, we use Vygotsky's ideas about the development of mature concepts from the merging of everyday and scientific concepts. We identify the potential range of everyday concepts likely to form the basis of young children's thinking about the internet as a platform for cyber‐safety education in the early years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a systematic review of the literature, including a meta-analysis, about the effectiveness of the use of Alice software in programming learning when compared to the use of a conventional programming language. Our research included studies published between the years 2000 and 2014 in the main databases. We gathered 232 papers. Taking into account the selection criteria to make the meta-analysis, we retained six papers with a quasi-experimental design, with 464 participants in total. To combine the results we used the random effect model. It resulted in an effect size of 0.54 (Cohen's d) with a confidence interval between 0.34 and 0.74. We concluded that until now there have been few experimental results on the effectiveness of Alice programming language to introduce students in learning how to program. The results we found were the expression of different experimental treatments and distinguished teaching methods which made the comparison of the results obtained more subtle. However, the existing experimental results that were submitted to the meta-analysis allowed us to assume with a certain margin of safety that a teaching strategy that uses Alice should obtain more effective results than the use of a conventional programming language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses new learning experiences of first year pattern technology students at a university of technology, in the context of selected characteristics of authentic learning theories. The paper contributes to existing knowledge by proposing a method that could be followed for design-based subjects in a vocational education setting. Students were competent when replicating demonstrated pattern making procedures, but struggled to transfer knowledge to different situations. Therefore, a project asked students to create their own pattern-making video tutorials in an effort to deepen authentic learning. Examining the learning activity and its results through action research reflection, the lecturer recognised authentic learning characteristics. For example, students grasped the work, displaying a range of original responses that presented more than one correct answer. By creating their own practice-based content, students were able to learn more in the same period, compared to other cohorts in past years. Students were better equipped to utilise this knowledge in later projects and tests, demonstrating deeper understanding and knowledge transfer to other environments. Ultimately active knowledge production deepened learners' motivation, engagement in the learning process, and increased performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study utilises a novel approach to investigate the effectiveness of different learning modalities by combining video‐based learning with eye‐tracking. An excerpt taken from a vocational education instruction for car mechanics was videotaped using two different cameras: a standard 2D video camera and a professional 360° camera. The video recorded with the 2D camera was presented on a tablet, with a fixed angle, whereas the video recorded with the 360° camera was presented as non‐interactive 3DoF virtual reality (nVR) environment using a head‐mounted display. In both conditions, participants' fixation patterns were recorded and analysed in conjunction with a set of standardised questionnaires. Participants (N = 48) were randomly assigned to either the 2D‐video group or the nVR group, with 23 participants in the 2D‐video and 25 participants in the nVR group. The task of the participants in both groups was to watch the educational video while wearing an eye‐tracker and then complete a standardised test on the presented content. The eye‐tracking data indicated that participants in the nVR group showed longer total fixation durations on the instructor, but not other areas of interest, compared to the 2D video group. The standardised test indicated no differences in learning outcome between the groups. Implications from the current study as well as limitations and a outlook for further research will be discussed. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Virtual reality (VR) technology is getting more commonplace in educational settings.It is unclear whether VR‐based learning holds clear benefits over more traditional approaches such as hands‐on‐training or video‐based learning.What this paper adds This paper adds a comparison of two common video‐based teaching techniques and compares them in respect to learning outcome and learner's attention.The novelty of the current paper is the addition of eye‐tracking in both tablet‐based and HMD‐based learning scenarios to investigate learners' visual attention.Describes potential attention benefits of 360° videos compared to 2D videos despite no differences in learning outcome directly.Implications for practice and/or policy Results highlight the potential of placing more focus on social factors in 360° video material.Future 360° videos and VR environments can add additional focus on instructors or other socially relevant aspects to foster student learning and engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holding learners' attention is challenging, especially when they are asked to listen to long passages. High‐immersion virtual reality (VR) can immerse learners in listening tasks, even in such complex languages as Chinese. This exploratory study examined the effect of VR on 43 Chinese language learners' listening comprehension, enjoyment, sense of presence, and cognitive load. Participants were self‐selected into two groups without knowing the purpose of the study or the details of their activity. The experimental group (n1 = 23) experienced an interactive multimedia story in VR, and the comparison group (n2 = 20) watched a screencast video recording of the same story. Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) indicated that VR may have a positive effect on the development of listening skills. Compared with the video group, the VR group had significantly higher listening comprehension scores, reported significantly more enjoyment and sense of presence, and reported experiencing less cognitive load. Thus, the findings suggest that VR could be used as a pedagogical tool to enhance foreign language listening skills.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicPractising listening skills is key for language development.Virtual reality (VR) is motivational and engaging.Research on practising listening skills in VR is scarce.What this paper addsVR can be beneficial for practising listening skills.Language learners highly enjoy practising listening in VR.Interactivity can improve engagement and support listening comprehension.Implications for practice and/or policyLearners should be provided pretraining and scaffolding prior to using VR.The duration of VR activities should be considered.Interactivity in VR may increase its effectiveness in attending listening tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the advancements in immersive technologies, such as mixed reality, virtual reality, and augmented reality, and their potential for enhancing skills development and education. It discusses the concept of multimodal and immersive learning systems, which combine different modes of interaction with artificial intelligence to create personalized learning experiences. The article also introduces a special section that showcases research on multimodal and immersive systems in various domains, including collaboration, mathematics, reading comprehension, art appreciation, and skills development. The papers in the special section highlight the diversity of applications and the impact of these technologies on different skills and learning scenarios, while also identifying gaps and challenges for future research. Overall, the findings contribute to our understanding of the potential for enhanced learning experiences and personalized skill development through multimodal and immersive technologies. [Extracted from the article]

