“…COVID-19 has forced educational institutions to promptly respond to this emergency and take a big step forward from traditional face-to-face learning to online learning to ensure that education continues (Gumede and Badriparsad, 2022). Previous studies have pointed out the advantages of online learning, including time and cost effectiveness (Elida et al, 2012;Luo et al 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1131765 Frontiers in Psychology 02 frontiersin.org Almahasees et al, 2021), flexible use of time and space (Lemay et al, 2021;Maqableh and Alia, 2021;Turan et al, 2022), and the repetitive learning features of online resources (Bdair, 2021). These online resources are considered especially important for students' selfdirected learning, but research also points out that students' online self-directed learning is challenging because students report that they are easily distracted and have limited attention (Lemay et al, 2021;Maqableh and Alia, 2021), which in turn affects their academic performance (Kim et al, 2022).…”