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To date researchers have had difficulty establishing reliable conclusions in studies comparing traditional forms of learning (eg paper-based or classroom based) vs online learning in relation to student learning outcomes; no consistent results have emerged, and many studies have not been controlled for factors other than lesson mode. This paper compares the effects of presenting two versions of lessons on punctuation that differed only in their mode of presentation. 59 students completed a pre-lesson questionnaire, and after the lessons completed another questionnaire plus the NASA-TLX which tests subjective cognitive workload stress. The results showed that students who sat the lessons on paper performed 24% better than those who sat the lessons online. Reasons for this difference in learning outcomes are considered, but no clear reason is apparent in the data from this study. The study sounds a note of caution in terms of the move by tertiary institutions to online and/or blended learning, and suggests further studies are required which assess learning outcomes in different mode of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many colleges have either begun or are contemplating using the web-based survey to gather student feedback on faculty teaching. Unlike the paper-based method, the web-based approach gives every student in the class the opportunity to provide feedback. Hence, the populations that participate in the web-based and paper-based methods may be quite different, and so may be the feedback. This paper compares the results of student feedback gathered through paper-based and web-based approaches. The results provide information to faculty and administrators on any differences they may expect as they make the transition from a paper-based to a web-based survey of faculty teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a study evaluating student perceptions of online assignment submission. 47 students submitted assignments and received feedback via features within the Virtual Learning Environment Blackboard™. The students then completed questionnaires comparing their experience of online submission and feedback with traditional methods. Results indicated that 88% of students reported a time saving and many reported financial benefits using online submission. 93% of students preferred having their feedback available online rather than printed and handed to them. Overall, students preferred online assignment management to postal or physical hand-in. The main disadvantage of electronic submission appeared to be student distrust of the receipt system. The use of online assignment submission and management is recommended for use in Higher Education establishments where students may be remote. It is most suitable for assignments that do not require inclusion of many images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of Learning Analytics (LA) as a research field has been extensively documented since its beginnings. This paper provides a broad overview of the publications that Latin American authors have published in the last years by performing a quantitative review of the literature (from 2011 to 2019). A total of 282 papers were collected and categorized according to a multidimensional model composed of seven dimensions (data collected, stakeholders targeted, goals of the paper, techniques employed, maturity of the tool, research approaches and ethical issues). The paper describes how the field has evolved over the years in Latin America, presenting the main characteristics of the papers from different perspectives (year, type of venue, language) together with the descriptives of the categorized dimensions and the relations between them. At last, papers are presented in number by countries and institutions, and we perform an authorship and coauthorship analysis with information extracted from the selected papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous literature has associated math literacy with linguistic factors such as verbal ability and phonological skills. However, few studies have investigated linguistic synchrony, shown in mathematical discussions. This study modelled math literacy and examined the relationship of math literacy with linguistic synchrony between students and facilitators. We retrieved data from 20,776 online mathematical discussion threads at a secondary school level. First, we assessed students' math literacy based on their discussions and classified them into high‐ and low‐math literacy groups. Then, we conducted Cross‐Recurrence Quantification Analysis (CRQA) to calculate linguistic synchrony within each thread. The result implies that students with high math literacy are more likely to share common words (eg, mathematical terms) with facilitators. At the same time, they would paraphrase the facilitators' words rather than blindly mimic them as the exact sentences or phrases. On the other hand, students with low math literacy tend to use overlapping words with facilitators less frequently and are more likely to repeat the exact same phrases from the facilitators. The findings provide an empirical data analysis and insights into mathematical discussions and linguistic synchrony. In addition, this paper implies the directions to improve online mathematical discussions and foster math literacy. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Mathematical discussions are known to be an effective way to promote math literacy.Math literacy and linguistic skills have a strong link.Linguistic synchrony is related to better collaboration and common knowledge building.What this paper adds Reveals the relationship between math literacy and linguistic synchrony and deepens the understanding of digital communication in online learning environments.Provides empirical analysis of natural language data in group discussions using CRQA.Conceptualizes linguistic synchrony with three sub‐concepts: linguistic concurrence, predictability, and complexity.Implications for practice and/or policy Educators and practitioners could utilize the automatic formative assessment of math literacy based on the student's language use in mathematical discussions.Educational technology researchers and designers could include CRQA indices and recurrence plots in the dashboard design to provide information to support teachers and learners.Teachers would be able to provide real‐time interventions to promote effective mathematical communication and foster math literacy throughout mathematical discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have substantiated the pivotal role of emotions and teachers in student learning, but the underlying mechanism of teachers and emotions on academic engagement remains underexplored. The present study examined the mediating role of teacher support in the relationship between foreign language learning anxiety (FLLA) and academic engagement in online classrooms. Participants were 415 Chinese university students who completed an online questionnaire. The findings of structural equation modelling indicated that teacher support had a partial mediation effect between FLLA and academic engagement. FLLA exhibited a significant negative impact on academic engagement, both directly and indirectly via perceived teacher support. Through both direct and indirect effects, FLLA could explain 44.8% of the variation in academic engagement and the mediation effect accounted for 47.3% of the total effect. The practical implication is that foreign language teachers should extend more support for learners during online learning, and provide learners with feedback adapted to their emotions. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Emotions have a significant impact on learners' engagement, and positive academic emotions facilitate students' engagement in the class.Students will be more engaged in learning when they perceive support from their teachers.Teacher support was an influential external predictor of students' mood swings.What this paper adds The structural equation modelling shows that teacher support served as a partial mediator between foreign language learning anxiety and academic engagement.Students' social engagement and perceived emotional support were found to have a greater impact on online foreign language learning.This paper further corroborates the relationship among the presences in the CoI framework.Implications for practice and/or policy Mitigating foreign language learning anxiety and improving teacher support are necessary for effective foreign language learning in future online classes.Teachers need to ensure continued intellectual support and provide more emotional support for learners.Teachers are recommended to deliver feedback that aligns with students' emotional state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self‐regulated learning (SRL) is an essential skill to achieve one's learning goals. This is particularly true for online learning environments (OLEs) where the support system is often limited compared to a traditional classroom setting. Likewise, existing research has found that learners often struggle to adapt their behaviour to the self‐regulatory demands of OLEs. Even so, existing SRL analysis tools have limited utility for real‐time or individualised support of a learner's SRL strategy during a study session. Accordingly, we explore a reinforcement learning based approach to learning optimal SRL strategies for a specific learning task. Specifically, we utilise the sequences of SRL processes acted by 44 participants, and their assessment scores for a prescribed learning task, in a purpose‐built OLE to develop a long short‐term memory (LSTM) network based reward function. This is used to train a reinforcement learning agent to find the optimal sequence of SRL processes for the learning task. Our findings indicate that the developed agents were able to effectively select SRL processes so as to maximise a prescribed learning goal as measured by predicted assessment score and predicted knowledge gains. The contributions of this work will facilitate the development of a tool which can detect sub‐optimal SRL strategy in real‐time and enable individualised SRL focused scaffolding. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Learners often fail to adequately adapt their behavior to the self‐regulatory demands of e‐Learning environments.In order to promote effective Self‐regulated learning (SRL) capabilities, researchers and educators need tools that are able to analyze and diagnose a learner's SRL strategy use.Current methods for SRL analysis are more often descriptive as opposed to prescriptive and have limited utility for real‐time analysis or support of a learner's SRL behavior.What this paper adds This paper proposes the use of Reinforcement Learning for prescriptive analytics of SRL. We train a Reinforcement Learning agent on sequences of SRL processes acted by learners in order to learn the optimal SRL strategy for a given learning task.Implications for practice and/or policy Our work will facilitate the development of a tool which can detect sub‐optimal SRL strategy in real‐time and enable individualized SRL focused scaffolding.The implications of our work can aid in course design by predicting the self‐regulatory load imposed by a given task.The ability to model SRL strategies using Reinforcement Learning can be extended to simulate or test SRL theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As online education continues to proliferate that there is a need to understand how institutions can better support faculty in the transition to online education. Building on work that has suggested the importance of learning spaces for faculty to engage in discussion and reflection on their move to online education, this paper employs Bakhtin's notion of ideological becoming to provide a theoretically grounded understanding of how the design of such spaces can better facilitate this move. The paper reveals how learning spaces designed to develop critical awareness empower faculty to navigate discourses of online education, enabling them to build on their existing knowledge and skills as educators. The findings reveal how engaging faculty in critical dialogue can enable a cumulative shift in thinking from discussions dominated by authoritative discourses of online education that create an initial confusion between performance and pedagogy to the development of critical awareness that enables them to challenge dominant discourses and reconnect with the self as an experienced educator. The paper provides an important insight into an approach that might enable institutions to better support faculty buy‐in and acceptance of online education. