Editorial for EAIT issue 2, 2023

Education and Information Technologies (EAIT) is a research journal that covers the complex relationships between Information and Communication Technologies and Education. EAIT is the official journal of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), Technical Committee on Education (TC3).

The journal is embedded in the research and practice of professionals and is accepted into the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) in the category ‘Education & Educational Research’, with an Impact Factor (2021) of 3.666. EAIT is now in the top quartile (Q1) of journals in Education & Educational Research.

Integrating an ASR-based translator into individualized L2 vocabulary learning for young children is by: Li Ling (Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China and University of Melbourne, Australia) and Weiying Chen (Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China), who point out that Vocabulary Learning is important to learners of a second language (L2), but that organising young children to practice L2 words in a classroom setting might causes challenges to educators and practitioners, and new technologies such as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) may be utilised to solve this issue. In their study, they present a pedagogical innovation of using an ASR-based translator to assist young children to practice L2 words in a personalised and engaging way, and evaluate the effectiveness of word training with an ASR-based translator.

Academic dishonesty when doing homework: How digital technologies are put to bad use in secondary schools was contributed by Juliette C. Désiron and Dominik Petko (University of Zürich, Switzerland). They note that growth in digital technologies in recent decades has offered many opportunities to support students’ learning and homework completion, but also to the expanding the field of possibilities concerning homework avoidance. Their study aimed to determine what predicts homework avoidance using digital resources and whether engaging in these practices is another predictor of test performance. The results showed that about half of the students engaged in one kind or another of digitally-supported practices for homework avoidance at least once or twice a week.

School and Teacher Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) readiness across 57 countries: The alignment optimization method by Rongxiu Wu (University of Connecticut, USA), Weipeng Yang (The Education University of Hong Kong, China), Graham Rifenbark (University of Connecticut, USA) and Quan Wu (University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA) investigated the measurement invariance of school and teacher ICT readiness among 57 countries that participated in the Program in International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 assessment. School and teacher ICT readiness scale is 11-item scale with two subfactors: school ICT readiness and teacher ICT readiness subscales. With the novel alignment optimization method, they revealed that the school ICT readiness subscale was invariant for unbiased country comparisons, but overall non-invariance was identified for the teacher ICT readiness subscale.

Hüseyin Ateş (Kırşehir Ahi Evran University, Turkey) and Juan Garzón (Universidad Católica de Oriente, Rionegro, Colombia) next offer: An integrated model for examining teachers’ intentions to use augmented reality in science courses. Many studies show that augmented reality (AR) provides multiple benefits to science education, including learning gains, motivation to learn, and collaborative learning, but as AR largely depends on the teachers’ willingness, existing literature lacks studies that identify teachers’ intentions to use this technology. This study proposes a model to predict science teachers’ intentions to use AR in their classes. Their model merges the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2.

Xieling Chen (South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China), Di Zou (The Education University of Hong Kong, China), Haoran Xie (Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China), Guanliang Chen and Jionghao Lin (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) and Gary Cheng (The Education University of Hong Kong, China) then present: Exploring contributors, collaborations, and research topics in educational technology: A joint analysis of mainstream conferences. They say that the diversity and advance of information, communication, and analytical technologies, and their increasing adoption to assist instruction and learning give rise to various technology-driven conferences in educational technology. This study uses bibliometrics and topic modelling to analyse papers from mainstream conferences, including Artificial Intelligence in Education, Learning Analytics and Knowledge, Educational Data Mining, Intelligent Tutoring System, and Learning at Scale, focusing on contributors, collaborations, and particularly research topics and topic evolutions to inform relevant stakeholders about educational technology’s development and its future.

Piano education online: Challenges and solutions by RunTao Ma (College of Music and Dance, Northern University for Nationalities, Yinchuan, China) and Runchun Ma (Dance College, Northwest University for Nationalities, Lanzhou, China) considers the possibilities of using modern digital technologies in education to assess the impact of digital technology on the study of a work of art. The study results show the advantages and disadvantages of the WeChat software and the MOOC application, obtained on the basis of a survey of students. The students listed some of the disadvantages as delay and poor audio quality at the beginning of communication, inaccessibility to other incoming calls during a conversation, difficulties associated with reading a text message received during a video chat, and lack of round-the-clock technical support.

