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The impact of digital education on learning and teaching

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• Published: 03 December 2014

The effectiveness of digital storytelling in the classrooms: a comprehensive study

• Najat Smeda 1 ,
• Eva Dakich 2 &
• Nalin Sharda 1  

Smart Learning Environments volume  1 , Article number:  6 ( 2014 ) Cite this article

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In recent years the use of new technologies in educational systems has increased worldwide as digital cameras, personal computers, scanners, and easy-to-use software have become available to educators to harness the digital world. The impact of new technologies in educational contexts has been mostly positive as new technologies have given educators the opportunity to enhance their knowledge, skills, and therefore enhance the standard of education. Researchers have found that student engagement, achievement and motivation are enhanced through integration of such technologies. However, education systems still face many challenges: one of these challenges is how to enhance student engagement to provide better educational outcomes. It has become increasingly important to use innovative pedagogical models to engage learners. Digital storytelling is one of the innovative pedagogical approaches that can engage students in deep and meaningful learning. This research project aimed to create a constructivist learning environment with digital storytelling. The research investigated the pedagogical aspects of digital storytelling and the impact of digital storytelling on student learning when teachers and students use digital stories.

A multi-site case study was conducted in one Australian school at primary and secondary levels. In selected classrooms, students and teachers had the opportunity to engage in innovative learning experiences based on digital storytelling. In order to enhance the reliability and validity of the research, multiple methods of data collection and analysis were used. Data was collected with qualitative and quantitative methods. An evaluation rubric was used to collect quantitative data, while interviews and observation were used to collect qualitative data. Data collection was guided by a mixed methods research design in order to evaluate if and how digital storytelling enhances teaching and learning outcomes.

The findings from this study suggest that digital storytelling is a powerful tool to integrate instructional messages with learning activities to create more engaging and exciting learning environments. It is a meaningful approach for creating a constructivist learning environment based on novel principles of teaching and learning. Thus, this approach has the potential to enhance student engagement and provide better educational outcomes for learners.

Introduction

From ancient times to the present, storytelling has served as a popular education tool, utilised to pass knowledge from one generation to another. Over the past few years drastic changes have been experienced in the processes used for creating stories, the variety of media used to convey the message, and the target audience. Storytelling, in general, is a powerful pedagogical approach that can be used to enhance learning outcomes for general, scientific and technical education (Sharda [ 2007 ]). Stories have been told as a way of passing on traditions, heritage and history to future generations. Even today people continue to tell stories through new digital media tools. A digital story can be viewed as a merger between traditional storytelling and the use of multimedia technology (Normann [ 2011 ]). Technological advances, such as digital cameras, editing software and authoring tools, have increased the use of technology in the classroom to help students in constructing their own knowledge and ideas to present and share them more effectively (Standley [ 2003 ]).

As confirmed by Armstrong , computers, digital cameras, editing software, and other technologies are becoming more readily accessible in the classrooms, and provide learners and teachers with the tools to create digital stories more easily than ever before (Armstrong [ 2003 ]). Furthermore, digital storytelling helps students to develop their creativity to solve important problems in innovative ways (Ohler [ 2008 ]). It is an effective pedagogical tool that enhances learners’ motivation, and provides learners with a learning environment conducive for story construction through collaboration, reflection and interpersonal communication. Students can use multimedia software tools as well as other technology skills to create digital stories based on given educational issues.

Digital storytelling is used as an embodiment of multimedia production for education purposes. Therefore, this is becoming a part of our lives, and is on the threshold of becoming an important part of teaching and learning as well. All of this is being facilitated by ready access to hardware, such as digital cameras and scanners, in conjunction with easy to use software. Many educational institutions have already been exploring the application of digital storytelling for the past few years (Robin [ 2008 ]).

The power of storytelling as a pedagogical tool has been recognised since the beginning of humanity, and in more recent times, for e-Learning (Neal [ 2001 ]). Digital storytelling has become a modern incarnation of the traditional art of oral storytelling; it allows almost anyone to use off-the-shelf hardware and software to weave personal stories with the help of still/moving images, music, and sound, combined with the author’s creativity and innovation.

This research project aimed to explore the impact of digital storytelling on student engagement and learning outcomes. It focuses on exploring the potential of digital storytelling as an innovative teaching and learning approach, and investigates the impact of digital storytelling on student learning. The research involved a case study of an Australian P-12 school. It explored the use of digital storytelling within the primary and secondary curriculum. In selected classrooms students and teachers had the opportunity to engage in innovative learning experiences based on digital storytelling.

The outcomes of this research project aim to help teachers and learners tap into the power of digital storytelling and partake in more engaged teaching and learning.

Background and literature review

In recent years, our lives have become more involved with technological tools. Developing technology resulted in new generations being more technology savvy than their parents and, even more so, their grandparents. Consequently, researchers have argued that “the impact of the digital technologies and especially the Internet in the 21st century post-secondary classroom is unquestionable and dramatic” (Tamim et al. [ 2011 ]).

According to Prensky, today’s students are the first generation to grow up surrounded by digital technology (Prensky [ 2001 ]). During their daily lives these students have been routinely exposed to computers, electronic games, digital music players, video cameras and mobile phones. They are immersed in instant messaging, emails, web browsing, blogs, wiki tools, portable music, social networking and video sites (Prensky [ 2001 ]; Lea & Jones [ 2011 ]; Sternberg et al. [ 2007 ]). These technologies allow them to communicate instantly and access any information from virtually any place by pushing a few buttons (Autry & Berge [ 2011 ]).

It is likely that the rise of some changes in educational practice, such as distance education, online learning and blended learning, has been the response to the integration of computers and the Internet to the new generation’s lives (Tamim et al. [ 2011 ]). Today’s school environment includes technology, and teachers use it on a daily basis; the basic school infrastructure includes computers, printers, scanners, digital cameras and the Internet, and the majority of teachers have access to word processing, calculations, multimedia and communication software (Hsu [ 2013 ]). According to Pitler, “Applied effectively technology not only increases students’ learning, understanding, and achievement, but also augments their motivation to learn, encourages collaborative learning, and develops critical thinking and problem-solving strategies” (Pitler [ 2006 ]). Therefore, attention should be given to the subject of technology integration (Sadik [ 2008 ]).

Storytelling

Throughout the history of human and social development, storytelling has been used as a tool for the transmission and sharing of knowledge and values, because it is a natural and yet powerful technique to communicate and exchange knowledge and experiences. Its application in the classroom is also not new; and in relation to the use of storytelling in the classroom Behmer stated, “Storytelling is a process where students personalise what they learn and construct their own meaning and knowledge from the stories they hear and tell” (Behmer [ 2005 ]).

Over the last two decades, however, much has changed in how stories can be planned and created; and, as a result, how multimedia can be used to facilitate the dissemination of stories. With the increased use of computers to tell stories, by using a variety of hardware and software systems, there has been a significant improvement in the way stories can be created and presented (Van Gils [ 2005 ]). According to Normann, “People have always told stories. It has been part of our tradition and heritage since the time we gathered around the fire to share our stories. Today people still tell stories, but now we have new media tools with which to share them. A digital story can hence be seen as a merger between the old storytelling tradition and the use of new technology” (Normann [ 2011 ]). To some extent, traditional storytelling and the application of computer technology in education have followed different paths to date (Banaszewski [ 2005 ]). Thus, there is a need to further increase the convergence of storytelling and the use of computers in the classroom. It has been argued that technology is more useful when it is used as part of a broader educational improvement agenda (Pitler [ 2006 ]).

Fortuitously, with the increase in computer power and associated cost reduction, computers and related technologies can play a significant role in making storytelling a more widely used pedagogical tool, given that “Digital storytelling provides students with a strong foundation in what are being called ‘21 st Century Skills’” (Miller [ 2009 ]). While the essential technology is currently accessible in the classroom, storytelling has not been fully recognised as a valuable tool for developing students’ learning skills and achieving 21st century learning outcomes.

• Digital storytelling

Digital storytelling emerged at the Center for Digital Storytelling in California in the late 1980s as a method employed by community theatre workers to enable the recording, production, and dissemination of stories (Lambert [ 2009 ]). Normann defines digital storytelling as “a short story, only 2–3 minutes long, where the storyteller uses his own voice to tell his own story. The personal element is emphasised, and can be linked to other people, a place, an interest or to anything that will give the story a personal touch” (Normann [ 2011 ]). This has developed in a number of ways, shaped by advances in personal computing and recording technology, and by its use in a range of academic and non-academic contexts (Normann [ 2011 ]; Clarke & Adam [ 2012 ]).

Digital storytelling is defined by The Digital Storytelling Association, as a “modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling” (The Digital Storytelling Association [ 2011 ]). Although there is not a single digital storytelling definition, the majority emphasise the use of multimedia tools including graphics, audio, video, and animation to tell a story. Benmayor’s digital storytelling definition is: “a short multimedia story that combines voice, image, and music” (Benmayor [ 2008 ]). According to Kajder, Bull & Albaugh, a group of still images, combined with a narrated soundtrack, constitutes a digital story as long as they relate a story. Focusing on its presentation on screen, Alan Davis offers another definition of digital story as “a form of short narrative, usually a personal narrative told in the first person, presented as a short movie for display on a television or computer monitor or projected onto a screen” (Kajder et al. [ 2005 ]).

Meadows offers a more technology-focused definition, where digital storytelling makes use of low-cost digital cameras, non-linear authoring tools and computers to create short multimedia stories to accomplish social endeavours of storytelling. It is a technology application which takes advantage of user-contributed content and assists teachers in utilising technology in their classrooms (Meadows [ 2003 ]).

Digital storytelling: a constructivist approach to learning

In recent decades, various learning paradigms have been used to enhance teaching and learning practice; each one of these learning theories, such as behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism, has its own perspective on learning methods. Before explaining the main concepts underpinning each of these theories, first let us consider what a learning theory is. According to Hill, a learning theory is the attempt to explain how people (and animals) learn, and a paradigm to understand what is fundamentally involved in the learning process (Hill [ 2002 ]).

The Behaviourism school founded by Thorndike, Pavlov and Skinner, was based on the assumption that learning changes behaviour, and resultant responses outside the environment (Thorndike [ 1913 ]; Pavlov [ 1927 ]; Skinner [ 1974 ]). Behaviour patterns include the use of direction signs and learning practice. A change in behaviour is based on corresponding changes in observable aspects of learning and the learning process. The key elements of behavioural patterns are motivation, answers, and the connection between them. One of the most important features is the incentive present for learning within a learning environment (Jung [ 2008 ]).

Compared with behaviourism, which explores students’ behaviour, cognitive theories inquire into the processes driving the behaviour. It places greater emphasis on the environment to facilitate the learning process (Jung [ 2008 ]). Cognitivism focuses on the construction, organization and arrangement of educational content to facilitate optimal management of information, and how to remember, store, and retrieve information. In addition, learning is seen as a dynamic process, which is created by the learners themselves (Anderson [ 2008 ]).

Constructivism is one of the most influential educational approaches developed in recent times. It overlaps the cognitive learning school in many ways; however, it is characterised by its emphasis on learning through the use of authentic contexts, and a focus on the importance of the social dimension of learning. Wilson defines it as “a place where learners may work together and support each other as they use a variety of tools and information resources in their guided pursuit of learning goals and problem-solving activities” (Wilson [ 1996 ]).

In addition, according to Anderson the constructivist has more than a simple perspective on learning, recognising that people explain the learnt information and the world around them, based on their personal vision (Anderson [ 2008 ]). Jonassen argues that learning environments should offer constructive, active, intentional, collaborative, complex, conversational, contextualised and reflective learning (Jonassen et al. [ 1999 ]). To sum up, the most important learning characteristics of constructivism are that learners can build on their own interpretation of the world, depending on experience and interaction, and that will generate a new understanding through the collection of knowledge from various sources (Duffy et al. [ 2012 ]).

On the other hand, the education theories developed in the 20th century consider teaching and learning as more than mere interaction or transmission of knowledge (Daniels [ 2001 ]; Dewey [ 2007 ]; Vygotsky et al. [ 1978 ]; Wells [ 1999 ]). These theories consider teaching as a specific paradigm of teacher–student interaction, where the desired role of the adult is a collaborator and/or co-constructor.

Bouman defines learning as the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, practice, or study, or by being taught. He classifies learning under different headings: the two main ones are student-led and teacher-led learning. Student-led learning is a process of learning information where students ask questions of one another, while they assist each other as peers in discussing the method used to acquire the answers to those questions; students are also allowed to work with one another in a student-centred environment. Teacher-led learning is currently the most popular form of teaching students. This method involves the teacher holding all the information and sharing it with the students over time. The most recent works in the literature favour student-led over teacher-led learning since it leads to longer retention. This hinges on the fact that when students take a more active role in their learning process, this results in a more meaningful connection to the information (Bouman [ 2012 ]).

The learner’s active position is strongly emphasised as it is indispensable for the development of lifelong learning skills (Verenikina [ 2008 ]). The zone of proximal development (ZPD), developed by Vygotsky (Wells [ 1999 ]), is defined as the distance between what a student can do with or without help (Vygotsky et al. [ 1978 ]). The main focus in the ZPD is to ensure that students are actively engaged in learning that will make them self-directed, lifelong learners in the long run. In this sense, teaching becomes a co-construction of knowledge between learner and teacher. It also facilitates further transformation of that knowledge into individual student knowledge (Verenikina [ 2008 ]; Dakich [ 2014 ]).

Digital storytelling can thus facilitate a constructivist approach for teaching and learning. It can be a helpful educational tool, as it provides a vehicle for combining digital media with innovative teaching and learning practices. Apart from building on learners’ technology skills, digital storytelling encourages additional educational outcomes (Dakich [ 2008 ]). It enhances learners’ motivation, and helps teachers in building constructivist learning environments that encourage creative problem solving based on collaboration and peer-to-peer communication. In addition, digital storytelling can be used to facilitate integrated approaches to curriculum development, and engage learners in higher order thinking and deep learning (Dakich [ 2008 ]).

Consequently, as the literature review has revealed, digital storytelling is a powerful model for creating constructivist e-Learning environments. Digital storytelling has the potential to engage learners in integrated approaches to learning with digital media. Furthermore, digital storytelling enhances learners’ motivation, and helps teachers in building constructivist learning environments. To facilitate the harnessing of these pedagogical benefits we need an overarching framework for creating digital stories. This framework should be cognisant of the needs and capabilities of learners at their various stages of learning (i.e. catering for learners from primary school to university level, and even professional e-Learning content creators).

This research presented a new e-Learning Digital Storytelling (eLDiSt) framework to be able to use digital storytelling as a pedagogical model for constructivist learning (Additional file 1 : Appendix A). This framework was developed for application of digital storytelling at various stages of learning. The e-Learning Digital Storytelling (eLDiSt) framework also articulates how storytelling can be used at different levels of education. The eLDiSt framework is designed primarily as a tool to help story creators in producing engaging digital stories, the framework is based on thirteen storytelling aspects and five levels, and each aspect advances in complexity as the learner’s level advances from level one to five. It considers the needs and abilities of learners at different stages of learning, including learners from primary school to university, and even professional e-Learning content creators. With the help of this eLDiSt framework, digital storytelling can be used as an efficient and effective learning tool at various levels of education. Different aspects identified in this framework enable teachers as well as students to fully grasp the elements required for an engaging and educative digital story.

Therefore, the mission of this research is to create a methodology for building constructivist learning environments based on digital storytelling, the outcomes of this research project aim to help teachers and learners tap into the power of digital storytelling and partake in more engaged teaching and learning.

This research project investigated impact of digital storytelling on student engagement and outcomes. It focused on exploring the potential of digital storytelling as an innovative teaching and learning approach and its potential to enhance student engagement and student outcomes. This research involves a multi-site case study of an Australian P-12 school, and explores the use of digital storytelling within the primary and secondary curriculum. In the selected classrooms students and teachers had the opportunity to engage in innovative learning experiences based on digital storytelling. In order to enhance the reliability and validity of the research, both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis were used. A rubric was used to collect quantitative data, while interviews and observation were used to collect qualitative data. Data collection and analysis of the feedback provided by teachers was based on mixed methods research to thoroughly evaluate the benefits of digital storytelling vis-à-vis teaching and learning.

Research questions

The rationale for this project is to explore the pedagogical benefits of digital storytelling. Therefore, the overall research question is: How can digital storytelling enhance the student engagement and provide better educational outcomes for learners? This question can be divided into the following sub-questions:

How can digital storytelling be used to enhance student engagement?

How can digital storytelling be used to improve educational outcomes?

What are teacher perceptions about student learning through digital storytelling?

Significance of the study

Since the main aim of this research is to investigate the impact of digital storytelling on student learning, the outcomes of this research will enable both teachers and students to tap into the power of digital storytelling, leading to more engaged teaching and learning. This study contributes to new understandings of how to create authentic and constructivist learning contexts that can be used in a range of educational settings. The research focuses on how to implement digital storytelling in the classroom, describing the digital story workshop, and explaining teacher roles and student tasks; i.e. this research gives a clear picture of how to integrate digital storytelling into schools. Therefore, it is expected that the new knowledge generated by this research will inform educational policy and practice.

Methodology

A case study design that uses multiple case studies was chosen for this research (Mello [ 2001 ]). Case study research is a qualitative approach in which the researcher explores a case or multiple cases over time, involving multiple sources of information, for example, observations, interviews, documents and reports (Yin [ 2009 ]; Creswell et al. [ 2007 ]). The research methodology is designed to utilise both quantitative and qualitative methods. As previously mentioned, this research aims to explore the pedagogical benefits of digital storytelling; therefore, this research will focus on the level of the student engagement and the associated educational outcomes using digital storytelling. In order to achieve a complete understanding of these phenomena, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected.

Classroom observations

To record both qualitative and quantitative observations an observation tool was created (Additional file 1 : Appendix B). This observation tool was adapted from WestEd ([ 2002 ]) to fit the purpose of this study. This tool contains three different forms:

Pre-observation form (qualitative)

Timed observation form (quantitative)

Field notes form (qualitative)

The pre-observation and field notes forms were used to collect qualitative data. The pre-observation form was used to collect information about the class being observed, objectives of the story, and materials used. Whereas the field notes form was used immediately after the class, to write up research notes.

The timed observation form was used to collect quantitative data about the use of new technologies. The timed interval observation sheet is divided into several components, analysed for the percentage of time each variable observed in the classroom. To collect data, the observer checks the presence of various attributes of technology integration observed during three-minute intervals. The check marks for the noted intervals are then tallied for an overall distribution of observed events (Sadik [ 2008 ]). This observation was conducted to examine the quality of student engagement in authentic learning tasks using digital storytelling, and specifically focuses on: class collaboration, knowledge gain, student roles, teacher roles, student engagement, technology integration and modes of learning.

Evaluation rubric

In addition to classroom observations, a scoring rubric was used by teachers to assess the quality of the digital stories created by the students. This stage had two different aims: to assess the level of student engagement, and document the educational outcomes achieved through digital storytelling. The level of engagement is a quantity that can be measured with the help of a scoring rubric. According to Sadik, it is appropriate to use an assessment instrument, such as a scoring rubric, to evaluate ICT-based learning projects (Sadik [ 2008 ]). Therefore, the role of digital storytelling was assessed by means of an evaluation rubric. An evaluation rubric created by the University of Houston ([ 2011 ]) was chosen as a guide to create the rubric for this research (Additional file 1 : Appendix C). The evaluation rubric included nine criteria; these are: Purpose, Plot, Pacing of Narrative, Dramatic Question, Story Content, Grammar and Language Usage, Technological Competence, Emotional Content and Economy of Content. Four levels of descriptors were given for each category, with scores of 4, 3, 2, or 1 possible, depending on the level of success in that area.

Teacher interviews

Once the level of engagement was measured, we needed to ascertain the educational outcomes associated with digital storytelling. To perform this step qualitative data was collected through teacher interviews. After conducting interviews, the interview data were analysed to identify the benefits related to the use of digital storytelling as a pedagogical approach, and the teacher’s opinion about integrating new technologies in their curricula and classroom.

Therefore, three different methods were utilised for data collection: observation, teacher evaluation rubric, and interview. Timed observation and field notes were used as the observation method, while a scoring rubric instrument was used for teacher assessment. Finally, an interview protocol was used for interviewing the participating teachers. The overall conclusions will be extracted by integrating the findings of each method (Creswell [ 2008 ]).

Participant groups

This study involved five teachers from prioritised curriculum areas (Science, Art, English, Library and Social Studies) to integrate digital storytelling into the primary and secondary school curriculum during third and fourth terms in 2012.

Table  1 lists the details of each setting including the subject area in which the digital storytelling was implemented, the number of students, and days spent observing the project development, including viewing the digital story.

Implementation of digital storytelling in classrooms

Since the main aim of this research was to investigate the impact of digital storytelling on student learning when teachers and students use digital stories, and evaluate if and how digital storytelling could enhance student engagement and improve educational outcomes; the next section will focus on how digital storytelling is implemented in the classroom, describing the digital story workshop, and explaining the teachers’ roles and students’ tasks (Smeda et al. [ 2012 ]).

As mentioned by Sadik, the use of technology is only effective if the teachers have the expertise to customise the use of technology for story creation. The benefits can only be received if teachers have the ability to use it in the classroom effectively (Sadik [ 2008 ]). Therefore, the researcher started by giving an orientation seminar, followed by workshops to teachers during the first two weeks to support and engage them in the project.

The following steps were used to help teachers easily integrate digital storytelling in their classroom. It is not the only way to implement digital storytelling; however, it can provide clear strategies on how to integrate digital storytelling when teachers and their students do not have any previous training in digital storytelling (Ohler [ 2008 ]; Sadik [ 2008 ]; Miller [ 2009 ]; Kajder et al. [ 2005 ]; [ University of Houston 2011 ]; Smeda et al. [ 2012 ]; Robin [ 2006 ]; Sharda [ 2005 ]; Lasica [ 2006 ]).

Teachers’ workshop

Two workshops were conducted for the teachers with the following main objectives:

Introduce Digital Storytelling (Workshop 1):

Objective: Describe the concept of digital storytelling

Facilitator: Researcher

Description: The workshop started with a conversation about teachers’ experiences with digital sound, video, and storytelling. An overview of possible strategies for using digital storytelling as a medium for engaging students and improving learning outcomes. The potential power of digital storytelling as a teaching and learning tool was then explored within the constructivist paradigm.

Introduce Moviemaker software (Workshop 2):

Objective: Describe how to create a digital story with the Moviemaker software

Description: In this workshop Moviemaker software was introduced to the teacher with an explanation of how to create a digital story using this software; various features and options available in Moviemaker were demonstrated.

