Examining Factors That Influence Learner Retention in MOOCs During the COVID-19 Pandemic Time.

Massive Open Online Courses have become a frequent platform for learners to acquire knowledge. This study aims to explore multiple factors influencing learner retention in MOOCs during the COVID-19 pandemic. To address this, we collected quantitative and qualitative data from questionnaires and qualitative data from interviews and then analyzed them through the Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling to test 14 research hypotheses. The proposed research model and research hypotheses are empirically tested with 243 participants across the world. According to the results, support is found for all of the 14 research hypotheses. We confirmed 14 factors influencing learner retention in MOOCs. The result is beneficial for designers and manufacturers of MOOCs to improve the quality of the products and facilitate online or blended learning during this special time. It could also help students improve their learning experiences. Future research could examine influencing factors of learner retention in MOOCs with interdisciplinary cooperation.

Students' Emotional Perceptions and Attitudes Toward English Teacher Feedback in Cloud Classroom Learning Environments During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cloud classrooms are catching increasing attention in English teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Via multiple correlation analysis, path analysis, and data collected from randomly selected 230 participants, this study examined the effects of students' emotional perceptions and attitudes towards teaching feedback in cloud classroom learning environments. It was concluded that all emotional perceptions were significantly and positively correlated, and learning motivation caused the most significant effect, followed by interest. Learning motivation could predict the perceived teaching feedback. Students with strong self-confidence had strong learning motivation and interest in English learning. High-score students preferred more profound and euphemistic comments;medium-score students hoped to catch more attention and obtain positive feedback from teachers;poor-score students favored direct and explicit evaluations. This study is helpful to future research into non-verbal and peer feedback in technology-based learning environments.

The effects of the superstar learning system on learning interest, attitudes, and academic achievements.

The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the production of a mobile learning app--the Superstar Learning System. Designed by Superstar Company, the Superstar Learning System is a mobile application for curriculum learning assisted with PPTs, knowledge dissemination, and management sharing based on micro-service architecture. To identify the effects of the Superstar Learning System, we randomly selected 71 tertiary students to participate in the study. The data were obtained through three research instruments: a scale to measure learning interest, a scale to measure learning attitudes, and a scale to measure academic achievements. Based on the analysis of a Mann-Whitney U test, it was concluded that the Superstar Learning System could: (1) enhance significantly more learning interest than the multimedia projecting system, (2) cultivate significantly more positive attitudes of students than the multimedia projecting system, and (3) lead to significantly better academic achievements than the multimedia projecting system. In the future, interdisciplinary cooperation, involving statistics, computer sciences, education, linguistics, and related disciplines, is necessary to arrive at solid conclusions.

Meta-Analytically Exploring the Learning Outcomes Assisted With Twitter in the Pandemic Time

The use of social media such as Twitter has gained popularity in education during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study included 22 high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles for the meta-analysis. The authors reveal that there are no significant differences in teaching effectiveness between the Twitter and non-Twitter-assisted learning approaches. Twitter-assisted learning outcomes are significantly higher than the non-Twitter-assisted whether Twitter is used as a supplementary or an integrated tool. Twitter-assisted learning can lead to significantly higher learning outcomes than non-Twitter-assisted learning in the USA, Greece, and Sweden, but no significant difference is revealed in Spain. Swedish users hold significantly positive attitudes towards the use of Twitter in education, but no significant difference is found in the USA. Twitter-assisted learning can cause significantly more engagement than non-Twitter-assisted in the USA, and male learners have significantly higher learning outcomes than females in both the USA and Spain.

Bibliometric analyses of social media for educational purposes over four decades.