Blended learning is widely known for its ability to improve learning, nevertheless little is still known about the best ways of designing an effective blended learning environment which can support immersive learning such as greater learning experience and accessibility to education, say Najwa Amanina Bizami and Zaidatun Tasir and Kew Si Na (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia) in their article: Innovative pedagogical principles and technological tools capabilities for immersive blended learning: a systematic literature review. This study investigates the mapping of the principles of three Education 4.0 innovative pedagogies: heutagogy, peeragogy, and cybergogy, with the capabilities of three technological learning tools: Facebook, Learning Management System and Blog, via a systematic literature review technique.

Muhammad Haziq Bin Roslan and Chwen Jen Chen (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia) next write on: Predicting students’ performance in English and Mathematics using data mining techniques. This study aimed to predict secondary school students’ performance in English and Mathematics subjects, and to provide insights into the predictors of students’ performance in English and Mathematics, and the characteristics of students with different levels of performance. The learning of English and Mathematics is a concern in many countries. The study employed the archival data of students who were 16 years old in 2019 and sat for the Malaysian Certificate of Examination (MCE) in 2021.

I am Alexa, your virtual tutor!: The effects of Amazon Alexa’s text-to-speech voice enthusiasm in a multimedia learning environment relates research by Tze Wei Liew, Su-Mae Tan, Wei Ming Pang and Mohammad Tariqul Islam Khan (Multimedia University, Jalan Ayer Keroh Lama, Melaka, Malaysia) and Si Na Kew (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Jalan Iman, Johor, Malaysia). Modern text-to-speech voices can convey social cues ideal for narrating multimedia learning materials. Amazon Alexa has a unique feature among modern text-to-speech vocalisers as she can infuse enthusiasm cues into her synthetic voice. This study examined modern text-to-speech voice enthusiasm effects in a multimedia learning environment, and a between-subjects online experiment was conducted where learners from a large Asian university listened to either Alexa’s: (1) neutral voice, (2) low-enthusiastic voice, (3) medium-enthusiastic voice, or (4) high-enthusiastic voice, narrating a multimedia lesson on distributed denial-of-service attack. Their study demonstrates that a modern text-to-speech voice enthusiasm can positively affect learners’ emotions and cognitive load during multimedia learning.

Language learners’ engagement with a specific task is crucial to improving their academic achievement, and to enhance student engagement and academic achievement in language learning, personalised language learning (PLL) can be employed to consider individual learning needs. Christopher C. Y. Yang and Hiroaki Ogata (Kyoto University, Japan) discuss this in: Personalized review learning approach for improving behavioural engagement and academic achievement in language learning through e-books. In this paper, a personalised review learning approach is proposed that improves behavioural engagement and academic achievement in language learning through e-books. It involves implementing an e-book system, namely BookRoll, which allows users to browse uploaded learning materials anytime and anywhere, in concert with a personalised review learning system based on repeated retrieval practice.

Promoting the AI teaching competency of K-12 computer science teachers: A TPACK-based professional development approach is by Junmei Sun, Hongliang Ma, Yu Zeng, Dong Han and Yunbo Jin (Shaanxi Normal University, China), and notes that with the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), the demand for K-12 computer science (CS) education continues to grow. There has long, however, been a lack of trained CS teachers. To promote the AI teaching competency of CS teachers, a professional development (PD) program based on the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework was designed in this research. Their results indicated that the TPACK-based PD program: a) significantly improved CS teachers’ AI knowledge, especially in representation and reasoning, interaction, and social impact; b) developed CS teachers’ AI teaching skills, including their AI lesson plan ability and AI programming skills; and c) significantly improved CS teachers’ AI teaching self-efficacy, both in AI teaching efficacy beliefs and AI teaching outcome expectancy.

