Successful learning requires that students be motivated to achieve the desired learning goals (Lee, & Hao, 2015). However, not all students can develop an effective path that is beneficial to learning on their own (Lee, Cheng, Rai, & Depickere, 2005). The increasing popularity and number of online programs and course in higher education require continued attention to the design of instructional environments to enhance students' learning (Trespalacios, & Rand, 2015). As there is a continuing debate about effective design of online learning environments (Azevedo, 2005) and effective teaching methods (Tsai, 2011a), researchers in the field of online learning and online pedagogy suggest that educators could integrate other innovative teaching methods into online courses and examine their effects on improving students' learning in online learning environments (Tsai, 2011b; Tsai, 2015). In this regard, this special issue was conceived to span pedagogical, theoretical, practical, and technical issues in online learning performance and behaviour. The authors in this special issue present several approaches, tools, and applications of online learning and web-based learning technologies. This special issue features 12 papers that each underwent at least two rounds of review.