Online engagement during COVID‐19: Role of agency on collaborative learning orientation and learning expectations

Abstract

During the COVID‐19 outbreak, students had to cope with succeeding in video‐conferencing classes susceptible to technical problems like choppy audio, frozen screens and poor Internet connection, leading to interrupted delivery of facial expressions and eye‐contact. For these reasons, agentic engagement during video‐conferencing became critical for successful learning outcomes. This study explores the mediating effect agentic engagement has on collaborative language learning orientations (CLLO) within an EFL video‐conferencing course to understand better how interactions influence academic learning expectations. A total of 329 (Male = 132, Female = 197) students were recruited from four South Korean universities to participate in this questionnaire study. Data analysis was carried out using the statistical software packages SPSS, and a series of data screening procedures were carried out. Findings revealed that collaborative language learning orientations were a statistically significant predictor of academic learning expectations, but this relationship was fully mediated when agentic engagement was added to the model. Students with a propensity for social language learning strategies believe they will succeed; however, this relationship is explained by their propensity to interact with the instructor when video‐conferencing. An assortment of learning activities should be provided to support both collaborative and individual learning orientations for academic success. Students with collaborative learning tendencies and a propensity to actively engage the instructor during video conference classes are active participants in the eLearning context, possibly leading to positive course expectations.

The relationship between just world belief and wellbeing, cheating behaviors, and academic work behaviors during COVID 19 among university students

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Distance Learning: Rethinking learning design in higher education during the Covid-19 pandemic

“…Considering the results of some experiments conducted internationally over the last 2 years, created with the aim of testing models of active teaching mediated by digital technologies, we have ascertained that student engagement in online courses can be more ambiguous and complex to assess than what can be achieved in face-to-face learning contexts (Andrew et al, 2021). Aside from these potential 'limitations' that require the teacher to achieve more timely monitoring of the teaching-learning experience, as has been shown in other studies (Khurshid, 2020), online collaboration in groups can not only enhance students' self-regulated learning abilities by making them more independent in the virtual learning environment, but also foster multimodal accessibility, interactive communications and improved learning processes (Almusharraf & Bailey, 2021). In addition, supporting social interactions through role taking seems to aid in the acquisition of individual and social agency, allowing each member of the group to participate and grow .…”

Virtual reality in the social sciences

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