Methodology For Developing Students' Information Exchange And Security Culture In A Digital Learning Environment: A Case Study In Computer Engineering

PurposeThis paper aims to discuss the evolution of a digital learning environment in higher education as a result of ongoing data collection and evaluation.Design/methodology/approachThe manuscript is based on a digital learning environment intervention at the University of Wisconsin-Stout and is informed by evaluation data collected from student and faculty surveys annually between 2002 and 2016. Survey themes changed annually based on student/faculty concerns and interests, and program management used this feedback to make modifications to program scope and offerings.FindingsThe digital learning environment at the University of Wisconsin-Stout has been effective in providing faculty and students with the tools they need to be successful. This success is largely due to the ongoing commitment to data collection and evaluation at the University of Wisconsin-Stout and has ensured that the digital learning environment stays modern and adaptive.Originality/valueThis manuscript is the culmination of 15 years of ongoing evaluation practice and thus provides valuable best practices and lessons learned for educators/educational institutions hoping to improve or create their own digital learning environment.

This study examines the effectiveness of assessment methods in synchronous and asynchronous online learning environments in higher education. The research was conducted with entrepreneurship courses at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, during the 2020/2021 academic year, comparing two parallel student groups (n = 58 in synchronous mode and n = 49 in asynchronous mode). The research methodology involved analysing the assessment data including final exam results, formative assessment activities, final grades, and student satisfaction surveys. Results indicate that students in asynchronous courses achieved higher academic performance scores but reported lower satisfaction with instructor interaction than synchronous course participants. Conversely, students in synchronous classes rated overall quality of instruction higher despite lower academic outcomes. Both modes employed innovative assessment techniques including gamification, flipped classroom approaches, quizzes, and collaborative assignments, which significantly increased student engagement with the assessment tasks. The findings contribute to understanding the relationship between assessment design, learning mode, and student outcomes in digital learning environments. This research provides a foundation for developing more effective assessment strategies that respond to diverse student needs in both emergency remote teaching contexts and intentionally designed online learning.

It is internationally accepted that digitally-supported learning increases the accessibility of higher education due to its capacity to overcome traditional university's spatial and temporal limitations. At the same time, increased student-teacher ratios and reduced student-targeted support may lower the quality of learning and instruction in higher education. Research focussed on digital learning environments in higher education identified social anxiety as an increased challenge for learners and teaching staff. This international case study investigates students’ social anxiety at two higher education institutions. Findings show that social anxiety exists in higher education digital learning environments and differs across cultural contexts and gender. The data suggests that it is worth tertiary educators pausing to consider the role that social anxiety may be playing in reducing interactions within online units. Additional research is required to establish the causes of social anxiety in digital learning environments and develop strategies to minimise its effect.

Over the last decade, the practice of higher education in Europe has become highly diversified and more complex. Among the visible phenomena related to the organization of studies that have appeared there are new forms of teaching and learning linked to digital learning environments. Faced with these developments, sometimes called a revolution, actors—policy makers, teachers, students—have very little in the way of scientific results to rely on. Such practices are still relatively new, and research done in this area rarely goes beyond feedback from experiences, case studies and satisfaction surveys. As such, research has not yet produced sufficient knowledge to provide a solid basis for decision-making. This chapter aims to start to address the current lack of scientific work in this area. More specifically, its ambition is to provide a theoretical framework based on the state of the art as well as research trials to answer two major questions: 1. How do student characteristics and those of digital learning environments interact? 2. What are the configurations emerging from these interactions that can lead to quality learning?. The overarching outcome will be to make new forms of teaching and learning linked to digital learning environments in higher education more intelligible.

Research on digital learning environments has traditionally applied either an individual perspective or a social perspective to learning. Based on a literature review, we examined to what extent individual or social perspectives determined the learning outcome variables that researchers have used as measurements in existing studies. We analyzed prototypical approaches to operationalize learning settings (individual vs. social) published in peer-reviewed journals and identified their relation to several measures of learning outcomes. We rated n = 356 articles and included n = 246 articles in the final analysis. A total of 159 studies (64.6%) used an individual learning setting, while 87 studies (35.4%) used a social learning setting. As learning outcome measures, we observed self-reports, observable behavior, learning skills, elaboration, personal initiatives, digital activity, and social interactions. The two types of learning settings differed regarding the measurement of elaboration and social interactions. We discuss of the implications of our findings for future research and conclude that researchers should investigate further measures of learning outcomes in digital learning settings.

