Sustaining Student Roles, Digital Literacy, Learning Achievements, and Motivation in Online Learning Environments during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Understanding the Role of Teacher-Student Relationships in Students' Online Learning Engagement: Mediating Role of Academic Motivation

Strengthening online learning outcomes requires the establishment of strong student-teacher relationships to engage students actively in learning activities. Teacher-student relationships are also pivotal factors for enhancing academic motivation for online learning engagement. Generally, however, research on online teaching remains underdeveloped. We aimed, in this study, to investigate the complex interplay in higher education in Pakistan between teacher-student relationships, academic motivation, and online learning engagement. We used Self-Determination Theory to frame an exploration of the impact of positive teacher-student relationships as mediated by intrinsic or extrinsic academic motivation on students' engagement in online learning activities. We administered a student self-report questionnaire to 437 participants from diverse universities in Sindh province. Using Structural Equation Modeling, we confirmed a model fit in which there were positive correlations between teacher-student relationships and students' online learning engagement; and between students' intrinsic and extrinsic academic motivations and their on line learning engagement. Our findings emphasized the need for communication, personalized support, and a sense of belonging in virtual education. Moreover, our findings revealed the mediating role of students' intrinsic and extrinsic academic motivation in teacher-student relationships, highlighting the nuanced dynamics of academic motivation in the virtual learning environment, with intrinsic motivation having the greatest mediating impact in the relationship between teacher-student relationships and on line learning engagement. Our study's practical implications include a need for professional educators to foster positive teacher-student relationships and integrate student motivational elements into online course design.

Variations in anxiety and emotional support among first-year college students across different learning modes (distance and face-to-face) during COVID-19

College students with more emotional support experience lower levels of anxiety and other psychosocial and behavioral problems. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the emotional well-being of college students was additionally challenged by an abrupt shift to distance learning followed by a return to face-to-face classes. In this exploratory study, we compared the levels of perceived emotional support and anxiety among incoming first-year undergraduate students, prior to starting classes, which included different learning modes in five semesters of instruction from 2021-2023 (three distance semesters and two face-to-face semesters). Data from 8659 undergraduate students were extracted from a Mexican state university database, corresponding to students' responses collected during new student orientation week. Participants were students in the arts and humanities (9.7%), social and legal sciences (38%), life and health sciences (28.9%), and engineering and architecture (23.4%). Anxiety levels were measured with the GAD-7 scale, and emotional support was measured using a subscale of the PERACT-R (To go through with resilience) inventory. Comparisons of emotional support and anxiety scores among semesters revealed highly significant differences with small effect sizes. Anxiety levels increased significantly with mean average of 6.65 SD(5.52) during the baseline measure to the highest in 2022-2 to 7.53 SD(5.3) and Emotional Support decreased systematically each semester from baseline mean = 8.03 SD(2.0) to the lowest 7.52 SD(1.8) in 2022-2. The results show that a return to face-to-face classes was associated with increased anxiety levels, whereas levels of emotional support systematically decreased across the five semesters. MANOVA analysis revealed significant differences in anxiety and emotional support scores between semesters, with peaks during the learning mode semester that students returned to face-to-face classes after distance learning even after adjusting for gender. Given that the effect of emotional support on anxiety may be related to success in future educational and professional activities, it is important to develop interventions to restore and increase college students' emotional support levels and develop anxiety management strategies.

Relationship between psychological adaptability and work engagement of college teachers within smart teaching environments: the mediating role of digital information literacy self-efficacy

Introduction

Integrating the Internet and traditional teaching has enriched teaching resources and methods and introduced many advanced digital media. The smart teaching process is influenced by teachers' psychological adaptability, which can be affected by teachers' work engagement. However, the relationship between the two has not received sufficient attention in the literature. This study aims to analyze the relationship between college teachers' psychological adaptability and work engagement in a smart teaching environment.

Methods

Applying structural equation modeling (SEM) to a sample of 373 front-line teachers, this study focuses on the mediating effect of digital information literacy self-efficacy on the relationship between teachers' psychological adaptability and work engagement.

