Online Context Research Articles

Platformised Affinity Spaces: Learning communities on YouTube, Twitch and TikTok

Online, informal learning communities bring youth opportunities for learning that schools cannot offer. Yet, there are concerns about the impact of social media platforms’ control over online learning. We argue for a re-evaluation of what an ‘online informal learning community’ is by looking at such active communities on three platforms: YouTube, Twitch and TikTok. We do this by reconsidering Gee’s ‘affinity spaces’ and by asking: how can we understand online informal learning communities in the current sociotechnical context? We observed and analysed interactions of six learning communities on YouTube, Twitch and TikTok. Our results show that in today’s platformised online context, Gee’s concept of ‘affinity spaces’ should be reconsidered in three ways. First, platforms call for discussion about affinity spaces’ boundaries through the visibility regimes that play a part in access. Second, platforms challenge the affinity spaces’ grammar; to maintain a focus on their interest, platforms need to engage with interests provided by platform cultures. Third, a more fixated hierarchisation, informed by platforms’ focus on creators, impacts affinity spaces’ social structures. We introduce the concept of ‘platformised affinity space’ as a first step to specific dynamics that platforms introduce to online informal learning communities. We conclude that we only understand these communities when acknowledging how these dynamics are appropriated as well as resisted to achieve community goals.

Antecedents and consequences of academic help-seeking in online STEM learning

IntroductionCollege students often encounter challenges or ambiguity in online learning, which they cannot overcome independently, and therefore, require help. However, relatively little is known about how academic help-seeking can be supported in online contexts and about its potential benefits. The present study investigated the role of academic help-seeking in online STEM learning and its contextual antecedents.MethodsA total of 213 college students, enrolled in an introductory Engineering course, completed an online survey. Their survey responses and academic record data were analyzed.ResultsResults of path analysis indicated that adaptive help-seeking was positively related to retention intention, whereas expedient help-seeking was negatively related to the choice of future courses. In addition, avoidant help-seeking was negatively related to retention intention and major declaration status and positively to disorganized studying. Results also showed that sense of belonging and environmental fixed mindset served as significant predictors of academic help-seeking.DiscussionFindings indicate that academic help-seeking is related to successful online STEM learning. Therefore, fostering online learning contexts in which students perceive more sense of belonging and less environmental fixed mindset is crucial.

Exploring the Impact of Online Focus Group Gender Composition: Insights from a Study on Gender and Transport

Despite considerable attention in the academic domain, end-users of transport systems are rarely directly asked what they think of gender inequity in transport. Shedding light on this could inform education strategies to address such inequities. This research addresses this research gap, revealing how people think about differences in the way transport systems support (or do not support) the safe and comfortable mobility of men and women. It does so via the use of asynchronous online focus groups, to which 114 people contributed. The research also addresses questions around the impact of focus group gender composition on participants’ responses, an issue not previously considered in online or asynchronous contexts. Results suggest there is broad acceptance of women’s transport disadvantage, with men’s views of women’s experiences largely matching women’s own reports. Women’s views of men’s experiences were less reflective of the male reality. Safety and security were commonly discussed; however, trip complexity and other constraints, driven by differences in care roles taken, were discussed less and therefore represent a potential avenue for education strategies. Group gender composition did impact upon responding, with several of the effects previously found in face-to-face focus group research also manifesting in the anonymous, online context.

Effects of MOOC and video conferencing deliveries on vocabulary usage and learning strategies

While vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) have primarily been taught in physical classroom settings, the potential for applying strategy training in an online environment remains under-explored. With the rising acceptance of remote education, there is a need to investigate the impacts of applying strategy training in online contexts. Hence, this study explores the effects of online deliveries on VLSs and vocabulary usage in writing among adult English as second language (ESL) learners via massive open online course (MOOC) and video conferencing platforms. A total of 50 pre-intermediate ESL learners completed a 5-week VLSs course on a MOOC while 44 students learnt from the instructor synchronously using Microsoft Teams. The data comprised questionnaires and learners’ compositions, which were collected before and after treatment. The data analysis procedures involved Lextutor’s version of lexical frequency profiling (LFP), descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that there was a significant increase of usage in all categories of the VLSs after the course for both groups. Additionally, the effects of VLSs instruction on vocabulary usage could be reflected in both groups’ writing though the choice of words might have been task-influenced. The findings from this study could yield useful insights on online vocabulary learning for ESL instructors and learners.