Online courses are particularly attractive in continuing education because they offer a high degree of autonomy and flexibility, although this requires learners to take greater responsibility for self‐regulating their learning. That can be challenging for adult learners as they need to handle other obligations in addition to learning. Thus, self‐regulated learning (SRL) support might be needed. In the present study, we aimed to investigate how the specific SRL challenges that adult learners face in online courses can be supported adaptively. Main challenges for adult learners consist in managing learning resources (e.g., time, attention, learning environment). To address these challenges, we developed an adaptive support intervention comprising several features. To assess the effects of the adaptive support on the self‐reported SRL strategy application of adult learners, we analysed data from five iterations of a continuing education online course comparing iterations with adaptive support (with a total of N = 36 participants) to iterations without (with a total of N = 35 participants). Results indicate that the adaptive support significantly improved environmental structuring but did not significantly affect other SRL strategies. Further analyses revealed that learners who did not use the support deteriorated in managing their learning time and in setting specific learning goals during the course. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Adult learners are likely to face various challenges in self‐regulated online learning, including managing conflicting responsibilities and maintaining focus.Adult learners' successful application of SRL strategies can be challenging, underlining the need for support.Adaptive support interventions have demonstrated positive effects in various educational contexts, indicating potential effectiveness for adult online learners as well.What this paper adds The study provides insights into the positive effects and potential pitfalls of designing an adaptive support intervention to improve adult learners' self‐reported use of the SRL strategies of effort, attention, time management, environmental structuring, and goal setting.Implications for practice and/or policy The findings suggest that providing adaptive support, namely a structured course overview and adaptive recommendations of learning time and relevant content, can positively influence adult learners' environmental structuring.Our findings also highlight the challenge of achieving optimal support design, as evidenced by low support use. This finding highlights the need to explore additional methods to motivate adult learners to use the support provided while carefully respecting their autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex dynamic systems offer a rich platform for understanding the individual or the person‐specific mechanisms. Yet, in learning analytics research and education at large, a complex dynamic system has rarely been framed, developed, or used to understand the individual student where the learning process takes place. Individual (or person‐specific) methods can accurately and precisely model the individual person, create person‐specific models, and devise unique parameters for each individual. Our study used the latest advances in complex systems dynamics to study the differences between group‐based and individual self‐regulated learning (SRL) dynamics. The findings show that SRL is a complex, dynamic system where different sub‐processes influence each other resulting in the emergence of non‐trivial patterns that vary across individuals and time scales, and as such far from the uniform picture commonly theorized. We found that the average SRL process does not reflect the individual SRL processes of different people. Therefore, interventions derived from the group‐based SRL insights are unlikely to be effective in personalization. We posit that, if personalized interventions are needed, modelling the person with person‐specific methods should be the guiding principle. Our study offered a reliable solution to model the person‐specific self‐regulation processes which can serve as a ground for understanding and improving individual learning and open the door for precision education. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Self‐regulation is a catalyst for effective learning and achievement.Our understanding of SRL personalization comes from insights based on aggregate group‐based data.What this paper adds Every student has their own unique SRL process that varies from the average in non‐trivial ways.We offer a credible method for mapping the individualized SRL process.SRL dynamics vary across time scales. That is, the trait dynamics are different from the state dynamics, and they should be supported differently.Implications for practice and/or policy Personalization can best be achieved if based on unique person‐specific idiographic methods.Supporting learning and SRL in particular can be more efficient when we understand the differences across time scales and persons and apply insights accordingly.The general SRL average should not be expected to work for everyone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This descriptive study focuses on using voice activity detection (VAD) algorithms to extract student speech data in order to better understand the collaboration of small group work and the impact of teaching assistant (TA) interventions in undergraduate engineering discussion sections. Audio data were recorded from individual students wearing head‐mounted noise‐cancelling microphones. Video data of each student group were manually coded for collaborative behaviours (eg, group task relatedness, group verbal interaction and group talk content) of students and TA–student interactions. The analysis includes information about the turn taking, overall speech duration patterns and amounts of overlapping speech observed both when TAs were intervening with groups and when they were not. We found that TAs very rarely provided explicit support regarding collaboration. Key speech metrics, such as amount of turn overlap and maximum turn duration, revealed important information about the nature of student small group discussions and TA interventions. TA interactions during small group collaboration are complex and require nuanced treatments when considering the design of supportive tools. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Student turn taking can provide information about the nature of student discussions and collaboration.Real classroom audio data of small groups typically have lots of background noise and present challenges for audio analysis.TAs have little training in how to productively intervene with students about collaborative skills.What this paper adds TA interaction with groups primarily focused on task progress and understanding of concepts with negligible explicit support on building collaborative skills.TAs intervened with the groups often which gave the students little time for uptake of their suggestions or deeper discussion.Student turn overlap was higher without the presence of TAs.Maximum turn duration can be an important real‐time turn metric to identify the least verbally active student participant in a group.Implications for practice and/or policy TA training should include information about how to monitor groups for collaborative behaviours and when and how they should intervene to provide feedback and support.TA feedback systems should keep track of previous interventions by TAs (especially in contexts where there are multiple TAs facilitating) and the duration since previous intervention to ensure that TAs do not intervene with a group too frequently with little time for student uptake.Maximum turn duration could be used as a real‐time metric to identify the least verbally active student in a group so that support could be provided to them by the TAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable research has been dedicated to studying teachers' digital competence, yet limited insights have been gained regarding its impact on online teacher autonomy support. Based on the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, this study utilized a multiple regression analysis model to explore how teachers' digital competence affects online teacher autonomy support. Drawing on data from 652 Chinese primary school teachers, the study revealed that teachers' digital competence positively influenced online teacher autonomy support via teachers' cognitive empathy. Teachers' emotional empathy strengthened the direct effect of cognitive empathy on online teacher autonomy support, and its indirect effect on teachers' digital competence on online teacher autonomy support. The findings inform TPACK framework development and practical considerations in online teaching, deepening understanding of the impact of digital competence on online teacher autonomy support.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicPrevious research has recognized the importance of teachers' digital competence in supporting learners' autonomy and enhancing their online learning experiences.Existing studies have explored different dimensions of teachers' digital competence, including technological proficiency, pedagogical knowledge and content expertise.Studies have also examined the role of empathy in online teaching and learning, emphasizing its importance in fostering positive teacher–student relationships and promoting student engagement and motivation.What this paper addsThis study introduces digital competence as a novel and comprehensive assessment of technology integration in teaching, bridging an existing gap in the literature.This study recognizes the importance of socio‐emotional skills in online teaching by including teachers' empathic traits within the expanded TPACK framework.Teachers' cognitive empathy acts as a mediator and emotional empathy functions as a moderator in the relationship between digital competence and online teacher autonomy support, offering new insights into the underlying mechanisms.Implications for practice and/or policyTeacher educators should find ways to support teachers' digital competence in facilitating learners' autonomy in online learning environments effectively.Teacher educators should incorporate teacher empathy development into teachers' professional development programmes for online teaching, offering tailored interventions to differentiate and enhance both cognitive and emotional empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in computational language models increasingly enable adaptive support for self‐regulated learning (SRL) in digital learning environments (DLEs; eg, via automated feedback). However, the accuracy of those models is a common concern for educational stakeholders (eg, policymakers, researchers, teachers and learners themselves). We compared the accuracy of four Dutch language models (ie, spaCy medium, spaCy large, FastText and ConceptNet NumberBatch) in the context of secondary school students' learning of causal relations from expository texts, scaffolded by causal diagram completion. Since machine learning relies on human‐labelled data for the best results, we used a dataset with 10,193 students' causal diagram answers, compiled over a decade of research using a diagram completion intervention to enhance students' monitoring of their text comprehension. The language models were used in combination with four popular machine learning classifiers (ie, logistic regression, random forests, support vector machine and neural networks) to evaluate their performance on automatically scoring students' causal diagrams in terms of the correctness of events and their sequence (ie, the causal structure). Five performance metrics were studied, namely accuracy, precision, recall, F1 and the area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC‐AUC). The spaCy medium model combined with the neural network classifier achieved the best performance for the correctness of causal events in four of the five metrics, while the ConceptNet NumberBatch model worked best for the correctness of the causal sequence. These evaluation results provide a criterion for model adoption to adaptively support SRL of causal relations in DLEs. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Accurate monitoring is a prerequisite for effective self‐regulation.Students struggle to accurately monitor their comprehension of causal relations in texts.Completing causal diagrams improves students' monitoring accuracy, but there is room for further improvement.Automatic scoring could be used to provide adaptive support during diagramming.What this paper adds Comparison of four Dutch word vector models combined with four machine learning classifiers for the automatic scoring of students' causal diagrams.Five performance metrics to evaluate the above solutions.Evaluation of the word vector models for estimating the semantic similarity between student and model answers.Implications for practice and/or policy High‐quality word vector models could (em)power adaptive support during causal diagramming via automatic scoring.The evaluated solutions can be embedded in digital learning environments (DLEs).Criteria for model adoption to adaptively support SRL of causal relations in DLEs.The increased saliency of (in)correct answers via automatic scoring might help to improve students' monitoring accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) incorporate pedagogical agents (PAs) to scaffold learners' self‐regulated learning (SRL) via prompts and feedback to promote learners' monitoring and regulation of their cognitive, affective, metacognitive and motivational processes to achieve their (sub)goals. This study examines PAs' effectiveness in scaffolding and teaching SRL during learning with MetaTutor, an ITS on the human circulatory system. Undergraduates (N = 118) were randomly assigned to a condition: Control Condition (i.e. learners could only self‐initiate SRL strategies) and Prompt and Feedback Condition (i.e. PAs prompted learners to engage in SRL). Learners' log‐file data captured when strategies were used, the initiator of the strategy (i.e. learner and PA), and the relevance of instructional content pages in relation to learner subgoals. While results showed that PAs were effective scaffolders of SRL in which they prompted learners to engage in SRL strategies more when content was relevant towards their subgoals and as time on page and task increased, there were mixed findings about the effectiveness of PAs as teachers of SRL. Findings show how production rules guiding PA prompts can improve their scaffolding and teaching of SRL across the learning task – through contextualizing SRL strategies to the instructional content and in relation to the relevance of the content to learners' subgoals.