ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has brought about major changes to the lives of people around the world. How people engaged in their daily routines, worked, shopped, socialised, and spent time with family shifted. Changes in nearly every aspect of daily life became the norm with no time to adapt. Face-to-face appointments were swapped for online consultations, face masks and physical distancing requirements were standard, and nuanced social interactions changed. People stopped shaking hands and kissing cheeks. They touched elbows or waved from a distance. People fanned out candles on birthday cakes. Sometimes people did not leave the house. With COVID-19, life has become unmistakably different, and adjusting to these changes has required a degree of cognitive flexibility, adaptability, and resilience. But what happens when, as an autistic person, tolerating change is your least favourite thing to do? This chapter has been co-authored by a young adult with autism who struggles with lockdowns, an autistic academic with a quirky sense of humour, an educational and developmental psychologist who loves staying in her pyjamas all day, a therapist who works with autistic individuals (and appreciates her children just a little bit more when they can physically attend school), another educational and developmental psychologist who has been taught a lot about autism from the young people she has assessed and counselled ("How can you sit and listen to people talking at you all day?”), and an inclusive education researcher and behaviour analyst who has the lived experience of psychosocial disability and prefers the company of her dogs. Together we explore the experiences of lockdown through the lived experiences of autistic people leveraging research to create a new and novel perspective. The chapter presents a unique way of integrating research evidence to shed light on the experiences recalled. Living life during a global pandemic calls for a need to deal with unpredictability and change. But what happens when you wish COVID-19 would be quickly eradicated? This chapter will address this question and more. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, student engagement in online learning has been a critical issue for all educational institutions. The university student engagement inventory (USEI) is the most used scale for assessing the construct of student engagement. The present study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the USEI among 1504 Chinese university students who completed a survey through an online platform between December 2020 and January 2021. Design/methodology/approach: In this cross-sectional study, content validity, construct validity and reliability of the scale were assessed. Findings: The results supported the three-factor model with acceptable goodness-of-fit (χ2 (71) = 369.717, p = 0.13, χ2/df = 5.207, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.967, normed fit index (NFI) = 0.960, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.958, standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = 0.030, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) (90% CI) = 0.053 [0.049, 0.057]), good internal consistency and construct reliability (Cronbach's alpha and omega coefficient >0.70), and strong convergent validity. Also, the measurement invariance was confirmed across gender. Originality/value: This study showed that the 3-factor structure of USEI with Chinese university students had good construct validity, internal consistency and reliability. It could help measure student engagement in online learning in China. © 2023, Long She, Fatemeh Khoshnavay Fomani, João Marôco, Kelly-Ann Allen, Hamid Sharif Nia and Pardis Rahmatpour.
ABSTRACT
The present study investigated whether online students' sense of community and self-determined need satisfaction predicted online course satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample consisted of 136 Australian university students who were studying online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students completed online surveys for sense of community (i.e., social connectedness and learning community), self-determined need satisfaction (i.e., relatedness, competence, and autonomy), and online course satisfaction. The study results indicated that learning community and social connectedness significantly predicted the self-determined needs and online course satisfaction, with learning community having a large effect size. Autonomy partially mediated the relationship between social connectedness and online course satisfaction;autonomy was the only self-determined need to predict online course satisfaction. It was concluded that online university students require learning communities and social connectedness to meet their needs and have a satisfying learning experience. The self-determined need of autonomy was the most important for student's satisfaction with their course. These findings have implications for universities to build a sense of community in their courses to support students' needs and improve online course satisfaction. Practitioner Notes 1. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the experience of university students in 2020. 2. Learning community and social connectedness significantly predicted relatedness, competence, and autonomy in the tertiary students sampled. 3. Need satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness significantly predicted online learning satisfaction 4. Autonomy mediated the relationship between social connectedness and online learning satisfaction, and learning community and online course satisfaction 5. During the COVID-19 pandemic, university students were more satisfied with their online courses when they were engaged in a learning community, socially connected to their peers and instructor, and felt their autonomy self-determined need was met. © 2023, University of Wollongong. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Student engagement is a critical component of e-learning, which became an important focus for most academic institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. University students' engagement is measured using various scales with different subscales. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the University Student Engagement Inventory (P-USEI). A cross-sectional methodology study was conducted among Iranian university students (n = 667) from April to May 2020. After forward-backward translation, the content, and construct validity, and reliability of the scale were assessed. The results obtained from the confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the P-USEI has three factors: cognitive, emotional, and behaviour. The findings of the study supported the adequate reliability, factorial, convergent, and discriminant validities of P-USEI in a sample of Iranian students. The P-USEI dimensions have predictive value for important academic variables that can be generalized by developing the research through a psychometric evaluation on student engagement.
ABSTRACT
This Australian study examines whether and how technologies such as Artificially Intelligent (AI) toys in a home-based setting might socially and emotionally support children with diverse needs through play. Building on the concept of ‘emotional capital', and employing a design-based research approach, parents during the COVID-19 lockdown periods in 2020 intentionally used robotic toys to engage their children with additional diverse needs in home-based play experiences. The data from both parents’ and children’s (n = 5) Zoom interviews, digital observations and children’s drawings demonstrated how children creatively conversed with their AI robots in innovative and empathy-based dialogues that generated happy feelings and a sense of ‘imaginary’ togetherness with their robot during the coding experiences. This study contributes to research by exploring the use of AI robotic toys together with physical and artificial environments and offers a case to build children’s emotional capital in enabling children’s social-emotional literacies. © The Author(s) 2021.