A longitudinal study of enjoyment and group-level emotion regulation in online collaborative English language learning

This study investigates the dynamic connection between two emotional constructs, enjoyment and group-level emotion regulation (co- and socially-shared regulation), during one 21-week semester of online collaborative English language learning. The study involved 268 Chinese undergraduate English-major students who completed a series of English writing tasks in 88 online groups of three or four members. During their online collaboration, participants were invited to complete the enjoyment scale and the emotion regulation scale at three separate times at seven-week intervals. When analyzing the data, a latent growth curve (LGC) modeling approach was employed to examine the intercepts and slopes of participants’ scaled responses to questions regarding enjoyment, co-regulation, and socially-shared regulation and to analyze the covariance between them. The findings reveal that participants’ levels of enjoyment and group-level emotion regulation were generally high at the initial stage of their online collaboration and continued to increase toward the end of the semester. Furthermore, an increase in the level of their enjoyment was significantly and positively associated with an increase in the levels of both their co- and socially-shared regulation, with the relationship with socially-shared regulation during online collaborative learning being stronger. These findings will enable language teachers to develop strategies for supporting language learners’ emotion regulation in online contexts.

Can you bear with me? A comparison study of multifaceted discrepancy–brand avoidance relationships between China and the USA

PurposeBrand information is ubiquitous online and offline; consumers exhibit brand avoidance tendencies towards brand stimuli when there is a discrepancy between a brand image/personality and one’s self-concept. Given the multifaceted culturally constituted self-domains and self-importance, this research investigates how cultural variation affects reactions to self-brand discrepancy, considering two types of narcissist orientations.Design/methodology/approachUsing national culture as proxy for cultural orientation, sample data were collected through surveys administered to 410 participants (210 in China and 200 in the USA). A multi-group structural equation model was adopted to examine the conceptual model and proposed hypotheses. The follow-up qualitative study was conducted to allow further discussion of the quantitative results.FindingsThe results show that self-brand discrepancy can only be converted into brand avoidance tendency through the activation of cognitive dissonance for both Americans and Chinese. Specifically, for Chinese consumers only (ideal) social identity self-brand discrepancies can activate avoidance behaviour. In addition, grandiose and vulnerable narcissism orientations co-exist for both Chinese and Americans, these negatively moderate the relationship between social self-brand discrepancies and cognitive dissonance. For US consumers, idealised identity discrepancies mitigate dissonance; only those with a vulnerable narcissistic orientation would act on avoidance when experiencing dissonance.Originality/valueBy incorporating cultural variations in the investigations of self-brand discrepancy, this paper advances existing knowledge on dissonance and coping mechanisms. In addition, by bringing narcissistic orientations to the fore, it allows for a deeper understanding of how these cultural variations operate. In addition, our research provides important guidelines for brand practitioners to better leverage their marketing campaigns in offline and online contexts and to reduce brand avoidance tendencies across the international marketplace.

Online Versus Offline eSports Tournaments: Prize Structure and Individual Performance

This article examines whether the online context affects tournament theory incentive mechanisms. It investigates the impact of prize structure on player performance in eSports under online and offline conditions. Using a quasi-experimental approach with data from the Counter-Strike Global Offensive eSports scene, the study finds that high prize distributions increase individual output in both settings, but the incentive effect is weaker in online events.

MoTE: Desarrollo de una Herramienta Informática para el Monitoreo del Compromiso Estudiantil

Student engagement in learning is crucial for academic achievement, motivation, and active participation. However, measuring and accounting for student engagement, both in face-to-face and online sessions, remains a challenge for educators. Existing methods, such as self-reports, interviews, and even real-time eye tracking tools, lack a multidimensional engagement approach (i.e., cognitive, affective, and behavioral). In response, this article presents the development of MoTE, a real-time tool for monitoring student engagement. Following a Design-Based Research methodology, we detail the phases of identification of indicators and visualizations to meet the needs of teachers and students, culminating with the proposal of the architecture, and the implementation of an initial prototype. It ends with the evaluation with 146 students in face-to-face and online contexts, providing valuable information on the indicators, dashboards, and functionalities to design an effective tool for monitoring student engagement. This work not only proposes an innovative approach to assessing engagement but also opens avenues for future research and practical applications in education.

