Effects of regulatory focus on online learning engagement of high school students: The mediating role of self‐efficacy and academic emotions.

Background: Since the outbreak of COVID‐19, online courses have been extensively used from K‐12 to higher education. Online learning engagement, an important factor in online learning success, is currently at a low level in high school. Meanwhile, the research on the factors that influence high school students' online learning engagement is still limited. Objectives: Based on the theories of regulatory focus and value control, this study developed a multi‐mediation model to investigate whether self‐efficacy and academic emotions can mediate the relationship between regulatory focus and online learning engagement. Methods: A total of 926 high school student (52.16% female, mean age = 16.47 years) were recruited to participate in this study and completed self‐report measures of regulatory focus, online learning engagement, online learning self‐efficacy and academic emotions. And we used SPSS macro PROCESS developed by Hayes to examine the mediating role of online learning self‐efficacy and academic emotions. Results and Conclusions: The results indicated that promotion focus had a stable positive effect on online learning engagement of high school students, whereas prevention focus had a significant negative effect on the same. Self‐efficacy and positive emotions had a significant positive mediating effect between promotion focus and online learning engagement. Moreover, positive emotions had a significant positive mediating effect between the prevention focus and online learning engagement, while negative emotions had a significant negative mediating effect between them. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Regulatory focus is a self‐regulatory motivational orientation that has a significant impact on online learning for university students.Self‐efficacy and academic emotions are among the main factors that influence online learning engagement.Online learning has spread due to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Lack of understanding of online learning engagement for high school students. Lack of experience of teachers in teaching online. What this paper adds: Promotion focus had a steady significant positive effect on high school students' online learning engagement, while prevention focus had a significant negative effect on high school students' online learning engagement.Self‐efficacy and positive emotion had a significant positive mediating effect between promotion focus and online learning engagement.Positive emotion had a significant positive mediating effect between prevention focus and online learning engagement, while negative emotions had a significant negative mediating effect between them. Implications for practice and/or policy: These findings provide suggestions for instructional strategies for the online classroom. (1) It is important for online teachers to design appropriate learning contexts to initiate a promotion focus for learners in order to increase online learning engagement. For example, by designing online learning contextual elements such as learning activities, learning atmosphere, social interactions, media resources, and contexts, online learners' tendency to promotion focus is activated and learners' level of engagement in online learning is increased. (2) Online teachers can promote learning engagement by initiating a promotion focus, or they can improve students' accountability by initiating their prevention focus, as appropriate. (3) To ensure a certain level of engagement in online learning, teachers should use teaching and learning assessment methods that are predominantly promotion‐focused and supplemented by prevention‐focused methods to accommodate students' different motivational orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]