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicMost learners struggle to efficiently and effectively use self‐regulated learning (SRL) strategies to attain goals and subgoals.There is a need for SRL to be scaffolded for learners to manage multiple goals and subgoals while learning about complex STEM topics.Intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) typically incorporate pedagogical agents (PAs) to prompt learners to engage in SRL strategy and provide feedback.There are mixed findings on the effectiveness of PAs in scaffolding learners' SRL.What this paper addsWe consider PAs not only scaffolders but also teachers of SRL.Results showed that while PAs encouraged the use of SRL strategies when the content was relevant to subgoals, they did not discourage the use of SRL strategies when the content was not relevant.Results for this study were mixed in their support of PAs as teachers of SRL.Learners increasingly depended on PAs to prompt SRL strategies as time on task progressed.Implications for practice and/or policyPAs are effective scaffolders of SRL with more research needed to understand their role as teachers of SRL.PA scaffolding is more essential as time on task progresses.When deploying specific cognitive and metacognitive SRL strategies, the relevance of the content to learners' subgoals should be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multisensory‐rich VR experiences, which encompass visual, auditory, and haptic stimuli, have the potential to enhance engagement, motivation, and learning. However, extensive sensory stimuli could also compromise learning through sensory overload. In museum settings, visitors who are inundated with excessive stimuli such as unrelated background music or competing visual options may not experience optimal learning. This mixed‐methods study addressed this potential problem by exploring the impact of sound on learning, enjoyment, sense of presence, and the development of interest among museum attendees (N = 255) who used two different types of technology: high‐immersion VR or a tablet. Results from a one‐way MANOVA revealed that learning and sense of presence were unaffected by the technology used unless sound was added. Using a tablet with sound lowered the sense of presence. Participants in the VR condition with or without sound had significantly higher enjoyment scores than those in either tablet condition. The development of interest was not significantly affected by any condition, regardless of whether sound was used. The research findings have implications for implementing VR for learning in museum settings. For instance, VR can enhance a sense of presence in museum exhibits, but a sense of presence may be significantly diminished when museum visitors use tablets with sound. Additional recommendations for the use of multimodal VR in museums are provided. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic VR can support an immersive and engaging experience for users.VR is more immersive than tablets.When designed effectively, sound can increase immersion and engagement.When integrated into the visual environment, sound can add authenticity to the learning content.VR can complement museum exhibits as it allows museum visitors to extend their learning experiences.What this paper adds VR enriched with sound can significantly and positively impact sense of presence.Compared with a soundless VR exhibition, VR enriched with sound enhances engagement of museum visitors by drawing their attention to the content of the exhibits.VR with and without sound can support learning and add enjoyment to museum visitor experiences.Implications for practice and/or policy Developers interested in adding sound to VR should ensure that the visual and auditory experiences are directly related to the desired content delivery.Museum exhibit creators and curators should consider the use of VR to provide dynamic learning experiences that increase enjoyment and presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scaffolds that support self‐regulated learning (SRL) have been found to improve learning outcomes. The effects of scaffolds can differ depending on how learners use them and how specific scaffolds might influence learning processes differently. Personalized scaffolds have been proposed to be more beneficial for learning due to their adaptivity to learning progress and individualized content to learning needs. The present study investigated finer‐grained effects of how personalized scaffolds driven by a rule‐based artificial intelligence system influenced SRL processes, especially how students learned with them. Using a pre‐post experimental design, we investigated personalized scaffolds based on university students' real‐time learning processes in a technologically enhanced learning environment. Students in the experimental group (n = 30) received personalized scaffolds, while the control group (n = 29) learned without scaffolds. All students completed a 45‐minute learning task with trace data recorded. Findings indicated scaffold effects on students' subsequent learning behaviour. Additionally, only scaffold interaction correlated to essay performance and suggests that the increase in frequencies of SRL activities alone does not contribute directly to learning outcomes. As guidelines for real‐time SRL support are lacking, this study provides valuable insights to enhance SRL support with adaptive learning technologies. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Self‐regulated learning scaffolds, especially adaptive scaffolds, improve learning.Personalized scaffolds have effects on self‐regulated learning activities.Past research focused on aggregated effects of scaffolds.What this paper adds Investigates how students learn with personalized scaffolds in terms of frequencies of learning activities and scaffold interaction.Takes a closer look at which learning activities and when the effects of personalized scaffolds occur.Examines how finer‐grained effects of personalized scaffolds correspond to learning outcomes.Implications for practice and/or policy Personalized scaffold effects vary across learning, and future research should consider finer‐grained investigations of SRL support in order to better understand their influence on learning.The number of personalized scaffolds provided should be reconsidered in the future as students only use some of the support provided, especially when task demands increase.Personalized scaffold interaction is linked to improvement in task performance, so future research should also focus on students' appropriate use of self‐regulated learning