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topicInstitutions struggle to understand how best to engage faculty in the transition to online education.A number of frameworks and models have been proposed to facilitate the transition, but these mostly take a managerial perspective.The transition to online teaching is most effective when supported by opportunities for faculty to engage in critical reflection and discussion.Less is known about how opportunities for critical reflection support the transition process and there is a need to theoretically ground such understanding.What this paper addsThe paper draws on Bakhtin's notion of ideological becoming to explore how learning spaces for educator discussion and reflection can be used to facilitate the transition process.The findings show how learning spaces can be designed to enable faculty to develop the skills to navigate and challenge dominant discourses of online learning.The development of critical awareness among educators can also facilitate the development of educational practices for both classroom and online teaching.Implications for practice and/or policyThe transition to online education is not an individual activity, but a collaborative and dialogical process.Faculty need time and space to critically challenge dominant discourses of online education and to re‐establish their existing skills and experience within an online context.This should not be a one‐off event but an ongoing process and conversation in a constantly changing and evolving higher education context.At the policy level, we should not expect online educational practice to be based on one approach or model, but to celebrate individuality and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an innovative evaluation tool, peer assessment is essential in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). In both formative and summative peer assessments in MOOCs, providing reliable feedback is crucial in enhancing learning outcomes. Peer assessment has been highlighted as a reliable tool in both traditional classrooms and small‐scale online learning contexts by a wealth of studies. Factors impacting the result of peer assessment have also been identified. However, such exploration in MOOCs is very limited. Through an examination of 5,722 assignment submissions and 56,794 review scores collected from 18 peer assessments in three courses on Chinese University MOOC platform, this study investigated the inter‐reliability of peer assessment in MOOCs utilizing Krippendorff's alpha and ICC[1]. It also revealed factors affecting peer assessment reliability in MOOCs. The results of this study show that students tended to mark extreme scores, and peer assessment in MOOCs seemed unreliable. In addition, the reliability of the peer assessment in these MOOCs was inversely correlated to the number of reviewers per assignment and reviews completed per reviewer. The assignment type also matters; peer assessment using e‐portfolios format was found more reliable than those using papers and proposals. Suggestions on how to improve the reliability of peer assessments in MOOCs are also provided. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicBoth the formative and summative peer assessment mode, providing reliable feedback is needed, which is of great value for improving the quality of online learning.The reliability and influence factors of peer assessment has been highlighted by a wealth of studies in traditional classrooms and small‐scale online learning contexts.There are still limited explorations in MOOCs.What the paper addsThe students tended to give extreme scores in peer assessment in MOOC, and the peer assessment in MOOC may was not particularly reliable.The Assignment type being rated affected the reliability, and peer assessment using e‐portfolios format was found more reliable than those using papers and proposals.The reliability of peer assessment in MOOC was negative related to the number of reviewers per assignment and the reviews completed per reviewer.Implications for practice and/or policyAvoid using peer assessment as a summative assessment method, and should be assigned relatively low weights to final grades.Using papers and proposals as learning assignments can appropriately reduce the proportion of peer assessment in the final grade.Training on how to identify medium quality work should be provided.Instructional strategies should be designed to encourage learners to actively participate in peer assessments and thoroughly assess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate assessment and effective feedback are crucial for cultivating learners' abilities of collaborative problem‐solving and critical thinking in online inquiry‐based discussions. Based on quantitative content analysis (QCA), there has been a methodological evolvement from descriptive statistics to sequential mining and to network analysis for mining coded discourse data. Epistemic network analysis (ENA) has recently gained increasing recognition for modelling and visualizing the temporal characteristics of online discussions. However, due to methodological restraints, some valuable information regarding online discussion dynamics remains unexplained, including the directionality of connections between theoretical indicators and the trajectory of thinking development. Guided by the community of inquiry (CoI) model, this study extended generic ENA by incorporating directional connections and stanza‐based trajectory tracking. By examining the proposed extensions with discussion data of an online learning course, this study first verified that the extensions are comparable with QCA, indicating acceptable assessment validity. Then, the directional ENA revealed that two‐way connections between CoI indicators could vary over time and across groups, reflecting different discussion strategies. Furthermore, trajectory tracking effectively detected and visualized the fine‐grained progression of thinking. At the end, we summarize several research and practical implications of the ENA extensions for assessing the learning process.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicAssessment and feedback are crucial for cultivating collaborative problem‐solving and critical thinking in online inquiry‐based discussions.Cognitive presence is an important construct describing the progression of thinking in online inquiry‐based discussions.Epistemic network analysis is gaining increasing recognition for modelling the temporal characteristics of online inquiries.What this paper addsDirectional connections between discourses can reflect different online discussion strategies of groups and individuals.A pair of connected discourses coded with the community of inquiry model can have different meanings depending on their temporal order.A trajectory tracking approach can uncover the fine‐grained progression of thinking in online inquiry‐based discussions.Implications for practice and/or policyBesides the occurrences of individual discourses, examining the meanings of directional co‐occurrences of discourses in online discussions is worthwhile.Groups and individuals can employ different discussion strategies and follow diverse paths to thought development.Developmental assessment is crucial for understanding how participants achieve specific outcomes and providing adaptive feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Help seeking has traditionally been studied in face‐to‐face settings using self‐report instruments measuring learners' internal inclinations for help seeking (eg, perceived benefits and threats). Much less is known about help seeking in online learning. Furthermore, external environmental factors such as a positive climate were found to encourage help seeking. Utilizing peer‐help analytics as well as self‐report measures, this study simultaneously modelled the structural relationships among students' perceived class climate, internal help‐seeking inclinations, help‐seeking engagement, participation in peer help and performance in an online class. Results from structural equation modelling indicated that students' perceived goal structure of an online class had a significant influence on their internal help‐seeking inclinations, which subsequently affected their help‐seeking engagement, participation in peer help and learning outcomes. Instructors of online classes should pay particular attention to fostering a mastery‐oriented climate in order to encourage help seeking and improve academic performance. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Help seeking is important for academic success.Due to a variety of individual and contextual factors, students often do not seek help despite the need.Existing research on help seeking focuses on the face‐to‐face setting and relies on self‐report measures.Students' help‐seeking inclinations and patterns may differ between in‐person classes and the online environment.What this paper adds This study examined help seeking in an online class through self‐report measures and objective analytics data.This study modelled the structural relationships among the external climate of an online class, students' internal help‐seeking inclinations, engagement in help seeking, participation in peer help and course performance.Structural equation modelling found that the goal structure of an online class influenced students' internal help‐seeking inclinations.Online students' internal help‐seeking inclinations affected their grades through their participation in help seeking.Implications for practice and/or policy A mastery‐oriented class climate elicits online learners' positive help‐seeking inclinations while discouraging negative ones.The design and teaching of online classes should aim to foster a mastery‐oriented climate.Online classes should offer peer‐help opportunities and encourage student participation, which is conducive to academic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