Students and teacher roles

Students at different levels have different skills and knowledge, so they need different levels of help. For example, primary school students who have basic skills and knowledge need more direction and guidance to create a digital story. Obviously, students in different grades might need different levels of assistance and scaffolding. Therefore, students worked under the supervision of their teachers, and depending on each individual student, teachers provided help in constructing and creating the story. It is expected that the level of teacher support and the extent of scaffolding may vary across levels; teachers were prepared to provide this support through a series workshops ([ Smeda et al. 2012 ]).

Using the following lessons, teacher and student worked together to create the digital stories step-by-step:

Lesson 1: brainstorm

The objective of this lesson is to brainstorm the story. Typical expected duration is 1 to 3 days. In this lesson, teachers divide students into groups and allocate topics for them to discuss between themselves, share their ideas with each other and brainstorm the story in different ways. The students jot down ideas and write the initial narrative for the story for a particular topic the teacher had given them.

Lesson 2: storyboard

The purpose of this lesson is to create the storyboard. The estimated duration is 2 to 4 days. In this lesson, teachers help their students in writing the storyboard to organise the story sequences. They also help students clarify the main ideas of the story. Students, on the other hand, create the storyboard and select the right element(s) for it. They may also start by writing a draft of their storyboard. This assists in planning the visual materials in the right order, and thinking about how to match images or videos with the voiceover and music.

Lesson 3: search the material

This lesson is directed towards collecting the material required to create the digital story over a period of 2 to 4 days. Teachers demonstrate to their students how to look for images from different sources such as books, magazines, and the internet. They also explain copyright and digital rights issues related to the materials used. Furthermore, teachers show the students how to use the digital camera, if required. It is the students’ responsibility to choose elements which match their digital story such as photos, videos, and music.

Lesson 4: creating the digital story

The objective is to use Moviemaker software for creating a digital story. Due to the amount of work associated, the duration of this lesson is 5 to 10 days, the longest among digital story creation steps. For teachers, this lesson is designed to help students create the digital story and explain how to import pictures and videos into the Moviemaker software. Moreover, teachers help the students who want to record their voices and use them within the story. The students created the digital story based on the storyboard by importing the elements to Moviemaker software and recording their voice to add to the narrative and test if it works effectively with the digital story. They can also add special effects and adjust the length of each visual element. This is achieved by choosing and adding some special effects, such as music and transitions, to make the story more attractive, adjusting the length of each visual element to make sure it matches the narration, and this is done over the entire digital story.

Lesson 5: editing and feedback

This lesson is aimed at editing and finalising the digital story, after the student has created its first version. The duration of this lesson is 1 to 3 days. In this lesson teachers provide some feedback to incorporate further improvements before the final draft of the digital story. Students revise and edit the drafts based on teachers’ comments and feedback. Then they discuss the final drafts with the teacher and other students. The final form of the story is prepared based on these comments and feedback.

Lesson 6: presentation and evaluation

The final step of digital story creation is about presenting and evaluating the finalised digital stories over 1 or 2 days. Teachers attend the student presentation and evaluate them based on story elements, story creation and presentation. The sole responsibility of the students in this lesson is to present the digital story to teachers, classmates, and parents.

Results and discussion

Individual case studies using mixed methods constitute the body of this research. Data for this study was collected through observations, the evaluation rubric, and teacher interviews. Five separate case reports were prepared. The case reports aim to answer the research questions; and a cross-case matrix was developed for each research question. The intent of the study was not comparative, due to the fact that it was conducted in a single school and all five practice case studies were conducted at different educational levels such as Years 3–4 in primary school, and Year 11 in secondary school. In addition, the approach assumed in the implementation of this research was dependent on teachers. Therefore, in one-class students worked autonomously, while in others they worked in groups.

Considering all the above parameters, the main focus of the research was not to perform a comparative analysis, but rather to evaluate the effects of digital storytelling on education. The intent was to capture the benefits of using digital storytelling to explore student engagement and outcomes, as well as teacher experience with digital storytelling.

Therefore, in this section will focus on the main conclusion derived from the discussion of main findings related to student’s engagements and learning outcomes, as well as the teacher perceptions about digital storytelling as a pedagogical tool.

Enhancing engagement

The findings of this research indicate that levels of student engagement fluctuate between moderate and high. In other words, students were always engaged in the classroom. The use of software and conducting searches for digital media took these levels to very high, and were the highest for student presentations. In all cases students liked using technology, searching the internet, and watching other digital stories. There were some differences in implementation. For instance, Year 7 students had very low engagement levels when they had to complete their storyboards. Year 9 students had a constant, high level of engagement as they occasionally presented their completed works. Some Year 11 students’ lack of interest in school curriculum presented as an engagement problem. However, the use of digital media managed to increase their engagement level. This finding is supported by Dupain and Maguire who argued that educators continuously need methods to engage students’ interest with teaching material. With the aid of the latest developments in technology, classrooms welcome digital storytelling as a means of teaching, and students are motivated to conceive an academic concept and transmit their own (Dupain & Maguire [ 2005 ]).

The above findings are also in agreement with the current literature which encourages this new teaching approach, that is, digital storytelling permits students to utilise technology in an effective manner. Provision of appropriate resources and editing tools paves the way for student motivation and maximises its positive effect (Sadik [ 2008 ]; Morris [ 2011 ]). This encourages students to put more effort into their stories and to create quality products.

Yet another result confirming the above findings is reported by Gils, this research showed that pupils are more engaged with the practical environment. Digital storytelling makes practice and training more engaging, diverse, and customised to their needs and challenges, which makes it more realistic. In this sense, it encourages students to focus on using English to communicate with classmates. Digital storytelling has the advantage of engaging three different senses: hands, eyes and ears. It also increases students’ technical literacy (Van Gils [ 2005 ]).

On the other hand, the findings of this research indicate students had a hard time getting engaged in the class when they had to finish their storyboard; some students were not interested in any school activity including digital storytelling. Therefore, they had a low engagement level. However, when these students started recording their own videos, engagement levels increased significantly.

Consequently, it is possible to use digital storytelling to integrate instructional messages with learning activities to create more engaging and exciting learning environments. This teaching approach enhances emotional interest and cognitive attention, and reflects consistent and reliable transfer of knowledge in line with modern learning theories. Considering Barrett’s findings, it can be concluded that digital storytelling combines student engagement and effective integration of technology into instruction, which are student-centred learning strategies (Barrett [ 2006 ]).

Fostering collaboration

The findings of this research indicated that students work collaboratively and engage with digital content. They did more work while directly using applications and digital resources, such as the internet and/or libraries, instead of conventional printed media, such as books. This research also observed collaboration between groups where different groups helped each other with technical or grammar issues. This increased their levels of communication.

The above findings are in agreement with Standley who found that the creation of digital stories encourages collaboration between students, which in turn leads to the utilisation of various cognitive capabilities. Moreover, when working in a group, individuals pay more attention to content (Standley [ 2003 ]).

In addition, other researchers have found similar findings to those in this research. According to them, the digital learning experience can promote collaborative studying and encourages students to share resources online. Students’ skills are also enhanced by using databases and internet sources. Furthermore, digital content ensures that different groups are helping each other, as networked digital content connects the whole class; students who participate in digital storytelling projects have better communication, organisational skills, and more confidence in terms of asking questions and expressing opinions (Robin [ 2006 ]; VanderArk and Schneider. [ 2012 ]; Hung et al. [ 2012 ]).

The fact that students helped one another in problem solution and concept development reinforces the idea that cooperation and collaboration levels are increased with digital storytelling, in other words students have a higher engagement level when they are working in groups to create a story.

In conclusion, this research demonstrates that digital storytelling can increase students’ collaboration and communication skills.

Transforming learning

This research affirms that digital storytelling is suitable for a constructive approach to learning; because students work on their own story after receiving basic instructions from the teacher. Students have their own individual approach based on their interactions and experiences and generate novel outputs by using different sources in their creation of the digital story. These findings are in line with those reported by other researchers, such as Garrard who observed that digital storytelling supports constructivist learning and concluded that digital storytelling is a good method of teaching with positive impacts (Garrard [ 2011 ]).

In addition, the findings of research conducted by Normann concur with this research. He concluded that digital storytelling is a perfect way of learning new things and to implement constructive approaches to education, he reported that the method of conducting lessons impacted the students’ approach to learning activities (Normann [ 2011 ]).

The constructivist approach has several perspectives on learning since it recognises that human beings use their own personal vision in explaining the acquired information (Duffy et al. [ 2012 ]). This was supported by teachers in our study who concluded that digital storytelling permits students to learn by doing, and providing a flexible learning environment enables students to use their own ideas.

In addition, the findings of this research confirm that facilitating or scaffolding the learning process is the teacher’s main role. At the beginning, tasks, software and digital storytelling are explained by the teacher, which requires a teacher-led mode. Following this step, students have the necessary knowledge from which to start working autonomously, with some teacher supported learning.

Robin, who has a similar outlook on digital storytelling, found that a story created by the teacher will help students to enhance their abilities. The teacher thus builds the framework for discussing storytelling topics and makes conceptual and/or abstract subjects more comprehensible. Building on experience and knowledge with teacher support, students create their own story using iMovie and/or Moviemaker. Thus students improve their skill set with teacher support in project development (Robin [ 2008 ]).

This has significant congruence with Miller’s findings, i.e. students imitate interactions with their teacher and use these interactions to help others, thus building their interpersonal skills and confidence (Miller [ 2009 ]).

Building digital literacy

This research indicates that the utilisation of digital storytelling in education increases skills. Teachers witnessed that digital storytelling via technology integration assisted students, and helped them overcome their problems. As supported by Ohler, who viewed digital storytelling as a concept supporting creativity, students could solve crucial problems in unprecedented ways. Furthermore, teachers viewed digital storytelling as a valuable tool to increase research skills. A myriad of skills, such as spelling, writing, teamwork or collaborating with students and teachers, can be improved. Needless to say, the uptake of technology improves technical skills (Ohler [ 2008 ]). Sadik arrived at a different conclusion in his research, where classroom observations and interviews showed that the use of technology is only effective if teachers have the expertise to customise content for story creation (Sadik [ 2008 ]).

In addition, the findings of teacher interviews indicate that digital storytelling is an effective tool to help students improve their technical skills and information literacy. Students have the opportunity to choose the skill they want to work on and improve. This may include individual skills, such as spelling and writing, as well as interpersonal skills such as working in a team, or collaborating with students and teachers. Miller also found that in every class engaged in digital storytelling, one student acted like a tutor. This student not only worked on the project, but also provided technical support to peers in terms of developing their stories. In this sense, students are empowered to use their strongest skills, and improve them. Their research skills are also honed during video searches, scanning images and selecting audio content for the story (Miller [ 2009 ]).

Also, the findings indicated that teachers believe that the use of stories in education is very beneficial for countries receiving immigrants, such as Australia, because a digital story incorporates multiple aspects of the curriculum, and all teachers should use this medium at some stage. One teacher commented that in their school, where they work with many students from non-English-speaking countries, students welcome the opportunity to express themselves through visual media, rather than more words; it facilitates communication for new students and builds their confidence. Similar finding were reported by Benmayor who stated that digital storytelling can help learners to transfer their knowledge, skills and culture, thereby evolving their thinking process and helping them gain confidence. Accordingly, digital storytelling can be classified as an asset based pedagogy (Benmayor [ 2008 ]).

Additionally, the findings of teacher interviews indicated that, with digital storytelling, not only students but the teachers also got the opportunity to improve their technological skills. This included the use of electronic devices such as personal computers, cameras and recorders. Miller reported similar findings. She stated that digital storytelling is the best application for teachers to encourage students to increase their use and knowledge of technology and technical skills. Furthermore, in order to create these stories, not only the students but also the teachers are obliged to increase their technical proficiency in using personal computers, digital cameras, recorders, etc. This helped teachers keep up with the latest technology (Miller [ 2009 ]).

Personalising learning experience

The findings of this research show that digital storytelling can cater for greater diversity by personalising student’s experience. It can help them improve their confidence, and contribute to enhanced social and psychological skills. It can also be used to support students with special needs such as ESL a and VCAL b students.

These findings are in line with other research outcomes reported in literature. Van Gils found that personalised education is one of the main advantages of digital storytelling. He argued that learners can present their experiences, reflections and evaluate their achievements while creating digital stories (Van Gils [ 2005 ]). According to Ohler, digital storytelling helped students to become active participants rather than passive consumers of information (Ohler [ 2008 ]).

Academic efforts that focus on the benefits of digital storytelling are supported by government agencies. Several governing and regulatory authorities have been working on improving the education system in terms of motivation, learning outcomes and professional integration. For instance, the Australian Curriculum in Victoria (AusVELS) was specifically designed to ensure that curriculum content and achievement standards established high expectations of all students (AusVELS [ 2013 ]). According to AusVELS students are expected to enrich their learning experience, not only in a single aspect of the curriculum, but in all areas. It is known that students in Australian classrooms have varying needs based on individual’s learning histories, abilities, cultural and educational backgrounds. In recognition of this fact, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) is developing additional curriculum to promote learning outcomes for students with disabilities, and/or to assist students from different linguistic and learning backgrounds (ACARA [ 2013 ]).

This fact is also recognised by the UNESCO program for the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. It considers storytelling to be one of the modules which can be used to equip students with professional learning and teaching skills. This helps students achieve a wide range of knowledge, skills and values, which is the objective of Education for Sustainable Development (UNESCO [ 2010 ]). The use of storytelling in Australian schools is bound to have a lasting impact, since it is defined by UNESCO as “a key teaching strategy for achieving the objectives of education for sustainable futures” (p.1).

Consequently, suffice to say that digital storytelling has, inter alia, the benefit of increasing student motivation, especially for those students who have difficulties with reading and writing, allowing personalisation of the learning experience, acquiring experience with in-depth and comprehensible reading and becoming more proficient at technical aspects of language. Digital storytelling can be used to develop personalised learning experiences for students, thereby responding to diverse individual needs.

Impact of digital storytelling on student outcomes

As the latest report for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) indicated that the use of technology in education can increase various skills of learners, the findings of this research also suggested that digital storytelling can enhance several learning skills including writing, designs, library and research, technology and communication.

In addition, digital storytelling can help students with tasks they previously found very difficult including spelling, sentence formation and building, and forming the whole body of a text; this integration of technology assisted students to overcome their writing problems.

However, age and ability to learn technological subjects have some impact on the outcomes. When compared with primary school students, secondary school students have the ability to learn more and faster. They use the internet and computers more than primary school students. This was apparent during the study, especially where primary school students worked exclusively on their stories in the class, secondary school students worked on their stories, both inside and outside the class.

Furthermore, teachers observed that students were learning without realising. Provided that students are clearly informed about the task that is required of them, digital storytelling is useful as an all-round skill development tool; the use of digital storytelling can therefore reinforce various complementary skills.

The findings of the cross-case analysis based on the rubric data are presented in the following sections.

Overall mean level of student scores

Figure  1 shows the mean of overall scores received by students for digital story quality for all cases. The overall scores were very close, despite the differences in age, subject, knowledge, technology use, etc. Nevertheless, the students in primary school (i.e. ESL and Years 3/4), received the lowest scores while those in secondary school had much better results. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, primary school students did not have prior exposure to Moviemaker software while more secondary school students had used it before.

Overall scores for digital story quality for the five case studies.

Furthermore, age and ability to learn technological subjects have sme impact. When compared with primary school students, secondary school students have the ability to learn faster and learn more. They use the internet and computer more regularly than primary school students. This was apparent during the study where the primary school students worked on their stories only in the class. On the other hand, secondary school students worked more regularly on their stories, both inside and outside the class.

It is observed that the subject does not impact student performance. However, the approach taken by the teacher proved to have significant impact. This was observed in two cases. In Years 3–4, the teacher observed that students were struggling with their writing and opted to introduce software so that the students had a clear idea about what was required of them. This additional step increased student performances.

In Year 7, the teacher asked the students to present their work when it was finished. Consequently, almost every fortnight there was a story presentation in class and this contributed to their engagement and better performance. Year 11, Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) students were a special case. There were two groups, one of which was working very well, while the other group was not interested in school work. Although digital storytelling created some interest in the second group, especially during video shoots and presentation, it was not easy to engage them with the overall task. They did not work on the story creation, required constant help from the teacher and received a very low mark.

Overall performance based on evaluation criteria

Figure  2 shows the mean score obtained for the selected criteria for the five case studies. This shows that primary school students performed well in story aspects such as purpose, plot, pacing of narrative, dramatic question, story characters, and emotional content. This is because they planned their storyboard well. The key to their success was that they spent more time in writing and editing their story with some help from the teacher, before actually starting the creation process. However, they did not perform as well in technological components, emotional content and economy of the story. Nor did they perform as well in the “Dramatic Question” and “Grammar and Language Usage” since their knowledge of English was limited.

Mean Score for criteria for the five case studies.

On the other hand, secondary school students were a complete contrast. They performed not so well in the story aspects since they did not want to spend much time writing and storyboarding. This affected their scores in “Plot” and “Pacing of Narrative”. Their competency in technology helped them receive high marks in technological components such as “Technological Competence”, “Emotional Content” and “Economy of content”. This can be traced back to their age group and knowledge in technology use.

Teacher perceptions about student learning through digital storytelling

Teachers had a positive attitude towards the use of digital storytelling as a teaching tool in their classrooms, as both students and teachers had the opportunity to improve their technological skills, which included the use of various electronic devices, as previously mentioned.

Teachers indicated that digital storytelling increased and enhanced the use of technology in the classroom, which helped students improve their technical skills and information literacy; digital storytelling can also be applied to subjects such as English and History, and in almost all the sciences including mathematics, social studies and humanities.

Furthermore, teachers confirmed that the use of digital stories in education is beneficial for countries receiving immigrants, such as Australia. The ability for expression through visual media, rather than words, facilitates communication for new students and builds their confidence. In addition, teachers fulfilled the role of facilitator, consultant, and could scaffold the learning process more effectively when they used digital storytelling in class.

Since the main aim of this research was to investigate the impact of digital storytelling on student learning, the outcomes of this research will enable both teachers and students to tap into the power of digital storytelling and more engaged teaching and learning. This study contributes to new understandings of how to create authentic and constructivist learning contexts that can be used in a range of educational settings. The research focused on how to implement digital storytelling in the classroom, describing the digital story workshop, and explaining teacher roles and student tasks; therefore, this research gives a clear picture of how to integrate digital storytelling into schools. Consequently, the new knowledge generated by this research can inform future educational policy.

Furthermore, a number of story development models have been created in the past to help educators achieve better learning outcomes with digital storytelling; however, none of these models provide a holistic pedagogical framework for engaging students with digital storytelling during various stages of learning. This research presented a new e-Learning Digital Storytelling (eLDiSt) framework for using digital storytelling as a pedagogical model for constructivist learning.

In addition, even though the findings of this research are important and have the potential to inform policy, practice and theory, generalisations could not be derived due to the following reasons. The research only included participants from one school (even though there were two levels: primary and secondary) and limitations related to the participant sample used, since unequal numbers of students from primary and secondary schools took part in this research. In future research this limitation could be overcome by using multiple sites instead of one school, and the same participant sample, if possible. Another issue is related to the limited access to technology in the school; the students faced some technical problems while creating their digital stories, also there was some shortage of computers in the labs.

The results of this research indicate that digital storytelling can provide support to students with special needs, such as ESL and VCAL students. In addition, digital storytelling can help students to improve their confidence, and can contribute to better social and psychological skills.

a English as Second Language.

b Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the support we received from East Preston Islamic School; we would like to thank all the students and teachers who participate in this research. Also we would like to acknowledge the support and help provided by Prof. Neil Diamond and Dr. Ewa Sztendur for their statistical support in analysing the data.

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Authors’ contributions

NS is a lecturer at Al-Jabel Al-Gharbi University, Libya.Najat received her PhD from the College of Engineering and Science at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia , her research project titled “Creating a Constructivist Learning Environment with Digital Storytelling”. She received her Master’s degree from University of Twente, Netherlands in technology applications in education and training. She finished her Bachelor’s degree from University of Al-Jabel Al-Gharbi, Libya and she worked as an academic teaching member at University of Al-Jabel Al-Gharbi, Libya for more than 8 years. ED is a Senior Lecturer and Program Leader of Secondary Teacher Education at the Faculty of Education, La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. ED was a recipient of the Australian Postgraduate Award and has published widely about the pedagogical and social transformations occurring in the digital age. These included a co-edited book, book chapters, journal articles, monographs and refereed conference papers focusing on 21 st century learning and digital inclusion. Eva worked as a researcher and consultant on large Australian research projects, such as the National Evaluation of The Smith Family’s Tech Packs Project (2009-2010), as well as on the Evaluation of the Victorian Technology Enriched Curriculum Project, TECP (2011-2013), a Closing the Gap initiative. She is committed to transdisciplinary research and supervision of doctoral candidates, and works internationally with colleagues from a variety of scholarly disciplines. She is a member of several international associations promoting new learning and eCitizenship. NSh gained B.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Presently he teaches and leads research in innovative applications of computer technologies at the College of Engineering and Science, Victoria University, Australia. NSh publications include the Multimedia Information Networking textbook, and around 120 papers and handbook chapters. Nalin has invented Movement Oriented Design (MOD) paradigm for the creation of effective multimedia content based experience, and applied it to e-Learning and other applications. NSh has led e-Tourism projects for the Australian Sustainable Tourism CRC, and is currently guiding research in the innovative applications of ICT systems to sustainable living. NSh has been invited to present lectures and seminars in the Distinguished Lecturer series of the European Union’s Prolearn program, and by the IEEE Education Society. He has presented over fifty seminars, lectures, and Key Note addresses in Austria, Australia, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Japan, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, and USA. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Additional file 1: Appendix A: The e-Learning Digital Storytelling (eLDiSt) Framework. Appendix B: Classroom observation protocol. Appendix C: The scoring rubric instrument. (DOCX 62 KB)

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Smeda, N., Dakich, E. & Sharda, N. The effectiveness of digital storytelling in the classrooms: a comprehensive study. Smart Learn. Environ. 1 , 6 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-014-0006-3

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• Student engagement
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Synthesis of student engagement with digital technologies: a systematic review of the literature

• Larian M. Nkomo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9301-0800 1 ,
• Ben K. Daniel 1 &
• Russell J. Butson 1  

International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education volume  18 , Article number:  34 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Restrictions on physical gathering due to COVID-19 has compelled higher education institutions to rapidly embrace digital technologies to support teaching and learning. While logistically, the use of digital technologies offers an obvious solution, attention must be given to these methods' pedagogical appropriateness, mainly how students engage and learn in the spaces supported by these technologies. In this context, we explored the degree to which digital technologies have contributed to teaching and learning practices over the past decade. The study employed a systematic review using a newly developed tripartite model for conducting and presenting literature review reports. The model approaches the literature review process systematically and employs three phases for the critical examination of literature: description, synthesis, and critique. The current review focused on student engagement across technologies that encompass social media, video, and collaborative learning technologies. Relevant articles were obtained from the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Three core themes were identified: there was no shared understanding of what constitutes student engagement with learning technologies, there was a lack of explanation concerning the contextual variation and modalities of student engagement across the digital technologies, and self-reporting was the primary method of measuring student engagement, rendering results as perceptual rather than behavioural. We argue that using multiple datasets and different methodological approaches can provide further insights into student engagement with digital technologies. This approach to measuring engagement can substantiate findings and most likely provide additional insights into students' engagement with digital technologies.

