Austrian teachers' attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs regarding at-risk students during home learning due to COVID-19

The lockdown of schools in Austria and many other countries due to COVID-19 posed challenges to the school system and especially for teachers of at-risk students. Within the INCL-LEA (INCLusive Home LEArning) study, 3,467 teachers (2,839 females) from all nine Federal States in Austria participated in an online survey after the first school lockdown in early 2020. The main aim of the study was to investigate teachers' attitudes and their self-efficacy beliefs about at-risk students during the first home learning period. Results indicate that teachers' attitudes towards students with a low socio-economic background are more negative compared to attitudes towards students with low skills in the language of instruction (LLS) and students with special educational needs. According to teachers' self-efficacy beliefs, the lowest scores were found for teaching students with LLS. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Teacher challenges and self-efficacy in an alternative school setting through the COVID-19 crisis

The incited challenges among alternative school teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their ability to use best practices in their daily pursuits. The existing pandemic also created barriers to serve their own needs and the needs of their students. In an effort to manage these challenges through the COVID-19 crisis, self-efficacy beliefs are necessary to meet desired outcomes of alternative school teachers' objectives. The current study explored alternative school teachers' lived experiences through COVID-19 and the shift in the educational paradigm. Personal and professional challenges during the current pandemic were studied, as well as participants' ability to elicit self-efficacy beliefs during an inimitable event. The researcher used an interpretative phenomenological approach and qualitative data from interviews with alternative school teachers and program assistants to gain a deeper understanding of alternative school teachers' perspectives during COVID-19. The findings indicate alternative school teachers encountered challenges related to lack of social connection, anxiety, hybrid learning model, societal matters, learning new technology, and changes in routine. The trials encountered by these educators shaped their worldview from the various conditions they confronted. Furthermore, due to inadequate preparedness and an unknown timeline for the duration of online learning, educators experienced additional stress and concern. The findings further suggest the need for self-efficacy beliefs and the means to self-care among educators in an alternative school setting during an extraordinary circumstance. The data also demonstrate the value of empathic approaches to educators in this particular setting. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Promoting students' learning achievement and self-efficacy: A mobile chatbot approach for nursing training

The aims of nursing training include not only mastering skills but also fostering the competence to make decisions for problem solving. In prenatal education, cultivating nurses' knowledge and competence of vaccine administration is a crucial issue for protecting pregnant women and newborns from infection. Therefore, obstetric vaccination knowledge has become a basic and essential training program for nursing students. However, most of these training programs are given via the lecture-based teaching approach with skills practice, providing students with few opportunities to think deeply about the relevant issues owing to the lack of interaction and context. This could have a negative impact on their learning effectiveness and clinical judgment. To address this problem, a mobile chatbot-based learning approach is proposed in this study to enable students to learn and think deeply in the contexts of handling obstetric vaccine cases via interacting with the chatbot. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an experiment was implemented. Two classes of 36 students from a university in northern Taiwan were recruited as participants. One class was the experimental group learning with the proposed approach, while the other class was the control group learning with the conventional approach (ie, giving lectures to explain the instructional content and training cases). The results indicate that applying a mobile chatbot for learning can enhance nursing students' learning achievement and self-efficacy. In addition, based on the analysis of the interview results, students generally believed that learning through the mobile chatbot was able to promote their self-efficacy as well as their learning engagement and performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The Role of Parental Self-Efficacy Regarding Parental Support for Early Adolescents' Coping, Self-Regulated Learning, Learning Self-Efficacy and Positive Emotions

Although adolescence is characterized by increasing individuation, parental support represents an important resource especially in early adolescence. This multi-informant study examined the role of parental self-efficacy in providing emotional and instrumental support when early adolescents partially learned from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a resources model of coping, we examined effects of parental self-efficacy on early adolescents' reports of self-regulated learning (SRL), learning self-efficacy, and positive emotions, mediated via early adolescents' problem-focused and emotion-focused coping. Assumptions were tested among 263 Austrian parent-child dyads. While the mediation assumption was rejected, we identified positive associations between emotional support and SRL, and between problem-focused coping and SRL, learning self-efficacy, and positive emotions. Instrumental support negatively related to SRL, suggesting benefits of emotional over instrumental support. © The Author(s) 2023.

The effect of teachers' self- innovativeness on accountability, distance learning self-efficacy, and teaching practices.