Under the background of the vigorous development of digital education, students' social and emotional ability has gained new opportunities for development. Analyzing the influencing factors of using the function of the digital learning environment on students' learning ability, introducing the digital learning environment in higher education requires teachers to be able to optimize its use to improve student participation in the face-to-face classroom learning process. Digital learning environments can be used in higher education to help teachers promote student participation in learning and in this way to encourage student participation in learning.

The rapid integration of digital tools in education has transformed classroom environments, creating new opportunities and challenges for instructional design. One key area of focus is the management of cognitive load, which refers to the mental effort required to process information during learning. Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) offers insights into how instructional materials can be optimized to improve learning outcomes. In digital classrooms, the effective design of instructional content becomes even more critical due to the increased multimedia elements and potential for cognitive overload. This study aims to explore the implications of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) for instructional design in digital classrooms. It examines how digital tools, such as multimedia content and interactive activities, impact learners’ cognitive load and suggests strategies for reducing extraneous cognitive load to enhance learning efficiency and effectiveness. A mixed-methods approach was used, combining quantitative surveys to assess students’ cognitive load during digital learning activities and qualitative interviews with instructors to understand their perspectives on instructional design challenges. The study was conducted across several digital learning environments in higher education. The findings indicate that digital learning environments often lead to high cognitive load, particularly when multimedia content is poorly integrated. However, using principles from CLT, such as segmenting information and reducing unnecessary complexity, can significantly lower cognitive load and improve student learning outcomes. Both students and instructors reported that well-designed digital content led to better engagement and more efficient learning. The study concludes that applying Cognitive Load Theory to instructional design in digital classrooms can enhance learning by minimizing cognitive overload. Educators should be mindful of cognitive load when creating digital learning experiences to improve student performance and engagement.

This study aims to examine the influence of gender on the adoption of a virtual learning environment (VLE) in higher education in Ghana during COVID-19 restrictions. A survey approach was used, with a total sample of 488 responses from the University of Professional Studies, Accra. To reveal gender differences, both male and female respondents were subjected to a multi-group analysis. The factors impacting students’ intention to use VLE were determined using the structural equation modeling approach employing SmartPLS 3.3.3 software. Accordingly, both gender groups show that subjective norm elements significantly influence intention to adopt VLE; however, the male group (β = 0.873, p = 0.000) reports more significant influences than the female group (β = 0.571, p = 0.000). The study establishes that the newly incorporated construct in the theory of planned behavior, attitudes towards social distancing, significantly affects males’ behavioral intention to use VLE more than their female peers. This result demonstrates the robustness of the theory of planned behavior for evaluating technology acceptance research.

PurposeThis study concentrates on South Korean university students' attitude towards cooperative learning by utilizing the “Student Attitudes toward Group Environments” survey (n = 427–181 female and 246 male) originally developed by Kouros and Abrami (2006).Design/methodology/approachThe purpose of this study is to unfold what factors affect the cooperative learning environment in the Higher Education context of South Korea, which is known as a collectivist society, and conduct comparative analysis on gender, department type, GPA level and school year as variables in the perception of cooperative learning. The factor analysis findings demonstrated that there are four factors influencing students' attitude about cooperative learning environments in South Korean higher education; “frustrations with group members”, “peer support”, “fairness” and “quality of product and process”. Moreover, the gender, type of department, school year and GPA variables were yielded statistically differentiating results.FindingsThe overall results showed that effective cooperative learning strategies depend on the type of culture and other demographic variables including learner's gender, department type and school year. In South Korea, known to have a collectivist culture, fairness has appeared as a new criteria needing to be considered when designing a cooperative learning environment, which is a different case than in individualistic cultures. Thus, when employing cooperative learning strategies in South Korea, educators should take learners' culture into consideration. For this, educators might utilize the final instrument of this study as a guideline or criteria to establish an effective cooperative learning environment.Originality/valueThis article provides an example from South Korea which is known as both a collectivist and high-tech country.

This article reports on the findings of senior leadership interviews in a nationally funded project on distributed leadership in the quality management of online learning environments (OLEs) in higher education. Questions were framed around the development of an OLE quality management framework and the situation of the characteristics of distributed leadership at the core of the framework. The project’s premise is that distributed leadership is a descriptive reality of managing OLEs given the various leadership parties involved and the complexities of the contemporary technological landscape. Leaders’ understandings of distributed leadership were examined—its nature, value and potential for advancing the quality management of OLEs. There was confirmatory evidence of its reality, but its meaning and value were not uncritically accepted. It can be concluded that building distributed leadership must start through deliberative formal leadership commitment and action starting at the highest levels of the institution.