The rapid growth of diverse learners in online learning has made it imperative for online instructors to incorporate multicultural resource curricula and instructional activities. This research aimed to explore online instructors' perceptions of culturally responsive pedagogy in online education; examine how instructors integrate culturally responsive pedagogy strategies in the online learning environment; and explore the challenges in facilitating cross‐cultural collaborative learning for students from different cultural backgrounds. Data were collected following a qualitative multi‐site case study method with five academic disciplines (Education, Social Sciences, Engineering, Physical Sciences and Health Sciences) in 12 colleges and universities in the United States of America. In all, 60 in‐depth and semi‐structured interviews with instructors (26 females and 34 males) were obtained and analysed following a constant comparative analysis approach. Results reflected that the instructors used cross‐cultural interactions to facilitate students' engagement and incorporated culturally responsive teaching. Besides, the findings revealed that most of the instructors integrated diverse and internationalized learning content to support diverse students and addressed the impact of multicultural education in online learning. It was, however, noted, that instructors in the physical science disciplines struggled to incorporate culturally diverse contents in their online classes. The findings of this study foster discourse on how best instructors could be aided to engage diverse students online more meaningfully. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicSince studies of this nature are mostly undertaken in teaching and learning environments that are diverse in terms of student populations, both students and instructors are exposed to cultural differences in teaching and learning in multicultural/diverse online learning environments.Studies on multicultural/diverse online learning environments abound and have been undertaken for several years but the emphasis has mainly been to explore issues from the perspectives of students.Most online instructors assume that online learning provides equal opportunities to all students regardless of their cultural backgrounds and cultural differences; hence, instructors have mostly not been able to recognize cultural implications for students' learning to design inclusive instructional strategies to meet the learning needs of diverse students in online education.What this paper addsThis study, unlike earlier ones with a similar focus, explored online instructors' perceptions of culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), specifically with regards to the design, preparation and integration of multicultural learning contents and resources in online education.This study employed Scott et al.'s (2015) culturally responsive computing theory as a lens to connect students' prior learning experiences, knowledge, interests, strengths and weaknesses as a way to draw instructors' attention to how best diverse students can be aided to be innovative and succeed in the face of cross‐cultural challenges they face studying online.The study also contributes to the instructors' understanding of culturally responsive pedagogical principles in online spaces that recognize global identities and cultural experiences to meet the needs of diverse students in an online learning environment.Implications for practice and/or policyInstructors must develop online courses with the focus to bridge students' geographical and cultural backgrounds so that students will have the opportunity to share and connect with peers in online classrooms for effective collaboration and communication.Institutions that offer online education must make concerted efforts to provide continuous professional development opportunities for instructors of online courses on impacts of culture/diversity in the online classroom, and strategies for creating conducive online learning environments that value cultural differences, and social/educational experiences in ways that support students' learning.Institutions and stakeholders, through policy initiatives, should make frantic efforts to afford instructors with comprehensive knowledge and understanding of CRP in online learning to avoid the assumption that students in online courses share similar learning characteristics and bring to the online learning the same experiences and cultural backgrounds. [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]

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]

Online teacher professional development is a branch of online learning, which offers educators opportunities to refine their pedagogical skills and collaboratively construct knowledge within professional learning communities. During these interactions, teachers often engage in knowledge construction while exhibiting diverse role characteristics. Investigating these role characteristics and knowledge construction patterns can enhance the comprehension of the interaction process and contribute to online teacher professional development design, addressing challenges such as weak activity and low collaboration. This study examined the key roles that actively interact or contribute to the online community in online teacher professional development, analysing interactive participation characteristics and knowledge construction behaviour patterns. Data were collected from an online teacher professional development activity in China. Statistical, content and lag sequence analysis methods were employed. Results showed that the three key roles had weak interaction persistence and different content quality in interactive participation characteristics. Knowledge construction behaviours of key roles were generally at a high level, with different patterns observed. Finally, the study proposed practical implications based on key roles' interactive participation characteristics and knowledge construction behaviour patterns. These implications may inspire the learning designs that promote online interaction and deep learning based on role characteristics in online teacher professional development.Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicOnline teacher professional development is an evolving and increasingly recognized field within education, positioned as a subset of online learning. Within professional learning communities, teachers engage in knowledge construction and display varied role characteristics.In large‐scale online teacher professional development, only a few consistently maintained knowledge sharing and interaction. These active participants, or 'key roles', account for the majority of interactions.The interactive characteristics of the key roles are rarely discussed.What this paper addsKey roles, while actively participating in the online community, do not necessarily maintain consistent activity throughout the learning process.The interactive participation behaviour of key roles tends to learn more towards 'following' rather than 'initiating'.The quality of interactive content from key roles varies widely. While they are responsible for a significant portion of interactions, it is not guaranteed that these interactions will always be of high quality.Knowledge construction behaviour patterns vary among key roles. Overall, their knowledge construction behaviours are generally at a high level and primarily transit among high stages of knowledge construction.Implications for practiceMaintain continuous interaction and posting high‐quality content prove to be challenging even for key roles. Course administrators should monitor and strategically enhance their engagement to prevent them from becoming lurkers.Understanding the behaviour patterns of key roles offers insights for increasing interaction enthusiasm among active participants.It is necessary to develop role‐specific scripts in professional learning communities, to tailor content for opinion leaders, contributors and boundary spanners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online discussion is one of the frequently used learning activities in an e‐learning process. Learners can exchange opinions and thoughts with their peers through online discussion, stimulate their different viewpoints on the discussion topics, and enhance the learning effectiveness of e‐learning. However, most learners mainly take an effort on posting discussion content but easily ignore reading and understanding the contents of peers' discussions, thus reducing the discussion effectiveness. The purpose of this study is to develop an Instant Perspective Comparison System with a Gamified Incentive Mechanism (IPCS‐GIM) to promote learners' discussion awareness and motivation, thereby effectively enhancing their discussion participation, motivation, and effectiveness. A true‐experimental design was conducted in this research to examine the research questions. A total of 38 university students in Taiwan were randomly assigned to the experimental group using the IPCS‐GIM to assist online discussion and the control group using an instant perspective comparison system without a gamified incentive mechanism (IPCS‐NGIM) to assist online discussion to examine their difference in discussion effectiveness, participation, and motivation on a social‐scientific issue (SSI). The analytical results show that compared to the IPCS‐NGIM, the IPCS‐GIM could not only significantly enhance learners' discussion effectiveness in overall discussion effectiveness, complexity, and multiple perspectives, but also significantly enhance learners' discussion participation and motivation. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic An asynchronous online discussion that can allow learners to exchange opinions and thoughts with their peers, stimulate different viewpoints and enhance learning effectiveness is one of the frequently used learning activities in an e‐learning process. However, most learners mainly take an effort on posting discussion content but easily ignore reading and understanding the contents of peers' discussions, thus reducing the discussion effectiveness.An asynchronous online discussion may result in less enthusiastic discussions, learners may feel isolated due to the lack of immediate peer feedback, or they may not know what to contribute to a discussion topic.The lack of visual cues and immediate feedback is also one of the main factors affecting asynchronous online discussion effectiveness. In recent years, many studies have paid attention to promoting the discussion process and effectiveness by visualizing asynchronous online discussion content and interaction.What this paper adds This study uses gamified incentive mechanisms including a bonus point, title name, and leaderboard to develop a novel Instant Perspective Comparison System with a Gamified Incentive Mechanism (IPCS‐GIM) to promote learners' discussion effectiveness, participation, and motivation on social‐scientific issues (SSI) discussions.The result shows that compared to the Instant Perspective Comparison System without a Gamified Incentive Mechanism (IPCS‐NGIM), the IPCS‐GIM could not only significantly enhance learners' discussion effectiveness in overall discussion effectiveness, complexity, and multiple perspectives, but also significantly enhance learners' discussion participation and motivation.Implications for practice and/or policy Current research on the application of gamification design to asynchronous online discussions mainly focuses on enhancing learners' participation, engagement, and motivation, but there is a lack of research on the use of gamified incentive mechanisms to promote learners' reading of other peers' posts to achieve better quality discussions and enhance discussion effectiveness. This study fills the research gap.This study confirms that the proposed novel IPCS‐GIM can promote learners' discussion on reading other peers' posts, participation, and motivation to what extent due to its gamified incentive mechanisms, visualized discussion cues, and immediate feedback, thereby effectively enhancing learners' discussion effectiveness. This study broadens the horizon of the design of asynchronous online‐assisted discussion tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online professional development programmes have a long tradition in adult education. However, in early childhood education, such programmes are only just beginning to be developed. Before online professional development courses can be made inclusive, accessible and widely available to early childhood educators, they must meet a few basic requirements. The present study provides insights into essential aspects that need to be considered when setting up online professional development programmes, a field which is still in its infancy in Austria. The results of a representative survey (n = 317) demonstrated that early childhood educators' digital competencies are highly variable and cannot be taken for granted. The survey results also stress the need to provide educators with functional digital devices appropriate to their work environment. Early childhood educators' interest in online professional development programmes is very high, in recognition of the advantages afforded by flexible participation options independent of users' time constraints or location. The development of attractive, compelling and accessible online professional development courses can contribute to current professionalisation efforts in the field of early childhood education. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Online professional development has already a very long tradition in the field of adult vocational training but not in Early Childhood Education.The possibility of attending online professional development programmes independent of a participant's time constraints or location is viewed as a particularly beneficial advantage.Online professional development programmes positively affect the professionalisation of educators. For this reason, they must increasingly be integrated into the field of early childhood education.What this paper adds In the field of early childhood education in German‐speaking regions, online professional development training courses are only beginning to be developed.This paper examines the challenges and barriers for early childhood educators associated with implementing online professional development programmes for early childhood educators.The survey was conducted during the COVID‐19 pandemic and includes current data on the ongoing digitalisation boom.Implications for practise and/or policy Online professional development courses should not be understood as competition for conventional face‐to‐face programmes. Instead, they act as a useful supplement.Media competencies are a fundamental prerequisite for everyday professional life—early childhood educators need functional media devices, stable internet connections, and support structures in IT and computer literacy.Early childhood educators require effective instruction in using online professional development programmes to expand online professional development programmes in their field. They must also address compelling topics in early childhood education relevant to educators' practise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technologies and teaching practices can provide a rich log data, which enables learning analytics (LA) to bring new insights into the learning process for ultimately enhancing student success. This type of data has been used to discover student online learning patterns, relationships between online learning behaviors and assessment performance. Previous studies have provided empirical evidence that not all log variables were significantly associated with student academic achievement and the relationships varied across courses. Therefore, this study employs a systematic review with meta‐analysis method to provide a comprehensive review of the log variables that have an impact on student academic achievement. We searched six databases and reviewed 88 relevant empirical studies published from 2010 to 2021 for an in‐depth analysis. The results show different types of log variables and the learning contexts investigated in the reviewed studies. We also included four moderating factors to do moderator analyses. A further significance test was performed to test the difference of effect size among different types of log variables. Limitations and future research expectations are provided subsequently. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Significant relationship between active engagement in online courses and academic achievement was identified in a number of previous studies.Researchers have reviewed the literature to examine different aspects of applying LA to gain insights for monitoring student learning in digital environments (eg, data sources, data analysis techniques).What this paper adds Presents a new perspective of the log variables, which provides a reliable quantitative conclusion of log variables in predicting student academic achievement.Conducted subgroup analysis, examined four potential moderating variables and identified their moderating effect on several log variables such as regularity of study interval, number of online sessions, time‐on‐task, starting late and late submission.Compared the effect of generic and course‐specific, basic and elaborated log variables, and found significant difference between the basic and elaborated.Implications for practice and/or policy A depth of understanding of these log variables may enable researchers to build robust prediction models.It can guide the instructors to timely adjust teaching strategies according to their online learning behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the need to develop a relational, emergent and plural understanding of learning spaces. We take an ecological perspective on learning, which allows us to conceptualize learning spaces as (co‐)constructed by learners; emerging through learners' practices, interactions and activities; and facilitated by pedagogical arrangements. In the co‐construction of spaces for learning, tapping into various ecologies of resources—whether intellectual, relational or digital material—becomes an organic, iterative, agentic endeavour for learners. This paper proposes a set of principles to synthesize this conceptualization and facilitates an understanding of such emergent learning spaces. An empirical illustration extracted from a collaborative student project in software engineering education contributes to grounding the conceptual argument and provides a clarifying example. Ultimately, this contribution suggests that in order to support the emergence of learning spaces that are resource‐rich and conducive to learning, educational contexts and pedagogical arrangements must provide both the framing conditions and also the flexibility and permeability required to access the wider ecologies of resources made available through digital technologies. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic Learning spaces can be individual or collective.Physical space is an important element that can facilitate or hinder learning.Technology can contribute to hosting learning spaces (eg, online).What this paper adds A potential new conceptualization drawing on an ecological perspective on learning.Insights into how learning spaces are customized versions of the learners' intellectual, relational or digital‐material resources available in various contexts.Examples of how learning spaces are constitutive through learners' individual or collective practices, based on affordances provided by pedagogical designs.Propositions on how pedagogical designs can provide learners with opportunities to access wider ecologies of resources made available through digital technologies.Implications for practice and/or policy Teachers need support to develop pedagogical designs that support learners in creating their own learning spaces.Helping students to create their learning spaces requires guidance, which must be facilitated by appropriate institutional infrastructures and conditions.Professional learning approaches are needed to build teachers' knowledge and capacities to support students.Institutional arrangements must be open to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on research trends in electronic learning (e-learning) and online education environments. The author looks at innovative technologies in education, information and communication technologies (ICT), the theory of online education and technologies, and online learning environments. The article also discusses meaningful learning (ML) and cognitive learning theory.

In addition to learning effectively and effectively in online learning communities (OLCs), students must be in a secure environment and privacy must be respected. The study aimed to identify privacy violations that university students encounter in OLCs, and identify recommendations and some strategies to implement to ensure privacy at the OLC. A qualitative research method was applied in the study. First, focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 108 students who participated actively in the OLC. After analysing the interview data, a privacy violations report (RPV‐OLC) was prepared at the OLC. According to the RPV‐OLC, a problem description for the Delphi technique was designed and 17 experts were identified for the interview. Delphi panels with experts were completed in 5 months. The content analysis process was used for the data obtained. Students said they encountered information sharing and access, access to information, system/course settings, resistance to negotiations, communication problems and lack of knowledge. On the other hand, experts suggest that different suggestions and strategies could be implemented to ensure privacy in the OLC, such as partial privacy, mutual trust, contextual privacy agreements, role‐based or anonymous identity use, and privacy education. The study focused on defining the concept of privacy and student privacy violations in online learning environments and providing solutions for educators, students and system administrators. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicDigital learning environments pose a threat to the privacy of students.The fact that privacy violations in the OLC can trigger concerns among students has a negative impact on learning processes.There is high interest at the moment in how to plan the most effective teaching in online learning environments—but privacy is being neglected.What this paper addsThis article explains the privacy violations university students encounter at the OLC.This document contains guidelines on how to mitigate and prevent privacy violations in OLC.The results of the study also provide suggestions for privacy protection at the OLC.Implications for practice and/or policyIt is important that the instructors who participate in the OLC are informed about the necessary measures, rules, principles, activities and follow‐up measures to protect their personal privacy.If we can overcome students' concerns about privacy violations at the OLC, we can create more comfortable learning spaces.The aim of learning should not only be to peak performance; the most important responsibility of educators or system administrators is to preserve each student's private space, while at the same time achieving the best performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gamification has often been used to stimulate learner engagement via intangible rewards, such as virtual points and virtual badges, rather than material goods or benefits. However, not all learners value such intangible rewards; some express their desire to redeem intangible rewards for utilitarian resources or benefits. Although tangible rewards have long been considered a key gamification mechanism in commercial loyalty programs, few studies have explicitly explored its effectiveness in the context of gamified education. To address this gap, the present study used a randomized controlled trial approach to examine the effects of tangible rewards that are redeemed through intangible rewards on students' intrinsic motivation, behavioural and cognitive engagement, and learning performance in a fully online gamified flipped class. Each student was randomly assigned either to the tangible rewards group (EG = 28) or the intangible rewards group (CG = 29). The students in EG significantly outperformed those in CG in terms of intrinsic motivation, behavioural engagement, cognitive engagement and learning performance in the final exam. The results provided practical implications for instructors who plan to use tangible rewards in their gamified classes. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Fully online learning often suffers from a lack of student engagement.Gamification is often used to stimulate learner engagement via intangible rewards (eg, virtual points and badges) that do not contain any utilitarian benefits outside the gamified system.Not all learners value intangible rewards over time—instead, they desire to convert the intangible badges or points into more utilitarian benefits/resources.What this paper adds This study conducted a randomized controlled experiment to compare the effects of redeemable tangible rewards and intangible rewards on student intrinsic motivation, behavioural engagement, cognitive engagement and learning performance.The tangible rewards group significantly outperformed the intangible rewards group in all aspects.Implications for practice Using tangible rewards is better than merely using intangible rewards in gamified learning.Practitioners should link tangible rewards to a standard of performance.Practitioners should also set a specific and moderately challenging redemption goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asynchronous online discussion is a learning activity commonly used in online teaching. The way instructors participate in asynchronous online discussions significantly impacts students' learning outcomes. This systematic review aims to determine the effects of instructor participation in asynchronous online discussions on student performance by analysing 25 relevant studies in the past twelve years (2011–22). The findings show that the research was focused on the presence, frequency and type of instructor participation. The effects of instructor participation on student performance were mixed and concentrated in five main aspects: the quantity of student participation, the quality of student participation, student achievements, student emotions and student learning time. Not only the teaching experience of instructors but also course content, learning objectives, class sizes and learner characteristics influenced the effects. Based on the findings, several recommendations were made to help instructors effectively participate in asynchronous online discussions, thereby contributing to improving the quality of online education. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Asynchronous online discussion is a learning activity commonly used in online teaching.The way instructors participate in asynchronous online discussions significantly impacts students' learning outcomes.What this paper adds Previous research on instructor participation in asynchronous online discussions and student performance primarily focuses on the presence, frequency and type of instructor participation.The impact of instructor participation on student performance is mixed and concentrated in the following main areas: Quantity of student participationQuality of student participationStudent achievementsStudent emotionsStudent learning timeThe effects of instructor participation are influenced not only by the teaching experience of instructors but also by: Course contentLearning objectivesClass sizesLearner characteristicsImplications for practice and/or policy Instructors should participate in asynchronous online discussions based on the class sizes, more in small classes (within 15 students) and less in large classes (more than 30 students). If it is possible, divide the large classes into small discussion groups.Instructors should initiate discussions with heuristic and interesting open‐ended questions, gradually release control and give the central position to students and intervene only when necessary (eg, keep discussions on track, provide correct information, extend discussions, mediate conflicts, etc).Instructors should apply appropriate facilitation strategies (eg, establish detailed discussion rubrics, grade student posts and provide regular individual feedback).Instructors should use more instructional comments and supplement them with sincere rather than perfunctory social comments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of students accessing Alternative Provision (AP) in the UK is growing and the ways in which such provision is facilitated is evolving with the use of EdTech. However, there is very little evidence of such provisions being evaluated in terms of their educational impact nor regarding the way in which students engage with them. This results in the voices of students participating in AP being further marginalised by being out of mainstream education, as they fail to be heard by their educators, schools or local authorities. Within this exploratory paper digital data collection methods are shown to offer a solution to this problem and reveal student voice insights into how they engage with and experience one specific form of synchronistic online AP. This study provides evidence of how student voice can effectively be collated in order to provide an opportunity for marginalised student voices to be heard. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic Student voice is a critical tool in both engaging students and student engagement.There is a preference in students to give anonymous feedback and this facilitates more honest, open responses.AP uptake is increasing.There has been little evidence of any effort to obtain student voice from students in AP.What this paper adds Gathering student voice from students in AP is critical to assess how students view and respond to their provision.Digital data collection facilitates AP student voice; students both younger and potentially more vulnerable to disengagement can have their voices heard more easily.A substantial majority of students in AP who have left mainstream education perceive online learning delivery methods to have positive impacts.Implications for practice/pedagogy Practitioners should strive to ensure AP students have avenues through which they may have their student voices heard to gain insights into the effectiveness of the provision from a student perspective.Anonymous feedback, which enables students to be confident in expressing their views, even when verbally expressed, can be facilitated through digital data collection methods.Use of live, online interactive lessons are a valuable form of AP worthy of further exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thousands of examiners are employed to mark candidate scripts from the suite of public examinations offered to students during the compulsory and post-compulsory schooling phases in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. All examiners undergo training to ensure that they interpret correctly, and apply consistently, the mark scheme for their particular paper. Traditionally this training has been delivered face-to-face, but several benefits of an online training environment have been identified. This paper outlines the findings of an experimental study designed to quantify and compare the effects of face-to-face and online training on experienced examiners' marking reliability. A sample of 89 experienced examiners was randomly allocated to either a face-to-face or online training group. The participants marked 30 General Certificate of Secondary Education History scripts prior to receiving training and another 30 scripts following training. Two measures of reliability were calculated: marking accuracy (absolute mark differences) and consistency (rank order correlations). The findings suggest that both modes of training had comparable, statistically significant positive effects on examiners' accuracy and consistency. The evidence indicates that online training may be an effective alternative to face-to-face training for the purposes of standardising examiners' marking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A discussion forum is a valuable tool to support student learning in online contexts. However, interactions in online discussion forums are sparse, leading to other issues such as low engagement and dropping out. Recent educational studies have examined the affordances of conversational agents (CA) powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically support student participation in discussion forums. However, few studies have paid attention to the safety of CAs. This study aimed to address the safety challenges of CAs constructed with educational big data to support learning. Specifically, we proposed a safety‐aware CA model, benchmarked with two state‐of‐the‐art (SOTA) models, to support high school student learning in an online algebra learning platform. We applied automatic text analysis to evaluate the safety and socio‐emotional support levels of CA‐generated and human‐generated texts. A large dataset was used to train and evaluate the CA models, which consisted of all discussion post‐reply pairs (n = 2,097,139) by 71,918 online math learners from 2015 to 2021. Results show that while SOTA models can generate supportive texts, their safety is compromised. Meanwhile, our proposed model can effectively enhance the safety of generated texts while providing comparable support. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Online discussion forums have been plagued by a lack of interaction among students due to factors such as expectations to receive no response and perceptions of topic irrelevance which lead to low motivation to participate.AI‐based conversational agents can automatically support students' interactions in online discussion forums at a large scale, and their generated responses can be human‐like, contextually coherent and socio‐emotionally supportive.Unsafe discourse exchanges between students and conversational agents can be dangerous as identity attacks, aggravation and bullying behaviours embedded in discourses can disrupt students' knowledge inquiry and negatively influence student motivation and engagement. However, few educational studies have paid attention to the safety of conversational agents.What this paper adds This study proposes and synthesized strategies to build AI‐based conversational agents that automatically support online discussions with safe and supportive discourses.This study reveals the relationship between discourse safety and social support, suggesting supportive discourses can also be unsafe.This study enriches the literature on educational conversational agents by synthesizing a conceptual framework on discourse safety and social support, and by proposing concrete algorithmic strategies to improve the safety of conversational agents.Implications for practice and/or policy Researchers and practitioners can adopt strategies in this study such as generation control, open‐sourced models and public API services to evaluate students' discourse safety for early intervention or modify existing conversational agents to be safety‐aware.Practitioners can utilize the proposed conversational agent to automatically support students both safely and socio‐emotionally at a large scale.Practitioners should be cautious when examining social support with automatic analysis, as not all supportive texts are safe. While unsafe texts can provide emotional support, it does not justify their appropriateness in a learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the widespread use of learning analytics (LA), ethical concerns about fairness have been raised. Research shows that LA models may be biased against students of certain demographic subgroups. Although fairness has gained significant attention in the broader machine learning (ML) community in the last decade, it is only recently that attention has been paid to fairness in LA. Furthermore, the decision on which unfairness mitigation algorithm or metric to use in a particular context remains largely unknown. On this premise, we performed a comparative evaluation of some selected unfairness mitigation algorithms regarded in the fair ML community to have shown promising results. Using a 3‐year program dropout data from an Australian university, we comparatively evaluated how the unfairness mitigation algorithms contribute to ethical LA by testing for some hypotheses across fairness and performance metrics. Interestingly, our results show how data bias does not always necessarily result in predictive bias. Perhaps not surprisingly, our test for fairness‐utility tradeoff shows how ensuring fairness does not always lead to drop in utility. Indeed, our results show that ensuring fairness might lead to enhanced utility under specific circumstances. Our findings may to some extent, guide fairness algorithm and metric selection for a given context. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic LA is increasingly being used to leverage actionable insights about students and drive student success.LA models have been found to make discriminatory decisions against certain student demographic subgroups—therefore, raising ethical concerns.Fairness in education is nascent. Only a few works have examined fairness in LA and consequently followed up with ensuring fair LA models.What this paper adds A juxtaposition of unfairness mitigation algorithms across the entire LA pipeline showing how they compare and how each of them contributes to fair LA.Ensuring ethical LA does not always lead to a dip in performance. Sometimes, it actually improves performance as well.Fairness in LA has only focused on some form of outcome equality, however equality of outcome may be possible only when the playing field is levelled.Implications for practice and/or policy Based on desired notion of fairness and which segment of the LA pipeline is accessible, a fairness‐minded decision maker may be able to decide which algorithm to use in order to achieve their ethical goals.LA practitioners can carefully aim for more ethical LA models without trading significant utility by selecting algorithms that find the right balance between the two objectives.Fairness enhancing technologies should be cautiously used as guides—not final decision makers. Human domain experts must be kept in the loop to handle the dynamics of transcending fair LA beyond equality to equitable LA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web‐based scientific inquiry learning is characterized as providing an autonomy‐supportive environment for students to solve scientific problems. However, as a complementary approach for improving students' learning, structure‐supportive strategies in a web‐based learning environment deserve further exploration. Whilst both teachers and platforms could make essential contributions in providing structure support, research findings concerning how teachers could successfully interact with the platform in such an environment are scarce. Grounded on self‐determination theory, two quasi‐experimental studies with pre and post measurements were conducted to address two questions. First, whether structure support could improve students' inquiry learning in an autonomous web‐based inquiry learning environment? Second, what is the relationship between teachers and platforms in doing this? As hypothesized, study 1 provides empirical evidence on the effectiveness of applying structure‐supportive instructional strategies in autonomous web‐based scientific inquiry. Study 2 confirmed that students performed best in the class with high structure support provided by both teachers and platforms. The results shed light on the positive impacts of integrating both autonomy and structure support and emphasize the critical role of teachers in a web‐based inquiry learning environment. Additionally, they infer a possible causal link between the efficient application of structure strategies and students' learning outcomes. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicA web‐based scientific inquiry learning environment is helpful in assisting science inquiry learning. However, appropriate scaffolding is critical for students in regulating their learning.The autonomy‐ and structure‐supportive strategies could positively influence students' academic performance in the traditional face‐to‐face environment. However, how to integrate both strategies in web‐based learning environments deserves more exploration.Both teachers and platforms should make important contributions in providing structure support, but empirical evidence on how to integrate both are highly needed.What this paper addsThe findings of the current study contribute to the growing body of literature by highlighting the potential importance of self‐determination theory (SDT) in designing instructional strategies from an integrated perspective, particularly in a web‐based scientific learning environment.The results shed light on the positive impacts of integrating both autonomy and structure support, but also provide more implications inferring a possible causal link between the efficient application of structure strategies and students' learning outcomes.The results further indicated the essential role of teachers in a web‐based inquiry science environment.Implications for practice and/or policyAs we recognize the significance of autonomy‐supportive web‐based learning environments, its weaknesses should not be ignored. In designing such a platform, appropriate structure‐supportive strategies should be integrated to assist Chinese students in self‐regulating their learning.It is of practical significance for teachers to explore how to better cope with the use of platforms in the classroom and provide meaningful guidance for their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Morphological awareness (MA), the ability to reflect on and manipulate the smallest language units within a word, has been identified as an essential metalinguistic awareness to predict literacy development. In this study, we examine whether an online gamified English MA programme is more effective than physical face‐to‐face instruction in terms of cognitive, motivational and affective learning outcomes. Method: We applied a quasi‐experimental design using a sample of 33 students in an intervention group (gamified MA programme) and 49 in a control group (face‐to‐face programme). Both programmes were 8 hours in duration (30 minutes/session for 16 sessions). Students' cognitive, motivational and affective learning outcomes were evaluated before and after delivery of the programmes. We took an exploratory sequential mixed‐methods approach, in which qualitative data from semi‐structured interviews were used to validate the quantitative results. Results: The intervention group performed significantly better than the control group in MA and intrinsic motivation. No differences were found for word reading, reading comprehension or affective engagement. The qualitative analyses of the interview responses revealed in detail the students' perceptions of gamified learning. Conclusion: The findings provide evidence for the beneficial effects of gamified learning experiences in terms of cognitive and motivational outcomes in comparison to face‐to‐face instruction. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicMorphological awareness (MA) is identified as a crucial reading‐related skill that relates to students' word reading and reading comprehension. However, few studies can be found that have investigated the use of gamification to teach MA.Gamification is emerging as a popular approach to motivate learners and facilitate learning. However, limited evidence has been presented of its effects on students' cognitive, motivational and affective outcomes, and no clear theoretical framework for gamified MA learning designs has been established.What this paper addsIn this study, the effects of gamified and face‐to‐face morphology programmes were compared.Self‐determination theory was applied to gamification design and the meta design theory 'First Principles of Instruction' was applied in the development of online MA activities.Gamified morphology programme is more effective than a face‐to‐face programme on students' cognitive and motivational outcomes.Implications for practice and/or policyThis study advances the pedagogical design of gamified learning, which can be applied to the teaching of reading‐related skills such as MA.Both appropriate uses of game design elements and theory‐driven instructional design are important to the success of gamified learning.Future studies should investigate the design of gamification that encourage collaboration and support low‐achieving students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic has posed a significant challenge to higher education and forced academic institutions across the globe to abruptly shift to remote teaching. Because of the emergent transition, higher education institutions continuously face difficulties in creating satisfactory online learning experiences that adhere to the new norms. This study investigates the transition to online learning during Covid‐19 to identify factors that influenced students' satisfaction with the online learning environment. Adopting a mixed‐method design, we find that students' experience with online learning can be negatively affected by information overload, and perceived technical skill requirements, and describe qualitative evidence that suggest a lack of social interactions, class format, and ambiguous communication also affected perceived learning. This study suggests that to digitalize higher education successfully, institutions need to redesign students' learning experience systematically and re‐evaluate traditional pedagogical approaches in the online context. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicUniversity transitions to online learning during the Covid‐19 pandemic were undertaken by faculty and students who had little online learning experience.The transition to online learning was often described as having a negative influence on students' learning experience and mental health.Varieties of cognitive load are known predictors of effective online learning experiences and satisfaction.What this paper addsInformation overload and perceptions of technical abilities are demonstrated to predict students' difficulty and satisfaction with online learning.Students express negative attitudes towards factors that influence information overload, technical factors, and asynchronous course formats.Communication quantity was not found to be a significant factor in predicting either perceived difficulty or negative attitudes.Implications for practice and/or policyWe identify ways that educators in higher education can improve their online offerings and implementations during future disruptions.We offer insights into student experience concerning online learning environments during an abrupt transition.We identify design factors that contribute to effective online delivery, educators in higher education can improve students' learning experiences during difficult periods and abrupt transitions to online learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile learning (mlearning) research has in general been characterised by short-term comparative pilot studies with little high-level critique or theory formation. Consequently, there is limited evidence in the literature of mlearning research that is longitudinal across multiple contexts, cooperative and participatory. In response, this paper reflects upon longitudinal (2006-2011) participatory action research and identifies six critical success factors for implementing mobile Web 2.0. These are drawn from the design and implementation of over 35 projects from 2006 to 2011, exploring pedagogical transformation enabled by mobile Web 2.0 integration in higher education. Two of these critical success factors are highlighted in this paper: the need for new approaches to technical and pedagogical support, and the sustained interaction of supporting communities of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on research regarding problem-based learning (PBL) in electronic learning (e-learning) and online education. The author looks at online teaching methods, online technologies in higher education, and motivation in student learning. The article also discusses online learning environments and students' learning performance.