“It’s not like we go and chat just because we see each other’s name on the screen”: online students’ experiences of social and academic community

Online students are becoming an increasingly big part of the student population in higher education. Interaction and collaboration is beneficial for academic performance and well-being, but can be challenging to facilitate in the online context. Through individual in-depth interviews, we have investigated online students’ experiences of academic and social community, as well as the role study flexibility can play in their participation in such communities. The thematic analysis resulted in four themes. Theme 1, Expectations of being self-sufficient, shows that many participants made good use of the flexibility of the studies by being organised and independent. However, the expectation of independence became a potential barrier to participation. Theme 2, Collaboration if valuable and flexible, describes how most participants desired increased collaboration with their peers, given that it was flexible and of academic value. Theme 3, Study groups as important but fragile communities, illustrates study groups as the participants’ primary learning communities, but finds that maintaining them over time could be challenging. Theme 4, Digital distance, depicts many participants’ challenges with connecting digitally with others. We discuss these findings in the light of self-determination theory, showing how flexibility can become both a facilitator and a barrier for basic need satisfaction in online education, and that participation and collaboration seemed to be more closely connected to the need for competence than for relatedness. The main implication of the study is that online studies should strive to create a need-supportive environment that facilitates academic community while acknowledging many online students’ necessity for flexibility.

Tiers of Engagement: Achieved Learning From Business Simulations Reflected in Economics Students’ Experiences

This article investigates the impact of a business simulator in an online economics course, focusing on the relationship between student engagement and reflections on learning. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, our study analyzes responses from 328 students who used the "Hubro Business Simulator" in a flexible online bachelor's program in economics and administration. Students provided reflections on the simulator as a learning activity, application of theoretical concepts and practical relevance. Qualitative analysis of 1640 responses further explored the depth of students' reflections, categorized into different tiers of engagement based on their responses. This analysis builds on Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) and motivational theory. The study sought to determine whether students reporting higher levels of engagement exhibited deeper metacognitive reflections compared to their less engaged peers. Findings support a link between the level of engagement and the depth of reflection. Students with higher engagement levels were more likely to reflect on specific ways in which the simulator had supported their learning and understanding of theoretical concepts. This paper discusses the limitations and implications of these findings for enhancing game-based learning interventions, emphasizing the need to foster higher engagement levels to improve educational outcomes in online learning environments. The study contributes to the literature on game-based learning by providing a large empirical study on how business simulators can foster higher-order thinking and deeper learning reflections among economics students. It also highlights the role of engagement in using business simulators as learning tools, offering insights that could improve the learning design and implementation in similar online and flexible learning program contexts.

The role of digital cues in online banter: a systematic review of adolescents’ and emerging adults’ views, uses and interpretations

AbstractThe potential ambiguity and aggression related to banter-type humorous interactions may lead to misinterpretations and escalations such as perceived bullying, especially in the online context. A way to minimise such risks during online banter is the use of digital visual cues such as emojis, emoticons, GIFs, personal photos, videos, etc. This review summarised and synthesised the literature to understand how adolescents and emerging adults perceive and interpret the role of digital visual cues in online banter/humour and how they actually use these cues in banter-type online interactions. From the 12,372 papers identified, 17 papers were included, and the relevant narrative data were analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2021). Four themes were generated, including, (1) Digital cues are an essential part of digital banter, (2) Digital cues are ambiguous, (3) Harmful online banter containing digital cues, and (4) Personal and contextual effects. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Creating Communicative Context Through the Use of Emoji and Politeness in Online Academic Written Interactions