The unexpected outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has led students to frequently use social media to receive education, which brought about both positive and negative learning outcomes (Oliveira et al., 2022). To address the issue of integrating social media into education, this study conducted both quantitative and qualitative studies using VOSviewer and CitNetExplorer. The qualitative study through CitNetExplorer, involving 1780 publications, concluded that while social media might have gained popularity in education based on the classic theoretical framework of the zone of proximal development, there might be many challenges such as teacher resistance, data privacy, costs, and ethical and social issues. Besides, this study conducted bibliometric analyses using VOSviewer (N = 1841) to identify the top cited authors, organizations, documents, references, sources, countries, and keywords with high occurrences based on the citation networks. In the future, researchers could enhance the studies on how to guide students and teachers to properly integrate social media into education.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Peer Assessment in Online Language Courses

As a popular strategy in collaborative learning, peer assessment has attracted keen interest in academic studies on online language learning contexts. The growing body of studies and findings necessitates the analysis of current publication trends and citation networks, given that studies in technology-enhanced language learning are increasingly active. Through a bibliometric analysis involving visualization and citation network analyses, this study finds that peer assessment in online language courses has received much attention since the COVID-19 outbreak. It remains a popular research topic with a preference for studies on online writing courses, and demonstrates international and interdisciplinary research trends. Recent studies have led peer assessment in online language courses to more specific research topics, such as critical factors for improving students' engagement and feedback quality, unique advantages in providing online peer assessment, and designs to enhance peer assessment quality. This study also provides critical aspects about how to effectively integrate educational technologies into peer assessment in online language courses. The findings in this study will encourage future studies on peer assessment in online learning, language teaching methods, and the application of educational technologies.

Bibliometric analyses of social media for educational purposes over four decades

The unexpected outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has led students to frequently use social media to receive education, which brought about both positive and negative learning outcomes (Oliveira et al., 2022). To address the issue of integrating social media into education, this study conducted both quantitative and qualitative studies using VOSviewer and CitNetExplorer. The qualitative study through CitNetExplorer, involving 1780 publications, concluded that while social media might have gained popularity in education based on the classic theoretical framework of the zone of proximal development, there might be many challenges such as teacher resistance, data privacy, costs, and ethical and social issues. Besides, this study conducted bibliometric analyses using VOSviewer (N = 1841) to identify the top cited authors, organizations, documents, references, sources, countries, and keywords with high occurrences based on the citation networks. In the future, researchers could enhance the studies on how to guide students and teachers to properly integrate social media into education.

Meta-analyses of differences in blended and traditional learning outcomes and students' attitudes

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has made blended learning widely accepted, followed by many studies committed to blended learning outcomes and student attitudes. Few studies have, however, focused on the summarized effect of blended learning. To complement this missing link, this study meta-analytically reviews blended learning outcomes and student attitudes by including 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and 70 effect sizes. It concludes that blended learning outcomes are significantly higher than the traditional learning outcomes with a medium effect size, and learners hold significantly more positive attitudes toward blended learning than traditional learning with a medium effect size. Blended learning may be promising, and information technology scientists may focus on the development of more advanced and effective devices to improve blended learning effectiveness.

A Meta-Analysis of Gender Differences in e-Learners' Self-Efficacy, Satisfaction, Motivation, Attitude, and Performance Across the World.

E-learning has gained popularity since the outbreak of COVID-19. This study aims to identify gender differences in e-learners' self-efficacy, satisfaction, motivation, attitude, and performance across the world. Through a meta-analysis and systematic review, this study concludes that there are generally no significant gender differences in e-learning outcomes except in a few countries. Females significantly outperformed males in Spain and the UK. In Austria, India, and mixed countries (Chile and Spain), females hold significantly more positive attitudes toward e-learning than males. In the USA, females present significantly higher self-efficacy than males. Future research into the gender issue in e-learning across the world may adopt cross-disciplinary research methods except for a meta-analysis.