Using principles of Oldenburg's concept of third place to characterize sense of community, this paper establishes a framework for the creation of sustainable, informal learning communities that promote dialogue and interpersonal relationships. This paper discusses Oldenburg's theory of third place, presents a framework to implement online third place communities in educational settings, and offers examples, recommendations and implications for future research. This paper provides a framework for third place development in online learning environments. We propose that virtual third places can meet all criteria established by Oldenburg. The development of virtual third places only occurs over time and violations of third place characteristics are part of the development process. However, these violations should be eliminated over time through continuous evaluation, modification, and implementation of the space, users, activities and organizational needs, goals and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lifelong learning opportunities are readily accessible through the hybridization of digital learning contexts—from formal to informal—in today's globally networked knowledge society. As such, expanded learning opportunities generate a continuum of learning contexts and experiences mediated through digital technology. Consequently, there is an urgent need to actively examine the interconnections and complex relations between what is learned in formal university scenarios and the everyday learning that happens outside of the classroom, particularly the informal learning that is afforded through expanded and emerging digital contexts. The current research problem illustrates that expanded and emerging professional development scenarios require new pedagogical designs for empowering lifelong learners to harness the affordances of the web across both formal and informal contexts and practices. This study outlines ways in which students shape their learning ecologies in virtual contexts to support formal academic learning in online higher education. The paper presents qualitative results from a larger mixed methods interpretive case study. The multicase and multisite study examines three fully online graduate programmes in Education and Digital Technology during the 2017–18 academic year, collecting data in the form of online programme documentation, student interviews and online participant observation. Purposeful and criterion sampling were used to select 13 participants across three sites in Spain, the UK and the USA. The study was underpinned by a lifelong learning ecologies theoretical perspective to analyse learning processes across a continuum of practices and contexts. Findings illustrate how students conceive of, as well as how they organize their learning ecologies through a unique configuration of activities, digital resources and networked social support, indicating that academic programmes and teachers have an essential role in empowering student learning ecologies across contexts, recognizing past trajectories and supporting the development of valued disciplinary practices and perspectives across a continuum of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology‐enhanced learning research, such as that relating to the use of online technologies in formal learning contexts, is sometimes criticised for being under‐theorised. This paper draws together areas of research and theory that have previously been somewhat separately treated, to support the integrated analysis and research of situations where technology mediates learning. First, key areas of research and theory relating to technology‐mediated learning are introduced, along with their associated conceptual underpinnings and assumptions, in terms of premises. These areas are then explained with relation to one another regarding how they can be used to holistically understand learning in contexts where technology mediates learning. The implications of the theoretical concepts are discussed in terms of the future conduct of technology‐mediated learning research, as well as the scope and conditions under which the theorisations apply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and the field of MOOC research, we have a limited understanding of the specific needs of different learner groups and how MOOCs can successfully address those needs. Video lectures and demonstrations are a central learning component of MOOCs. This paper contributes to the research community by examining the use of MOOC videos for two groups of learners. In particular, we explore whether there is an observable difference between specialists' and non‐specialists' video‐watching activity. We analyse data collected from three MOOCs on the edX platform. Our findings indicate that while age and educational background impacts the level of video activity, there is no significant difference between specialists and non‐specialists. We conclude that the MOOC format may be suited to non‐specialist groups, allowing them to self‐direct their learning and utilise videos as educational resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the most recent phase in a mature e-learning project, in the area of reusable learning objects, that has attempted to bring about technological and cultural change. Following an overview of the project and organisational context, an institutional change model is described that helps managers and stakeholders to identify critical interactions among processes and that emphasises the need to recognise interdependencies among technology, practice and strategy. Our model places a premium on informal change, feasibility and sequence. The rest of the paper is organised around three key themes that emerged from practitioner accounts of a recent phase of the project; these are institutional change and resistance, a model for good practice and working with students to change their experience. The research method for the work described in this paper was interpretive, and involved the first author's attempts to understand members of the project team's definitions and accounts of the situation. Thus the rich accounts were further augmented by an interpretive phase that drew on the explanatory power of our change model. We conclude by (1) proposing that the inclusion of different stakeholders, and particularly the student voice, has provided the catalyst for change within the three partners of the CETL, and (2) suggesting that the crucial factors in change implementation are the coordination and dynamic extension of informal change processes which already exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For learners in distributed e-learning environments, it is difficult, but very important, to locate the right peer for collaboration on the right knowledge, at the right time and in the right way. This paper proposes the use of context awareness (CA) to support peer recommendation in the e-learning context. For this purpose, this paper explores the e-learning context that involves knowledge, social and technical contexts. Accordingly, this paper proposes a three-dimensional CA model for peer recommendation that includes CA to knowledge potential, social proximity and technical access. By matching the peer seeker and the peer candidate with respect to these three dimensions, the CA information is promising as an aid to the peer seeker in finding suitable knowledge collaborators. The importance of activity context is highlighted in CA-supported peer-recommendation mechanism. A five-dimensional (who, what, how, when and where) representation approach is suggested for activity-context description. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social learning analytics (SLA) tools are designed to visually demonstrate online discussions with a goal to foster student engagement. However, empirical studies indicate controversial results of the effect of SLA tools on student engagement. This design‐based research designs a student‐facing SLA tool to demonstrate discussions from three perspectives and further uses mixed methods to investigate the effects of the tool. Results indicate the tools have positive influences on increasing student social‐cognitive engagement. The social network visualization has positive influences on both socially active and inactive students; it particularly increases peripheral students' social engagement. The topic network visualization improves all students' perspective expressions, indicating that demonstrating students' interested topics may increase cognitive engagement. The cognitive network visualization triggers students' information sharing, which is considered as the beginning of online engagement development. Based on the results, this research proposes integrated implications by considering learning theory, pedagogical supports and tool development. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic SLA tools are designed to turn learning data into actionable insights of student engagement.Network‐oriented, content‐oriented and process‐oriented analytics are three major approaches.Extant empirical studies indicate controversial results of the effect of SLA tools on student engagement.What this paper adds This research designs a SLA tool to demonstrate student engagement via three network visualizations.This research uses mixed methods to examine students' social‐cognitive engagement.Results show that the designed SLA tools have positive influences on increasing students' engagement.Implications for practice and/or policy Design of SLA tools needs to consider learner agency, disposition and characteristic in the local context.Instructors should deliberately guide students reflect on the information demonstrated in the SLA tool.Future SLA design should make integrate multiple analytic results to reflect engagement in varied ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses nationally representative survey data of adults Internet use in Britain to examine current patterns in the uptake of lifelong learning via the Internet. We develop and test a model that accounts for structure, agency and outcomes using structural equation modelling to address two questions: (1) how structure (as measured by age, gender, SES, Education and ACORN) is related to personal and capital enhancing outcomes of learning online; and (2) how agency (as measured by digital skills and engagement with online learning) mediates this relationship. We demonstrate that social structure remains an important factor in understanding patterns of uptake and outcomes of online learning, alongside an individual's agentic behaviours. We suggest that countries such as the UK, which have become overly focused on individual interventions to increase the uptake of lifelong learning via the Internet, are going in the wrong direction. Such interventions have failed in the past, and we suggest that they will continue to do so unless policy makers reconceptualise lifelong learning and the Internet in ways that take social structures into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intrinsic motivation is seen as the principal source of vitality in educational settings. This study examined whether intrinsic motivation promoted online group creativity and tested a cognitive mechanism that might explain this effect. University students (N = 72; 61 women) who volunteered to participate were asked to fulfill a creative task with a peer using online software. The peer was actually a fake participant who was programed to send prepared answers in sequence. Ratings of creativity (fluency, flexibility and originality) and eye movement data (focus on own vs. peer's ideas on the screen) were used to compare students who were induced to have high intrinsic motivation and those induced to have low intrinsic motivation. Results showed that compared to participants with low intrinsic motivation, those with high intrinsic motivation showed higher fluency and flexibility on the creative task and spent a larger percentage of time looking at their own ideas on the screen. The two groups did not differ in how much they looked at the peer's ideas. In addition, students' percentage dwell time on their own ideas mediated the beneficial effect of intrinsic motivation on idea fluency. These results suggest that although intrinsic motivation could enhance the fluency of creative ideas in an online group, it does not necessarily promote interaction among group members. Given the importance of interaction in online group setting, findings of this study suggest that in addition to enhancing intrinsic motivation, other measures should be taken to promote the interaction behavior in online groups. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic The generation of creative ideas in group settings calls for both individual effort and cognitive stimulation from other members.Intrinsic motivation has been shown to foster creativity in face‐to‐face groups, which is primarily due the promotion of individual effort.In online group settings, students' creativity tends to rely on intrinsic motivation because the extrinsic motivation typically provided by teachers' supervision and peer pressure in face‐to‐face settings is minimized online.What this paper adds Creative performance in online groups benefits from intrinsic motivation.Intrinsic motivation promotes creativity through an individual's own cognitive effort instead of interaction among members.Implications for practice and/or policy Improving students' intrinsic motivation is an effective way to promote creativity in online groups.Teachers should take additional steps to encourage students to interact more with each other in online groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This multiple case study investigates instructional designers' perceptions of online course quality, their use of cognitive load strategies when designing online courses, and whether utilization of these strategies contribute to online course quality. The participants of this study were instructional designers (n = 5) who worked in various campus programs at a large Midwestern university. Data sources included pre‐interview survey, semi‐structured interview and sample course design documents. Employing a pattern matching technique, the results showed that instructional designers (a) define online course quality based on established standards and rubrics; (b) apply cognitive load strategies intuitively while designing online courses; and (c) consider CLT design strategies as an element contributing to course quality. The results also showed instructional designers' use of cognitive load strategies mainly focused on reducing extraneous cognitive load. Implications for practice and research as well as directions for future research are discussed. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic Cognitive load theory (CLT) provides empirically tested strategies to manage cognitive load in different settingsCLT strategies has a positive impact on student learning processes and outcomesWhen designing online courses, it is important for faculty to collaborate with instructional designers to manage cognitive load and improve online course qualityThere is a need to investigate instructional designers' perceptions of online course quality and their use of CLT strategies when designing online coursesWhat this paper adds Provides a deep understanding of instructional designers perspectives on online course quality, application of CLT strategies while designing online courses and how application of these strategies contribute to the online course qualityAlthough instructional designers identify multiple CLT strategies from their work and perceive CLT strategies as an element contributing to course quality, they apply these strategies innatelyImplications for practice and/or policy Multiple stakeholders should be involved in determining online course qualityCollaboration between faculty and instructional designers is essential to manage cognitive load and increase online course qualityCLT and related theories should be emphasized in instructional design programsFuture research should focus on how instructional designers integrate CLT strategies into the systematic instructional design process and instructional designers' decision‐making process through think‐aloud and/or journaling efforts [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a controlled experiment on the effects of three types of reflection triggers in an online course. Fifty-four volunteers, distributed in five groups, used these structured opportunities for reflection during learning. Results show that reflection triggers were extensively employed by the test persons and were perceived as quite useful to reflection and learning. Test persons in the experimental groups reported significantly more reflective prompting and more intensive reflection than those in the control group. In contrast, no positive effects on learner performance and retention could be established. This paradox elicits different possible explanations, which are discussed in the light of the common pedagogical claim that more thoughtful approaches to learning should be promoted. Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic For many years, both teachers, researchers and prominent authors (Schön, Bateson & Kolb) have been stressing the importance of reflection for learning, both in regular classrooms and in e-learning settings., Reflection can aim at enhancing the effectiveness of learning and/or promoting metacognition or similar notions such as 'learning to learn' or 'self-regulation,' all considered as essential skills for knowledge workers., Today's electronic learning environments expand opportunities to reinforce reflection by prompting learners about the content at hand and about own ways of internalising it., What this paper adds Although a wide variety of reflection triggers can be observed in the literature, there is only little and scattered research evidence available about the assumed effects and usage. This paper addresses this lack of empirical data by surveying three concrete and structured reflection affordances., The promotion of reflection is nowadays often associated to post-practice reflective tools such as a portfolio or learning diary. This paper brings in the forefront a different type of tool that targets reflection in action., This paper relates its findings to similar experiments and pending questions in order to offer a context for the discussion about compact and cost-effective ways to stimulate reflection while learning., This study demonstrates that the positive appreciation of reflection triggers by users does not necessarily cohere with increased performance and retention., Implications for practice and/or policy Some institutions are experimenting with efforts to teach more than how to pass exams: they are looking for ways to enhance their students' metacognition. This study explores the provision of reflection triggers as one possibility to make learning processes and habits (good or bad) more tangible., Teachers might feel that they lack time to promote metacognition. However, the reflection triggers suggested in this paper might amount to very short periods of time. This cost-effective approach might allow teachers to avoid 'sacrificing' content or burdening learners., The paper invites teachers to evaluate against their audience and learning goals the relevance of giving a face value to reflection instead of assuming that this reflection will occur. If they would then decide to use reflection triggers, the paper offers ideas for innovative crisscrossing between cognitive and metacognitive landscapes in online formal learning settings. It also elaborates on the observed limitations of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are increased opportunities for online delivery innovation within the education sector because of rapid advances in Internet technology. This paper describes a unique and efficient approach to simulation called 'scenariation'. The scenariation project aimed to establish efficient processes for the development of scenariation content and evaluate the use of a specific scenariation nurse education module. Students were presented with video simulating the workplace and then prompted to make clinical decisions such as selecting treatment options. The scenariation approach was implemented with a group of 380 1st-year nursing students and evaluated using multifaceted online evaluation. The results of this qualitative evaluation highlight not just the potential of scenariation but also some of the difficulties associated with online delivery to large and diverse student groups. Students valued the relevance to practice and interactive nature of scenariation, but some reported technical difficulties. The paper concludes by extending the discussion of scenariation to the areas of inter-professional learning and the integration of scenariation with face-to-face high fidelity simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of an inductive, interpretive analysis of the perspectives of 42 Canadian high school distance education (DE) teachers on asynchronous and synchronous online teaching. The paper includes a conceptual overview of the affordances and constraints of each form of teaching. Findings provided insight into the following aspects of asynchronous and synchronous online teaching: degree of use; the tools used; the contexts in which each occur; students' preferences; and limitations. Pedagogy emerged as more important than media for both asynchronous and synchronous online teaching. Synchronous online teaching relied on teacher- rather than student-centred approaches. Asynchronous online teaching provided support for self-paced, highly independent forms of secondary DE supplemented by synchronous online teaching for answering questions and troubleshooting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'learning design' is used in this paper to refer to the process of designing effective learning experiences for a variety of contexts: in the classroom or laboratory, in the field, online and via standalone packages using a range of media. Learning design involves a wide set of knowledge, skills and competencies, including: learning theory and its applications, course design principles and procedures, use of media, use of different technologies, relevant business processes and so on. This paper briefly introduces a research project that investigated the field of learning design in the UK and elsewhere, and describes the production of a competency framework derived from the results of that research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching and learning in universities have shifted towards online education, and there is not enough scientific knowledge about suitable pedagogical design principles to guide the construction of hybrid learning spaces for today's university students. In this design‐based research, we studied the benefits and challenges in reaching the expected learning outcomes of an e‐course, "Collaboration and Professional Interaction Skills." The practical purpose was developing the pedagogical design of this e‐course. The scientific objective was to build on the research about design principles that guide teachers in constructing e‐courses, enabling in‐depth learning in hybrid learning spaces. The pedagogical design was guided by six design principles. Empirical data (21 students' assignments and reflections, teacher's observations, data from the digital learning management system) were collected in two research cycles. Students were from different degree programmes of educational sciences. Thematic analysis of students' individually and collaboratively authored assignments was carried out in both research cycles. The most emphasised benefits and challenges concerned the combination of working and creating knowledge together, virtually, in a multidisciplinary group. Based on the results, practical recommendations were made for university‐level pedagogical designs that facilitate effective and active collaboration and interaction, and learning of such competence. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic: In higher education, more emphasis needs to be placed on learning skills such as multidisciplinary teamwork and collaborative knowledge creation.There is a need for more personalised learning opportunities that offer flexibility in one's studies and take learners' diverse situations into account.Advanced understanding of suitable pedagogical design principles and knowledge from empirical cases is needed.What this paper adds: What to consider when technology is used to mediate the learning processes.How to tackle the demands of personalised study opportunities and demanding interaction skills by online collaboration.Implications for practice and/or policy: Pedagogical design exemplifying how students build shared knowledge objects iteratively.Students need guidelines and support for multidisciplinary collaboration and interaction online.Learning management systems are not fully tailored for iterative multidisciplinary collaboration; thus, the designer of the course must be aware of the limitations and develop ways of overcoming the discrepancies between the learning management system and learning objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]