Semi-guided learning tool as framework for STEM students learning: A case study for final year projects comes from María Luz Morales-Botello and Carlos Moreno Martínez (Universidad Europea de Madrid, Spain) who note that communication and planning are skills expected among graduates, but that a skills deficit continues to be present among students. To address this problem, here they considered the final year project (FYP), a widely used way of working on skills in STEM degrees. They also took into account recent research that highlights the importance of students’ thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, in addition to characteristics such as self-efficacy or self-management within the learning process. They offer a framework designed around a semi-guided learning approach, with the aim of improving STEM students’ skills and providing them with a work context that facilitates favourable behaviours and feelings associated with writing their FYP report.

The next study compared the effects of extracurricular synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ASCMC) between students and teachers on students’ digital reading performance at different frequencies. Impact of extracurricular synchronous and asynchronous computer-mediated communication between students and teachers on digital reading performance: Evidence from 53 countries/regions is by Jie Hu and Hangyan Yu (Zhejiang University, Hangzhou City, China). Their analysis showed that SCMC negatively influenced digital reading performance. As the frequency decreased, the negative effect of SCMC diminished. In contrast, ASCMC at a moderately low frequency could facilitate digital reading performance, but as frequency increased, the positive effect became negative. These results showed that synchronicity played a role in predicting students’ digital reading performance.

Ismail Xodabande and Mohammad R. Hashemi (Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran) then present a Paper on: Learning English with electronic textbooks on mobile devices: Impacts on university students’ vocabulary development that examined the use of electronic textbooks designed as mobile applications for learning vocabulary in English among Iranian university students. An explanatory sequential mixed methods design was employed and over an academic semester, the participants used either traditional materials or mobile-based electronic textbooks for learning 600 words in English. In general, the findings of the study shed light on the potential offered by mobile-based textbooks for learning English vocabulary, with implications for teachers and materials developers in language teaching programs.

Educate to transform: An innovative experience for faculty training describes research by Noemy Martín Sanz (Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Spain), María Dolores Vivas Urías (Alfonso X El Sabio University, Madrid, Spain), Leire Nuere Salgado, Noelia Valle Benítez and María Consuelo Valbuena Martínez (Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Spain). Learning-focussed educational models require the development of pedagogical, methodological, assessment and technological competences among the faculty community they argue. This study evaluates the impact of the training project “Educate to Transform” on teacher attitudes, knowledge and on the implementation of innovative teaching methodologies.

Does gender stereotype threat affect the levels of aggressiveness, learning and flow in gamified learning environments? An experimental study was offered by Jário Santos (University of São Paulo, Brazil), Ester Andrade, Kamila Benevides, Kelly Silva, João Nascimento and Ig Bittencourt (Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil), Marcos Pereira (Federal University of Bahia, Brazil) and Sheyla Fernandes (Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil). Studies in the literature reported several positive benefits provided by the use of technology in online education, especially in the gamified tutoring system, but despite the benefits of intelligent tutoring systems, recent studies indicate the presence of a gender gap not considered in the construction of the attributes present in the gamified tutoring system. To investigate this impact by observing users’ behavioural changes in gamified online educational environments, this study investigated the effects of the stereotype threats using a quantitative experiment with a Factorial Design in three gamified environments (stereotypical male version, stereotypical female version and control environment).

The next paper: The COVID crisis impact on open education in the field of healthcare management, explores how the Hellenic Open University managed to adapt to the new normal of the pandemic and particularly what methods it deployed in its postgraduate Healthcare Management program. The authors were: Panagiotis Bogiatzidis (Hellenic Open University, Patra, Greece and University of Western Macedonia, Kozani, Greece) and Ioanna Pervou (Hellenic Open University, Patra, Greece). The paper introduces the key features of the Hellenic Open University and the strategic policy deployed during the pandemic through the pillars of academic integrity, openness and excellence. It then presents research findings regarding both instructors and students of the Healthcare Management postgraduate program. It concludes that the policy introduced by the University had a positive effect overall both to academic staff and healthcare practitioners.

The effect of web-mediated, blended, and purely online learning on EFL learners’ writing achievement in the Iranian context: A comparative study is by Masoumeh Dousti and Zahra Amirian (University of Isfahan, Iran). They argue that conventional instructions seem archaic and need to be replaced or improved with more novel technology-enhanced instructions that have been reported to enrich the instructional settings by providing further innovative teaching and learning opportunities. As a result, the study aimed at not only examining but also comparing the effectiveness of web-mediated, blended, and purely online learning instructions on EFL learners’ writing achievement in the Iranian context.