support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine how the levels of physical fidelity of controllers (high, mid and low) and task repetitions (four trials) influence undergraduate students' perceived task load and performance in an immersive virtual reality (VR)‐based simulation. The simulation was developed using the Unity 3D engine. VR controllers were developed to reflect a real power tool in three fidelity levels: high (most realistic: weight and tactile engagement), mid (tactile engagement without weight) and low (control group: only controller). The tasks were designed to reflect complexities with four working postures: no walking & standing up, no walking & bending over, walking & standing up and walking & bending over. Thirty‐six healthy undergraduate male students participated in the study. Participants were instructed to complete motor tasks accurately. Audio feedback (drill sound) and haptic feedback (vibration) were activated for three groups when the controller and a screw made contact. Each participant used all three fidelity controllers and repeated the four tasks in a counterbalanced order to account for order effects. The results of a one‐way repeated measures MANOVA indicated that two dimensions of task load were significantly different among the three physical fidelity conditions. Also, task completion time, inaccurate operation time and inaccurate counts were significantly shorter when four tasks were repeated. The study findings provide design implications for VR‐based training experiences for future workforce development. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic VR training simulations offer immersive opportunities for skills development, creating interactive and visually appealing learning environments.VR training simulations employ VR controllers as interactive interfaces to enhance task performance in virtual environments.Consideration of physical fidelity is crucial to improve simulation realism and support realistic sensory input for user interaction and tool manipulation. High physical fidelity in VR training simulations enhances immersion, realism and task performance.What this paper adds We developed a VR controller that emulates the physical characteristics of a power tool, including weight and tactile feedback. We investigated the impact of different levels of physical fidelity on VR training simulation.This research demonstrates that the level of physical fidelity in VR training simulations influences learners' task load.Through multimodal data analysis, we examined learners' task load and performance during repeated power tool tasks, illustrating the relationship between physical fidelity and task load.Implications for practice and/or policy Our findings suggest that adjusting the physical fidelity of the VR controller effectively modulates the learner's task load in task complexity and perceptual strain.We emphasize the importance of repeated training supplemented with precise instructional guidance, such as the integration of visual cues, to enhance performance and promote skill development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to explore new ways of assessing collaborative problem solving (CPS) processes based on different modalities of audio data and their combination. The data collection took place in an educational lab setting during an experiment with adult teams from professional contexts who collaboratively solved multiple problems as part of a CPS training. From audio data, both verbal (ie, speech) and non‐verbal (ie, pitch) aspects were extracted. Four analysis methods were used, including (a) content analysis; (b) linguistic inquiry and word count; (c) verbal entrainment analysis; and (d) acoustic–prosodic entrainment based on pitch data. Insights are given into the CPS processes of the participating groups using these measures and relevant relationships between some of these measures are further investigated. Based on content analysis, it was found that most of the interactions during the CPS process are task oriented, whereas team‐oriented interactions are less present. Second, three measures of proportion of contribution in CPS were investigated and clear differences in participation patterns between and within teams were found. We suggest that a combination of utterance count and words per sentence could provide valuable insights for quantity and equality of participation. Third, the study explored pronoun use and found that the most frequently used personal pronouns were first‐person singular. Next, the results indicated a relationship between pronoun use and the relative frequency of interactions. Fourth, a rather weak relationship between lexical entrainment measures and the acoustic–prosodic measures were found, suggesting that these measures are indicative of separate communicative aspects in CPS. This study contributes to a better understanding of which type of audio‐based data is most informative to teachers and students as a feedback or assessment tool. This study complements previous research as it focuses on spoken human‐to‐human communication collected in an authentic context. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Support and guidance systems for learning coaches, teachers and learners are needed to foster the educational quality of collaborative problem solving (CPS) activities.CPS is a complex process and measuring the quality of CPS processes remains challenging.Multimodal learning analytics, focusing on verbal and non‐verbal data sources and using content analysis, linguistic inquiry and word count and verbal and acoustic entrainment measures could be valuable to measure the quality of CPS.What this paper adds The majority of interactions during CPS processes are task oriented or cognitive of nature, whereas team‐oriented interactions are less present.Utterance count and words per sentence should be used in combination, as they are indicative of different aspects.Pronoun use in learners' discourse is related to the types of CPS interactions.Lexical entrainment measures and acoustic–prosodic are indicative of distinctive communicative aspects in CPS.Implications for practice and/or policy Quality indicators of CPS processes should include both verbal and non‐verbal measures of students' interactions.Educational researchers and the (Edtech) industry should further leverage their forces to foster the development of (semi‐)automated systems for measuring the quality of CPS processes.It should be further investigated how quality indicators of CPS processes can be most meaningful to trainers, teachers and learners, for example, through the use of dashboards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the embodied ways in which learners monitor their cognition while learning about exponential functions in an immersive virtual reality (VR) based game, Pandemic by Prisms of Reality. Traditionally, metacognitive monitoring has been assessed through behavioural traces and verbalised instances. When learning in VR, learners are fully immersed in the learning environment, actively manipulating it based on affordances designed to support learning, offering insights into the relationship between physical interaction and metacognition. The study collected multimodal data from 15 participants, including think‐aloud audio, bird's‐eye view video recordings and physiological data. Metacognitive monitoring was analysed through qualitative coding of the think‐aloud protocol, while movement was measured via optical flow analysis and cognitive load was assessed through heart rate variability analysis. The results revealed embodied metacognition by aligning the data to identify learners' physical states alongside their verbalised metacognition. The findings demonstrated a temporal interplay among cognitive load, metacognitive monitoring, and motion during VR‐based learning. Specifically, cognitive load, indicated by the low‐ and high‐frequency heart rate variability index, predicted instances of metacognitive monitoring, and monitoring predicted learners' motion while interacting with the VR environment. This study further provides future directions in understanding self‐regulated learning processes during VR learning by utilizing multimodal data to inform real‐time adaptive personalised support within these environments. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Immersive virtual reality (VR) environments have the potential to offer personalised support based on users' individual needs and characteristics.Self‐regulated learning (SRL) involves learners monitoring their progress and strategically regulating their learning when needed.Multimodal data captured during VR learning, such as birds‐eye‐view video, screen recordings, physiological changes and verbalisations, can provide insights into learners' SRL processes and support needs.What this paper adds Provides insights into the embodied aspects of learners' metacognitive monitoring during learning in an immersive VR environment.Demonstrates how SRL processes can be captured via the collection and analysis of multimodal data, including think‐aloud audio, bird's‐eye view video recordings and physiological data, to capture metacognitive monitoring and movement during VR‐based learning.Contributes to the understanding of the interplay between cognitive load, metacognitive monitoring, and motion in immersive VR learning.Implications for practice and/or policy Researchers and practitioners can use the causal relationships identified in this study to identify instances of SRL in an immersive VR setting.Educational technology developers can consider the integration of online measures, such as cognitive load and physiological arousal, into adaptive VR environments to enable real‐time personalised support for learners based on their self‐regulatory needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human‐Centred Learning Analytics (HCLA) has emerged in the last 5 years as an active sub‐topic within Learning Analytics, drawing primarily on the theories and methods of Human‐Computer Interaction (HCI). HCLA researchers and practitioners are adopting and adapting HCI theories/methods to meet the challenge of meaningfully engaging educational stakeholders in the LA design process, evaluating systems in use and researching the sociotechnical factors influencing LA successes and failures. This editorial introduces the contributions of the papers in this special section, reflects more broadly on the field's emergence over the last five years, considers known gaps and indicates new opportunities that may open in the next five years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self‐direction has become an important skill in the 21st century. To cultivate learners with a high level of self‐direction, it is necessary to diagnose their self‐directed learning (SDL) ability. This study diagnosed and predicted learners' SDL ability based on their actual SDL behaviours. The study was performed in a self‐directed 3D design class lasting 90 minutes. A total of 193 middle school students participated in the study. The results of the Pearson correlation analysis (p < 0.001) showed that the reported perception of SDL ability was significantly correlated with SDL behaviours. The results of the hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis showed that the SDL behaviours explained 84.9% of the variance in SDL ability (adjusted R2 = 0.849, p < 0.001). Therefore, SDL behaviours had significant predictive effects on the reported perception of SDL ability. Moreover, based on the random forest algorithm, the study built an SDL ability prediction model with high performance (accuracy = 0.83, precision = 0.82, recall = 0.84) using SDL behaviours as features. The study provides evidence for the design of effective strategies to enhance SDL ability and promote SDL behaviours.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicTo cultivate learners with a high level of self‐direction, it is necessary to diagnose their self‐directed learning (SDL) ability.SDL is a combination of internal personal attributes and external autonomous behaviours.Few studies have focused on diagnosing SDL ability based on learners' external SDL behaviours occurring during the learning process.What this paper addsThe reported perception of SDL ability was significantly correlated with SDL behaviours.SDL behaviours had significant predictive effects on the reported perception of SDL ability.Based on the random forest algorithm, the study built an SDL ability prediction model with high performance using SDL behaviours as features.Implications for practice and/or policyThe findings indicate that instructors could design effective strategies to promote SDL behaviours for the purpose of enhancing learners' SDL ability.The method and process of building an SDL ability prediction model might provide a reference for related research on ability prediction with behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formative assessment is essential for improving teaching and learning, and AI and visualization techniques provide great potential for its design and delivery. Using NLP, cognitive diagnostic and visualization techniques designed to analyse and present students' monthly exam data, we developed an AI‐enabled visual report tool comprising six modules and conducted an empirical study of its effectiveness in a high school biology classroom. A total of 125 students in a ninth‐grade biology course were assigned to a treatment group (n = 63) receiving AI‐enabled visual reports as the intervention and a control group (n = 62) receiving overall oral feedback from the teacher. We present the main statistical results of the within‐subjects design and the between‐subjects design respectively, to better capture the main findings. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed a significant interaction effect of intervention and time on learning achievement, and the paired‐sample Wilcoxon test indicated that the treatment group had experienced increasing learning anxiety (Cohen's d = 0.203, p = 0.046) and self‐efficacy (Cohen's d = 1.793, p = 0.000) over time. Moreover, we conducted a series of non‐parametric tests to compare the effects of AI‐enabled visual reports and teacher feedback, but found no significant differences except for an increased self‐efficacy (Cohen's d = 0.312, p = 0.046). Additionally, we had the students in the treatment group rate their favourable modules in the AI‐enabled visual report and provide evaluative feedback. The study results provide important insights into the design and implementation of effective formative assessment supported by artificial AI and visualization techniques. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Formative assessment is essential for improving teaching and learning.Traditional formative assessment tools lack accurate data‐oriented assessment and usability.AI and visualization techniques have great potential for formative assessment.What this paper adds This study designs and implements an AI‐enabled visual report tool that generates data‐driven, user‐friendly reports.The AI‐enabled visual report can not only enhance students' learning achievement and self‐regulated learning over time but also increase their test anxiety.The AI‐enabled visual report has a comparable effect with teacher feedback but leads to increased self‐efficacy.Implications for practice and/or policy We recommend using the AI‐enabled visual report in large‐size classes for its overall positive effects on both learning achievement and self‐regulated learning.We recommend using the AI‐enabled visual report over teacher feedback for its capacity to enhance students' self‐efficacy.We recommend prioritizing the modules of Performance Ranking, Personal Mastery and Knowledge Alert when designing the AI‐enabled visual report. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study delves into the implications of incorporating AI tools, specifically ChatGPT, in higher education contexts. With a primary focus on understanding the acceptance and utilization of ChatGPT among university students, the research utilizes the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as the guiding framework. The investigation probes into four crucial constructs of UTAUT—performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions—to understand their impact on the intent and actual use behaviour of students. The study relies on data collected from six universities in two countries and assessed through descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling techniques, and also takes into account participants' gender and study level. The key findings show that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence significantly influence behavioural intention. Furthermore, behavioural intention, when considered alongside facilitating conditions, influences actual use behaviour. This research also explores the moderating impact of gender and study level on the relationships among these variables. The results not only augment our comprehension of technology acceptance in the context of AI tools but also provide valuable input for formulating strategies that promote effective incorporation of ChatGPT in higher education. The study underscores the need for effective awareness initiatives, bespoke training programmes, and intuitive tool designs to bolster students' perceptions and foster the wider adoption of AI tools in education.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicChatGPT is a tool that is quickly gaining worldwide recognition.ChatGPT helps with writing essays and solving assignments.ChatGPT raises ethical concerns about authorship, plagiarism and ethics.What this paper addsThis study explores students' acceptance of ChatGPT as an aid in their education, which has not been studied previously.We used the extended Unified Technology Acceptance and Use of Technology theory to test what factors mostly influence the use of ChatGPT by students.We conducted a multiple study in Poland and Egypt based on sampling strategy from six universities.Implications for practice and/or policyChatGPT is a global game changer and should be incorporated into study programmes.The limitations of ChatGPT should be well explained and known since it is prone to making mistakes.Higher education teachers should be aware of ChatGPT's capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High attrition/dropout rates and low engagement have been major concerns of online educators. This study examined female high school students' cognitive engagement and disengagement in an online learning context during the COVID‐19 pandemic through the lens of self‐determination theory's basic psychological needs. We investigated an extended dual‐process motivation mediation model that emphasizes the mediating role of the need for competence, including an additional factor, technology self‐efficacy, in a South Korean high school context (n = 235). Results from structural equation modelling provided evidence for the proposed model. Our findings indicated that the exogenous variables (ie, perceived autonomy support, perceived teacher control and technology self‐efficacy) predicted cognitive engagement and disengagement with the mediating role of competence need satisfaction and competence need frustration. We found distinct processes including (a) "autonomy support‐competence need satisfaction‐cognitive engagement", (b) "teacher control‐competence need frustration‐cognitive disengagement", (c) "technology self‐efficacy‐competence need satisfaction‐cognitive engagement" and (d) "technology self‐efficacy‐competence need frustration (negative effect)‐cognitive disengagement". This study suggests using autonomy support strategies to fulfil students' competence needs in online learning contexts. We also found a possible role of technology self‐efficacy in influencing psychological competence needs, cognitive engagement and cognitive disengagement in online learning contexts. Implications of the findings are discussed. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic High attrition/dropout rates and low engagement have been major concerns of online educators.Emergency remote teaching (ERT) has implications for online teaching beyond the ERT paradigm.Self‐determination theory (SDT) has been adopted and adapted with the goal of determining how to achieve need satisfaction, optimize learner motivation and enhance student engagement in classroom settings.What this paper adds This study applied a dual‐process motivation mediation model to investigate both cognitive engagement and disengagement among female high school students in an ERT online learning environment.The extended dual‐process motivation mediation model examined the role of an additional factor, technology self‐efficacy in cognitive engagement and disengagement in online learning.This study examined the role of direct, indirect and cross‐over effects focusing on both bright and dark aspects of the dual‐process motivation mediation model in online learning in a South Korean girls' high school during ERT.Implications for practice and/or policy This study proposes the use of autonomy support strategies in online learning contexts.Teachers should understand their students and provide support that addresses competence need satisfaction to enhance student cognitive engagement in online learning contexts.More efforts should be made to prepare teachers for designing online learning experiences that increase students' competence need satisfaction and decrease competence need frustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People in modern society are media multitaskers due to portable devices and omnipresent wireless networks, and college students are no exception. Previous studies have indicated that students' media multitasking behaviours in class harm their academic performances, and understanding the reasons for college students' engagement in such behaviour is meaningful. However, the literature takes media multitasking behaviour as an audience behaviour, which ignores the interaction between students and their surroundings. This study fills this gap by emphasizing the role of the social learning process. A survey was conducted in a public and comprehensive university in western China, and a total of 457 valid respondents were obtained. The results from PLS‐SEM revealed that college students' in‐class media multitasking behaviours were influenced by both observational learning (ie, imitating others) and reinforcement learning (ie, in‐class interventions), and this learning process was shaped by students' media multitasking self‐efficacy and self‐management of learning. These findings contribute to the current literature by providing a relatively new perspective for understanding college students' in‐class media multitasking behaviours, and suggestions about how to deal with such behaviours are also provided. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic In‐class media multitasking behaviours (ICMMBs) damage college students' academic performance.College students' ICMMBs are affected by individual factors, such as internet addiction and sensation seeking.Social learning theory is widely adopted as a general theoretical background to explain those behaviours of which possible consequences are easily observed no matter from others or from individuals themselves.What this paper adds This work enriches the media multitasking literature by investigating the predictors of ICMMBs from a relatively new perspective, that is, the social learning perspective.This work also contributes to the literature on media multitasking by examining how the social learning process of college students' ICMMBs differs across students.This work extends the application scope of social learning theory to the context of college students' ICMMBs.Implications for practice and/or policy. The role of imitating others proves the importance of the learning atmosphere in classrooms, so teachers or lecturers should pay special attention to build a learning atmosphere away from ICMMBs.Some in‐class interventions should be established, especially the formal policy of schools to require students to hand in their smartphones or other media before class and students' own mindfulness of such behaviour.Teachers or lecturers should take actions to lower the academic performance expectations of students with higher media multitasking self‐efficacy (MMSE) because students with higher MMSE often overestimate their capabilities to have good performance when conducting other tasks simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with neurodevelopmental disorders often have social–emotional difficulties. Serious games can be used to support their social–emotional learning. This study investigated if 6–10‐year‐old children with autism spectrum condition, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and developmental language disorder would improve their emotion discrimination skills by playing a serious game. Intervention (n = 30) and control groups (n = 20), comprising children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and a group of typically developing (TD) age peers (n = 106), completed six emotion discrimination tasks. ABA research design was applied in this study. Prior to the game intervention, children with neurodevelopmental disorders were significantly delayed in relation to their TD age peers in all tasks. After playing the game for two months, the children in the intervention group had significantly improved their emotion discrimination skills in four tasks, whereas the control group had significantly advanced in only one task without practice. Intervention gains were maintained at the one‐month follow‐up. Parents reported that the children in the intervention group somewhat improved their emotion recognition and behavioural skills in daily life in comparison to the control group. Implications for practice are discussed. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Children with neurodevelopmental disorders often exhibit various social–emotional symptoms.Within the field of social–emotional learning, many serious games have a narrow focus on specific skills, and they often only provide possibilities for observing target behaviours, not actual skill training.There are mixed results on the efficacy of game‐based interventions targeted at improving social–emotional skills.What this paper adds The Emotion Detectives game used in this study offers a well‐designed learning environment that provides adaptive learning and feedback systems.The participating children's social–emotional skills were assessed with versatile methods and via triangulation.Intervention with the Emotion Detectives game helped to decrease some emotion and behavioural symptoms of the players.Implications for practice This study provides information about the efficacy of a web‐based game that is freely available for supporting children's social–emotional learning.Improvements in emotion discrimination and recognition, as well as behavioural skills, can be gained by playing serious games.For optimal intervention outcomes, multimodal training should be utilized in serious games targeting social–emotional learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the educational applications of social robots has shown how they can motivate children and help improve academic learning outcomes. Here, we examine how robots can support skill learning and, more specifically, musical instrument practice. Drawing from social facilitation theory and evaluation apprehension theory we expected that the robot's mere presence would impact children's performance and that this effect would be contingent upon the children expecting the robot to evaluate their performance. We report an experiment with children (N = 31) aged nine to twelve who practiced a familiar and new piece alone, in the presence of an evaluative robot, and in the presence of a non‐evaluative robot. We found that children performed better in terms of rhythm, pitch, and general impression in the presence of the non‐evaluative robot. These findings offer important insights for designing robot tutors for music learning. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Social robots have been applied in different educational scenarios (e.g., second language, math, and programming) and were proven to be beneficial for children's motivation.Musical instrument learning requires practice, perseverance, and social support to become successful.Social robots can be used as a provider of social support during musical instrument practice.Children tend to perform better on easy or well‐rehearsed tasks and worse on complex tasks or new ones with the presence of observers, but only when they believe the observer can evaluate them.What this paper adds Social robots are beneficial for children's performance in musical instrument learning.Limited evidence was found to prove that children tend to perform better on old melodies and worse on new melodies in the presence of a social robot. However, the results confirmed that the level of evaluative of the robot matters.Children tend to have better performance with the robot that did not provide evaluative comments when practicing a new melody (a difficult task) than alone and with the robot that offered evaluative comments.This study confirmed that social robots can provide support to children in practicing music, helping to improve their performance.Implications for practice and/or policy Social facilitation and evaluation apprehension effects need to be taken into consideration during the behaviour design of companion robots in learning scenarios.Robots, which were intended to motivate children in learning, should be designed to not provide evaluative comments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]