Results

The results show that the four dimensions of college teachers' psychological adaptability strongly influence work engagement and digital information literacy self-efficacy. In particular, teachers' psychological adaptability and work engagement are positively correlated; teachers' self-efficacy can positively affect the three dimensions of their work engagement, and teachers' psychological adaptability can positively affect their digital information literacy self-efficacy.

Conclusion

The above results can serve as a basis for the development and improvement of the training of college teachers and the implementation of smart teaching. The study findings highlight the importance of training teachers on information technology teaching and implementing measures to enhance teachers' digital information literacy self-efficacy. Training should focus on the knowledge and skills of teachers using information technology teaching and increase the practical links of teachers using information technology teaching.

A Meta-Analysis of Facebook-Assisted Learning Outcomes in Different Countries or Regions

In this special pandemic time, many learners have been forced to stay at home receiving education through mobile learning applications and social media such as Facebook. It is thus meaningful to meta-analytically review the studies on Facebook-assisted learning outcomes in different countries or regions to provide constructive suggestions for improvements on mobile learning. Through a meta-analysis using Stata 14.0, this study concludes that the Facebook-assisted learning approach may improve learning interaction, learning performance, social presence, engagement, psycho-motor, and overall skills in different countries or regions, although there are still different results and even controversial issues. The controversies lie in different findings in Taiwan, Switzerland, and UK, where no significant results are revealed regarding the use of Facebook for educational purposes. Future research could examine the construction of a sustainable online learning model, the classic theory, gender differences, and other mobile applications.

Qualitative and quantitative analyses of artificial intelligence ethics in education using VOSviewer and CitNetExplorer

The new decade has been witnessing the wide acceptance of artificial intelligence (AI) in education, followed by serious concerns about its ethics. This study examined the essence and principles of AI ethics used in education, as well as the bibliometric analysis of AI ethics for educational purposes. The clustering techniques of VOSviewer (n = 880) led the author to reveal the top 10 authors, sources, organizations, and countries in the research of AI ethics in education. The analysis of clustering solution through CitNetExplorer (n = 841) concluded that the essence of AI ethics for educational purposes included deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue, while the principles of AI ethics in education included transparency, justice, fairness, equity, non-maleficence, responsibility, and privacy. Future research could consider the influence of AI interpretability on AI ethics in education because the ability to interpret the AI decisions could help judge whether the decision is consistent with ethical criteria.

Motivation and Engagement of Final-Year Students When Using E-learning: A Qualitative Study of Gamification in Pandemic Situation

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how the education system operates. The shift from face-to-face learning to online learning generated many problems, including decreasing students’ motivation and engagement. Gamification has been used as one of the solutions to overcome the problem of low motivation and engagement in learning. The current study aims to examine students’ behavioral change when using e-learning with gamification, investigate gamification elements that are important to students and how it influences students’ motivation and engagement, and investigate whether population characteristics may influence students’ motivation and engagement. Qualitative methods were employed to gather and analyze the data. The thematic analysis resulted in six main themes. The findings revealed that there were behavioral changes in students during gamification implementation, i.e., from negative to positive and from positive to negative. Four gamification elements were found to be the most important gamification elements to students, i.e., points, leaderboard, badges, and gamified test. The mechanism of how these elements influenced motivation and engagement was discussed. The population characteristics of final-year students also had an impact on gamification effectiveness. Despite gamification’s capabilities to influence motivation and engagement, there are some concerns related to negative impacts that must be addressed in the future.

A Systematic Review of Machine-Translation-Assisted Language Learning for Sustainable Education

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, machine translation (MT) has gained popularity in recent years. This study aims to present a systematic review of literature on MT-assisted language learning in terms of main users, theoretical frameworks, users’ attitudes, and the ways in which MT tools are integrated with language teaching and learning. To this end, relevant peer-reviewed articles (n = 26) were selected through the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocol (PRISMA-P) for further analysis. The findings revealed that the main MT users were undergraduate and graduate students. Both teachers and students held mixed attitudes for different reasons. It was also found that MT integration followed four steps, i.e., introduction, demonstration, task assignment, and reflection. The procedures of MT integration could be updated and perfected by introducing other features in the future.