Introduction

The contemporary higher education sector faces many challenges, including ability to meet the learning needs of diverse students and, student retention (Kahu & Nelson, 2018 ; Macfarlane & Tomlinson, 2017 ; Waldrop et al., 2019 ). These challenges are often linked to how institutions design their learning environments and engage students in their learning (Klem & Connell, 2004 ; Waldrop et al., 2019 ). Learning environments that support student engagement can influence the learning process (Kahu, 2013 ) and lead to the development of student critical thinking skills (Carini et al., 2006 ) and support retention (Waldrop et al., 2019 ; Wyatt, 2011 ).

Student engagement is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon to understand, however, it is considered a critical factor in supporting student learning and development (Kahu, 2013 ). With higher education rapidly deploying various forms of digital technologies into their learning environments, understanding how students engage with these technologies is critical to the design of flexible and highly adaptive learning environments that can cater to diverse student learning preferences. Also, understanding how students engage with digital technologies can enable educators to train students with various digital literacy skills and knowledge to support their learning.

Though the current generation of students entering university has a certain level of digital literacy, such literacy might be limited to engaging with entertainment technologies and games rather than using such skills  to acquire vital knowledge and skills (Prior et al., 2016 ). Since engagement is associated with academic achievement, researchers have identified various strategies to support better engagement (Barnacle & Dall’Alba, 2017 ; Kahu & Nelson, 2018 ; Koranteng et al., 2019 ). However, the meaning of student engagement means different things to different people (Kahu, 2013 ). Also, there is limited understanding of how students engage with learning technologies and the extent to which engagement with such technologies fosters enhanced learning outcomes.

This article surveys a wide range of studies published on student engagement with various forms of learning technologies  in the last decade (2010–2020). We conducted an in-depth analysis of the conception, meaning and nature of student engagement with digital technologies and how researchers measure, analyse, and present student engagement. The review focused on student engagement with three digital technologies (LMS, Social Media, and Lecture Capture). We believe this article will provide readers with an important reference point that provides insights into how students engage with digital technologies, and ways to design learning environments that are agile and cater to diverse student learning preferences. Four guiding questions were utilised to frame the research area for review as indicated below:

The review guiding research questions:

What is the conception of student engagement with technology?

How are students engaging with various forms of digital technologies?

How is engagement with digital technologies measured?

What are the opportunities and challenges in measuring engagement in technology-enhanced learning environments?

Methodology

This systematic review employed the systematic and the tripartite model. The model comprises a systematic approach to analysing and presenting the literature (Daniel & Harland, 2017 ). The model incorporates practical tools and strategies on how to write credible and critical reports. The model consists of three essential phases. The first phase of the model is deciding on articles to read, compiling summary abstracts and validating these with a mentor or peer. This stage is very similar to the procedure used in systematic literature reviews (Higgins & Green, 2008 ; Liberati et al., 2009 ).

In the first stage of the model, an investigation area is identified, and the researcher establishes the context and purpose of the review. The researcher further frames a research area for review and develops a search strategy, with explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting materials. This process should yield all the published material on a topic based on the criteria of interest. Once the purpose of the review is established, a search strategy is developed. The strategy involves the formulation of concrete search terms. It is essential to formulate relevant terms since this will determine the quality of resources identified (Boell & Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2015 ). The second part of the model is referred to as the 'tripartite approach'; it consists of three parts (description, synthesis & critique) and presents a model that combines the two stages as a structured and systematic guide. Tripartite I (description): In this stage, the systematic review presents a descriptive summary of the critical issues identified in the literature. This process provides the reader with an overview of developments in the field, the main areas of debate and the outstanding research questions. This is followed by the presentation of identified themes that have been carefully justified.

Tripartite II (synthesis): In the synthesis stage, the literature review goes beyond a description of what is published; it includes the synthesis and articulation of relationships between various published literature bodies. In this stage, the core focus is to synthesis ideas. This involves the extraction of the most important ideas or themes and a process of comparing and contrasting these to identify areas of similarity, difference and any controversies. This allows the researcher to clarify and resolve inconsistencies in thinking in the literature, thereby providing the best chance to make an original contribution to knowledge. Through synthesis, the researcher ensures that the particular problem of interest can be contextualised within the subject's historical context.

Tripartite III (critique): In the third part, the researcher reflects on the synthesis of the main ideas identified at the second stage to develop a critical view of the work reviewed in light of claims and evidence available. After a thorough description and summary, a critical thinking and judgment level can be applied in the review and presentation. Critical engagement requires the development of particular skills and strategies, and it mainly implies having the ability to examine claims against alternative evidence or views. It also requires a questioning mind and an openness to alternative views or evidence from other sources. The critique includes a positive dimension as the researcher aims to provide new ideas and alternatives.

The systematic and the tripartite model

When the two parts of the model are brought together, they describe an entire systematic approach and process to the literature review (Fig.  1 ). The model and step-by-step process components provide a checklist; however, the model also provides a schematic representation of the relationship between the different parts of the model.

The systematic and tripartite model (Daniel & Harland, 2017 )

The initial search strategy

The initial stage was to establish the dominant digital technologies utilised in higher education to enhance students' learning experience and possibly their engagement. Therefore, the initial search aimed to answer the question: what technologies are students engaging with in higher education? To do so, a broad search string; (("student engagement" OR "learner engagement") AND technology AND ("higher education" OR "tertiary education" OR university)) was used. This search was conducted in the Scopus and Web of Science Databases. The string resulted in multiple records, as shown in Table 1 , some of which were not relevant to the interest criteria.

The next phase involved conducting more targeted searches on student engagement with digital technologies. Similar to the initial search, Scopus and Web of Science databases were used to obtain resources for the review. The Scopus database was used as the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings. The Web of Science database was also used since it provides an extensive set of world-class research literature from a rigorously selected set of academic journals that allows for the in-depth exploration of specialized sub-fields within an academic or scientific discipline (Li et al., 2018 ).

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Due to the rapidly changing nature of the field, the review included studies published between 2010 and February 2020. To ensure quality, only peer-reviewed papers were included in the review. The review's primary focus is to examine how engagement with digital technologies is conceptualised and the tools used for measuring it. In the context of this study, digital technologies is used to describe technologies utilised in student learning. Furthermore, the digital technologies examined were not specific to a particular field of study as long as they were within the context of higher education. Guided by the results of the initial search, the review focused on identifying how students engage with Learning Management Systems (LMS) (Blackboard), Social Media (Twitter) and Lecture Capture technologies (Echo360). Studies that were not relevant to the research questions were excluded. Overlapping studies were also discarded with the latest version of those being used. Studies with no authors were also excluded.

Search strings

The final search strategy was refined to include three search strings (Search String 1–3 (SS1-SS3)). These were established to obtain the relevant articles to review. The strings were customized to meet the syntax of each database:

SS1: ("student engagement" OR "learner engagement") AND (LMS OR "Learning management systems") AND ("higher education" OR "tertiary education" OR university).

SS2: ("student engagement" OR "learner engagement") AND ("social media") AND ("higher education" OR "tertiary education" OR university).

SS3: ("student engagement" OR "learner engagement") AND ("lecture capture" OR "recorded lecture*") AND (higher education OR tertiary education OR university).

After running the search strings, the papers' abstracts were identified, read, and validated against the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The next step was to compile the full list of the articles, which were then systematically reviewed following the systematic and the tripartite model. In applying the systematic and tripartite model, the study utilised the within-study analysis, which involves the analysis of an entire article as well as the between study analysis, which consists of identifying the similarities and dissimilarities in the key findings from other literature (Daniel & Harland, 2017 ; Onwuegbuzie & Weinbaum, 2017 ).

The results of the search strings, preliminary selection and final selection are summarised in Table 2 . The table shows the number of articles each string retrieved from the respective databases before validating them against the inclusion and exclusion criteria (N = 567). After validating against the search criteria and reading abstracts, a preliminary selection of (N = 189) was obtained. The next step was to then read through the articles for further validation and verification. This was done until the studies' findings became repetitive, which occurred after 30 articles had been reviewed. Therefore 30 articles made the final selection.

Findings from this review showed substantial research on student engagement. However, there is no consensus on what constitutes student engagement (Baron & Corbin, 2012 ; Harris, 2008 ; Kahu, 2013 ; Kahu & Nelson, 2018 ). The lack of consensus makes it difficult to ascertain the utility of engagement and its value in enhancing students’ learning experience and learning outcomes. The variation in the conceptions of student engagement has led to various discourses of different dimensions of student engagement (e.g. behavioural, social, and cognitive), though distinct from each other; these diemsnions of engagement are often used interchangeably (Burch et al. 2015 ; Christenson et al., 2012 ; Fredricks et al. ( 2016 ); leading to inconsistency in measuring  student engagement. Also, the lack of  a shared conceptualisation of engagement, makes it difficult to identify the semantic proximity between engagement and related concepts such as motivation. Alexander ( 2017 ) states, "when researchers do not explain their definitions of key constructs, they introduce a degree of conceptual ambiguity. And when the process of communicating theory or research starts with conceptual ambiguity, theory integration is far less likely to result." (p. 347). On the contrary, Christenson et al. ( 2012 ) view the lack of consensus as an opportunity to view engagement from different perspectives, enriching the concept's scholarly nature. A summary of the various conceptualisations of engagement is shown in Table 3 .

From the various definitions in Table 3 , we extracted the fifty most frequently used  terms and  presented them visually sing a Word Cloud. The Word Cloud in Figure 2 shows various terms used to conceptualise the different dimensions of student engagement.

Frequent words in definitions

The dimensions of student engagement

Student engagement is often conceptualised along three dimensions: behavioural, cognitive and emotional. The behavioural aspect of student engagement describes engagement along, effort and persistence in activities including extracurricular, social and academic. It is mostly concerned with getting involved in-class activities, completing given assignments, and regular attendance. Fredricks et al. ( 2004 ) stress that student engagement's behavioural aspect consists of positive conduct (non-disruptive behaviours or following stated rules).

Cognitive engagement refers to the psychological investment made towards learning activities, where the student is invested in learning activities. This dimension is exhibited when students perceive the value of what they are learning, understanding a topic and demonstrate a desire to learn and master skills. The cognitive type of engagement is linked to self-regulated learning, authentic intellectual capacity questions, focusing on tasks, and setting goals.

Emotional engagement refers to emotional reactions (positive/negative) demonstrated in learning, such as showing interest, boredom, or anxiety towards their learning settings and feel like they belong in the school. The sense of belonging is considered vital to student's willingness to complete schoolwork (Baron & Corbin, 2012 ; Fredricks et al., 2016 ; Harris, 2008 ; Schmidt et al., 2018 ). The three dimensions are shown in Fig.  3 below. These dimensions are interrelated and contribute to a student's engagement.

Dimensions of student engagement

Although each of the three aspects of engagement can be considered distinct, there is considerable overlap. For example, Filsecker and Kerres ( 2014 ) indicated that the behavioural part of the engagement that includes exerting effort and attention could be regarded as cognitive engagement. There are other engagement dimensions identified in the literature. Harris ( 2008 ) discussed academic engagement, specific to learning tasks, to move away from the general behavioural engagement that covers non-academic activities. Linnenbrink-Garcia et al. ( 2011 ) added social-behavioural engagement as a construct related to students affect and behaviour in collaborative group work (Fredricks et al., 2016 ). Reeve and Tseng ( 2011 ) propose the addition of agentic engagement to account for how students actively and constructively contribute to the learning environment. Agentic engagement factors in the student's ability to purposefully and proactively enhance the learning and teaching process. However, instead of a new dimension, it can be viewed as the union between the cognitive and behavioural dimensions.

Combining the three dimensions can provide a more in-depth description of students about their engagement (Fredricks et al., 2004 ). Therefore, it is important to measure all the dimensions when measuring student engagement because focusing on only one dimension can limit the understanding of student engagement. As behavioural, cognitive and emotional engagement interrelate in a volatile manner among individual students (Fredricks et al., 2004 ).

Critiques of behavioural engagement question whether participation in tasks can necessarily lead to desirable learning outcomes. For example, students in the class can focus on the instructor, which would be noted as engagement; however, the student's attention could be elsewhere (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003 ). In other words, a student can be behaviourally engaged but not cognitively. Harris ( 2008 ) asserted that cognitive engagement seems to be the most linked to learning and that a student's physical participation does not necessarily assure cognitive participation. This is echoed by Linnenbrink and Pintrich ( 2003 ), who suggested that teachers need to engage students cognitively, not just behaviourally. This entails that instructors need to ensure that students deeply, critically and creatively think about the content being learned and reflect on what they know and do not know and utilise different learning strategies to help their understanding of the content.

The emotional engagement has also been contested as to whether students "feel good" about school learn (Skinner & Belmont, 1993 ). For example, students being enthusiastic in class does not necessarily translate to better learning outcomes.

Further, although research has claimed cognitive engagement to be the most important type of engagement, emotional and behavioural dimensions are seen as dimensions that may be required to enable cognitive engagement (Harris, 2008 ). For example, students need to be involved in the learning activity and, based on how they feel, then decide to engage cognitively. This goes further in underlining the importance and relationship between these three dimensions of engagement.

Student engagement with learning management systems

Learning Management System (LMS) presents tools for collaboration, interaction, online course delivery, and reporting and tracking student activities (Rhode et al., 2017 ). LMSs are widely used in higher education institutions to support teaching and learning (Beer et al., 2010 ; Cabero-Almenara et al., 2019 ). University teachers employ LMSs such as Blackboard, Desire2learn, Moodle, Learning Space and next Ed to deliver course content and facilitate learning to students (Williams & Whiting, 2016 ; Zheng et al., 2018 ), and they provide instant and flexible access to content and teachers (Sánchez & Hueros, 2010 ). LMSs generate high volumes of data presenting numerous opportunities to extract useful analytics to support student learning. Analytics can also improve the teaching and learning process, enhance communication between the system users, and influence student outcomes (Bervell & Umar, 2017 ; Williams & Whiting, 2016 ). LMSs help manages large student groups and supporting advents such as distance learning (Zheng et al., 2018 ). Due to the dynamic nature of LMSs, it is essential to understand the extent to which they support student engagement to lead to better learning outcomes. LMSs can incorporate various forms of synchronous and asynchronous tools. Tools such as discussion forums and chats can be used in real-time for synchronous activities and may also be used asynchronously.

Student engagement with LMS: descriptive

Studies on LMS student engagement have identified the influence of behaviours on achievement (see Avcı & Ergün, 2019 ; Umer et al., 2018 ). However, LMSs are dynamic environments where students can exhibit various forms of engagement. For example, emotional engagement may be fostered through chat platforms and discussion forums within LMSs. This can help students to connect and create a sense of community. Students may also engage cognitively in LMS through problem-based learning activities and self-regulated learning through the access of resources at their own pace.

However, effective students' engagement with LMS is dependent on how students and instructors utilise LMS. Klobas and McGill ( 2010 ) investigated the role of student and instructor involvement in LMS success. They found that when instructors provide regular guidance to students in LMSs, students are likley to gain improved effectiveness and productivity when studying.

Little-Wiles and Naimi ( 2011 ) looked at what educators can do to ensure students are fully engaged when interacting in LMS. They found that students use LMSs to create self-awareness of learning, e.g., checking one's progress and requirements of a course and communicating with their peers.

A behaviourism perspective tends to explain better the various forms of student engagement in LMSs. For instance, this can be seen from students' navigational pathways in LMSs (observable change in behaviour), depending on how the LMS is set up by instructors (the stimuli). Corrigan et al. ( 2015 ) explored the impact of presenting students with their engagement data in a VLE to determine trends linked to student attainment. The study found students who received notifications on their engagement with the VLE, compared to non-participants in the various courses, showed improvement in their grades.

Though studies look at engagement in LMS from the behavioural perspective, Henrie et al. ( 2018 ) scrutinized the relationship between student activity log data in LMS and self-reported student engagement survey scores, intending to understand whether or not LMS log data could be used as a proxy measure for students emotional and cognitive engagement. The study did not find any significant relationship between the use of log data and students self-reported emotional and cognitive engagement. This underscores the relationship between observed and reported states of engagement.

LMSs provide tools to track engagement through tools such as the Moodle Engagement Analytics Plugin (MEAP) and Blackboard Analytics. The MEAP monitors student behaviour on three tasks: forum activity (if students are participating in the forum), login activity (the duration frequency and time of login) and assessment activity (if submissions are made on time) (Liu et al., 2015 ; Luna et al., 2017 ; Yassine et al., 2016 ). However, the drawback of MEAP is that lecturers need to enter thresholds for each of the three entities, which some lectures might see as an issue. Similarly, Blackboard Analytics monitors students engagement patterns, evaluates learning outcomes, and assess the use and adoption of online learning tools (Jones, 2012 ). Unlike MEAP, Blackboard analytics provides a more holistic approach in analysing students data by including data such as demographic data and previous course data (Whitmer, 2015 ). However, this requires integration with the institutions' student information system, which may have some privacy concerns.

Student engagement with LMS: synthesis

LMS is often used in conjunction with face-to-face lectures to enhance student learning (Barua et al., 2018 ; Graham et al., 2013 ; Venugopal-Wairagade, 2016 ). However, it is also used in distance education programmes (Altunoglu, 2017 ). Effective use of LMS leads to enhanced learning. However, analysis of the literature suggests that the instructor's role in facilitating engagement and learning within an LMS is critical to students success (Baragash & Al-Samarraie, 2018 ; Barua et al., 2018 ; Klobas & McGill, 2010 ; Little-Wiles & Naimi, 2011 ). In order for LMS implementation to be successful, both students and instructors need to play their part in the process. For instance, the instructor’s involvement in LMS course design can benefit students by integrating interactive course designs that allow collaboration and communication (Swart, 2015 ; Wang, 2017 ).

Findings from this review suggest that engagement in LMS is predominantly behavioural oriented, where students are expected to respond to a stimulus (the LMS environment) set up by an instructor (Barua et al., 2018 ; Little-Wiles & Naimi, 2011 ; Venugopal-Wairagade, 2016 ). Most of the LMS actions, such as logging on, posting on forums, accessing learning resources, and assignments, are behavioural traits and would mostly favour the behavioural dimension. Several studies have revealed that students' engagement in LMS can be influenced by demographic characteristics such as age, digital literacy and educational background (Baragash & Al-Samarraie, 2018 ; Klobas & McGill, 2010 ; Swart, 2017 ; Venugopal-Wairagade, 2016 ). For example, although most students are technologically astute, their digital literacy may be limited to digital learning environments (Prior et al., 2016 ). Therefore, students' different experiences can lead them to engage differently with LMS.

Most studies have approached the measurement of engagement with LMS through students self-reporting measures, such as questionnaires (Barua et al., 2018 ; Klobas & McGill, 2010 ; Little-Wiles et al., 2010 ; Venugopal & Jain, 2015 ). However, most of these questionnaires span across disciplines and are generally produced as a one-size-fits-all instrument. They are unlikely to capture engagement as teaching and learning genuinely are likely to differ across disciplines.

LMS generate data based on user actions. The use of analytics for analysing these data may be more insightful (see Liu et al., 2015 ; Luna et al., 2017 ; Messias et al., 2015 ; Yassine et al., 2016 ). Some studies have utilised questionnaires and system logs to measure engagement (see Baragash & Al-Samarraie, 2018 ; Henrie et al., 2018 ; Wang, 2017 ). These studies found a positive relationship between engagement with LMS and achievement (see Baragash & Al-Samarraie, 2018 ; Wang, 2017 ). However, Henrie et al. ( 2018 ), focusing on emotional and cognitive engagement, found logs inefficient as a proxy for engagement. Studies utilising logs independently have also found them indicative of how engagement affects achievement (see Swart, 2015 ; Umer et al., 2018 ). Research suggests discussion forums, frequency of logins as well as submission activities are the most common data for analysing engagement in LMS (Henrie et al., 2018 ; Liu et al., 2015 ; Luna et al., 2017 ; Messias et al., 2015 ; Swart, 2015 ; Venugopal & Jain, 2015 ; Yassine et al., 2016 ). Wang ( 2017 ) indicates it is relatively easier to measure and collect behaviour engagement in LMS. Moreover, when students initially engage with LMS, it is highly dependent on how the instructor sets it up; therefore, measuring behaviours alone is most likely the best way to understand engagement with LMS.

Student engagement with LMS: critique

Based on how different research studies have approached student engagement, it is apparent that the construct is complex and multifaceted. With no consensus on what constitutes student engagement, some studies may have misrepresented measurements of engagement dimensions. The factors used in some studies do not necessarily well represent the dimensions of engagement they claim to measure. Furthermore, studies can define and measure the same dimensions differently, thus creating an overlap in clarity. In some cases, the methods used to measure student engagement may not genuinely reflect student engagement's accurate measurement. For example, observation studies where the students know they were being observed can suffer from the Hawthorne effect as students change their behaviour due to knowing they are being followed. The use of survey instruments alone also limits our understanding of student engagement as they are limited to collecting perception data.

Furthermore, the use of analytics without context can further limit our understanding of student engagement. For example, measuring clickstream data can be inaccurate as a click does not necessarily equate to engagement. A click to download a document may not mean the same engagement as posting a discussion on the forum. Factors such as prior knowledge, technical ability, and student's motivation to learn, among others, can influence the level of student engagement within LMS as well as student's intentions to engage with an LMS; however, as LMS engagement is mostly measured in behaviours, most studies do not include these factors. Moreover, though there is a general belief that most students are digitally literate, it is crucial to assess the level of digital literacy of students as students may not engage with LMS due to digital illiteracy. The failure, in some instances, to account for students across various disciplines when measuring engagement can further limit our understanding. For example, students from some fields can be more inclined to engage in specific ways with LMS technologies than other students based on their domains of study. This can be due to students having different task-based interactions with LMS making their engagement vary. In terms of datasets, most studies utilise datasets that are convenient as small samples ranging from single courses with a few students and one instructor to multiple courses are typically used (see Corrigan et al., 2015 ; Klobas & McGill, 2010 ; Little-Wiles & Naimi, 2011 ; Swart, 2017 ; Umer et al., 2018 ). Therefore, it can be difficult to infer causation from cross-sectional data. The results of some studies are therefore applicable only to specific cohorts.