A bibliometric analysis of Community of Inquiry in online learning contexts over twenty-five years.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, online learning has gained popularity among educators and learners, where Community of Inquiry (CoI) has caught researchers' attention. To bibliometrically analyze the framework of CoI over twenty-five years, we adopted both qualitative and quantitative research methods to examine the framework of CoI in online learning contexts. We concluded that teaching presence, social presence, cognitive presence, metacognition, and self-efficacy played important roles in the framework of CoI. This study also explored the top ten authors, sources, organizations, and countries using VOSviewer and established citation networks through the clustering techniques in CitNetExplorer. Future research could focus on how to motivate the educational institutes and educators to change their traditional educational methods and whether to include both metacognition and self-efficacy in the CoI framework.

A Literature Review of Digital Literacy over Two Decades

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced online learning to be a “new normal” during the past three years, which highly emphasizes students’ improved digital literacy. This study aims to present a literature review of students’ digital literacy. Grounded on about twenty journal articles and other related publications from the Web of Science Core Collection, this paper focused on the definition of digital literacy;the factors affecting students’ digital literacy (age, gender, family socioeconomic status, and parent’s education level);the relationship between students’ digital literacy and their self-control, technostress, and engagement;and the three approaches to gauge the level of students’ digital literacy. The study also provided some advice for educators and policymakers. Finally, the limitations and implications were presented.

A meta-analysis and bibliographic review of the effect of nine factors on online learning outcomes across the world.

The unpredictable pandemic has drastically altered learning approaches, where online learning has been booming. Through VOSviewer, this study visualizes the network of top authors, organizations, sources, and countries that have been devoted to online learning. Through meta-analyses via Stata/MP 14.0, this study identifies nine variables that may exert a significant effect on online learning outcomes during this special pandemic time in various countries and areas. The findings may be generalizable to America, Asia, and Europe. Although relatively fewer publications in Africa have been included, the findings could provide a meaningful reference for African researchers and practitioners. Future research could include more publications from more diversified backgrounds. Online learning design could also keep pace with the development of information technologies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10639-021-10720-y.

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

The sudden COVID-19 pandemic has forced many educational institutes to shut down and many students to stay home receiving online learning. This study aims to identify the changes in student roles and digital literacy and the strategies to improve motivation and learning achievement in online learning environments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a rapid evidence assessment review study based on the protocol of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA), it is concluded that student roles have experienced great changes, that students have assumed multiple roles and that they are socially and cognitively engaged in their roles, roles that can be promoted by information technologies. Their digital literacy, individually varying, needs to be improved although it has undergone improvements. Digital technologies and social regulation can improve online learning achievements. Teaching strategies, teacher–student cooperation, gamification, and computer applications can improve online learning achievements. Future research could focus on inter-disciplinary research into the models to sustain online learning during or after the pandemic.

Constructing an Online Sustainable Educational Model in COVID-19 Pandemic Environments

The outbreak of COVID-19 forced billions of learners to stay at home in order to receive online education. The aim of the study is to construct an online sustainable educational model to facilitate this learning approach. This study included 53 peer-reviewed articles for the review study following the selection process of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Protocol (PRISMA-P) and the clustering techniques of VOSviewer. It is concluded that the model consists of online educational platforms, online assessment systems, social media, and digital literacy. With these features, online education could be sustained. However, challenges should also be addressed to sustain online education during the pandemic. Designers, scientists, and teachers should make every effort to increase learning engagement, enhance learning supervision, formulate adequate emergency programs, minimize educational inequalities, solve technical issues, and formulate systematic learning management and organization. The sustainable online educational model may be updated and perfected by including more practical features in the future.