Qiong Wang (Shaoyang University, China), Yunhua Zhong (Hunan Normal University, China), Guoqing Zhao (Beijing Normal University, China) and Ruijun Song and Chengshi Zeng (Shaoyang University, China) then offer: Relationship among content type of Smartphone Use, Technostress, and Sleep Difficulty: a study of University Students in China. They suggest that ongoing smartphone use links to heightened technostress, but content types of smartphone use are various, and little is known about which types of content use are significantly associated with technostress. This study examines the impacts of specific types of smartphone use: learning-related use, entertainment-related use, social networking sites (SNS) use, and game use, on university students’ technostress. It then looks further into the relationship between technostress and sleep difficulty.

Also from China, Di Gong (Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China), Harrison Hao Yang (Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China and State University of New York at Oswego, USA), Di Wu (Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China) and Jinjun Dai (Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China) present: Relationships between Teaching Presence, Connected Classroom Climate, and Deep Learning within the Rotational Synchronous Teaching Model. The rotational synchronous teaching (RST) model has attracted attention as it can increase the teaching presence and connected classroom climate in multiple synchronous learning environments. This paper presents an investigation of the effects of the relationships between college students’ perception of teaching presence, connected classroom climate, and deep learning in RST.

What self-regulation strategies do elementary students utilize while learning online? ask this paper’s authors, Jodie Torrington, Matt Bower and Emma C. Burns (Macquarie University, NSW, Australia). This exploratory study investigated the self-regulatory strategies that young students utilized while individually completing a 20-min online research task about space. Results showed that young students spent most of their time using cognitive strategies to read and summarise information to complete the task. Little time was taken to plan or monitor their work or learning processes, which are key attributes of effective self-regulation. The study reveals the disparity between the ability to navigate within a hypermedia environment and utilizing planning and monitoring processes to enhance learning while using digital tools.

Exploring the impacts of learning modality changes: Validation of the learning modality change community of inquiry and self-efficacy scales comes from Yuane Jia (The State University of New Jersey, Newark, USA), Peggy Gesing (Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, USA), Hyun-Jin Jun (University of Maryland Baltimore, USA), Amanda K. Burbage (Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, USA), Thuha Hoang (Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, USA), Violet Kulo and Christina Cestone (University of Maryland Baltimore, USA), Sarah McBrien (University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, USA) and Joni Tornwall (The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA). They note that the rapid learning environment transition initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic impacted students’ perception of, comfort with, and self-efficacy in the online learning environment. Garrison’s Community of Inquiry framework provides a lens for examining students’ online learning experiences through three interdependent elements: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. Researchers in this study developed and validated the Learning Modality Change Community of Inquiry and Self-Efficacy scales to measure health professions students’ self-efficacy with online learning, while exploring how cognitive, social, and teaching presence is experienced by students who transition from one learning environment to another.

Emotion and focus of children during handwriting are essential for language learning say Jezia Zakraoui, Moutaz Saleh, Somaya Al-Maadeed and Jihad Mohamad AlJa’am (Qatar University, Doha, Qatar) in their article: A study of children emotion and their performance while handwriting Arabic characters using a haptic device. Handwriting for young children is challenging because it needs deep motivation and willingness to complete the task regardless of its difficulty. Recently, emerged haptic guidance systems have a good potential to offer children a better sense of engagement to keep their interests awake. Handwriting in 3D is more challenging for children due to many reasons including demotivation, out of focus, and visuomotor coordination difficulties. In this paper, they study the effectiveness of a haptic device in analysing schoolchildren’s emotion, attentiveness, and handwriting performance of Arabic letters.