Further, studies that do not utilise control and treatment groups in studies with comparisons can have somewhat less reliable results. In general, most studies in LMS measure the behaviours of students to infer student engagement. This, however, leaves questions such as if these measurements are accurate reflections as they do not include the other dimensions of student engagement.

Engagement with social media

Social media use in education has increased rapidly over the years (Esteve Del Valle et al., 2017 ). Both students and instructors have taken advantage of social media in education (Junco et al., 2011 ). Social media facilitates social learning, improved self-confidence and communication between students and instructors, which are benefits associated with the active use of education (Nkomo & Nat, 2017 ). Junco ( 2012 ) examined the relationship between Facebook use and student engagement, defined as the time spent preparing for class (academic engagement) and time spent in co-curricular activities (co-curricular engagement). Findings suggest that students' involvement in Facebook can either positively or negatively engage with their education.

Similarly, Williams and Whiting ( 2016 ) explored students' use of Twitter in enhancing engagement. The study noted, "some define engagement as the frequency with which students participate in activities that represent effective educational practices and conceive of it as a pattern of involvement in a variety of activities and interactions both in and out of the classroom and throughout a student's college career. Additionally, the phrase "student engagement" has come to refer to how involved or interested students appear to be in learning and how connected they are to their classes, institutions, and each other" (Williams & Whiting, 2016 , p. 312). The study indicated students felt more engaged when twitter and the LMS were used. The use of Twitter also had a positive relationship with students' perceptions of engagement in the marketing course. Seniors students were found to use the LMS more frequently than their junior counterparts, and no difference in the use of Twitter. Furthermore, there was no difference between junior and senior student's engagement levels.

Alshuaibi et al. ( 2018 ) stated that social media could enhance student's cognitive engagement in learning as they found cognitive dimension had a mediating role in the relationship between social media and academic performance. Fagioli et al. ( 2015 ) analysed the use of a social media site and learning outcomes regarding community colleges. The study found a relationship between social media use and academic outcomes. Students who are actively engaged in social media tend to perform better in their learning outcomes than inactive students. Furthermore, the posted comments and discussion's quality and relevance was a significant factor in sustaining the application's continued use. Suggesting students find value in meaningful peer discussions.

Saunders and Gale ( 2012 ) noted that students are less engaged in large lecture halls and hardly ask questions. Ellis ( 2015 ) suggested that the use of Padlet as a social media tool that allows students to post comments on an online wall can enhance the learning experience students as they engage with materials posted by other students Tiernan ( 2014 ) found Twitter enabled students to contribute to discussions in a less intimidating manner and enabled engagement with peers and course content (Soluk and Buddle ( 2015 ). Ally ( 2012 ) further indicated the ability of social media to promote engagement through collaboration and communication, similar to Ellis ( 2015 ); Soluk and Buddle ( 2015 ); Tiernan ( 2014 ). Ally ( 2012 ) found most participants embraced Twitter as an enhancer to collaboration and communication in the classroom. The study further noted increased class participation levels, attentiveness, and engagement compared to previous years, where traditional means were used to encourage interaction. This suggests students find the use of social media for interaction to be fulfilling for them.

Engagement with social media: synthesis

Students use social media as a way to improve their interaction between lecturers and peers. More specifically, social media such as Twitter and Facebook positively impact students' engagement with peers and instructors (Ally, 2012 ; Junco, 2012 ; Tiernan, 2014 ; Williams & Whiting, 2016 ). Several studies looked at how students utilise social media to enhance their learning experience and engagement (Ally, 2012 ; Alshuaibi et al., 2018 ; Ellis, 2015 ; Fagioli et al., 2015 ; Junco, 2012 ; Tiernan, 2014 ; Williams & Whiting, 2016 ). Studies have also related engagement with social media and positive influence on academic outcomes (Alshuaibi et al., 2018 ; Fagioli et al., 2015 ; Junco, 2012 ). When discussions inherent in social media are of good quality and relevant, this leads to sustained interests in social media use, which can positively influence student learning outcomes (Fagioli et al., 2015 ). Lack of confidence and boredom are issues students face in traditional lectures. Social media has been used to try and avert this by allowing students to use social media to post questions for discussions in a non-intimidating manner with students (Ellis, 2015 ; Tiernan, 2014 ).

Like LMS, most of the studies used quantitative approaches relating to usage, such as the number of posts, frequency of posts, etc., mostly associated with behaviour (Fagioli et al., 2015 ; Junco, 2012 ; Tiernan, 2014 ; Williams & Whiting, 2016 ). The use of self-reported measures such as questionnaires to examine if social media enhances student engagement and learning experiences is prevalent (see Junco, 2012 ; Tiernan, 2014 ; Williams & Whiting, 2016 ). Further, statistical methods such as t-test, regression and descriptive statistics were used for analysis (Alshuaibi et al., 2018 ; Ellis, 2015 ; Junco, 2012 ). Some educators have made social media voluntary in their classes (Tiernan, 2014 ; Williams & Whiting, 2016 ). Some have made activities that are graded to be conducted on social media (Soluk & Buddle, 2015 ). Similar to studies measuring engagement in LMS, behaviours from self-reported measures and quantitative analysis are utilised. However, as a tool that supports interaction, social media can facilitate other dimensions of engagement, such as emotional and cognitive engagement. Therefore, other measures such as content, thematic and social network analysis can provide more insights into student engagement with social media.

Engagement with social media: critique

The use of small samples that utilise a single course or a few students to analyse student engagement with social media can make some of the results challenging to take at face value, as they are less generalizable (see Ally, 2012 ; Ellis, 2015 ; Soluk & Buddle, 2015 ; Tiernan, 2014 ). Studies that use self-reported measures in isolation are limited regarding the data they can obtain as it is perception data. Moreover, the data can be biased, for example. The use of questionnaires in classrooms can be disruptive as students then have to stop academic tasks to concentrate on these. Furthermore, behavioural indicators are the most collected; however, social media can promote other student engagement dimensions, which cannot necessarily be inferred through behaviours. For example, Twitter has character limits, requiring users to write concise, well-thought posts. Furthermore, students tend to want to represent themselves as best as possible on social media and therefore put some thought into what they write.

The conception and discourse with social media also seem to be over generalised as social media refers to one form of technology. There is also no transparent pedagogical approach to using social media to enhance student learning as the uptake and utilisation vary effectively. Therefore, the efficacy of social media as a platform for learning is not apparent. Furthermore, there is no clear indication of social media providing anything further than a forum for students to discuss. Therefore, clarity on how social media can facilitate different types of student engagement is scarce. Away to understand engagement with social media in depth and analysing users' behaviours would be to examine the content that students post. This would possibly help identify the emotional and cognitive dimensions. Further analysis could be based on social network analysis.

Engagement with lecture capture

Lecture capture technologies are designed to capture individual or all elements of a live lecture in digital format. It can either be audio in the form of a podcast or a video with audio; other systems are capable of recording the images on a computer or document camera and audience audio and video (Newton et al., 2014 ). Studies have found live lecture attendance vital as students who attend their lectures tend to perform well (Greener, 2020 ; Zhoc et al., 2019 ). Therefore, the use of lecture capture is contentious because some educators fear that once students are provided with lecture materials, they can refrain from attending live lectures. However, it can be argued that even if students reduce their attendance in live lectures, viewing lecture recordings can be a proxy to attendance.

McGowan and Hanna ( 2015 ) examined the impact of recorded lectures on attendance and student attitudes. The study investigated students' behavioural viewing patterns, which can be interpreted as the behavioural engagement dimension and the rewind and replay actions of lecture recording, which can be regarded as a form of cognitive engagement. The findings suggested the videos did not affect student's attendance; students also stated that the videos could not replace their face-to-face lectures and were beneficial to learning. Moreover, viewing patterns were higher in the early stages of the course, with shorter videos and assessment-related videos as students indicated they used they primarily accessed videos for revision purposes. This was further demonstrated by students volatile rewinding and replaying, which could have been confusion, interest, or engagement.

The use of lecture recordings allows students to engage with lecture content at their own time and pace and engage with resources in ways that suit them. These findings are further outlined by Chapin ( 2018 ); Dona et al. ( 2017 ); Draper et al. ( 2018 ).

Chapin ( 2018 ) surveyed Australian undergraduate psychology students who used lecture recordings to prepare for exams, prepare for study notes during a semester, catch up on missed lectures, and obtain clarity on the lecture's ambiguous parts. Students' final grades were the same regardless of low or high access to recordings or low or high attendance in lectures. This indicates the flexibility of WBLT, and how students may engage with it in different ways, with similar academic achievement.

Draper et al. ( 2018 ) examined the extent to which Law instructors use lecture recordings and how undergraduate students perceive and engage with lecture recordings. Findings indicated some staff suggested that lecture recordings could benefit the students and that the recordings did not affect students' attendance. Most students also demonstrated their attendance was not affected. The study indicated that students used the recordings as a supplementary tool to organise their notes, for catching up when a class was missed, and preparing for exams. An improvement in positive study activity overtime was also noted.

Dona et al. ( 2017 ) investigated how undergraduate students experienced a fully integrated lecture recording system across several disciplines. The study concluded that students were generally positive about the value of lecture recordings. The findings were substantiated by Chapin ( 2018 ), who indicated that students use lecture recordings to clarify confusing topics, prepare for exams, learn at their own pace, improve their learning experience, and help balance their schedules between their studies and other obligations. Most lecturers were undecided about the value of recorded lectures. Therefore, differences in lecturer-based engagement were noted based on disciplines. Lecturers in business and social science were more positive towards the recorded lecture system than lecturers in the engineering and science disciplines. The findings from Dona et al. ( 2017 ) raise the question on the idea of a "one-size-fits- all" lecture recording system as differences in discipline lecturer styles and approaches to teaching are noted. They were indicating that not all students may engage with lecture recordings the same.

Further Trenholm et al. ( 2019 ) investigated undergraduate mathematics students' cognitive engagement with recorded lectures. The study approached cognitive engagement via two scales on measuring learning approaches: surface and deep. The study found that the combination of a decline in lecture attendance and reliance on recorded lecture videos had an association with an increase in surface approaches to learning. Edwards and Clinton ( 2019 ) examined the usage and impact made by introducing lecture capture in a Bachelor of Science programme course. The study found; the impact of lecture recordings was negative as students live lecture attendance dropped. They illustrated the drawbacks of over-reliance on lecture capture as a replacement for attending lectures as attendance is seen as an engagement indicator. However, viewing the lecture recordings had no significant association with attainment. Moreover, the study indicates lecture capture availability will most likely negatively affect less engaged students who might utilise more of a surface learning approach.

Studies suggest a need to address best practices in using recorded lecture videos not only in mathematics but possibly in other fields as well Edwards and Clinton ( 2019 ); Trenholm et al. ( 2019 ). The Instructional design of lecture recordings can influence best practices for utilising lecture recordings. Costley et al. ( 2017 ) examined the relationship between instructional design and student engagement in video lectures. The study outlines five instructional design indicators that can lead to the watching and completion of videos. These are utilizing the medium, establishing netiquette, establishing time parameters, setting the curriculum and design methods. These five elements aim to provide students with a clear pathway to success in the online learning environment. Instructional design is present when students view these elements as enhancing their engagement and learning. Findings suggested that the videos' design does influence students' engagement, and therefore instructors should pay attention with regards to how their courses are designed. Moreover, Seifert ( 2019 ) aimed to identify students' learning preferences as well as their attitudes with regards to using recorded lectures and how this affected student attendance in lectures. The findings indicated students had a positive experience that aided them in understanding the learning materials, as the lecture recordings met students' various needs.

Ebbert and Dutke ( 2020 ) identified five clusters of students based on how they utilised lecture recordings. The study outlines behaviour variables representing lecture capture, usage frequency, selective and repetitive watching, live lecture attendance, social context and location. These variables can represent the behavioural and cognitive dimensions of engagement. The clusters in descending order of size were frequent repetition, Selective repetition, Frequent consultation, Selective consultation and Increased absenteeism. These clusters indicate students engage differently with lecture recordings; therefore, strategies should be generated to support the different ways students engage with lecture recordings. Lecture recordings are a flexible platform concerning how students engage with them. Therefore, they keep a flexible type of engagement that enables students to utilise lecture recordings according to their preferences. Although most studies address the behavioural dimension, lecture recordings can facilitate other dimensions of engagement. The common use of self-reported measures alone also limits how students engage with lecture recordings as these obtain student perceptions.

Engagement with lecture capture: synthesis

Many educators believe that recorded lectures are likely to influence lecture attendance (McGowan & Hanna, 2015 ). Studies that explore how students engage with recorded lectures reported mixed findings, with some indicating that attendance has dropped due to the use of recorded lectures (Edwards & Clinton, 2019 ), while others seem to suggest that the availability of lecture recordings to students does not affect lecture attendance (Seifert, 2019 ). However, lecture recordings offer students flexibility as they can engage with them in various ways, such as taking notes, catching up when a class was missed, and preparing for exams (Chapin, 2018 ; Dona et al., 2017 ; Draper et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, the studies have mostly looked at the usage of the recorded lectures from the perspectives of behaviours (Chapin, 2018 ; Dona et al., 2017 ; Edwards & Clinton, 2019 ).

Further several of these studies utilized self-reported measures in the form of questionnaires and interviews (Chapin, 2018 ; Costley et al., 2017 ; Dona et al., 2017 ; Draper et al., 2018 ; Ebbert & Dutke, 2020 ; Palmer et al., 2019 ; Seifert, 2019 ). However, studies such as Edwards and Clinton ( 2019 ) McGowan and Hanna ( 2015 ) have used trace data combined with other data sets to a more significant effect. The data sets used have mostly been small and covering single cohorts (Draper et al., 2018 ; McGowan & Hanna, 2015 ), although some have used more diverse cohorts (Dona et al., 2017 ). Common methods used to analyse the data have been statistical methods such as Chi-square, descriptive statistics, t-test, and regression (Palmer et al., 2019 ; Seifert, 2019 ; Trenholm et al., 2019 ). Most of the focus on lecture recordings has been on their effect on attendance in live lectures; however, they provide flexible engagement opportunities to students. More emphasis should move to their efficacy as a learning resource that enhances student learning. Furthermore, other features such as supplementary note taking features should be analysed for insights.

Engagement with lecture capture: critique

Students generally advocate for lecture recordings to be made available as they value them highly. However, there is not much work done on moving forward and providing best practice strategies for student engagement with lecture recordings. Therefore, the pedagogical efficacy of lecture recordings is not overtly apparent. Furthermore, most studies have mostly looked at the effect of student engagement on one proxy: live lecture attendance. Therefore, not much has been addressed about most learning outcomes.

Furthermore, it is not clear how different student engagement types interrelate and can be facilitated through lecture recordings. Small and homogeneous samples are mostly used, which may fail to account for diversity among students. The design of the recorded lectures may be one reason for the mixed results as the design has been found to affect engagement, with shorter videos seen as more engaging (Costley et al., 2017 ). However, most studies do not consider design. Studies that utilised different approaches such as analytics only analyse behavioural data such as the total number of views. Although lecture capture views go through peaks and declines, there is no general understanding of why this is the case.

Furthermore, the methods used to infer videos as being watched somewhat rely on assumptions as it is not guaranteed that students watch the recordings they play. The use of courses from single instructors provides results that leave pending questions challenging to generalize. The emphasis on measuring the impact on mostly students’ live lecture attendance has left a limited understanding of student's engagement with lecture recordings. Furthermore, more insights can be obtained by utilising different datasets, including those obtained from trace data sets. This can help identify other dimensions of student engagement to understand student engagement with lecture recordings better.

Discussion and conclusion

The articles reviewed in this paper have showed various research on students’ engagement with digital technologies. The review revealed a lack of shared understanding of what constitutes student engagement in learning, let alone student engagement with digital technologies. The lack of shared understanding has led  to the use of different techniques and measures to understand student engagement. The variation in meaning and measures reinforced the prevalence of the diversity of perspectives in student engagement literature. With no clarity in meaning, studies have used different variables and dimensions to measure engagement. For example, participation has been used as a proxy variable for measuring student engagement with digital technology through clickstream data, which provides a limited view on engagement. Furthermore, the behavioral, social, and cognitive aspects of engagement remain the dominant dimensions of engagement in the literature.

Studies that have operationalised student engagement have mostly addressed one or at most two of the dimensions. While widely used, this approach fails to validate the interrelation of the three common dimensions of engagement (social, emotional and cognitive). Furthermore, measuring one dimension on learning outcomes does not provide a holistic view of student engagement. The behavioural dimension is the common dimension addressed in the literature, mostly due to its traceable action. This negates the emotional and cognitive dimensions. The emotional and cognitive dimensions remain challenging to directly observe, hence self-reported measures are increasingly used. However, some studies have utilised behavioural trace data as proxies to a certain degree of success. Studies have indicated psychological engagement can lead to behavioural engagement. Further exploration of how the three different dimensions of engagement can be measured together is crucial to understanding engagement. It is also important to examine the extent to which psychological attributes of engagement influence the behavioural dimension of engagement.

Several studies utilise convenient sampling technique when examining engagement, as the samples used were mostly from single courses and in a particular discipline, making the generalisability if the results limited. Further, the use of cross-sectional design in some of the studies examined are limited in their ability to explaining factors that can contribute to our understanding of engagement broadly and how it can be supported in digital learning environments. We argue that a more holistic approach that would incorporate participants from more diverse domains may yield a better understanding of how students with different demographic characteristics studying different subjects engage with digital technologies.

The cohort of students entering higher education are digitally savvy with different levels of technology literacy, therefore it is essential to incorporate demographics for richer insights in understanding how students engage with learning technologies.

In the studies reviewed, most approaches to the measurement of student engagement rely on self-reported measures, this is a concern, as some students may not recall their pre-self-report actions. Further, the use of a single source in the form of questionnaires mostly used in the literature is liable for single-source bias. Some studies have used learning analytics approaches that are less intrusive than self-reported measures. However, these have been mostly conducted in a short timeframe making durable patterns difficult to establish.

Studies can look to use larger samples, and accounting for more variables as noted by Helal et al. ( 2018 ), institutions may look to undertake the complex task of understanding student academic performance predictors, which may be affected by numerous factors such as the economic, social, demographic, cultural and academic background. Student engagement is similar in its complexity of variables that may affect it. One may even argue that addressing those multiple factors at the engagement level can help understand student outcomes. In particular, the use of perception data alone for student's engagement with digital technologies limits our understanding of student engagement in these environments. With most studies skewed towards a perceived behavioural dimension of engagement, it can be fruitful for researchers to incorporate different data sets to the more traditional data sets, such as trace data, as most digital technologies generate data in their system logs. In conclusion, the following outstanding issues need to be addressed:

Outstanding issues in the studies examined

There is no simplified shared understanding on the meaning of student engagement, let alone student engagement with learning technologies.

Current research on student engagement does not adequately describe the contextual variation and modalities of student engagement with various forms of digital technologies.

The conception and discourse with particular forms of technology (e.g. social media) and engagement seems over generalised as if social media refers to one form of technology.

The alignment of student engagement with technology to learning outcomes is ill-defined and under-researched.

The various forms of engagement (e.g. behavioural, emotional, social, cognitive) are not in concert with current and emergent forms of technologies.

Current research on student engagement has not covered  typologies of the various forms of learning theories and how these can guide different forms of engagement in a technology-enhanced learning environment.

Most studies reviewed measure student engagement through perception data; however, different data types such as trace data can provide further insights.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

Learning management system

Modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment

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Nkomo, L.M., Daniel, B.K. & Butson, R.J. Synthesis of student engagement with digital technologies: a systematic review of the literature. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 18 , 34 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-021-00270-1

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The use of digital technology in foreign language learning

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Digital technology has become an essential factor in the process of language learning. This quantitative study investigates the use of technology as well as teacher’s support in the process of technology-based learning of English as a foreign language (EFL) among high school students in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The data have been collected by the questionnaire modelling teachers' influence on learners' self-directed use of technology for language learning which consists of seven subscales. The results show that the participants’ experience with technology-based language learning (TBL) is rather positive and that teachers have an important role in technology-based foreign language learning, indicating insignificant gender and EFL GPA differences but significant grade level differences on the combined dependent variables of teacher’s support. Furthermore, the results revealed insignificant differences on the combined dependent variables of technology use based on the students’ gender and grade level but significant differences based on the students’ EFL GPA. The findings of this study may assist teachers in engaging students to efficiently use digital technologies in the process of foreign language learning at the high school level.

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Introduction

Electronic communication devices, such as computers, laptops, mobile phones, the global communication system, the Internet, and other technologies, namely video and audio conferencing, videotelephony, webcasts and chat rooms, have become an integral part of language instruction and their widespread use in education, and likewise in other public domains, has been steadily increasing. Thus, technology-based learning, as the process of learning by means of electronic technology, has emerged and substantially empowered language learning, making it no longer solely constricted to the traditional school learning environment. It has enormous educational potential both within and beyond the classroom milieu as it allows learners to easily access various instructional materials using different educational platforms, it facilitates learners’ exposure to native speakers’ lessons and tutorials and their engagement in diverse online courses. The term technology-based learning encloses some related terms, such as “computer-assisted language learning” (CALL) (Afshari et al. 2013 ), “computer-mediated communication” (CMC) (Sorensen 2013 ), “information, communication and technology” (ICT) (Ghavifekr and Rosdy 2015 ), “technology-enabled active learning” (TEAL) (Tong et al. 2018 ) or “electronic learning” (e-learning) (Liaw et al. 2007 ) and these terms have been used simultaneously and sometimes interchangeably. Still, the term “technology-based learning” or TBL (as employed in Hsu et al. 2012 ) will be maintained as a designation in the current research.

Technology-based learning experience entails the students' use of technology and internet facilities, as well as audio-visual aids and equipment, for doing homework assignments, exercises and expanding their knowledge in the subject matter discussed by instructors within the classroom. If students are carefully guided through the process and directed towards the purposeful use of technology, they are on the way to achieving learner’s autonomy and becoming autonomous and self-regulated learners. Teachers, who with their instructional practices and role modelling, influence students’ intellectual, emotional and social development, play a significant role in that process. They should guide students towards finding their best approach to learning and, creating a positive atmosphere among students while using technology (Yaman and Bećirović 2016 ), help them develop a capacity to effectively exploit the resources they have and eventually lead them to a self-directed use of technology for out-of-school learning (Lai 2015 ).

Literature review

Self-directed learning.