During COVID-19 pandemic the teachers were suddenly forced to change their teaching and use distance learning practices, and become innovative in their ways of teaching online. In the current study we sought to understand whether teachers considered themselves innovative and how this affected their distance learning self-efficacy, accountability, and distance learning teaching practices. Two hundred elementary and secondary school teachers from Israel were asked to fill in a questionnaire comprising the four abovementioned components. Findings indicated that it was teachers' self-innovativeness which had significantly influenced their distance learning self-efficacy, accountability, and distance learning teaching practices. Findings indicate that work experience directly affected self-innovativeness, and older, more experienced teachers perceived themselves as more innovative in adopting and using distance learning compared to less experienced ones. The second finding was that professional development affected distance learning teaching practices but had no effect on teachers' self-innovativeness. The study shows that increasing teachers' self-innovativeness may affect their self-efficacy and accountability and lead to better distance learning teaching practices. Therefore, it is suggested to change the focus of professional development programs to promoting teachers' self-innovativeness and encouraging them to create novel and tailored combinations of hybrid learning.

ICT literacy, resilience and online learning self-efficacy between Chinese rural and urban primary school students.

In the process of large-scale online education during the COVID-19 pandemic, students' online learning has caused widespread public concerns. This study investigated the relationships between Chinese rural and urban primary school students' information communications technology (ICT) literacy, student resilience, and online learning self-efficacy in a large-scale online education environment during the pandemic in China. We compared 5,037 primary school students in rural areas to 5,045 primary school students in urban areas with matching gender and grade in nine regions in China's Guangdong province, using a survey comprising an ICT literacy scale, a student resilience scale, an online learning self-efficacy scale, and an ICT devices scale. The ICT literacy, resilience and online learning self-efficacy of primary school students in rural areas were significantly lower than those in urban areas (p < 0.01). The primary school students' ICT literacy was significantly associated with student resilience and online learning self-efficacy. Student resilience played a mediating role between ICT literacy and online learning self-efficacy, while the rural/urban area factor moderated the relationship between ICT literacy and student resilience. These findings suggest that ICT literacy is more scarce and important for primary school students in rural areas of China than for those in urban areas. Improving ICT literacy among primary school students can enhance students' resilience and thus improve their online learning self-efficacy, especially in rural areas.

What factors can support students' deep learning in the online environment: The mediating role of learning self-efficacy and positive academic emotions?

Introduction: In 2020, COVID-19 forced higher education institutions in many countries to turn to online distance learning. The trend of using online education has accelerated across the world. However, this change in the teaching mode has led to the decline of students' online learning quality and resulted in students being unable to do deep learning. Therefore, the current research, aimed at promoting deep learning in the online environment, constructed a theoretical model with learning self-efficacy and positive academic emotions as mediators, deep learning as the dependent variable, perceived TPACK support, peer support, technical usefulness, and ease of use as independent variables. Methods: The theoretical model was verified by SPSS26.0 and smartPLS3.0, and to assess the measurement and structural models, the PLS approach to structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed. Results: The study found that (a) positive academic emotions play a mediating role between perceived TPACK support and deep learning, perceived peer support and deep learning, and perceived technology usefulness and ease of use and deep learning; (b) learning self-efficacy plays a mediating role between perceived TPACK support and deep learning, perceived peer support and deep learning, and perceived technology usefulness and ease of use and deep learning. Discussion: The findings of this study fill the gaps in the research on the theoretical models of deep learning in the online environment and provide a theoretical basis for online teaching, learning quality, and practical improvement strategies.

Effects of self-efficacy and learning environment on Hong Kong undergraduate students’ academic performance in online learning

Purpose: This paper aims to illustrate the importance of the quality of Online Learning Physical Environment (OLPE) and Online Learning Self-efficacy (OLSE) in predicting academic performance in online learning, which was the primary mode of teaching during the outbreak of COVID-19 in Hong Kong. Policy recommendations were made based on the findings from a psychological perspective. Design/methodology/approach: Responses from 104 Hong Kong undergraduate students were collected through a questionnaire survey. Data were analysed using multiple linear regression, simple linear regression, and Pearson correlation. Findings: Despite the fact that OLSE showed no significant direct effect on academic performance in online learning, OLSE was positively correlated with and predictive of OLPE, while OLPE was positively correlated with and predictive of online learning performance. The findings indicated that undergraduate students from low-income families tended to have less superior academic performance, which was associated with poorer OLPE and OLSE. Originality/value: The findings suggested that in order to alleviate learning inequality in online learning, policy makers may allocate funding to enhance OLPE and OLSE of undergraduate students from low-income families. © 2022, Francis C.Y. Kuan and Stephanie Wing Lee.