Due to the increasing number of cyber incidents and overwhelming skills shortage, it is necessary that we should evaluate the knowledge gap between cyber security education and industrial needs, and Cagatay Catal (Qatar University, Doha, Qatar), Alper Ozcan (Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey), Emrah Donmez (Bandirma Onyedi Eylul University, Balikesir, Turkey) and Ahmet Kasif (Bursa Technical University, Turkey) do so in their article: Analysis of cyber security knowledge gaps based on cyber security body of knowledge. This study worked to identify the knowledge gaps in cyber security graduates who join the cyber security workforce. They discuss several suggestions to improve the cyber security curriculum in order to minimize the knowledge gaps. There is an expanding demand for executive cyber security personnel in industry and they argue that high-quality university education is required to improve the qualification of upcoming workforce.

University-school interaction in implementing game-based learning for creative thinking development is a work by Xufeng Chen (Lishui University, China). This research paper aimed to assess the effect of teaching on creative thinking in future teachers and primary schoolchildren. To do this the researcher invited student teachers to teach the introduction to programming course within their internship to develop primary schoolchildren’s creative thinking. The children were divided into two groups. The control group studied in the classroom, while the experimental one learned remotely via videoconferencing. Participants in both groups showed good, high, and very high levels of mastery of the course, which confirmed both approaches’ suitability for effective learning.

Teachers’ self-directed professional development in under resourced contexts: How do open educational resources matter? In this study, Xiaodong Zhang (Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China) adopted a qualitative case study approach that tracked a secondary teacher from an under-resourced vocational school in China and explored the trajectory of her self-directed professional development through open educational resources (OERs). The author notes that teachers’ self-directed professional development has been considered a useful channel of overcoming external constraints in under-resourced contexts, where external support for teachers may be limited. This study showed that the teacher’s OER-based self-directed professional development involved a process of battling diverse factors in and outside the classroom, including her prior expectations of OERs and the vicarious teaching experiences that she gained while implementing self-directed professional development.

Rabia Vezne (Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey), Hatice Yildiz Durak (Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Turkey) and Nilüfer Atman Uslu (Manisa Celal Bayar University, Turkey) next offer: Online learning in higher education: Examining the predictors of students’ online engagement. In their study, the effects of remote learning attitude, extrinsic and intrinsic goal orientation on the dimensions of online engagement were examined. In all models, relationships related to online collaboration with peers, online communication with instructor, participation in online classes, and completing assignments and tasks were confirmed as were relationships between the attitude towards attending online courses and the skills and emotional dimensions of engagement.

Qing Tang, Tao Zhang and Lixia Jiang (Sichuan Agricultural University, China) write on: Influence of blended instruction on students’ learning effectiveness: the role of Flow. The rapid development and extensive application of information and communication technologies has facilitated blended instruction, which is regarded as the “new normal” in the field of modern education and has become the focus of academic research, they say. Their study explored the influencing mechanism of blended instruction on students’ learning effectiveness from the perspective of complementarity and conflict with the support of flow. The results demonstrated that complementary advantages and practical conflicts in blended instruction influenced students’ flow experience during the learning process. Flow experience plays an important role in blended instruction and positively influence students’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioural engagement.

Over the last decades, using e-learning systems as an alternative format of education for traditional classroom has been growing in higher education and due to COVID19 pandemic, this transition has been unprecedently accelerated say Morteza Akbari and Mozhgan Danesh (University of Tehran, Iran), Azadeh Rezvani (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia), Nazanin Javadi (University of Tehran, Iran), Seyyed Kazem Banihashem and Omid Noroozi (Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands) in their article: The role of students’ relational identity and autotelic experience for their innovative and continuous use of e-learning. Although there is a large body of research on e-learning, little is known about the extent to which innovative and continuous use of e-learning systems can be influenced by students’ social and motivational factors especially their relational identity and autotelic experience. This study collected data from 400 higher education students through a survey to explore the role of students’ relational identity and autotelic experiences regarding their innovative and continuous use of e-learning systems while considering the mediating role of students’ perception of relatedness.

Research on the factors influencing the learner satisfaction of MOOCs is a paper by Bingxin Du (Media and Communication School of Anyang Normal University, China). The author points out that learner satisfaction is the degree of consistency between learners’ perception and expectation of learning experience, and in massive online open courses, analysing the influencing factors of learner satisfaction is of great significance to improving the quality of course development and learning experience. Taking the open course reviews as data source, the paper adopted topic sentiment analysis and intermediary hierarchical linear modelling to analyse the impact of different student and course level features on learner satisfaction.