Self-directed learning (SDL), also called self-initiated, self-planned and self-regulated learning, has been defined as the “process in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help from others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating goals, identifying human and material resources, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes” (Knowles 1975 , p. 18, in Lai 2013 , p. 100). Zimmerman ( 2000 ), defines it as “a process by which learners direct and coordinate their efforts, thoughts, and feelings in order to achieve their learning goals” (p. 15) or stated in the simplest terms, it is learning beyond a formal institutional setting. The concept of self-directed learning, regarded as one of the most critical personal skills for the twenty-first Century (Eroglu and Ozbek 2018 ), represents any personal development and increase in knowledge or skill. Even though it is widely used in contemporary research sources, the idea of SDL has its roots in Socrates’ emphasis on independent learning and relentless pursuit of the best learning approach (Delić and Bećirović 2016 ). Socrates, as Beavers ( 2009 ) points out, “illustrates concisely the concepts of self-directed learning in his discussion with Meno by allowing him to determine the topic of interest (The Great Dialogues of Plato)” (p. 27).

Whenever the concept of self-directed learning or students’ individual learning is discussed, the question of the teacher’s role is raised. Self-directed learning, even though it supposes a teacher-free environment, is not meant to exclude teachers. On the contrary, self-directed learning as such, should be led and supported by teachers and the teacher’s role is to lead students towards developing independent critical thinking and learning skills. Such a teacher-supported concept of self-directed learning is also explained in Sert and Boynuegri’s research ( 2017 ) stating that “it is clear that self-directed learning requires classroom context in which learner autonomy is promoted by the teacher” (p. 26). Garrison ( 1997 ) names a self-directed way of learning as “a collaborative constructivist perspective”, explaining that an individual takes responsibility for constructing meaning, while others confirm its worthwhileness, and he states that “the challenge for teachers is to create the educational conditions that will facilitate self-direction” (p. 30).

Technology and self-directed learning

Technology-based instruction is a subject that has evinced an intense and lively research interest (Clark et al. 2009 ; Ghavifekr and Rosdy 2015 ; Paris 2004 ; Sert and Boynuegri 2017 ). One of the reasons why technology has become an integral part of today’s language learning environment is its ability to provide personalized language instruction and materials enabling learners to select the lesson and adapt it to their needs. Likewise, technology advances access to information and offers more communication possibilities. Using technology devices, such as TV, radio, movies or the Internet in general for the purpose of achieving self-directed learning serves a variety of functions in shaping positive learner identity, maintaining motivation for learning (Lamb 2007 ), providing learners with a supportive learning community, offering learners a place for self-expression, and enhancing their self-perception (Gao 2009 ; Teo et al. 2010 ). It also allows the process of “online informal learning of language” (Toffoli and Sockett 2013 , p. 2) to happen.

According to Gokcearslan ( 2017 ), the level of self-directed learning is a predictor of the integration of technology. To motivate students to self-directedly use technology for learning, teachers need to use different types of support, such as behavior support (enhancing confidence in their abilities to engage in out-of-class learning activities), capacity support (helping learners to develop the capacity to use the resources effectively), or pedagogical or metacognitive guidance. Lai ( 2015 ), reporting the results of the research conducted among 160 university students, states that “affection support predicted self-directed technology use through strengthened perceptions of the usefulness of technological resources for language learning, whereas capacity support and behavior support predicted self-directed technology use through enhanced perceptions of facilitating conditions and self-efficacy in using technological resources for language learning” (p. 81) and then concludes that, in order to successfully lead students towards these goals, teachers need to be skilled in explaining broad pedagogical content of technology that goes far beyond the knowledge of using it.

Hence, the use of technology requires a level of self-direction. An individual has to take the initiative and responsibility for what and how he/she uses technology outside the formal educational milieu. Geng et al. ( 2019 ) found out that students who are self-directed and share positive attitudes toward technology-based learning are consequently more motivated in adopting online learning strategies and achieving their learning goals (p. 21). Moreover, when using technology to learn, students are more active and autonomous (Demir and Yurdugül 2013 ; Tawafak et al. 2018 ). Rashid and Asghar ( 2016 ) also found out that technology use predicts self-directed learning and that technology use indirectly impacts academic performance through self-directed learning (p. 609).

However, technology integration per se is not sufficient. According to Yilmaz ( 2018 ), there are technical and pedagogical implications in this type of language learning. The former include students’ skills in their self-directed use of technology, their effort, and devices, and the latter include instructional design. In other words, there is a need for teachers who are able to organize and maintain this type of lesson flow and who also possess “pedagogical knowledge” (Okojie et al. 2006 , p. 67) that needs to be incorporated into such instruction.

Among the factors that lead students towards self-directed learning through the use of technology are their perceptions of its usefulness and benefits for their success. Thus, it has been shown that perceived usefulness (belief in enhanced performance through technological behavior) and attitude to technology use (affective appraisal of the technological behavior) (Clark et al. 2009 ; Lai et al. 2012 ) are powerful predictors of the individual’s intention to use technology. Hence, Lai and Gu ( 2011 ) found out that the usefulness of technology in the process of language learning and the compatibility of its use predicted the frequency of learners’ usage of technology to self-moderate their language learning.

Still, attitudes towards technology use and its implementation into the learning processes in schools are both positive and negative. Ghavifekr and Rosdy ( 2015 ) state that the benefits of information, communication, and technology (ICT) programs are the development of confidence, better communication, creativity and imagination and they also indicate that “ICT helps students to possess all four skills in learning when they are able to acquire necessary information and knowledge” (p. 188). Though research in this field clearly shows that technology stimulates the learning process and maximizes the abilities of students in active learning (Jorge et al. 2003 ; Young 2003 ), technology-based learning entails that both students and schools are facilitated with computers and internet access, which does not seem to be always the case. Thus, even if technology is affordable and not very expensive, there still exist schools, especially in rural areas, which lack adequate equipment and internet access. Moreover, technical problems and teachers’ lack of experience, and, not rarely, confidence to use technology, impede this way of learning as well (Jamieson-Proctor et al. 2013 ). This leads to teachers’ negative attitudes about technology use and their beliefs that the class cannot be easily controlled when the technology-based instruction is implemented (Ghavifekr and Rosdy 2015 ). The conclusion that can be drawn from the aforementioned is that teachers with negative attitudes towards technology are unlikely to transfer their skills to students and encourage them to use it. Thus, to effectively incorporate technology-based learning into the learning processes, proper equipment needs to be supplied and teachers, schools and students need to have sufficient knowledge to use it as well.

Teachers’ role in technology-based self-directed learning

Teachers have always performed a key role in education (Ahmetović et al. 2020 ). With today’s unlimited information content on the Internet and students’ readiness to access it, teachers, apart from only teaching, should also be mentoring their students in their process of self-directed learning (Hassan and Mirza 2020 ). Liaw et al. ( 2007 ) reported that technology-based learning is “autonomous and rich in multimedia” (p. 1076), and that students expect their teachers to assist them when using an e-learning environment. Since, according to Albirni ( 2006 ), “teachers are the most important agents of change within the classroom arena” (p. 374), the process of effective technology-based education without teachers’ adequate skill and dedication will not be successful even if schools are sufficiently equipped with sophisticated technology. Given the fact that teachers determine what the lesson will look like, and thus how technology will be used and implemented during lessons, studies indicate that the successful application of educational technologies relies largely on the educators’ attitudes. Thus, Kersaint et al. ( 2003 ) reported that teachers who have a positive attitude toward technology use incorporate it into their teaching more comfortably. Similarly, Bullock ( 2004 ) states that the teacher's attitude is a major enabling factor in students’ adoption of technology.

Thus, the teacher’s role in implementing technology into the learning processes is of paramount importance and such support is highly beneficial. According to Sorensen ( 2013 ), “the way a teacher feels about technology, whether consciously or not, is sure to affect their implementation of the curriculum, and those attitudes frequently filter down to their students” (p. 24). Ghavifekr and Rosdy ( 2015 ) found out that teachers who supported technology-led instructions make learning more effective and that students are more active and engaged in the lesson prepared by such teachers. Lai and Li ( 2011 ) also emphasizes the importance of teachers’ conscious effort through various formats, for example, providing information on useful technological aids and resources and guiding students on how to use specific technological resources.

Deepwell and Malik ( 2008 ) also emphasize the role of tutors in informing and guiding students through their study. These authors indicated that 76% of their interviewees reported that they use technology for self-directed learning, but at the same time they did not work on their studies independently and they expected immediate feedback from their tutors, and felt very frustrated when they did not receive it (p. 11). Teaching behavior and teachers’ social relations to their students are, according to Mahini et al. ( 2012 ), some of the most influential factors of the teacher’s performance in classrooms. Jensen et al. ( 2019 ) conclude that the student–teacher social element affects students’ engagement, motivation, and learning outcomes.

The current situation created by past and ongoing worldly pandemic has posed a major challenge to educational institutions at all levels around the world and likewise in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The teaching process has completely shifted from classrooms to students’ homes with the use of different technological devices and online meeting platforms as basic instructional tools. This required a change in methods of teaching as well as in the instructional materials, which needed to be adapted to this new mode. Students were also under pressure to get accustomed to those modes, looking for new ways to do projects, homework assignments, and to increase their class participation. All these circumstances, accompanied by occasional internet connection problems, have led to students’ aiming to become better self-directed learners and search for information, do tasks and exercises on their own. Due to the fact that teachers were also striving to get used to that unexpected situation, their role as a mediating factor in students’ self-directed learning was seen as something of less importance. Therefore, in this study, Bosnian EFL learners’ perceptions of this type of learning as well as of how teacher behavior and support affected their self-directed use of technology for language learning were surveyed.

Methodology

Given the importance of technology-based learning and the teacher’s support in implementing it, this study aims at investigating the Bosnian students’ technology use in learning English as a foreign language and their perceptions of teachers’ support in that respect based on their gender, grade level and EFL GPA. Based on the aim of the study, the following hypotheses have been tested:

There will be a significant difference in teachers' affection, capacity, and behavior support for the technology use in foreign language learning based on students’ gender,

There will be a significant difference in teachers' affection, capacity, and behavior support for the technology use in foreign language learning based on students’ grade level,

There will be a significant difference in students' perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, facilitation condition, and technology use in foreign language learning based on gender,

There will be a significant difference in students' perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, facilitation condition, and technology use in foreign language learning based on their grade level,

There will be a significant difference in teachers' affection, capacity, and behavior support for the technology use in foreign language learning based on students’ EFL GPA scores,

There will be a significant difference in students' perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, facilitation condition, and technology use in foreign language learning based on students’ EFL GPA score.

Participants

The research sample in the current study was composed of 173 Bosnian high school students studying at four different grade levels. The convenience sampling method was employed in the process of participants’ selection. The sample consisted of 100 female students (57.8%) and 73 male students (42.2%). As for the grade level, there were 75 first grade students (43.4%), 36 s grade students (20.8%), 19 third grade students (11%) and 43 fourth grade students (24.9%), with the age range between 15 and 19. The participants also provided information on their grade-point average obtained in the English as a foreign language (EFL) course. The grades ranged between 1 and 5, with 1 being a non-passing grade and 5 being the highest grade. Thus, 76 participants obtained the GPA score 5, 36 participants the GPA score 4, 35 participants the GPA score 3, and 24 participants the GPA score 2, while only 2 participants obtained a non-passing grade 1, and, as such, this group will not be included in the analysis. Table 1 provides all the details related to the participants.

Instruments and procedures

The questionnaire Modeling teachers' influence on learners' self-directed use of technology for language learning employed in this research was developed and validated by Lai ( 2015 ). It contains 30 items with response options ranging from 1 to 5 on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Disagree, 5 = Strongly disagree). The questionnaire is composed of seven subscales, namely affection support (e.g. My language teacher encourages us to use technology for language learning outside the classroom), capacity support (e.g. My language teacher shares with us useful technological resources/sites/tools for language learning outside the classroom), behavior support (e.g. My language teacher often uses technological resources or tools in her/his classes), technology use (e.g. I use technology to expand opportunities to use the language), perceived usefulness (e.g. technology enhances my language learning outcomes), computer self-efficacy (e.g. I am confident with my abilities in using technologies effectively for language learning) and facilitation condition (e.g. I have the resources necessary to use technologies for language learning). Concerning the data related to the EFL GPA, regular grades assigned by EFL teachers which are based on the students’ evaluation have been utilized. According to the Bosnian grading system, 1 is the lowest (failing) grade and 5 indicates the highest achievement (excellent).

The questionnaire was delivered to the students in an online form following the explanation of the nature and purpose of the study. The students were asked to complete the questionnaire anonymously and without any time limits. Cronbach’s alpha was employed to assess the reliability of the instrument and the coefficient amounted to α  = 0.89 for all the items, which is a good reliability index (Pallant 2007 ). Each subscale was assessed for internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha. The results showed acceptable consistency and reliability, as displayed in Table 2 .

Data analysis

The collected data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, v. 26). Pearson product correlation coefficients as well as the descriptive analysis including means, standard deviation ( SD ) and frequencies were employed. One-way MANOVA was used to investigate the differences in technology use and teacher’s support based on gender, grade level and GPA groups.

Preliminary analysis

The participants scored quite high on the perceived usefulness of technological resources for foreign language learning ( M  = 2.04, SD  = .60) and are confident about their abilities to use technology in the process of foreign language learning ( M  = 2.25, SD  = .67). Furthermore, the participants stated that they have positive conditions to use technology ( M  = 2.21, SD  = .70) and they scored quite high on computer self-efficacy ( M  = 2.25, SD  = .72) (Table 3 ). The teacher’s support for the use of technology was rated slightly above 2, with affection support being most highly rated ( M  = 2.28, SD  = .91), behavior support closely following ( M  = 2.38, SD  = .87), and capacity support receiving the lowest rating ( M  = 2.53, SD  = 1.05). The participants scored the highest mean on the perceived usefulness ( M  = 2.04, SD  = .60) and facilitation condition subscales ( M  = 2.21, SD  = .70). In terms of the use of technology ( M  = 2.25, SD  = .67) and computer self-efficacy ( M  = 2.25, SD  = .72), the same mean score was measured.

A Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed to assess the relationship between dependent variables. The results showed a significant correlation between affection support and capacity support ( r  = .57, n  = 173, p  < .001), affection support and behavior support ( r  = .60, n  = 173, p  < .001) as well as between behavior support and capacity support ( r  = .62, n  = 173, p  < .001) (Table 3 ). Furthermore, a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient showed that the use of technology significantly correlated with perceived usefulness r  = .68, n  = 173, p  < .001, computer self-efficacy r  = .54, n  = 173, p  < .001 and facilitation condition r  = .40, n  = 173, p  < .001. A significant correlation was also measured between perceived usefulness and computer self-efficacy r  = .64, n  = 173, p  < .001 as well as between perceived usefulness and facilitation condition r  = .50, n  = 173, p  < .001.

The first hypothesis was related to gender-based differences in the participants’ opinions on the support they receive from teachers in the process of technology-based foreign language learning.

A one-way MANOVA was conducted to determine gender differences on the combined dependent variables of teacher’s support (affection, capacity, and behavior support) in the process of technology-based foreign language learning. The results indicated that gender did not significantly affect the combined dependent variables of teacher's support, Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.995, F (3, 168.000) = 0.300, p  = .826, η 2  = .005. Likewise, there were no significant gender-based differences on the affection support subscale Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.995, F (3, 168.000) = 0.300, p  = .560, η 2  = .002, capacity support subscale Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.995, F (3, 168.000) = 0.300, p  = .350, η 2  = .005, and behavior support subscale Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.995, F (3, 168.000) = 0.300, p  = .474, η 2  = .003. The results are displayed in Table 4 .

The second hypothesis was related to grade-related differences in the participants’ views on teacher’s support in the process of technology-based foreign language learning. A one-way MANOVA revealed a significant influence of grade level on the combined dependent variables of teacher's support, Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.904, F (9, 406.585) = 1.923, p  = .047, η 2  = .033, with small effect size. Univariate ANOVA indicated that grade level had a significant influence only on the behavior support subscale, F (3, 3.048) = 4.180, p  = .007, η 2  = .069 with moderate effect size (Table 5 ) while capacity support F (3, 1.881) = 1.728, p  = .163, η 2  = .030 and affection support F (3, 1.683) = 2.059, p  = .108, η 2  = .035 were insignificantly affected by grade level. As for the differences among four grade levels, the first grade reported the highest mean value for each of the three teacher support scales.

A one-way MANOVA was employed to determine the influence of gender on the combined dependent variables related to educational technologies, namely perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, facilitation condition, and technology use. The results showed that gender did not significantly affect the combined dependent variables related to educational technologies Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.515, F (4, 168.000) = 0.988, p  = .724, η 2  = .012. The analysis of variance on each of the educational technologies subscales showed that there were no significant gender-based differences: the perceived usefulness subscale Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.936, F (1, .001) = .002, p  = .966, η 2  = .000, computer self-efficacy subscale Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.936, F (1, .058) = .002, p  = .740, η 2  = .001, facilitation condition subscale Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.936, F (1, .639) = 1.298, p  = .256, η 2  = .008, and technology use subscale λ  = 0.936, F (1, .042) = .093, p  = .761, η 2  = .001.

As displayed in Table 6 , both male ( M  = 2.05, SD  = .59) and female ( M  = 2.04, SD  = .62) participants achieved the highest score on the perceived usefulness subscale and the results point to a rather low score on the computer self-efficacy subscale achieved by males ( M  = 2.23, SD  = .70) and females ( M  = 2.27, SD  = .74). On the other hand, males achieved a rather high score on the facilitation condition subscale ( M  = 2.14, SD  = .58) while the scores achieved by females were not as high ( M  = 2.26, SD  = .77).

A one-way MANOVA was also conducted to determine the influence of grade level on the combined dependent variables related to educational technologies (namely perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, facilitation condition, and technology use). The results revealed that grade level did not have a significant influence on combined variables related to educational technologies Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.936, F (12, 439.485) = 1.923, p  = .518, η 2  = .022. Further research demonstrated that no significant grade level differences were found on the perceived usefulness subscale λ  = 0.936, F (12, 439.485) = 1.923, p  = .878, η 2  = .004, computer self-efficacy subscale λ  = 0.936, F (12, 439.485) = 1.923, p  = .718, η 2  = .008, technology use subscale λ  = 0.936, F (12, 439.485) = 1.923, p  = .193, η 2  = .028 and facilitation condition subscale λ  = 0.936, F (12, 439.485) = 1.923, p  = .450, η 2  = .015.

The perceived usefulness subscale was rated with the highest mean by all grade levels while in other subscales there were variations between grade levels. Thus, the technology use subscale was rated with a high mean score by grade 1 and the mean score decreased in other grades. The computer self-efficacy and facilitation condition subscales were rated almost identically by the students at all grade levels (Table 7 ).

A one-way MANOVA was conducted to determine the teachers’ support for technology use (affection support, capacity support and behavior support) and the differences existing among four EFL GPA groups. The results indicated an insignificant difference among EFL GPA groups on the combined dependent variables of teachers' support, Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.933, F (12, 439.486) = .975, p  = .472, η 2  = .023.

Furthermore, there were no significant differences among EFL GPA groups on the affection support subscale Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.933, F (12, 439.486) = .975, p  = .063, η 2  = .052, capacity support subscale Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.995, F (3, 168.000) = 0.300, p  = .213, η 2  = .034 and behavior support subscale Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.995, F (3, 168.000) = 0.300, p  = .162, η 2  = .038.

As can be seen in Table 8 , the highest mean score by each EFL GPA group was reported for the affection support subscale while the lowest mean again by each EFL GPA group was reported for the capacity support subscale. Moreover, the highest mean was reported by the EFL GPA score 2 on two subscales, namely the affection support and behavior support subscales.

A one-way MANOVA was also conducted to determine the influence of the participants’ EFL GPA scores on the combined dependent variables related to educational technologies, namely perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, facilitation condition, and technology use. The results indicated significant differences among EFL GPA groups on the combined dependent variables related to educational technologies, Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.788, F (16, 504.721) = 2.565, p  = .001, η 2  = .058, with a small effect size (Table 9 ).

Significant EFL GPA-related differences were found in perceived usefulness Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.936, F (12, 439.485) = 1.923, p  = .011, η 2  = .075 with a moderate effect size, computer self-efficacy Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.936, F (12, 439.485) = 1.923, p  = .012, η 2  = .074 also with a moderate effect size and facilitation condition Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.936, F (12, 439.485) = 1.923, p  = .003, η 2  = .091, with a moderate effect size. The differences in technology use among four different EFL GPA groups were insignificant, Wilks’s Lambda λ  = 0.936, F (12, 439.485) = 1.923, p  = .253, η 2  = .031.

The mean scores for the technology use subscale were similar among all EFL GPA score groups. However, the highest mean score for the three other subscales (perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy and facilitation condition) was reported by the EFL GPA group 5 and then the mean scores for all these subscales decreased as the EFL GPA scores decreased so that the lowest mean scores were reported by the EFL GPA group 2 (Table 9 ).

The focus of the present study was on analyzing high school students’ perceptions of technology-based language learning and their connection to language achievement and the students’ gender and grade level, as well as the students’ perceptions and attitudes towards teachers’ support in that process. The analysis revealed that the participants shared rather positive perceptions towards the use of technology for the purpose of language learning.

Thus, the first research hypothesis predicting that there will be a significant difference in the teacher’s support of the use of technology based on gender was refuted as the main effects of all dependent variables were insignificant and male and female participants shared rather similar opinions on teacher’s support and its three types. More specifically, the male participants seem to share more positive opinions on all three subscales of teacher’s support than females and the results indicate that the highest mean value was measured on the affection support subscale and the lowest mean value on the capacity support subscale, which is in line with Lai’s research ( 2015 ). The teacher’s support overall was found to be of high importance to the participants, which strengthens the argument that students still rely on traditional teacher-centered approaches. Teachers should guide students towards a proper use of technology in the process of language learning. Furthermore, being able to raise students’ awareness of contemporary language learning processes (Carson and Mynard 2012 ), teachers can provide methodological information on learning resources and strategies and be actively engaged in tracking their progress.

The second hypothesis predicting significant differences in the teacher's support of the use of technology in the classroom based on grade level was supported as the impact of grade level differences on the combined dependent variables of teacher’s support was significant. However, the impact of grade level on individual subscales of teacher’s support varied and the impact of grade level proved to be significant only on the behavior support subscale. The teacher’s support was reported as an important factor in this type of learning, and, as stated in Mahini et al. ( 2012 ), the teacher’s role is to facilitate and monitor and direct the learning process. As demonstrated by Vajzović et al. ( 2019 ), a large number of primary and high school Bosnian teachers (57%) strongly agree that knowledge, skills and competencies acquired through media and information literacy are of high importance in modern times, but there are still some teachers, though a small percentage of them (1.2%), who disagree with that view. Rather interestingly, the participants of the study conducted by Vajzović et al. ( 2019 ) also admitted that they might lack some competencies related to teaching some content in the field of media and information literacy. Therefore, there should be more research studies related to teachers’ readiness to assist and help students in using technology for language learning. This also implies that teachers, especially those who have recently been introduced to technology-based teaching, should include some follow-up development activities in their professional development programs (Albert et al. 2014 ). According to Ahmadi ( 2018 ), teachers’ support of technology-integrated curriculum should increase the actual use of technology in learning.