Perceived Stress, Individual Psychological Resources, and Social Resources Among Computer Science Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, university students worldwide have experienced drastic changes in their academic and social lives, with the rapid shift to online courses and contact restrictions being reported among the major stressors. In the present study, we aimed at examining students' perceived stress over the course of the pandemic as well as individual psychological and social coping resources within the theoretical framework of the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping in the specific group of STEM students. In four cross-sectional studies with a total of 496 computer science students in Germany, we found that students reported significantly higher levels of perceived stress at both measurement time points in the second pandemic semester (October/November 2020;January/February 2021) as compared to the beginning of the first (April/May 2020), indicating that students rather became sensitized to the constant pandemic-related stress exposure than habituating to the "new normal". Regarding students' coping resources in the higher education context, we found that both high (a) academic self-efficacy and (b) academic online self-efficacy as well as low (c) perceived social and academic exclusion among fellow students significantly predicted lower levels of students' (d) belonging uncertainty to their study program, which, in turn, predicted lower perceived stress at the beginning of the first pandemic semester. At the beginning of the second pandemic semester, we found that belonging uncertainty still significantly mediated the relationship between students' academic self-efficacy and perceived stress. Students' academic online self-efficacy, however, no longer predicted their uncertainty about belonging, but instead had a direct buffering effect on their perceived stress. Students' perceived social and academic exclusion among fellow students only marginally predicted their belonging uncertainty and no longer predicted their perceived stress 6 months into the pandemic. We discuss the need and importance of assessing and monitoring students' stress levels as well as faculty interventions to strengthen students' individual psychological and social coping resources in light of the still ongoing pandemic.

High school teacher self-efficacy in using blended learning and TPACK

Blended learning helps to improve teaching and learning in high school classrooms;however, there is minimal understanding of how teacher self-efficacy influences their use of blended learning in their teaching. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to generate a more in-depth understanding of how high school teachers within a rural school district perceive their self-efficacy to influence their implementation of blended learning and how they apply the TPACK model to guide their pedagogy. Bandura's self-efficacy theory and Koehler and Mishra's TPACK framework served as the conceptual framework for this study. Research questions addressed how high school teachers perceive their ability to implement blended learning, support received, technology integration, and their successes in using this model. Data were collected via interviews, observation protocols, and artifacts from 10 teachers from two high schools and were analyzed using inductive coding. Results revealed most teachers had high self-efficacy levels in their use of blended learning, noting colleagues and technology coaches helped teachers feel more confident with blended learning and technology use. In addition, proper lesson planning was shown to boost teachers' self-efficacy and confidence as well. Recommendations for future research include repeating and expanding sample size and sites, eliminating direct observations during COVID-19, and collecting more artifacts. The study concluded personal and environmental factors contributed to positive and negative teacher self-efficacy in using technology. This study has implications for positive social change for managing pandemic-related educational shifts and developing new ways to support teachers in their use of blended learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The virtual teaching process and academic self-efficacy in learning and the intention to drop out university studies in times of Covid-19

The purpose of this study was to test the relationship between academic self-efficacy, learning self-efficacy, the teaching-learning process, student-teacher interaction, mediated by learning self-efficacy and the level of influence on students' intention to drop out. university students in times ofCovid-19. The study comprises two phases, firstly, an exploratory factor analysis using the IBM-SPSS, to determine the correct adaptation of the factors with their corresponding items, secondly, the confirmatory analysis was carried out, for the validation of the structural model proposed and establish the relationships of the factors proposed in the model, the PLS-SEM methodology, Modeling of Structural Equations with Partial Least Squares, was used. The model was validated with a sample of 230 students in a private university in Peru and is explained by the determination coefficient R2 in 51.9%, so it is inferred that there are other latent factors or variables that would explain the intention dropout in university students by 48.1%. © 2021 IEEE.