Investigating the effect of computer-mediated feedback via an LMS integration in a large-scale Japanese speaking class. In this article, Yuka Kataoka, Achmad Husni Thamrin, Rodney Van Meter and Jun Murai (Keio University, Japan) and Kotaro Kataoka (Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India) point out that in second or foreign language (SFL) education, oral corrective feedback (OCF) is widely used to individually correct students’ erroneous utterances during classroom hours, but students can’t have sufficient opportunities for oral production and personalised feedback during classroom hours if a class is large-scale with many students. This paper addresses the lack of OCF opportunities in a large-scale class, assuming the causes to be the severe time constraints and the teachers’ labour intensiveness in examining students’ utterances and generating OCF.

Previous studies have indicated that mobile social apps have crucial implications for social connectedness among college students, but the specific patterns of WeChat usage that facilitate freshmen’s college adjustment and academic performance still remain unclear say Hua Pang and Yuxin Qiao (Tianjin University, China) in their article: Identifying the impact of WeChat interaction on college adjustment and academic performance among freshmen: The mediator role school connectedness. This research examined the dynamic associations between distinct patterns of WeChat interactions, school connectedness, college adjustment, and perceived academic performance among freshmen. Anonymous self-report online survey data from college students in mainland China supported the conceptual model, revealing that habitual use of WeChat and time spend on WeChat have positive associations with school connectedness.

The factors influencing the decision to accept QoS of cloud service in Palestinian education sector: A survey by Marwan Bsharat and Sawsan Bsharat (Arab American University, Jenin, West Bank, Palestine) claims that Cloud computing service has been found to be effective in increasing the capacity of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) since it delivers services through enhanced information technology capabilities. Quality of Service (QoS) in Cloud service is considered a rapidly growing phenomenon to guarantee a high level of service and is identified as an essential aspect of service provision, but despite the importance of QoS, identifying the QoS acceptance factors by decision-makers for cloud-based services in HEIs in Palestine has been a critical challenge. This study proposed a research model by combining Technological Organizational Environmental (TOE) framework and Human Organizational Technology (HOT) fit framework.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are at the forefront of government initiatives across the world say Munish Saini, Eshan Sengupta, Madanjit Singh, Harnoor Singh and Jaswinder Singh (Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India) in their article: Sustainable Development Goal for Quality Education (SDG 4): A study on SDG 4 to extract the pattern of association among the indicators of SDG 4 employing a genetic algorithm. The SDGs are primarily concerned with promoting sustainable growth via ensuring wellbeing, economic growth, environmental legislation, and academic advancement. One of the most prominent goals of the SDG is to provide learners with high-quality education (SDG 4). This paper to looks at the perspectives of the Sustainable Development Goals improvised to provide quality education.

A survey of the literature: how scholars use text mining in Educational Studies? Is by Junhe Yang, Kinshuk and Yunjo An (University of North Texas, Denton, USA) who argue that the massive amount of text related to education provides rich support information in many aspects, but the vast and increasing volume of text makes it impossible to analyse manually. Text mining is a powerful tool to automatically analyse large-scaled texts and generate insights from them, but many educational scholars are not fully aware of whether text mining is useful and how to use it in their studies. To address this problem, in this article they reviewed the literature to examine the educational research that used text mining techniques.

Lili Zhang (Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China), Jiaming Cheng (Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China), Jing Lei and Qiu Wang (Syracuse University, USA) write on: Facilitating student engagement in large lecture classes through a digital question board. They argue that large classroom configurations and lecture-centred pedagogy discourage student engagement but advances in educational technology have empowered instructors to fill this gap. This study designed a digital question board (DQB) on digital canvas to facilitate student engagement in large lecture classes. The study was situated in an introductory research methodology course in a large comprehensive university in eastern China. It was found that following the proposed design principles, the presence of a DQB effectively facilitated students’ cognitive and emotional engagement.