The third hypothesis was also refuted as no significant differences were found in the students’ perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, facilitation condition and technology use based on their gender, which further supports the argument that technology, as an information source, can be used by everyone, regardless of gender differences. The results obtained for gender-related differences in terms of technology-based learning are supported by some previous findings. Thus, Demir and Yurdugül ( 2013 ) as well as Jaleel and Anuroofa ( 2017 ) did not find any significant differences in students’ self-directed technology-based learning in terms of gender. Likewise, Çelik et al. ( 2012 ) found no statistically significant differences regarding male and female participants’ use of ICT for self-regulated learning. The current study is also aligned with Eroglu and Ozbek ( 2018 ), who found out that students’ self-directed technology-based learning and students’ attitude towards e‐learning do not differ in terms of gender (p. 305), as well as with Gokcearslan ( 2017 ), who reported that no meaningful difference was found in the level of self-directed learning with technology in terms of gender. Contrary to current study findings, some research revealed significant gender-related differences in perceptions, motivation, and usefulness of this type of learning (e.g. Chyung 2007 ; Idrizi et al. 2020 ; Sullivan 2001 ). Thus, Idrizi et al. ( 2020 ) found out that male students are more linked to technology use in general while female students achieved a greater academic success in subjects in which technology was employed. Analyzing male and female college students' experience in an online environment, Sullivan ( 2001 ) also reported significant differences between the way male and female students perceived the online learning environment, self-discipline, and self-motivation.

Self-efficacy, as one of the variables examined in the technology use analysis and found to be insignificantly different for male and female participants, was also researched in Chyung ( 2007 ) and the author found out that female students improved their self-efficacy significantly more and scored significantly higher on the final exam than male students. Almost identical conclusions were drawn by Perkowski ( 2012 ), who reported that female students performed better in performance achievement and self-efficacy in online learning environments. In another research on self-efficacy, a significant amount of variance in male students’ achievement was determined by their self-efficacy and task value (Yukselturk and Bulut 2009 ).

Some conflicting findings related to gender differences were also reported when students’ attitudes towards technology-based learning were researched. Hence, Suri and Sharma ( 2013 ) and Paris ( 2004 ) pointed to statistically insignificant gender-related differences, whereas Ong and Lai ( 2006 ) found that gender differences in attitudes towards technology-based learning were significant and that male participants achieved a higher mean on computer self-efficacy, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioral intention than females (p. 823). Moreover, a similar investigation was done by Long ( 2015 ), who found that female students reported a greater knowledge and readiness of technology usage.

The fourth hypothesis was also refuted as no significant differences were found in the students’ perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, facilitation condition and technology use based on their grade level. Students’ perceptions or perceived usefulness of technology in language learning is their belief that using a particular tool will enhance their performance (Davis 1989 ). Afshari et al. ( 2013 ) found out that students’ positive perceptions towards technology-based language learning (perceived usefulness) had a direct and significant effect on students’ attitudes towards this learning concept, indicating that the improvement in students’ perceptions of computer attributes causes enhancement in their attitudes (p. 858), which is not corroborated by the current study findings. Similar conclusions can be drawn from Hismanoglu ( 2012 ), who indicated that one of the determinants of students’ acceptance of technology is their perceived usefulness or attitude towards it.

Lai ( 2013 ) points out that educational compatibility and perceived usefulness were the two major factors that mediated most of the relationships that affected technology use (p. 86). Similarly, Yilmaz ( 2018 ) found out that self-directed learning with technology sufficiency has the most important effect on learners’ will to use it. In other words, the more they use it successfully, its usage grows rapidly. Yilmaz ( 2018 ) continues that, in order to increase students’ acceptance of technological tools, it is necessary to increase self-directed learning with technology competencies and academic motivation (p. 97). Dahlstrom ( 2012 ) investigated students’ perceptions of the usefulness of technology too and determined that over half of all the research participants believe they are more actively involved in courses in which technology is used and that technology contributes to them feeling connected to other students, their teachers, and their institutions (p. 10). Thus, direct relations of grade level differences in terms of the technology use conditions were not found in the literature. As a pioneer in this type of research concern, especially in the case of Bosnian high school students, this research can just confirm the previously stated claim that in this rather new concept of learning, the students’ differences do not seem to be a significant factor.

The fifth hypothesis predicted that there will be a statistically significant difference in the teacher’s affection, capacity, and behavior support for technology use in foreign language learning based on the participants’ GPA in English as a foreign language and it was refuted since the students’ GPA in English as a foreign language did not significantly influence the combined dependent variables of teachers’ support or the teacher’s affection, capacity and behavior support for technology use in foreign language learning individually. Such results are in line with Bello’s ( 2014 ) research results which showed no relationship between teachers’ level of technology implementation and student achievement. However, some studies emphasized that the impact of technology on student achievement might be dependent on teachers’ usage and students’ motivation (Norris and Soloway 2010 ). More precisely, Tang and Austin ( 2009 ) maintained that technology and the professors’ effective usage of technology cause an improvement in students’ learning performance or their GPA (p. 1244). Such research findings indicate that students with high GPA favor the use of technology and that professors’ effective use of technology and their gender are effective predictors of their grades.

The last hypothesis stating that there will be a significant difference in the students’ perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy, facilitation condition and technology use in foreign language learning based on their EFL GPA score was supported as the participants’ EFL GPA score significantly impacts the combined variables of technology use as well as some of them individually, namely the perceived usefulness, computer self-efficacy and facilitation condition. Thus, the students with the highest GPA in English (5 or excellent) achieved the highest mean on all variables and the mean values on all the subscales decreased with a decrease in the students’ EFL GPA. This confirmed the assumptions that the highest achieving EFL students would use technology for the purpose of learning and show greater readiness to use it than lower achieving students, who seem to be using technology much less. This supports the findings of Little-Wiles et al. ( 2014 ), who concluded that the students who visited online learning platforms less frequently obtained lower grades than other students. The current study findings hence are aligned with the findings of several other studies which have confirmed that exposure to technology has a positive impact on students’ achievement (Bello 2014 ; Neill and Mathews 2009 ; Suhr et al. 2010 ), specifically in mathematics and language arts (Neill and Mathews 2009 ). However, the majority of existing literature in the field of technology-based learning does not connect it to students’ learning performance or success. Language proficiency is, according to Domingo ( 2019 ), affected by language exposure, or by lesson study or a research-based approach (Kıncal et al. 2019 ). Al-Bataineh et al. ( 2016 ) state that, even though technology could be an influential factor in students’ academic achievement, it is still not a sole factor when it comes to official tests and measurements (p. 380). Furthermore, investigating students’ access to virtual learning environments (VLE), Chowdhry et al. ( 2014 ) found out that this way of learning did not affect the students’ academic performance (p. 13). Similarly, Rashid and Asghar’s ( 2016 ) research findings reported that, even though the use of technology has a direct positive relationship with students’ engagement and self-directed learning, an insignificant direct effect was found between technology use and students’ academic performance.

Students’ success, or more specifically, their learning performance, seems to be more related to their learning styles (Delić 2018 ; Mašić et al. 2020 ), learning strategies they employ (Akay and Anvarovich 2015 ; Bećirović et al. 2018 ; Delić and Bećirović 2018 ), their personal characteristics or their educational milieu (Bećirović and Brdarević-Čeljo 2018 ; Bećirović et al. 2019 ; Fiossi-Kpadonou 2017 ; Kovačević et al. 2018 ) and less to the mode of teaching. Bartholomew et al. ( 2017 ), for example, found out that, in a middle-school sample study, students’ self-directed learning correlated more closely with the characteristics of students and classroom than with access to technology tools (p. 20). Similarly, Long ( 2015 ) found out that technology-related variables of his investigation were not significant factors impacting students’ final course grades.

The current study has discussed the high school students’ perceptions of technology-based English language learning as well as their perceptions of teacher’s support in that process, with a special focus on the impact of gender, grade level and EFL achievement on both. Some general conclusions can be drawn from the obtained results, namely (1) high school students are very positive about the use of technology and teacher's support in the process of foreign language learning (2) gender has no significant effect on the students’ use of technology and teacher's support in the process (3) the students' grade level significantly impacts their perceptions of teacher's support in the process of technology-based learning, while it does not significantly impact their perceived usefulness of technology (4) on the contrary, students' EFL achievement does not have a significant effect on their perceptions of teacher's support, while it significantly impacts their perceived usefulness of technology.

The current study findings emphasize the need to raise teachers' awareness of the support to be given to students to help them increase their self-directed usage of technology, particularly so outside the official school environment. The education system should follow this development and adequately respond to it and systemic reforms need to be made. This can only be addressed with an adequate, systemic, long-term, feasible and sustainable approach to media and information literacy in the educational system of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Due to the fact that the data for this research were collected at the time when the teaching process was completely online-based and very much affected by the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic and taking into consideration that such a situation will persist at least to some extent, this kind of research displays originality and innovativeness and has a potential to provide some novel perspectives and solutions to the ensuing problems in the social and cultural space of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Still, there are some limitations in this research which should be properly addressed in any further research in this field. Firstly, the sample of only high school students limits the possibility of making in-depth comparisons with primary and university-level education. Secondly, the focus of the current study is the use of technology and teacher's support in language learning, English language learning in particular, and some of the key factors impacting both might differ across different fields. In some other fields, different types of teacher's support might be more relevant.

Data availability

Raw data that support this study may be available with restrictions. The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Bećirović, S., Brdarević-Čeljo, A. & Delić, H. The use of digital technology in foreign language learning. SN Soc Sci 1 , 246 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-021-00254-y

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• Published: 08 August 2023

Digital learning and the ESL online classroom in higher education: teachers’ perspectives

• Noble Po-kan Lo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7636-6146 1  

Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education volume  8 , Article number:  24 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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This study explores teachers’ perspectives with regards to teaching English in virtual classrooms, specifically with regards to teaching English as a second language within the context of emergency remote learning in Hong Kong during COVID-19. Through undertaking thematic analysis of six interviews with English language teachers at a university in Hong Kong, this study explores how teachers view the benefits, challenges and personal and professional consequences of the shift to emergency remote teaching during the pandemic. Taking a social constructivist approach to the topic, the study also seeks to uncover how teachers view such provisions as being improved under future emergencies and with respect to online English language teaching moving forwards generally. This research topic contributes both to a longstanding debate on the ways in which digital technologies can enhance education and language learning, as well as the emerging body of literature examining how teachers and students have responded to the implementation of digital learning in online classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction

This research paper explores the experiences, attitudes and perspectives of English as a second language (ESL) teachers regarding the shift to online education as brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study utilises primary qualitative research consisting of interviews with six ESL teachers from higher-education institutes in Hong Kong in order to gauge their experiences, attitudes and perspectives on the shift to online learning with a view to exploring the efficacy and sustainability of online learning moving forward. This is undertaken with a view to contributing to the longstanding debate on the ways in which digital technologies can enhance education and language learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 onwards has instituted an unprecedented shift to education and language learning. At a global level, the necessity of closing schools and restricting access to face-to-face teaching in order minimise viral exposure has seen education across a number of contexts move towards online platforms and spaces (Chen et al., 2020 ). Although online education has been practised for some time and is a highly theorised and studied topic, these shifts to teaching and learning in online environments largely took place without pre-existing plans for online learning on this scale in place (Chang & Fang, 2020 ). The rapid nature of this transformation in the learning environment means that educationalists are still assessing what the consequences of online learning under these conditions have been for teachers and students alike (Pandit & Agrawal, 2022 ).

As such, there may be said to be two distinct bodies of literature covering related but distinct phenomena with respect to online teaching and learning. In terms of online teaching and learning generally, there is extensive research dating back some 30 years that has produced well-established principles and best practices regarding online teaching and learning. However, with respect to emergency remote teaching and learning, the absence of a comparable phenomenon to COVID-19 over this period means that there is much less research on emergency remote teaching prior to the outset of the pandemic. As a consequence, online teaching principles and best practices during the pandemic may not match those established on the basis of research over the past 30 years. This distinction in part motivates this research insofar as it is essential to understand the difficulties that teachers have experienced in understanding and implementing these principles and practices under the context of emergency remote teaching.

There have been a number of challenges to arriving at assessments as to what the virus has meant for learners and teachers. The highly localised nature of the response to the pandemic across national education systems means that the provisions for online education varied significantly across regions and states (Aguilera-Hermida et al., 2021 ). This means that generalisable findings have been difficult to arrive at, necessitating further research into the consequences of online education at regional, national and local levels. It is only through research carried out within these contexts that overall approaches to online education may be assessed and compared across contexts.

Fortunately, there is already a substantial body of research into online education that may be drawn upon in order to guide research in this regard. Online education has been suggested by past researchers to hold significant potential in enhancing the experiences of teachers and learners alike (Livingstone, 2012 ; Sun & Chen, 2016 ), suggesting that there may be much to gain from utilising online education further. However, researchers have also suggested that there may be limitations or obstacles to the utilisation of online learning with regards to second language acquisition (SLA) (Lin, 2014 ). There is therefore an ongoing debate within the area of ELT research regarding the suitability of online teaching for learning English as a second language, as well as with regards to best principles and practices in this area.

Beyond this, online teaching under pandemic conditions likewise engenders conditions for online learning that have not been present in prior research carried out into online learning and ELT/SLA. Understanding how these conditions have been navigated by teachers and what specific or unique challenges the rapid shift to emergency online teaching brought about requires research into teacher perspectives and experiences. For these reasons, new research on the outcomes and experiences of online learning during COVID-19 may be used to assess to what degree the approaches, methods and practices pursued in online contexts cohere with either perspective on the potential for online learning with regards to English language teaching (ELT). This research seeks to enter into the aforementioned literature on online education in ELT.

These aims and objectives are informed by the findings of the literature review below, much of which is summarised here. As much of this literature now focuses upon how online learning may be better designed and implemented (Groves, 2020 ), this research is designed to contribute towards this area of the literature on the topic. Critical to ascertaining how online teaching may be improved upon are the ways in which teachers have responded to the shift towards online education given that they are central to its implementation and to the delivery of content (Bergin & Bergin, 2009 ). Therefore, this research is motivated by gaining first-hand accounts and experiences on the advantages and challenges presented by online learning during COVID-19 to ELT. This serves as the primary aim of this research.

As the literature review below also demonstrates, however, the development of an entirely new classroom environment has brought about new demands upon teachers in terms of their pedagogical approaches, available resources and teaching practices (Rapanta et al., 2020 ). In addition, there is the prospect for the shift to online learning to compound the ongoing issues facing teachers—such as stress and burnout—through negative impacts on the work-life balance and isolation of teachers from school support networks (Mheidly et al., 2020 ). Assessing how teachers view their own experience of teaching to be impacted by online education serves as a secondary aim to this research, as is reflected in the design of the research outlined in methodology.

In brief, these research methods are designed to attain the objectives of this research in ascertaining how higher-education English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Hong Kong have responded to the shift to teaching in online classrooms during the COVID-19 crisis. Through undertaking semi-structured, one-to-one interviews with teachers, this research utilises a phenomenological approach to thematic analysis in order to arrive at findings regarding the experiences and attitudes of teachers towards the online ESL classroom.

Literature review

This section outlines the literature relevant to the topic of investigation reflected in this study. Dealing first with a broad overview of the literature regarding online education during COVID-19 and its trends, the review then elaborates upon the relevance of this to ELT and SLA, as well as covering the impact upon teachers as well as specific research carried out within the context of higher education institutes in Hong Kong. This review identifies a gap with regards to the extant body of research that this study is designed to close.

Theoretical framework

Before delving into the literature review, it is important to provide an overview of the theoretical framework that serves as the foundation for this research. First, the study utilises a social constructivist approach to understanding learning within an educational context that is in itself related to a social constructionist approach to knowledge more broadly. Dealing with the latter first, social constructionism holds that beliefs about physical reality are established through collaborative consensus rather than reflecting individuated inferences about objective phenomena (Jung, 2019 ). In engaging with the external world, individuals make meaning out of this world not within a vacuum but against social backdrops, producing meaning through their social interactions with others (Kritt, 2018 ). As such, at an ontological level, it makes sense to speak of ‘social reality’ and to understand meaning-making from within this environmental context (Shotter & Gergen, 1994 ). Naturally, this has certain connotations with regards to how individuals interact and form opinions, views and attitudes from experience of this interaction that are relevant to the design of this study. These factors are considered in more depth at the outset of the methodology section below.

With regards to social constructivism, this is a theoretical perspective that is related to but not identical with social constructionism. Describing to some degree social constructionist assumptions within the context of educational learning and research, social constructivism is a theory about the ways in which individual learners make meaning out of social interactions. This moves beyond a solely cognitivist approach to understanding how individuals learn new information—which would be compatible with wholly individuated learning—and holds instead that these cognitive processes often require social interaction for learning to take place (Cobb, 1994 ). Based on this rationale, it is not engagement with objective natural phenomena that is key to producing mental artefacts, but rather engagement with other individuals. This renders social and cultural backdrops incredibly relevant with regards to how individuals learn and likewise what they learn.

The relevance of such a perspective to online learning and emergency remote teaching lies in the substitution of a physical and in-person social environment for one that is abstracted and virtual. Whilst there is the translation of social interactions from the physical to the virtual to consider in itself, there are also potential consequences in terms of the mechanisms of learning associated with the classroom. For example, some studies undertaken from a social constructivist perspective have highlighted the importance of oral communication to learning (Reznitskaa et al., 2007 ), raising questions regarding the extent of provision for oral communication in virtual classrooms. Other studies have highlighted the importance of group discussion to the learning process (Corden, 2001 ), again prompting questions regarding how far this may be accommodated in online classrooms. From a social constructivist perspective, there are important questions regarding how learning might take place in online classrooms given the assumptions of the theoretical approach.

There are also further questions specifically relevant to SLA prompted by the communicative of communicative learning theory (CLT) within ELT. CLT holds that second languages are acquired through using language for everyday communicative purposes rather than through overtly instructional methods (e.g., such as the grammar-translation method) (Nunan, 1991 ). At a practical level, the dominance of CLT as a perspective necessitates frequent oral communication and the use of the target language within naturalistic everyday discussions. Again, the extent to which this can be incorporated into online teaching provides a quandary that researchers may be tasked with resolving. The prospect of incorporating a CLT approach to online teaching and emergency remote teaching, in particular, is expanded upon in more detail below.

Online education

Providing justification for an emergent field of online education, McKnight et al. ( 2016 ) originally identified five primary roles of technology in developing the learning environment, including improvements to teacher and learner access to e-resources, improving communication between teachers and learners, providing flexible time arrangements, expanding learner skill sets and discipline, and creating new, innovative roles for teachers and learners. Whilst the literature on online education prior to the pandemic may be characterised by theoretical perspectives combined with smaller scale studies, it has since the pandemic become a rapidly growing area of investigation. As some have observed, however, it is also a highly asymmetrical area, with research at the level of higher education being comparably neglected compared to research into online education at the level of primary and secondary schooling (Carrillo & Flores, 2020 ).

This asymmetry is reflected in the experiences of students in many instances as well. Whilst many students have been able to utilise online education to its fullest, others may have been inhibited by family circumstances, such as a lack of suitable technology, connectivity, or study space at home (Roberts & Danechi, 2021 ). Nevertheless, online education has permitted hundreds of millions of students to continue to receive an education where otherwise this would not have been possible in conjunction with mass school closures (OECD, 2020 ). Whilst an interpretation of emergency remote learning as being ‘better than nothing’ is very likely warranted, there still remain concerns about these asymmetries in experiences among teachers and students alike.

The persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic has either enabled or forced higher learning institutions and stakeholders to adopt contemporary technological tools for education delivery. There is a significant amount of literature that has suggested the potential for improvements to SLA as a consequence of the pandemic. For one, some proponents of ‘deschooling’ education have argued that the pandemic has presented an ‘opportunity’ for maximising the benefits of moving education outside of the traditional classroom environment (Groves, 2020 ). For example, online education might make classes more inclusive by allowing students who may not attend in-person classes for whatever reason an opportunity to engage with online lessons (Campbell, 2021 ).

Conversely, there is also a significant body of literature emerging that suggests that there may be negative results to moving education online. Some, for example, have highlighted the reduced role of the teacher in online education, such as through the increased propensity to deliver pre-recorded lectures and lessons (Ambler et al., 2020 ; Konig et al., 2020 ). Others have found that English lecturers at a university level were poorly prepared for transferring classes to online platforms, with uncertainty also about how to rapidly translate their curriculum into an online lesson (La Velle et al., 2020 ). For this reason, some such as Adedoyin and Soykan ( 2020 ) have argued that ‘emergency’ online teaching may fail to carry with it many of the alleged benefits of online education noted in prior research.

From a social constructivist perspective on teaching, this is potentially problematic given the construction of knowledge taking place through social interactions themselves (Hamat & Embi, 2010 ). For instance, some research has indicated that there are barriers to teachers implementing scaffolding through emergency remote teaching, with teachers perceiving there being insufficient scope for taking such an approach in the applications used for emergency remote teaching throughout the pandemic (Donham et al., 2022 ). On the other hand, a review of the literature on emergency remote teaching conducted from a social constructivist perspective presented such challenges as ‘teething problems’ and argued that many teachers had successfully created online communities of learners throughout the pandemic (Agopian, 2022 ).

In the context of ELT, there have been concerns expressed regarding how a communicative approach to language teaching (CLT) might function in online environments (Teh, 2021 ). For instance, one study carried out in China found that college-level English courses moved to emergency remote teaching suffered from both instability of network platforms as well as a lack of sufficient teacher–student interactions (Sun, 2022 ). These perspectives may be contrasted with those of emerging pro-online education theories, such as connectivism, which conceives of learning taking place across increasingly online networks (Siemens, 2005 ). How conducive online environments are to SLA is therefore a question to some extent mediated by theoretical perspective.