Individual innovativeness, self-efficacy and e-learning readiness of students of Yenagoa study centre, National Open University of Nigeria

Purpose>The purpose of this study is to explore the role individual innovativeness along with e-learning self-efficacy play in predicting the e-learning readiness of first- and second-year students of an open and distance education institutions in an African context.Design/methodology/approach>Therefore, building on previous related research in this area, a quantitative approach was adopted to address the research questions and to establish whether a statistically significant relationship existed between individual innovativeness, e-learning self-efficacy, the independent variables;and e-learning readiness, the dependent variable. In total, 476 first- and second-years students of the university participated in the four-Likert-type scale survey. The research instrument which comprises 74 survey items was completed by 217 of the students. Statistical tools used for analysing data included both Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficients and t-tests.Findings>It was discovered that a strong positive and significant relationship was observed between individual innovativeness and e-learning readiness of first- and second-year students of the Yenagoa Study Centre of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN);a statistically significant relationship was also found between e-learning self-efficacy scores and the e-learning readiness of the first- and second-year students of the Yenagoa Study Centre of NOUN;there was a statistically significant joint relationship between the three variables under investigation;findings equally revealed that male respondents had higher e-learning readiness than their female counterparts.Research limitations/implications>Like every other study of this nature, this one also suffers some limitations. First, NOUN is a very large university with over half a million students spread across almost 78 study centres. This means that observation from just one study centre amounts to a very small sample size. This according to Schweighofer, Weitlaner, Ebner and Rothe (2019) jeopardises the generalisability and validity of study results. The authors also maintain that empirical data generated from surveys that usually rely participants' abilities to read and select responses without further interpretation by the researchers suffer from cognitive biases like social desirability. To address the above limitations, detailed studies involving all studies centres of NOUN be undertaken and other qualitative and or mixed research methodologies be adopted in the future.Practical implications>The implications for this study are that people who are innately innovative will willingly accept technology and by extension, learning in technology-rich environments like those found in like NOUN whose mode of study is blended learning inherently found in open and distance learning (ODL) institution. Therefore, this study is significant as it will provide relevant information to the management and administrators of NOUN, policymakers and regulatory institutions for the development, deployment and implementation of e-learning strategies. Findings will also benefit e-learning initiatives undertaken by similar institutions that adopt the ODL mode of education in Nigeria and other developing countries.Originality/value>Even though, studies on the antecedents of e-learning readiness have been widely conducted across diverse contexts, studies exploring the associations between individual innovativeness, e-learning self-efficacy and e-learning readiness are relatively hard to come by. The above two variables as predicting the e-learning readiness in the study context are comparatively new. This study thus focuses on the relationships between the individual innovativeness levels, e-learning self-efficacy beliefs of students and their e-learning readiness which ultimately determines their ability to sustain studies in an ODL institution.

Exploring the Effect of Assisted Repeated Reading on Incidental Vocabulary Learning and Vocabulary Learning Self-Efficacy in an EFL Context.

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of two types of repeated reading (i.e., assisted and unassisted) on incidental vocabulary learning of Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. In so doing, a sample of 45 intermediate EFL students from two intact classes of a language institute were selected as the participants. The two classes were randomly assigned to an unassisted group (N = 21) who were required to just read and an assisted group (N = 24) who were asked to read and listen to 24 short texts several times. The assisted group employed their smartphones to listen to the audio files of the short stories. The data were gathered via a researcher-made vocabulary test and vocabulary learning self-efficacy scale. The results of ANCOVA revealed that although both types of repeated reading contributed to enhancing vocabulary learning of the participants, assisted repeated reading led to significantly greater EFL vocabulary gains. Additionally, the findings revealed that both assisted and unassisted repeated reading improved vocabulary learning self-efficacy of the participants and there was not a significant difference between the two types of interventions. The findings of the present study have implications for EFL researchers and practitioners.

Structural Model of Metacognition in Online Learning during the Covid-19 Pandemic

During the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, the conventional learning process through face-to-face interactions between lecturers and students was suspended due to the implementation of the social restrictions policy by the government to control and reduce the spread of the coronavirus. At that time, the learning process was carried out online, the interaction between lecturers and students through internet communication media by utilizing applications via e-Iearning, google meetings, zoom, and so on. This study aims to develop a measurement model of self-efficacy, digital literacy, and metacognition in higher education and to develop a metacognitive structural model of undergraduate students in The Electrical Engineering Department (EED) Faculty of Engineering (FE) Unesa, and the structural model of metacognition of EED-FE Unesa students in online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research design uses predictive methods to assess self-efficacy and digital literacy on metacognition in online learning. The instrument is validated by experts in the fields of vocational education, learning technology, and educational evaluation. Data collection techniques using survey methods with online communication. The research population is students of the EED-FE Unesa. The research sample was collected through stratified purposive sampling. The data analysis technique is a quantitative research approach that uses a structural equation model (SEM). The SEM design uses the analysis of two models, and there were the measurement model and the structural model. There are three latent variables of the measurement model, i.e., digital self-efficacy, digital literacy, and metacognition. The results showed that the measurement model was able to produce convergent validity, meaning that the items to measure the construct were valid. This means that the indicator variable is correlated with the latent variable. The structural model of metacognition fit with data. © 2021 IEEE.