The next article, from Yang Han (Harbin University, Heilongjiang, China), reflects the results of a study involving second and fourth-year students from Harbin University, the Chinese Academy of Arts (Hangzhou, China), and the Central Academy of Drama (Beijing, China). Using mobile applications in the study of vocal skills analysed the impact of specialised mobile applications Vox Tools: Learn to Sing and Swiftscales Vocal Trainer on the vocal learning process, depending on the age and gender of students. The study confirms the effectiveness of multimedia, demonstrating the higher scores of the experimental groups on the five assessment criteria, compared with the control groups, which did not use mobile applications.

The article that follows seeks to determine the attitudes of undergraduate nursing students toward e-learning and is titled: Nursing student´s attitudes toward e-learning: a quantitative approach. The authors are Alina de las Mercedes Martínez Sánchez (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain) and Abdullah Karaksha (Griffith University, Queensland, Australia). They point out that as you would expect, students who have previous computer training were significantly more confident in connecting to the internet than those with no prior computer training and students who had prior experience in e-learning predicted they would feel significantly more nervous when working with computers than those who did not have this prior experience.

Interaction strategies in online learning: Insights from text analytics on iMOOC is by Wei Wang and Yongyong Zhao (Huaqiao University, Fujian, China), Yenchun Jim Wu (National Taiwan Normal University and National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan) and Mark Goh (National University of Singapore, Singapore). Learners engaged in large-scale online learning often pose questions for which their peers or instructors can answer using various means of textual interaction topics. This paper assesses the effects of the text interaction strategies in online learning through the lens of the language expectancy theory at three levels: whether to respond to the questions, the identity of the respondents, and the textual interaction topics.

Saken Toktamysov (Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russian Federation), Suad Abdalkareem Alwaely (Al Ain University, Abu Dhabi, UAE and Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan) and Zemfra Gallyamova (Federal University, Elabuga, Russian Federation) write on: Digital technologies in history training: the impact on students’ academic performance. This research aimed to explore the academic performance of high school students learning history with digital technologies such as Apps Quizlet and Virtual Reality Glasses 3D. The methodology is based on the survey method, as well as the design method in developing a program for studying history. The illustrative materials, Apps Quizlet and Virtual Reality Glasses 3D were used in teaching history.

Integrating gamification and instructional design to enhance usability of online learning. This study, by Akanksha Ghai and Urvashi Tandon (Chitkara University, Rajpura, Punjab, India), investigates the interaction of Gamification, and Instructional Design to enhance the Usability of e-Learning in higher education programs, and the mediating role of Instructional design. The results of the study confirmed that gamification is a multi-dimensional construct significantly predicted by elements, game dynamics, motivation, and game mechanics. Further, Instructional design partially mediates the relationship between gamification and usability of e-learning.

The importance and dynamic development of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) has been well recognized, and Chi Zhou, Di Wu and Yating Li (Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China), Harrison Hao Yang (State University of New York at Oswego, USA), Shuo Man and Min Chen (Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China) write on this in: The role of student engagement in promoting teachers’ continuous learning of TPACK: based on a stimulus-organism-response framework and an integrative model of behaviour prediction. They say that in order to keep up with the development of the ever-changing society and variety of teaching technologies, teachers need to continue to learn TPACK as previous studies have indicated the importance of student engagement in promoting teachers’ learning. However, how student engagement affects teachers’ continuous learning of TPACK remains unclear. To bridge the research gap, their study constructed a model based on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework and integrative model of behaviour prediction (IMBP).

The relation between child raising attitudes of parents and their mediation role for the digital technology use of children was contributed by: Serap Aktemur Gürler (Kafkas University, Kars, Turkey) and Esra Ömeroğlu (Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey). The study’s working group was made up of 236 parents having a child at the age of 48–72 months and living in the city centre of Kars. As a result of the research, a positive, significant relation at a medium level was found between parent view scale for child raising attitudes and early childhood parent mediation scale for media.