This paper explores the way to apply ChatGPT to mitigate the side effects of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) in higher education from the perspectives of teachers and teaching. An interview with six university professors and two Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts was conducted. The thematic analysis reveals two main categories of side effects, including educational philosophy and teaching skills. The data analysis also contends that ChatGPT offers a valuable tool to aid educators in overcoming these challenges by improving the personalization of PLEs, aligning PLEs with formal education requirements, and designing innovative assessments and enhancing learning engagement in PLEs. This study provides insights beneficial to practitioners, researchers, and policymakers by elucidating the challenges and opportunities associated with integrating ChatGPT with PLEs in higher education.

Many studies investigated the use of collaboration at conventional teaching environment in different educational levels. The present study examines students’ behavior during a collaborative assignment in an online learning environment in higher education. Data were collected by graduate students who were attending a course at a distance learning master degree program in Special Education. The developed group dynamics and students’ beliefs about their role during the activity were “revealed” by their reactions to the discussion forum, their private e-mails to the instructor, their activity at the platform and their contribution on the assignment, for which the wiki tool was used. Results indicated that although students were at the same time in-service or pre-service teachers at primary and secondary education and they were expected to implement group work at their teaching, they had low self-efficacy beliefs in using it as students in online learning environment. Their major difficulties were related with their fear about possible negative consequences concerning their marks due to other members’ behavior and the lack of experiences. Suggestions on how the group work and the collaborative assignment can be integrated more effectively in an online learning environment in higher education courses are discussed

The aim of this paper is two-fold: firstly, to provide an overview of emerging digital practices that support collaborative learning, competency development, and digital literacy for student-centered learning environments in higher education during the rapid digital transition caused by pandemic-related lockdowns across the world, and secondly, to analyze and discuss how systematic reviews of generalized themes and trends can be combined with contextualized experiences and the lessons learned from the Covid-19 crisis to inform the digital transformation of higher education, with a particular focus on bridging the gap between campus-based teaching and online learning and on the identification of the digital competencies that teachers and students must acquire during the continuing shift into a ‘new normal’ for post-pandemic educational practices. This study was motivated by questions and findings emerging from an early reactive case study conducted by three of this paper’s co-authors (Lyngdorf et al., 2021a). By reviewing the full texts of 18 articles, this study provides a systematic literature review which maps the general landscape of the online, hybrid, and blended digital practices applied in existing student-centered learning environments in higher education since the onset of the pandemic. Furthermore, this mapping is used to revisit data and findings from the earlier reactive study of emerging digital practices in a specific problem- and project-based learning (PBL) environment. This study’s findings highlight critical factors and barriers related to emerging practices which support students’ interactions with teachers, content, and each other, as well as the emerging competencies that these practices will require. The paper concludes with a discussion of the main findings and their implications for further research and practice.

The smart learning environment is a technology-supported learning environment that is enriched with digital resources, context-aware and adaptive devices, and can provide appropriate support to meet the learning style and abilities of diverse students to promote better and enhances learning process in higher education. It is a student-centered learning environment that has the capacity to engage students and offers an effective learning process. It is characterized by the ability to provide interactions between students and facilitators, and personalized and inclusive learning experiences to anyone, anytime and anywhere using smart mobile devices. However, despite the increasing use of smart learning environment in higher education, there is no well-defined model with a set of educational requirements for developing and evaluating self-regulated smart learning environment which considers both instructional and evaluation design. Therefore, this article explores instructional design and learning evaluation process to propose a new set of educational requirements referred to as smart learning environment pedagogical and educational requirements model (SLE-PERM) for developing and evaluating self-regulated smart learning environment. Next, the article presents the application of the educational requirements on three common learning management system (LMS) namely: Moodle, Blackboard and Schoology which can be used to evaluate the suitability of LMS to guide stakeholders on the critical issues that require pedagogical and educational requirements for developing a self-regulated smart learning environment in higher education.

In the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology—a unique course is being held—“Introductory Project in Electrical Engineering”. The course is intended to expose second-year students of electrical and computer engineering to the occupational areas of electrical and computer engineers, to strengthen their sense of relatedness to the Department and increase their intrinsic motivation towards their studies. The core of the course is a team project for planning a window-cleaning robot. Using quantitative and qualitative tools, the study described in this paper has followed students who participated in the course, examining changes in the motivational factors driving them to study electrical and computer engineering. Findings point out a significant improvement in students’ intrinsic motivation and identified regulation—an improvement explained in light of the self-determination theory.