Online education and EFL

With regards to EFL courses, Hazaymeh ( 2021 ) observes that there are multiple functional advantages ranging from accelerated distribution of course content to innovative learning materials to knowledge sharing and social information exchange. In an evaluation of available technologies, Lo ( 2020 ) highlights the advantages of authentic language learning using visual cues, digital audio, and artificial intelligence (AI) supported assessments to test student abilities. This supposedly corroborates pre-existing research regarding the potential for online education to enhance language teaching and learning. Whereas traditional lecture-based classrooms rely upon teacher demonstration and student exercises, digital learning supposedly has the potential to provide a more immersive experience through innovative modules, educator creativity, and interactive student experiences (Lo, 2020 ; McWilliam & Dawson, 2008 ).

Similarly, Kodrle and Savchenko ( 2021 ) suggest that the conversational and interactive advantages associated with multimedia EFL applications are conducive to ‘favourable communication’ practices that are not only integrative but are directed towards a practical translation of knowledge into meaningful real-world outcomes. Others have suggested the utility of ‘gamification’ towards L2 acquisition (Lo & Mok, 2019 ). From word association to goal execution to dialogue construction, the familiarity of digital natives with the paratextual experience in online gaming allegedly has a direct and transferrable relevance in digital L2 learning experiences (Lo & Mok, 2019 ). Similar recommendations for an emergent digital ecosystem in EFL learning proposed by Rahimi and Yadollahi ( 2017 ) suggest that digital storytelling and exchanges allow learners to ‘develop their language literacy’ by engaging in collaborative reinforcement exercises and ‘constructive dialogue with teachers and groupmates’.

However, there is also a significant amount of research that indicates potentially negative outcomes in relation to the implementation of online education with regards to SLA. The sudden shift from traditional to digital learning was surprising to many higher education students, with Rahman ( 2020 ) reporting that despite their experience with digital technologies (e.g. home computing, mobile applications), many adjustments to behaviours, awareness, and skill sets were needed during this process. In a small sample interview of students at the higher education institution, UKI Toraja, Allo ( 2020 ) observed a variety of responses to the sudden shift from traditional education to online learning. Whilst some students reported experiencing cost and resources-related challenges, the acknowledgement of the advantages of persistent digital learning despite widespread disruption during the pandemic in other industries was viewed as positive (Allo, 2020 ). Students reported a need for instructor awareness regarding technological, material, and access-based challenges in relation to the online curriculum and course scheduling; however, through social networks and peer support, many hurdles were overcome (Allo, 2020 ).

Despite positive assessment of students’ ability to adapt to the digital learning experience by Allo ( 2020 ), other evidence in this field suggests that the transition has been challenging for both students and teachers. For example, Pobegavlov ( 2021 ) reveals that due to the switch to online education, instructors have been unable to ‘provide their educational influence’ and leverage their pedagogical skill sets to instruct students via online courses in the same ways that they would have demonstrated in traditional classes. Students without the prerequisite skill sets, alternatively, have found their transition into digital learning a difficult process, one which has resulted in frustration, poor performance, and pathway uncertainties (Pobegavlov, 2021 ). Similarly, Hava ( 2019 ) has identified as frustration, discontentment, negativity, and resistance to change among students. Key concerns such as the time-consuming nature of the educational process, the difficulty of the digital ecosystem, and the meaning versus value of the digital content were suggested to lead to student frustrations and an inability to transition into more productive EFL outcomes (Hava, 2019 ). There is therefore a lack of consensus across the literature as to the suitability of online education with regards to EFT and SLA.

Teacher experiences during COVID-19

An aspect of the literature that has emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the extent to which teachers and lecturers have been impacted by the move to the online classroom environment. With respect to workload, research is largely split as to whether the shift has positively or negatively impacted the workload of teachers. Some studies have indicated that teacher workload has reduced due to reduced contact time with students following school/university closures (Kaden, 2020 ). Alternatively, other studies have found that 72% of lecturers found remote working stressful, with even those with prior experience of online teaching finding it more stressful than anticipated (Fhloinn & Fitzmaurice, 2021 ).

The risk of the prolonged stress associated with periods of increased workload is the phenomenon of ‘burnout’ among teachers. Burnout refers to teachers becoming overcome with stress to the degree that it impacts their well-being and was among the most prevalent concerns of teachers prior to the onset of the pandemic (Ekinci & Acar, 2019 ). It is also a factor highly associated with teachers and lecturers leaving the profession (Bruce & Cacioppe, 1989 ), a concern given the continuing high demand for EFL teachers in Hong Kong (Copland et al., 2020 ). One study of university lecturers in Malaysia found a high degree of burnout among personnel who worked at home during the pandemic as compared with prior to the onset of the pandemic (Fitriasari et al., 2022 ), indicating that it may produce negative outcomes for teachers and lecturers.

A further cause of teacher attrition that may be relevant is the impact of teaching workload upon work-life balance (Buchanan et al., 2013 ). Some studies have found that work that ‘leaves the classroom’ is a major source of stress and worry to teachers as it reduces the time they have for activities outside of work (Ovendon-Hope et al., 2018 ) A meta-analysis of research into work-life balance throughout the pandemic found that the transition to online learning was associated with a decline in the quality of work-life balance among lecturers, resulting in poorer psychological well-being (Susilaningsih et al., 2021 ). However, other studies have indicated that experienced lecturers were far less likely to struggle in transitioning towards online education, indicating that years of experience may be a relevant factor in teacher experience of online education during COVID (Rapanta et al., 2020 ). This suggests that experiences may vary between teachers contingent upon certain variables that provide resistance or susceptibility to the stresses associated with online teaching.

The context of Hong Kong

Research within the context of Hong Kong exclusively has produced findings relevant to this study’s topic. Pre-COVID studies were largely positive regarding the potential for the outcomes for online education as compared with face-to-face lectures (Evans et al., 2020 ; Kekkonen-Moneta & Moneta, 2002 ). However, research carried out during the COVID pandemic and since has been less positive regarding its evaluations of the outcomes of online education. One survey of over 1200 university students found that a majority were dissatisfied with their online learning experiences (Mok et al., 2021 ). Others have found subject-specific problems with recreating learning experiences in online environments (Gamage et al., 2020 ). Some studies have attempted to analyse the impact and its direction with regards to ELT. One study found that an ESL teacher had fewer interactions with students (Cheung, 2021 ), though it is notable that the study only utilised interviews with one teacher. Another study of primary-level ESL teachers found that ICT self-efficacy was correlated with an intention to continue using technology in post-pandemic teaching practices (Bai et al., 2021 ), though similar studies at the level of higher education have not been carried out. This indicates a gap in the literature with regards to the challenges ESL teachers may face at a university level.

With regards to teacher experiences, some studies have noted impacted psychological well-being in the adaptation to online teaching (Cheng & Lam, 2021 ; Kong & Moorhouse, 2020 ; Yau et al., 2022 ). Others have noted burnout among teachers caused by stresses associated with the transition to online teaching (Lau et al., 2022 ). However, few primary qualitative studies appear to have investigated the impact upon English language teachers specifically at the higher-education level within Hong Kong. One study, for example, utilised in-depth interviews with teachers, but only included two teachers in the study’s actual findings (Teng & Wu, 2021 ). However, research at lower levels of school suggest there may be negative outcomes for EFL teachers (Wong et al., 2022 ). Likewise, research on EFL teachers from other states indicates that there may be negative consequences for the well-being of teachers under the conditions of online teaching during COVID-19 (Morska et al., 2022 ), implying the need for more investigation into these factors in the context of Hong Kong.

Research gap

As this study has indicated, there is a gap in the literature with regards to the perspectives of ESL teachers at the higher-education level in Hong Kong as to their experiences of online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. The literature review has revealed generally apparent challenges in translating classroom ELT into a virtual environment both generally and especially within the context of emergency remote teaching, given the apparent lack of preparedness of institutions, teachers and students for this transition. The vaunted benefits to online teaching generally and the conditions and caveats for its successful practice were not necessarily met under the conditions of remote emergency teaching as a consequence, though whether this is the case has not yet been established in the context of Hong Kong. Though some research indicates difficulties in transitioning to online education during the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges facing teachers within other contexts have not been established on the basis of primary qualitative research into the experiences of English language teachers in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, there is the need to close the gap in this topic area in order to arrive at recommendations that might improve principles and practice in this area under similar future conditions.

Research questions

Identifying that there exists a research gap regarding the experiences of English language teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic mandates generating research questions designed to close this gap. Taking a social constructivist perspective to this also requires formulating a research question that attempts to close the gap on the types of teaching practice related to a social constructivist approach to learning. As such, the following research questions have been devised towards these ends:

What do university-level EFL teachers in Hong Kong view as the advantages and disadvantages of teaching English in an online classroom? What did teachers feel were the challenges to implementing online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with regards to practices associated with a social constructivist approach? What was the experience of teachers of online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and how do they feel this impacted them both professionally and personally? How do teachers envisage online education being improved in order to better benefit both EFL teachers and students moving forwards beyond the pandemic?

How these questions might be answered forms the focus of the following section outlining this research study’s methodology.

Methodology

This section outlines the design behind this research study, justifying its methodological decisions in terms of the theoretical and practical motivations behind its design. This discussion is carried out through the presentation of the rationale behind the design of the study’s data collection and analysis methods, the considerations regarding ethics, reliability and validity that were factored into the study’s design, as well as describing the actual processes of data collection and analysis themselves.

Design philosophy

With regards to the theoretical framework behind this study, as stated above, this research is carried out within a social constructivist paradigm. Whilst social constructivism in education is associated with Vygotsky ( 1978 ) and learning through interaction with the social environment (1994), social constructionism describes a broader ontological and epistemological position regarding how individuals make meaning out of their environment (Gergen & Gergen, 2007 ). In either case, these theories hold that social practices shape institutions such as schools and are in turn shaped by these cultures (Witkin, 2012 ).

With regards to how individuals view the online classroom, it is important to understand that their views will be mediated by the social practices of themselves and others due to how social reality is constructed (Shotter & Gergen, 1994 ). It is worth noting that—epistemologically speaking—this process of meaning making is also a subjective process (Leeds-Hurwitz, 2009 ). Understanding why teachers might deliver content through certain practices requires understanding how they make meaning out of their interactions with the social environment and likewise how this translates into practice. At its core, then, social constructivism implies the need for an interpretivist paradigm to understand how teachers process information and make decisions on the basis of it (Pulla & Carter, 2018 ).

There are therefore both theoretical and practical reasons for taking a qualitative approach to research in order to address the research questions above. For one, empirical methods of data collection typically focus on material data such as practices themselves rather than how individuals interpret them (Given, 2008 ). Similarly, quantitative methods of data analysis are better suited to data that may be quantified and examined for correlations with other sets of data, a process by which individual voices and perspectives may be lost (Yilmaz, 2013 ). By way of comparison, qualitative methods can yield more personalised and detailed data regarding attitudes and experiences (Baxter & Jack, 2008 ). For this reason, qualitative methods of data collection and analysis ought to prove conducive to answering this study’s research questions.

Data collection

For similar reasons, interviews have been chosen as a method of data collection. Though surveys were explored in a pilot study, it was decided that interviews were able to offer more individualised experiences and perspectives (Peters & Halcomb, 2015 ). One-to-one interviews were selected due to the potential for group biases in conducting focus groups (Frey & Fontana, 1991 ) and the propensity for participants to be more forthcoming in their answers in one-to-one settings (Marvasti, 2004 ). Interview questions were designed to be open in order to allow participants freedom in answering, as closed questions can sometimes be leading or discourage detailed responses (Allen, 2017 ; Baxter & Jack, 2008 ). Questions were semi-structured so as to allow the researcher to encourage participants to offer more detail on areas of relevance without leading them in the content of their answers (Marvasti, 2004 ).

In terms of the sample size, six participants were selected for interviews. As the above literature review observed, previous studies utilised smaller samples, which may impact the validity of findings (Secor, 2010 ). Six participants have been argued to be within the recommended range for undertaking thematic analysis of interview data (Fugard & Potts, 2014 ). The participants are all ESL teachers at higher education institutes in Hong Kong with at least 4 years’ experience so as to control for this variable. There are three male and three female participants and all are Hong Kong nationals, so as to control for nationality as a variable.

Data analysis

This study utilised thematic analysis for its approach to data analysis, a process by which the themes raised across a text are identified and used to generate results and findings (Braun & Clarke, 2006 ). As Kiger and Varpio ( 2020 , p. 2) state, thematic analysis ‘is a method for analysing qualitative data that entails searching across a data set to identify, analyse, and report repeated patterns’ and involves ‘interpretation in the processes of selecting codes and constructing themes’. Coding therefore largely takes the form of generating themes themselves, especially themes that may be generalised across an entire interview or selection of interviews (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006 ).

The process of coding utilised was that of inductive coding, by which the researcher generates codes/themes as they encounter the data, rather than coding according to a predetermined set of codes for themes they expect to find (Joffe & Yardley, 2004 ). This has the advantage of reflecting accurately the themes actually raised across the text (Linneberg & Korsgaard, 2019 ), though does also involve comparably more labour than compared with deductive coding (Thomas, 2013 ). In generating themes inductively, researchers are therefore more able to identify patterns across a text, as well as to emphasise any outliers or particularly emphatic points raised by individual participants (Gibson & Brown, 2009 ).

Before undertaking the data collection, certain ethical concerns were taken into account. First, the relevant permissions were sought from the institution with regards to undertaking primary research. Central to the efficacy and reliability of the research, Wallen and Fraenkel ( 2001 ) observe that ethical responsibility is of paramount concern, directing oversight and administration to protect the rights and welfare of the sample population. Nonmaleficence, the prevention of harm to participants in a given study, is identified by Punch ( 2014 ) as a core expectation of any primary research techniques.

As undertaking primary qualitative research may be impacted by ongoing or new COVID restrictions on face-to-face interactions (Tremblay et al., 2021 ), it was resolved to use video messaging software to conduct and record interviews. Participants were informed regarding the purposes of the research and how their data would be stored and used, with informed consent being collected verbally after this (Oliver, 2010 ). Data was designed to be stored securely and anonymised at the point of transcription so as to protect the identities of the participants from any personal or professional repercussions to their participation in the research (Saunders et al., 2015 ). This also has the effect of encouraging more honest and open responses from participants (Babbie, 2015 ).

Reliability and validity

As has been discussed above, there are a number of factors that may impact the reliability and validity of such research. For one, carrying out primary qualitative research on the experiences of teachers at one institution in Hong Kong impacts the generalisability of results as compared with undertaking surveys of teachers from various institutions. Whilst triangulating results through mixed-methods research often provides a means of improving the reliability of the findings of small-scale interview studies (Ivankova et al., 2006 ), the small-scale nature of this study placed certain practical limitations on its methods, whilst prioritising the emphasis on teacher experiences and perceptions took precedence over generalisability. As such, pursuing qualitative methods in isolation was undertaken at the expense of triangulation (Mertens & Hesse-Biber, 2012 ).

A further factor that may impact reliability and validity is in terms of the influence of researcher bias on qualitative studies of this kind. In terms of data collection, there is the potential for the role of the interviewer to skew the responses of participants given their role in the research instrument (Cypress, 2017 ). Here, using open-ended questioning was selected as a means of offsetting bias through asking leading questions (Rapley, 2001 ), as open questioning allows less scope for interviewers to influence participants (Clark et al., 2019 ). Nevertheless, taking a semi-structured approach to questioning can still have this effect and interviewers therefore must be tasked with taking a reflexive and self-aware approach to the interviewing process (Chenail, 2011 ).

In terms of data analysis, the role of the researcher can contribute towards bias in findings (Mackieson et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, thematic analysis has been criticised for lacking rigour and for being more open to bias than other approaches to data analysis (Holloway & Todres, 2003 ). A potential solution to this is to use an analysis method that involves more than one researcher and that synthesises their findings (REF); however, this was not possible in this instance due to practical limitations. Instead, other approaches designed to improve reliability and validity were pursued. For instance, the process of constant comparison was used when undertaking coding so as to ensure a thoroughly rigorous approach to the identification of themes across the data (Thomas, 2013 ). As Nowell et al. ( 2017 ) remark, it is also possible to demonstrate the trustworthiness of thematic analysis through describing in detail the decision-making process underlying the analysis process itself. For this reason, the processes of data collection and analysis are described in depth below.

This research was undertaken according to the following processes. First, participants were invited through an open advertisement placed in teaching groups on social media internal to the institution where the research was to take place. The advertisement provided basic information about the study and included a brief demographic survey at the point of application. From this, potential participants were manually scoped according to the criteria set out above. Prior to the interview, all relevant information was given and verbal consent was received. Interviews took place through video messaging software and audio recording software was used to record the interviews. At the point of transcription, all personal information was anonymised.

The processes of data analysis were carried out by a sole researcher and followed the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) model set out by Smith et al. ( 1999 ). Each transcript was read twice prior to any coding, with initial thoughts being recorded in the left column of the transcript. Following this, the transcript was re-read again, with thematic codes for that participant being recorded in the opposite margin (Table 1 ). Once this process had been completed for all participants, the codes generated for each participant were sorted into themes and subthemes, recorded in a ‘cluster grid’ (Table 2 ). This cluster grid serves as the themes found through the process of thematic analysis and is used to structure the section on findings that follows.

This section presents the findings of this research as generated through the thematic analysis of interviews with six teachers. The themes generated through coding these interviews have been sorted into a thematic grid reflecting the prevalent and pronounced themes across this body of data (Table 2 ). The thematic categories for these themes form the structure to the presentation and discussion of findings that follows.

Advantages and benefits

The teachers interviewed were asked about the advantages that they felt the online classroom provided to learners and the benefits they felt they accrued from it as teachers. The teachers broadly agreed that an advantage to the shift to online learning was that it allowed for greater accessibility for students and teachers alike. One teacher stated that it cut down on her journey to work, making it easier for her to work long hours. Another felt that ‘lazy’ students were more likely to attend when they could access education online. Five of the six teachers stated that they felt that students were motivated by the opportunity to use online learning, though one argued that this motivation was in fact detrimental:

I don’t believe that they engage in the same way when utilising the online classroom because I think they’re probably watching TV or something at the same time. I’m not sure they deal well with the distraction even though they may be ‘present’. (Teacher C)

However, the majority of the teachers agreed that attendance had improved during the move to online education and cited improved accessibility and student motivation as the reason for this.

Regarding the benefits that they themselves felt online education brought, convenience was again brought up by a majority of teachers. Participant A argued that though they struggled initially to adapt to the online platform, there was a plethora of ready-made digital resources they could employ in their teaching. This, they felt, reduced their need to plan lessons so thoroughly, such as through transferring content onto multimedia platforms for delivery in the physical classroom. Two other participants (B and D) stated that they used pre-recorded lessons on a couple of occasions and found this was beneficial in that they could refer students back to timestamps in their lectures. Recording and uploading lectures was a practice they believed to be beneficial, and they felt it was worth continuing even when transitioning back to the physical classroom due to the positive impact it had on students.

Disadvantages and challenges

All six teachers cited interactivity as a potential obstacle to implementing online education successfully. Three of the teachers stated that there was difficulty in undertaking speaking and listening exercises, which they felt were essential to taking a communicative approach to teaching English. One stated that she felt the limitations of the platform were such that she was forced to resort to a ‘grammar/translation’ method in order to teach English. She elaborated on the reasons for this:

So there are problems with the platform—the online platform we used that are inherent to it. Like, we cannot actually have clear back-and-forth discussions because the audio keeps cutting out. I can’t have little groups of people chatting and I can watch and interject, the conversation cannot naturally flow, even in breakout rooms and that’s because of the technology limitations (Participant E).

Another teacher cited difficulties in conducting informal assessments of the students in his class:

I cannot judge where their English is up to because I do not hear them all talking English together. If we are trying to do something immersive, how can we do that if only one can talk? (Participant F)

All teachers were therefore broadly agreed on the communicative/interactive limitations of the technology they were being asked to use. This constitutes a finding of this research that has not previously been reported by research carried out into the emergency remote teaching of ESL in Hong Kong.

Teachers also stated that they lacked confidence in using the available technology to the utmost of its capabilities. One teacher stated that as an older teacher she wasn’t as ‘confident’ in utilising technology as other teachers. However, a relatively much younger participant also stated that they weren’t as ‘tech literate’ as their students and that this presented a barrier to using the platform:

In the first weeks, I had to rely on my students to tell me how to operate the platform and how to use breakout rooms and things. And that’s not a great look as a teacher, it’s not very professional. (Participant E)

The teachers also all stated that their lessons were disrupted by technology issues throughout. Frequent interruptions in tasks and discussions were caused by issues such as computers freezing, crashing, and internet disconnections experienced by the participants. Participant A stated that one of his classes refused to use their cameras—using technology difficulties as an ‘excuse’—making it difficult to know who was speaking or who was even present in the class. Such problems interrupted the teaching process and made the online classroom frequently disruptive.

Personal experience

The teachers interviewed were prompted as to how the shift to an online classroom had impacted their workload and work-life balance. The participants were largely split on their answer to this question. Some such as Participant A felt that their workload was initially greater due to the struggles of adapting to the online classroom but then found that the availability of digital resources reduced their workload as the weeks went by. Others such as Participant F felt that their workload had increased due to the unfamiliarity of planning classes online, as well as the absence of informal chats after lessons, requiring more correspondence via email than normal.

The participants were also split with regards to how the change had affected their work-life balance. Two felt that there was no change at all, with Participant E stating that she was ‘still busy’ regardless of teaching online or in person. Whilst participant A felt that their workload had decreased as they became accustomed to teaching in the online classroom, participants B and D stated that it had eaten into their work-life balance through removing the barrier between classroom and home environments. Participant B summarised their feelings on this topic:

I have two young children and I’ve no means for separating that home life and work life. It just compounds the stress, I’m dealing with work and home stresses at the same time. I’ve coped with it but I would rather not have to do it.

Participant D stated very strongly that they would retire if they felt the future of teaching was online education due to the amount it was impacting their work-life balance. The feelings and experiences the teacher described are akin to that of the ‘burnout’ phenomenon described in the literature review above.

However, all teachers did state that they had acquired new skills through the shift to online education. One felt that they would be better equipped for a career outside education due to improved technology literacy and three others stated that they felt they were better teachers as a consequence of having to adapt to this environment. There were therefore indications of professional development instigated by the shift to the online classroom.

Improvements

When asked about the ways in which online education could be improved, all six responded by stating that it ought to be balanced with in-person learning in future.

I feel that totally online all the time is only appropriate in such an emergency and even then only when it is actually required. The transition to and from online learning should have been smoother, it was not I believe sufficiently guided in research and planning. (Teacher C)

Whilst two went as far as to state they’d prefer never to teach online education, they were all agreed that any future for online learning required a blended approach rather than teaching solely online.

Another avenue for improvement shared among the teachers was that better training and guidance ought to be offered for teachers.