Evolution and hotspots of peer instruction: a visualized analysis using CiteSpace. This paper, by Diao Bicheng (USCI University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), Nadia Adnan (USCI University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Prince Mohammad bin fahd university College of Business Administration and UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) Madhubala Bava Harji and Latha Ravindran (SEGI University, Kota Damasara, Selangor, Malaysia) presents the outcome of the bibliometrics analysis of research sourced from the Web of Science collection. A research evolution, hotspots of peer instruction, and potential topics using bibliometrics to visualize related research from 1971 to 2022 was conducted, using CiteSpace to analyse keywords co-occurrence, time zone, burst detection and strategic diagram. Themes that emerged included competence, technology, outcome, participation, students’ ability, and others.

Industry-academia collaboration (IAC) has long been a source of discussion in various ways, and Ruchika Malhotra, Massoud Massoudi and Rajni Jindal (Delhi Technological University, India) write on this in: An alumni-based collaborative model to strengthen academia and industry partnership: The current challenges and strengths. A vital first step toward closing the gap is fostering alumni engagement in industry and academia, they say. The collaborative effort between industry and academia promotes improvement and innovation in technology and innovative research and enables the university to be more relevant to the industry. This article proposes a collaborative approach based on alumni influences and uses secondary data on the influences of alumni in engineering to enrich the collaboration between industry and academia.

A large group of researchers from Northern America then offer: Impact of digital technologies upon teaching and learning in higher education in Latin America: an outlook on the reach, barriers, and bottlenecks. They are: Kingsley Okoye and Haruna Hussein (Office of the Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico), Arturo Arrona-Palacios (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA), Héctor Nahún Quintero and Luis Omar Peña Ortega (Office of the Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico), Angela Lopez Sanchez (Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia), Elena Arias Ortiz (Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, D.C. USA), Jose Escamilla (Office of the Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico), Samira Hosseini (Office of the Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico and Tecnologico de Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico). Digital technology and literacy can heighten the transformation of teaching and learning in higher education institutions (HEIs). This study uncovers the extent to which digital technologies have been used to advance the teaching and learning process in HEIs, and the barriers and bottlenecks to why it may not have been effectively implemented across the HEIs. The study used nine selected countries in Latin America based on the main focus of the educators, commercial, and financial investors, to show the level of impact/implications of computer technologies on the teaching and learning processes.

Elementary, middle, and high school students need opportunities to engage with educational technology, and this is particularly important for those students who may not have access to new technologies at home and/or school. J. Elizabeth Casey, Jef Kirk, Kimberly Kuklies (Texas A&M University—Central Texas, USA) and Selina V. Mireles (University of Texas RGV, Brownsville, USA) discuss this in their paper: Using the technology acceptance model to assess how preservice teachers’ view educational technology in middle and high school classrooms. Socioeconomic status continues to widen the digital divide and equity in education in terms of access to technology, and as new and advanced technology becomes more available for some, others are falling further behind, and a key component in ensuring all K-12 students receive opportunities to engage with technology is to prepare preservice teachers to be proficient at using educational technologies in their classrooms. Virtual Reality (VR) environments are gaining traction across some environments, but in the United States, some states limit or exclude VR from elementary and middle grades. In a recent service-learning project, 14 preservice teachers were introduced to two types of foor-robots and one style of a VR headset.

To complete this issue, comes: Applying Gestalt approach as a method for teaching computer science practice in the classroom: A case study in primary schools in Brazil. It was authored by: André Vasconcelos and Jomar Monsores (Federal Center for Technological Education of Rio de Janeiro, CEFET/RJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Tania Almeida (Municipal Secretary of Education of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Laura Quadros State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Eduardo Ogasawara and João Quadros (Federal Center for Technological Education of Rio de Janeiro, CEFET/RJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Building different didactic techniques to help students learn and practice with Information Technology resources is common. However, applying these techniques does not necessarily mean that students may acquire knowledge. The differential idea of this work is to create an approach in which students are protagonists and not just absorbers of IT. Based on this perspective, they applied a Gestalt approach to assist students in practicing these technological resources.

Articles in this month’s issue came from researchers in Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Ghana, Greece, India, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Palestine, Qatar, Russian Federation, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, The Netherlands, Turkey, UAE and USA.

Arthur Tatnall

Editor-in-Chief

Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia

Email: Arthur.Tatnall@vu.edu.au