A Low-cost Materials Laboratory Sequence for Remote Instruction that Supports Student Agency

Under the new ABET accreditation framework, students are expected to demonstrate “an ability to develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and interpret data, and use engineering judgment to draw conclusions” [1]. Traditional, recipe-based labs provide few opportunities for students to engage in realistic experimental design, and recent research has cast doubt on their pedagogical benefit [2]. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced institutions to move to remote learning. To address these challenges we developed a series of online labs for an upper-division mechanics of materials course. The first three labs consist of video demonstrations of traditional lab experiments with synchronous group discussions and data analysis. Two of these “traditional” virtual labs are supplemented with peer-teaching video activities. The final lab is a guided-inquiry activity focused on experimental design. Using only materials available at home, students measure the Young's modulus of aluminum and use their results to design a hypothetical product. In order to provide the same opportunity for students around the world, the test specimen is taken from an aluminum beverage can. One measure of whether or not an activity supports student agency is the diversity of solutions generated by students [3]. We analyzed 36 reports from the final guided-inquiry lab and coded the experimental procedure on five key decisions such as the type of experiment performed, specimen geometry, and measurement method. We identified 29 unique approaches to the problem, with no one approach accounting for more than three submissions. Student outcomes were measured by a survey of students' attitudes and self-efficacy administered directly after every lab activity except for the first one. The fraction of students endorsing statements related to a sense of agency increased dramatically between the “traditional” labs and the guided-inquiry lab: from 52% to 82% for goal-setting and from about 64% to 92% for choice of methods. Self-efficacy increased significantly in the primary targeted skills (designing experiments, making predictions, and generating further questions), but there was no significant shift in skills not explicitly targeted by the guided-inquiry lab (equitable sharing of labor, expressing opinions in a group, and interpreting graphs). Our experience demonstrates that at-home lab activities can achieve sophisticated learning outcomes without the use of lab equipment or customized kits. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Contribution of social support to home-quarantined Chinese college students' well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: the mediating role of online learning self-efficacy and moderating role of anxiety.

Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the implementation of quarantine policy led to an unprecedented home-quarantined living and online learning context for Chinese college students. This study aimed to investigate whether and how social support contributed to home-quarantined Chinese college students' well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, this study examined the mediating role of online learning self-efficacy in explaining how social support contributed to home-quarantined Chinese college students' well-being. The study also examined the moderating effect of anxiety, which may buffer the effectiveness of social support and online learning self-efficacy in home-quarantined online learning contexts. Data include 2481 responses to an online questionnaire survey from home-quarantined Chinese college undergraduates. Data were analyzed by performing Partial Least Squares regression. Results showed that social support associated positively with home-quarantined Chinese college students' online learning self-efficacy and well-being. The results revealed a partial mediating effect of online-learning self-efficacy on the positive effect of social support on well-being. The moderating effect analysis found that the positive association of online learning self-efficacy with social support and well-being was stronger in home-quarantined Chinese college students who perceived no anxiety.

Self-efficacy, subjective well-being and positive coping in adolescents with regard to Covid-19 lockdown.

The study is aimed at examining the relationship between emotional and self-regulated learning self-efficacy, subjective well-being (SWB) and positive coping among adolescents and youths, during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. 485 Italian students (74% girls; mean age 19.3) filled in an online questionnaire during the lockdown period. The hypothesized model in which both the forms of self-efficacy were predictors of SWB and positive coping, and SWB partially mediated the relation between self-efficacy measures and positive coping was tested by means of Structural equation modeling. Results largely supported the hypothesized relationships and suggested paying special attention to adolescents' self-efficacy in regulating basic negative emotions, in order to promote positive coping strategies to face challenges coming from everyday life and from non-normative events.