Yes, in-service training is essential. This should be part of CPD [continuous personal development] and I don’t understand how we were not given more instruction and support. It was just a sort of ‘oh, you’ll figure it out approach’. That’s not good enough. (Teacher E)

Whilst some stated they felt the resources were adequate, there was agreement that there was insufficient guidance as to how to adopt the approaches and methods to teaching expected of them to an online environment. Similarly, they felt that it was assumed that they would easily adapt to teaching online, assuming a higher level of technology literacy than actually existed among teachers. Improved training and clearer pedagogical guidance were therefore themes across the participants’ responses.

Finally, there was also broad agreement with regards to the need to improve the online platforms themselves. Two participants suggested creating brand new software tailored for teaching that included more reliable and suitable methods of communication. Participant C thought it might be useful to recreate the traditional classroom’s layout in the application, with a teacher screen and virtual whiteboard dominating the screen, so as to recreate the teacher experience. Participant A also stated that technologies such as virtual reality headsets ought to be explored to recreate the physical classroom in the virtual world. It is clear from this that the teachers broadly felt that the online classroom ought to mimic the layout and experience of the traditional classroom as far as possible and that technologies ought to be adapted to this end.

The above results from the data analysis provide some answers to the research questions of this study. For one, it is clear that the participant teachers view online education as entailing both advantages and disadvantages. For example, accessibility and student motivation to attend classes appear to be a consequence of the shift to online education. This corroborates existing research that indicates that greater accessibility may be able to offset deficits some students have in attending lectures, such as mental health problems such as depression and anxiety (AlAzzam et al., 2021 ). This study therefore corroborates the findings of extant research in this regard and establishes that they hold true within the context of ELT in Hong Kong.

However, the disadvantages are focused largely in terms of difficulties communicating utilising current information communication technologies. Indeed, communication issues have served as a focus of previous research in this regard also (Baker, 2004 ). When taking into consideration the high proportion of teachers in Hong Kong that support CLT (Miller & Aldred, 2016 ), these technological limitations may be viewed as an insuperable barrier to effective SLA through online platforms. The finding from this study that English language teachers in Hong Kong may view online teaching as insufficiently adapted to permit the implementation of CLT in the virtual English classroom is a finding unique to this study and represents a novel contribution to this area of the literature. The degree to which teacher perceptions in this regard is related to their holding social constructivist perspectives was not itself a focus of this study, however, though invites further research in this regard from future studies.

On the other hand, it is possible that the online environment is not itself perceived as a barrier to implementing CLT into English language teaching, but rather that other factors serve as barriers to this. For example, it may be that teachers’ self-reported low levels of technology literacy and proficiency may be serving as a barrier. Alternatively again, poor internet connectivity may be to blame here, as has been indicated by previous research in Hong Kong (Yeung & Yau, 2022 ). This is to say that the research corroborated previous research in this area in finding that there are many related issues perceived by teachers as providing challenges to implementing English language teaching in virtual classrooms. Differentiating between these causes and ranking them goes beyond the scope of this study, though it is clear that perceived issues in implementing CLT serves as a common complaint among ESL teachers within this context.

It is little surprise then that the teachers broadly agreed that the platforms ought to be redesigned to accommodate the communicative demands of ELT. Interestingly, the suggestion that the online classroom ought to be tailored to mimic the physical classroom suggests that teachers generally do not agree with the democratised nature of the layout and turn-based speaking format of the online meeting software generally adapted for teaching throughout the pandemic. It instead suggests that teachers prefer a teacher-centric model for the classroom and would prefer to see this structure reflected in the online classroom environment. This is supported by evidence in favour of such an approach among teachers in Hong Kong (Wong, 2015 ). The call for using virtual reality headsets in teaching may also be considered against existing research into the feasibility of this technology (Chessa & Solari, 2021 ).

There is therefore a potential avenue here for future research into the perceptions of English language teachers in Hong Kong towards both the role and status of the teacher in the classroom and the translatability of their favoured role to online teaching. It may be that criticisms of online teaching or perceived shortcomings are related to ideological or cultural perceptions of the ideal role of the teacher in the classroom. Though this study’s findings cannot themselves support such a conclusion, further research in this regard may be sparked by the revelations of the interviewed teachers’ opinions and attitudes presented above.

Finally, teachers were split as to whether their personal experience of online teaching was a positive or negative one. Some teachers viewed online teaching as freeing up more time for them due to an abundance of online resources, whereas others saw online teaching as eating into their work-life balance. This reflects a split in the literature observed in the literature review, with previous research indicating either point of view (Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al., 2021 ; Silva et al., 2021 ). It ought to be noted that one of the six respondents was particularly emphatic with regards to experiencing stress as a consequence of the move to online education and they related this to a desire to leave the profession, in-keeping with the assumed mechanisms of burnout and teacher attrition observed elsewhere (Madigan & Kim, 2021 ). However, online teaching did also provide opportunities for professional development, a touted advantage claimed by advocates of online education (Abaci et al., 2021 ). There is therefore the potential for adaptation and growth among teachers, though the barriers and sticking points that discourage teachers require understanding and addressing also to prevent losses in teachers from the profession.

This research study has explored the attitudes, experience and perspectives of in-service higher-education ESL teachers in Hong Kong towards online education during COVID-19. Using a thematic analysis of interview data, this study has found that teachers view both advantages and disadvantages to the online classroom, emphasising its accessibility for learners but also the difficulties in communicating and teaching in an interactive way. This has been attributed to shortcomings in the existing technologies available. Teachers envisage potential improvements such as developing a tailored teaching experience that can recreate the physical classroom experience in the virtual environment as far as possible, as well as through making online communication more reliable.

Teachers were split in their personal experience of online teaching, with some viewing it as reducing their workload and others seeing online education as eroding their work-life balance. How factors such as teacher experience, ICT literacy, and age factor into these experiences may serve as a focus for future research to evaluate why views varied so much over the course of this research. It is worth noting there is also the prospect for professional development as instigated by experience of adapting to online teaching. However, teachers generally view the future role for online teaching as limited to part of a blended classroom and requiring adequate resources, pedagogical guidance and training in ICT. Meeting these conditions may offset some of the challenges and stresses of teaching experienced by some participants in the study.

In terms of the study’s implications, the study corroborates past findings regarding the benefits of online learning towards promoting greater accessibility, as well as with respect to the perceived need among teachers for further support and in-person training with respect to emergency remote learning. From a personal perspective, the teachers broadly agreed that there was a need to strike a better work-life balance when undertaking remote emergency teaching and this provides insight for developing contingency plans for implementing online teaching in response to crises such as COVID-19.

In addition, novel findings include the revelation that English language teachers in Hong Kong may view online teaching platforms as not adaptable to the adequate implementation of CLT in the virtual classroom. The extent to which this reflects social constructivist principles on behalf of teachers may serve as a fruitful question for future research in this area. Additionally, how far teacher experiences, opinions and attitudes are influenced by broader cultural and personal valuations of the role of the teacher in the classroom may benefit from further research given the findings of this study.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Lo, N.Pk. Digital learning and the ESL online classroom in higher education: teachers’ perspectives. Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ. 8 , 24 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40862-023-00198-1

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13 Digital Learning Resources in Education

Angeliz Diaz

13.1 Introduction

• Asynchronous online learning – is a student-centered teaching method where their learning can occur in different times and spaces particular to each learner
• Digital learning resources – electronic resources such as applications (apps), software, programs, or websites that engage students in learning activities and support the learning goals of students
• Online learning – a method of education whereby students learn in an entirely internet-based environment
• Remotely – at or from a distance; typically by means of an electronic connection
• Synchronous online learning – a method of learning that requires students to attend classes at a structurally scheduled time virtually
• Traditional learning – a method of instructional interaction that occurs in person and in real time between teachers and their students

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:

• Understand the role digital resources have in education
• Understand how the presentation of information digitally may affect the quality of learning
• Describe the different types of instruction delivery
• Distinguish the difference between synchronous and asynchronous learning
• Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of virtual learning

The inclusion of technology for lesson delivery in classrooms is progressively becoming the new normal nationally. Even though COVID-19 has sparked an exponential increase in the number of students signing up for e-learning, the use of digital learning resources like websites and applications created to enhance learning comprehension of the courses’ content was something already seen before the pandemic. Our earlier implementations combined traditional learning materials and the use of multimedia technology as supplements to the courses. This ratio, where most of the course content was presented with traditional tools like notes, in-person lectures, and textbooks, allowed the 21st-century tools like online tutorials to not be overused or over-depended on. Even with such an efficient balance, society had to adapt from traditional learning  in an in-person learning environment to online learning using entirely internet-based environments due to the pandemic. The pandemic itself created an increase in the amount of digitized information and learning resources. Because these technologies have always been there, their implementation to the extent where society actually had to rely on them to learn was a very concerning transition for us all. With that increase in the usage of other resources for learning, their effectiveness, more specifically, digital learning resources, was put into question. The digital resources set forth to carry out the education of students gained broad acceptance as a result of the limited options available.

“ Natural Sciences workbook in print and online ” by Siyavula Education is licensed under CC BY 2.0

With the choice to sign up for online courses and usage of digital resources so readily available, it was assumed to be the newly convenient method of lesson delivery. The idea that students could learn in preferred environments through different learning styles was appealing. Still, it consequently held the power to create an over-reliance on online tools, thus decreasing the quality of learning regarding retention, comprehension, and accessibility regarding digital learning resources.

13.2 What are digital resources? How are they used in both traditional and online learning environments?

Key Takeaway

Digital learning resources are used for education in many ways and implemented in different forms. In traditional classrooms, digital learning resources are used as supplements to the primary course content, while in virtual learning the digital resources actually make up what is the “content” of the class.

With the choice to sign up for online courses and usage of digital resources so readily available, it was assumed to be the newly convenient method of lesson delivery. The idea that students could learn in preferred environments through different learning styles was appealing to ensure the achievement of students’ learning goals. These digital learning resources are opportunities for the expansion of learning. They are available online, worldwide, and at the touch of a hand. The most recognized digital learning resources are Youtube, Khan Academy, MOOCs, podcasts, Quizlet, e-textbooks, and so forth.

13.2.1 How digital resources are implemented in Traditional teaching and E-Learning environments

Traditional learning occurs in an in-person classroom setting where a teacher delivers knowledge to their students. Traditional learning classrooms expected their students to engage not only with the content but also their peers through constructive subject-related discussions. Outside of the classroom, the students are expected to develop their knowledge on the lesson learned in class and apply it to not only real-world scenarios but also put it to practice in assigned homework exercises. Digital learning resources are readily available for students, whether they are inside the classroom or applying their knowledge outside of class. Typically when learning a particular topic that may be harder to understand without visualization, the instructor of the courses may use digital resources to provide more information to the student and enhance the student’s overall ability to see beyond what is on paper. This availability and access to digital resources allows students to balance between the traditional paper-based course materials they are assigned in their traditional classroom and selectively implement digital learning resources when they may need further clarification on the course content and so forth.

Online learning, also known as e-learning, is a learning system in education whereby students learn the things they would traditionally but in an entirely internet-based environment. In these online courses, the content of the class is delivered to students in either a synchronous style or an asynchronous style. While the two styles both heavily rely on digital resources to execute their lessons, the structure of the courses is what sets them apart. In a synchronous online learning course, the instructor and the course students engage with each other and the course content remotely in different locations but at the same scheduled meeting time. The instructors of synchronous courses typically require their students to complete assignments and readings in preparation for class discussion virtually. These courses involve interactive lectures, discussions, student-led conversations, and presentations during structured class meetings (Staff Writers, 2021). In an asynchronous online learning  course, the instructor and the students all interact with the content of the course at their own time from different locations. The instructors of asynchronous courses allow the students to learn a sequence of units through prepared digital resources without holding a live session or enforcing a meeting schedule. Both synchronous and asynchronous courses use online tools and assign readings, upload media, assign online quizzes, suggest supplementary subject-related videos for clarification, utilize Google Docs, and much more (University of Waterloo, 2020).

13.3 The history of technology in education

From paperback books to microcomputers, the technological advancements established throughout decades worth of time have created the technologically advanced classroom environments our students take part in presently.

Since the early 1800’s different forms of technological breakthroughs have shaped education. With the development of new printing techniques in the 1820s, greater production and distribution of books was finally made possible. Because of this newfound accessibility brought by printing, the diversity of materials available to teachers and students significantly increased as textbooks began to become the new norm in public schools during that decade (Cohen, 1988). As the 19th century progressed, so did our societies’ ability to come up with technological advancements like the radio and television that would ultimately be used for the spread of class lessons, similar to the way we do so now with programs like Zoom and podcasts to make sure information is presented regardless of physical circumstances.

“Education Learning Tablet School Technology”  by  Max Pixel  is in the  Public Domain, CC0

In the 1970s, the computer was first introduced into the education system, leaving thousands of schools mesmerized by the potential the computers had to enhance the quality of learning for their students. In fact, they were so admired that federal and state programs began to require schools to purchase these technologies so that they could transform the instructional practices being carried out. By the end of the 1990s, computers were used to enhance classroom instruction, and there was an estimated one computer for every five students (Christensen, Johnston, & Horn, 2008).

Since its introduction into education back decades ago, there has been an evolution where we believe that students’ best performance can be achieved through the use of computers. While computers, initially, served as tutors for students, they have become so technologically advanced that our society has progressed to a state where we have almost become infatuated with the digital learning resources these computers grant us the access to utilize.

Society’s progression through time displays a pattern where the technological advancements developed were typically implemented into the educational systems in some form. The combination of traditional teaching and the implementation of multimedia technology as supplements to the course beneficially transformed the quality of learning for students. As a result of our continuous desire for progressions, the national shift from traditional learning in classrooms to completely virtual learning across millions of homes due to COVID-19 was not as difficult had these technological progressions not been in place. Because of the pandemic’s halt on normality, educational organizations were forced to make the most out of what was already available. The pandemic’s the form of instructional delivery. Granted, these e-teaching materials like e-textbooks and digital learning resources allowed for information to be accessible in a time of despair; it is argued that they were not anything new but rather a form of earlier digital learning materials. Earlier digital learning materials were merely electronic versions of paper-based teaching materials (Li, 2021). The digital learning resources that were once implemented in education as a complementary supplement to paper-based materials and course content are now the digital resources that are being used for the actual learning process itself. Now, society is progressively transitioning back to traditional in-person learning the way it was before COVID-19, with the presentation of information digitally being what seems to be a newly adopted form of normality.

1.4 The impact of digital learning resources on education

Digital learning resources are powerful tools that can be used to enhance the learning quality of students in ways a textbook may not be able to, and though these digital resources have their perks, there are also things that traditional paper-based materials like textbooks allow students to experience that digitalized materials for learning may not. Whether it be the traditional paper-based material or digitalized materials, each resource has its strengths and weaknesses when it comes to enhancing the quality of student education.

The effectiveness of any technological advancement can only be beneficial if it is used correctly so that it may serve its original purpose. The same notion applies to the development of different digital resources. While they come in various forms serving different educational purposes, all-digital learning resources hold the potential to enhance the learning comprehension, learning quality, and overall content retention of the student. The manner they are used and implemented allows for conclusions to be made regarding their effectiveness. The effectiveness of textbooks as a learning resource for students is actually one of the most discussed amongst most because of how traditional paperback textbooks have always served as a greater source of reference for digital learning resources.

13.4.1 Impacts of digital resources on the quality of learning

With digital learning resources, the way in which they are presented to students can significantly impact the quality of learning they receive. It is found that student retention is highly correlated with student perception of quality, meaning that instructors can only attract and aid students with digital learning resources if they provide educational services that are known to meet student requirements and add value to students learning (Ali et al., 2021). In order to ensure that students are intrigued by the content they are being presented, these digital learning resources must come into play in a strategic way that is able to engage the students with the content they are being taught in class. The only downside to this opportunity of engagement is that all students learn in different ways. Though digital learning resources have proven to be highly effective, they have also proven to highly distort the main idea and the bigger picture of certain material teachers are covering.

13.4.2 Advantages of digital resources in education

Digital resources can relieve financial strain. Because e-textbooks are generally cheaper than printed books, the usage of e-textbooks can provide a certain level of relief to the students worried about their rising academic expenses. The Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance reported that an average student spends from $700 to $1,000 on textbooks every year (ACFSA, 2007). With textbooks being such an overwhelming amount of money every year, students have become hesitant and given the purchasing of these books a second thought, which is why digitalized textbooks can serve as the median for having a needed educational resource at a lower price. Because of the great benefits that come from purchasing textbooks in general, digitized ones, with their prices significantly lower than paper-based ones, are a better option for those students who are not easily able to afford them. As a result of this affordability problem being one that is common amongst many students, the bright side is that states and colleges are already taking steps to increase the affordability of these educational resources. Furthermore, compared to printed books, e-textbooks are portable and relatively easy to purchase. The features that e-textbooks can provide, like searching, hyperlinking, highlighting, creating flashcards, and note sharing, is an advantage that paper textbooks don’t have. These active engagement features are advantages to the learning quality of students because of their ability to interact with the content and the satisfaction perceived from usefulness and ease of use.

13.4.3 Disadvantages of digital resources in education

Digital learning resources, while they can be efficient, are not as reliable as paper-based. Though technological enhancements to most digital learning resources are still being made through features like “offline” modes, where students can access their resources even when disconnected from the internet, technology can still fail elsewhere. Unlike traditional paper-based textbooks, online textbooks are limited to a specific amount of accessibility because access to the resources depends on the battery life of the device they are being used on. Additionally, the digital devices required to attain the benefits that may come with online learning resources are very costly and not necessarily a readily available resource to all students. In the United States, there is an overwhelming assumption that all students have access to online resources because of the modernized era of technology we live in. In the United States, there are 1 in 5 children who live in households that do not have food security. With that being said, this conception that incorporating modern technology into their lives is secondary (Gaille, 2019). Granted, these devices hold access to great resources, priorities have to be made, and realistically a pantry stocked with the essential groceries a family needs is of more importance than having a new device that can be the cost of a months worth of groceries or more. Furthermore, with the numerous resources available online to students, the authenticity of students’ work has been noted to be a consistent concern with students plagiarizing and cheating in order to keep up with their assignments. Unless students have a good sense of self-motivation, digital learning resources can set students behind if they are consistently procrastinating their responsibilities and getting out of them using digital learning resources that are meant to be supplementary to the content of the course. In conclusion, factors like battery life, distraction brought by the student’s device, authenticity, internet connection, and so forth are significantly degrading the quality of learning.

13.5 Where the use of digital learning resources in education will lead us?

The amount of students turning toward digital resources to enhance their learning is increasing in an upward trend. The upward trend foreshadows that as more things become digitized so will the amount of students who make use of these digital resources.

With the evolution of technology in the 21st century, the rate of learning resource digitalization is on the increase. As these traditional learning resources like paperback textbooks continue to be digitized at a rate higher than ever, so do the number of students using these digital learning resources. With this influx, it is essential for students to maintain a balance between traditional and digital resources because of the effects the overuse of digital information can have. By utilizing digital resources to enhance learning and retrieve information, rather than using digital information out of dependence, will allow students to greatly benefit from instructional e-resources. The proper usage of digital resources truly influences the quality of learning students receive, and when used properly, the learning quality can be exponentially significant. As the resources for students continue to expand digitally, the prevalence of technology can be predicted to continue to increase the same way it is presently.

Chapter Summary:

As seen in the most recent years, technology has become one of the most used resources in the daily lives of millions of individuals. From a business setting to a classroom one, the digital world has expanded to many aspects of a single day-to-day affairs, one of them being education at all grade levels. The challenge has arisen where the learning quality of these students using digital learning resources through their digital devices has been significantly put into question because of the power they hold to either support or degrade learning quality. With the insight this shift from traditional paper-based material to information being presented to students digitally, the conclusion has been made that it does not necessarily matter what students use as their resources, but rather how they are using it and whether or not they are dependent on the online-learning resource to attain any form of knowledge.

Review Questions:

1. How can digital learning resources play a role in education?

A.  They can make enhance the education of students

B. They can lower the costs of academic expenses

C. They can provide convenience because of their high accessibility

D. All of the above

2. What is a style of learning that occurs online where students attend classes virtually at a scheduled time?

A. Traditional online learning

B. Synchronous online learning

C. Asynchronous online learning

D. Remote online learning

3. The presentation of information to students digitally affects the _______ of learning of students.

B. Endurance

C. Enthusiasm

4. Which of the following is true about the trends in learning?

A. The amount of students signing up for online learning is now at zero because society has successfully transitioned back to traditional in-person learning completely.

B. Students continue to use digital resources in learning at rates that are predicted to continue to increase over time.

C. Students have relied more on textbooks than technology since the pandemic because they appreciate what they had.

D. Students will no longer be able to use digital learning resources because trends show an increase in price that does not allow students to even afford them.

Food for thought:

• What has your educational experience been like? What learning resources have you interacted with, have they evolved over time? How have they played a role in the quality of your education?

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Bellflower, J. V. (2012). The Effectiveness of Traditional and 21st Century Teaching Tools on Students’ Science Learning(Thesis). https://www.proquest.com/docview/916613682/abstract/80D106DF550547C3PQ/1?accountid=6167

Christensen, C., Johnson, C. W., & Horn, M. B. (2008). Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (1st ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Gaille, B. (2019, December 5). 23 Advantages and Disadvantages of Technology in Education. BrandonGaille.Com. https://brandongaille.com/23-advantages-disadvantages-technology-education/

How Has Technology Changed Education | Purdue Online. (n.d.). Purdue University Online. https://online.purdue.edu/blog/education/how-has-technology-changed-education

Li, X. (2021). Textbook Digitization: A Case Study of English Textbooks in China. English Language Teaching, 14(4), 34. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v14n4p34

Staff Writers. (2021, July 27). Synchronous Learning vs. Asynchronous Learning: What’s the Difference?BestColleges.Com. Retrieved November 17, 2021, from https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/synchronous-vs-asynchronous/

Sun, J., Flores, J., & Tanguma, J. (2012). E-Textbooks and Students’ Learning Experiences. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 10(1), 63–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4609.2011.00329.x

University of Waterloo. (2020, December 17). Synchronous and Asynchronous Online Learning. Keep Learning. Retrieved November 17, 2021, from https://uwaterloo.ca/keep-learning/strategies-remote-teaching/synchronous-vs-asynchronous-online-learning

Electronic resources such as applications (apps), software, programs, or websites that engage students in learning activities and support the learning goals of students.

A method of instructional interaction that occurs in person and in real time between teachers and their students.

A method of education whereby students learn in an entirely internet-based environment.

A method of learning that requires students to attend classes at a structurally scheduled time virtually.

At or from a distance; typically by means of an electronic connection.

Is a student-centered teaching method where their learning can occur in different times and spaces particular to each learner.

Technology: Where it Started and Where it’s Going Copyright © by Angeliz Diaz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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