Teachers’Satisfaction, Role, and Digital Literacy during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has unexpectedly affected the educational process worldwide, forcing teachers and students to transfer to an online teaching and learning format. Compared with the traditional face-to-face teaching methods, teachers’professional role, career satisfaction level, and digital literacy have been challenged in the COVID-19 health crisis. To conduct a systematic review, we use critical appraisal tools from the University of the West of England Framework We removed the irrelevant and lower-quality results to refine the results and scored each selected paper to get high-quality studies with STARLITE. The number of finally included studies is 21. We used the PICO mnemonic to structure the four components of a clinical question, i.e., the relevant patients or population groups, the intervention (exposure or diagnostic procedure) of interest, as well as against whom the intervention is being compared and considered appropriate (outcomes). We formulated five research questions regarding teachers’professional role, satisfaction, digital literacy, higher educational practice, and sustainable education. The study found that teachers’professional roles changed complicatedly. Moreover, they were assigned more tasks during the online teaching process, which also implicated a decline in teachers’satisfaction. After the COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary to conduct a blended teaching model in educational institutes. Teachers should have adequate digital literacy to meet the new needs of the currently innovative educational model in the future. In addition, the study reveals that teachers’digital literacy level, career satisfaction, and professional role are significantly correlated. We measured to what degree the three factors affected the online teaching and learning process. Ultimately, the study may provide some suggestions for methodological and educational strategies.

An Ideological Analysis of the Former President Donald Trump's Tweets During COVID-19.

This study aimed to explore the former US President Donald Trump's representation of "us" and "others" in his tweets related to COVID-19 and how he portrayed the representation of "us" and "others". In this study, the sample related to COVID-19 which ranged from January to May 2020, consisted of the tweets posted by the former US President Donald Trump. To analyze the ideological discourse of the former President Donald Trump's tweets during COVID-19, the ideological framework proposed by Van Dijk (Approaches to Media Discourse. Blackwell Publishing, 1997) was adopted to reveal the underlying intentions and ideologies of us-representation and others-representation. The results of this research indicate that Donald Trump portrayed a positive us-group and a negative others-group. Moreover, argumentation/authority, comparison, repetition, capitalization, and metaphors are the typical strategies that former President Trump used to portray both groups. It was also found that the positive opinions about the us-group and the negative ones about the others-group were not always consistent. For example, there were also changes when the same descriptions were given to both groups, which may well be coherent concerning the basic interests of the groups (Van Dijk, in: Approaches to Media Discourse. Blackwell Publishing, 1997). The findings of this study may contribute to an analysis of the president's discourse on Twitter, which is a relatively recent channel for political information (Kerbleski, in: Trump, Twitter, and the trees: a critical discourse analysis of Donald Trump's tweets surrounding the november 2018 California Wildfires. Doctoral dissertation, Northern Arizona University, 2019).

A Meta-Analysis of Online Learning Outcomes and Their Gender Differences

In this COVID-19 pandemic, learners across the world are encouraged to stay at home receiving online education, which has nearly caused various learning outcomes. It is thus necessary to analyze online learning outcomes, as well as their gender differences to provide constructive references for learners, teachers, and technology developers. This study obtained reliable data from various databases using searching techniques. The study also selected the research articles based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. After analyzing the forest and funnel plots drawn via Review Manager 5.3, the study arrived at the conclusion that online learning outcomes were significantly higher than the traditional learning outcomes with a large effect size (d = 1.24), while the gender differences in learning outcomes were not significant with a small effect size (d = -0.03). In the future, experts could make every effort to develop advanced emotion detection applications via interdisciplinary cooperation to improve online learning outcomes.

The effects of gender, educational level, and personality on online learning outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the rampant pandemic of COVID-19, an increasing number of people are acquiring knowledge through online learning approaches. This study aims to investigate how to improve online learning effectiveness during this special time. Through a mixed design, this study revealed the effect of educational levels, gender, and personality traits on online learning outcomes. It was concluded that postgraduates (N = 599) outperformed undergraduates (N = 553) in online learning, learners (N = 1152) with strong personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to a new experience outperformed those with strong extraversion and neuroticism. Future research could improve interpersonal interactions and encourage learners to post words in the online discussion forum, focus on how to design scaffolding online learning and how to improve the quality and dynamic of the online contents, and highlight blended learning rather than either merely online or traditional face-to-face learning.