Italian Validation of the Online Student Engagement Scale (OSE) in Higher Education.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, entire university courses were moved online. This represented a challenge for universities, who were required to move toward an entirely online learning environment without adequate time to manage the change from traditional courses to online courses. However, beyond the emergency of the pandemic, higher education does increasingly incorporate an online learning element, and such a provision does appear to reflect both the desires of modern-day students and university offerings. For this reason, assessing students' online engagement is fundamental, not least because it has been seen to be related both to students' satisfaction and their academic achievement. A validated measure of student online engagement does not exist in Italy. Therefore, this study aims to assess both the factor structure and the validity of the Online Student Engagement (OSE) Scale in the Italian context. A convenience sample of 299 undergraduate university students completed a series of online questionnaires. The Italian OSE scale presents good psychometric properties and represents a valuable instrument for both practitioners and researchers examining students' engagement in online learning.

Personality traits and stress perception as predictors of students' online engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic coupled with increasing student numbers means online learning will remain a prevalent feature of the university experience, therefore it is vital that we understand how personality can influence student online engagement. The current study examined whether students' personality traits and stress perception predicted their online engagement with their studies during the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 301 first year psychology students completed the Big Five Inventory, Challenge and Hindrance Stress Scales, and the Online Student Engagement Scale, which measured students': engagement skills, emotional engagement, participation and performance. Results revealed that conscientiousness positively predicted all types of online engagement. Extraversion predicted participation and performance. Neuroticism predicted engagement skills, emotional engagement and performance, whilst agreeableness and openness to experience respectively predicted participation and emotional engagement. Additionally, stress perceived as a hindrance negatively predicted performance. These results reveal that students' personality traits and stress perception influence their online engagement and might enable educators to identify those who may require support in engaging with their studies.