Creating Communicative Context Through the Use of Emoji and Politeness in Online Academic Written Interactions. The current study aims to provide a glimpse into the way higher education students and language instructors establish rapports in the academic written communication framework through the use of emoji and online face-work strategies. Contextualisation cues are created in order to regulate transaction based communicative exchanges that result in positive outcomes, subsequently fostering an inclusive culture. Linguistic display of online discourse is fraught with perils that may impede on appropriate written academic interactions occurring between instructors and students. Negotiation of identity becomes a main objective, as there are differences in status, power and various degrees of communicative achievement between interactants. The study shares results obtained from a questionnaire administered to 92 Romanian undergraduate students offering a framework for embedding emoji and face-work in online identity negotiation via written communication. It aims to offer a digital pedagogical competence approach to cater for the emotional needs of learners whose identities as digital natives take additional effort to create in the context of using transversal skills. The main findings of the study suggest that emoji and face work enable foreign language students to better manipulate their self-image when communicating online. Keywords: identity negotiation, online linguistic discourse, emoji, pragmatic politeness, face-work strategies, written communication, context, social and emotional learning.

Rapid context inference in a thalamocortical model using recurrent neural networks

Cognitive flexibility is a fundamental ability that enables humans and animals to exhibit appropriate behaviors in various contexts. The thalamocortical interactions between the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the mediodorsal thalamus (MD) have been identified as crucial for inferring temporal context, a critical component of cognitive flexibility. However, the neural mechanism responsible for context inference remains unknown. To address this issue, we propose a PFC-MD neural circuit model that utilizes a Hebbian plasticity rule to support rapid, online context inference. Specifically, the model MD thalamus can infer temporal contexts from prefrontal inputs within a few trials. This is achieved through the use of PFC-to-MD synaptic plasticity with pre-synaptic traces and adaptive thresholding, along with winner-take-all normalization in the MD. Furthermore, our model thalamus gates context-irrelevant neurons in the PFC, thus facilitating continual learning. We evaluate our model performance by having it sequentially learn various cognitive tasks. Incorporating an MD-like component alleviates catastrophic forgetting of previously learned contexts and demonstrates the transfer of knowledge to future contexts. Our work provides insight into how biological properties of thalamocortical circuits can be leveraged to achieve rapid context inference and continual learning.

Psychological Changes in Green Food Consumption in the Digital Context: Exploring the Role of Green Online Interactions from a Comprehensive Perspective.

The advent of the digital economy has brought new opportunities to food marketing. In China, many food businesses have begun to use interactions under specific social media topics to open up new sales channels. Green food, as a representative of environmentally related topics, is increasingly influencing consumer choices through online interactions. In light of this, this study collected data from a large group of participants engaged in online green interactions to explore the psychological mechanisms behind consumers' choices of green food in an online context. The findings indicate that online green interactions positively influence the willingness to purchase green food, with environmental self-efficacy and flow experience serving as mediators in this relationship. Information trust and consumer traits act as boundary conditions. This study not only deepens the understanding of food consumer behavior in the digital context, but also provides important references for food companies on how to more effectively utilize online interaction to promote the market expansion of green food.

Impact of Online Video Advertisement on Impulsive Buying Tendency with the Mediating Effect of Attitudes (Evidence from University Students in Sri Lanka)

Purpose: TikTok is a growing video-sharing application that allows users to make and share short videos on any topic. At present, young consumer’s impulsive decisions have been increased steadily, due to higher exposure to TikTok on online context. Thus, this research was carried out to examine the factors impacting on impulsive buying tendency of young consumers with a particular focus on attitudes toward online advertisements. Design/methodology/approach: Through a comprehensive survey conducted among 200 undergraduates at University of Ruhuna, data was collected based on a convenient sampling technique. Further, the collected data was analyzed using Smart PLS 4 software. Findings: The findings indicated that informativeness, personalization, and credibility of online video advertisements positively affect attitudes toward online video ads. Additionally, the mediating effect was proved revealing that young consumers make impulsive purchasing decisions based on the attitude formation through informativeness, personalization, and credibility. Originality: Although, the application of Tik Tok is important as a marketing tool, research on the TikTok platform is still scarce and inadequately documented. Implications: The study provides practical advice for marketers and brand managers to focus on improving consumers’ perceptions through the video ad’s informativeness, entertainment, personalization, and credibility to encourage consumers to purchase impulsively.

Online graph topology learning from matrix-valued time series

The focus is on the statistical analysis of matrix-valued time series, where data is collected over a network of sensors, typically at spatial locations, over time. Each sensor records a vector of features at each time point, creating a vectorial time series for each sensor. The goal is to identify the dependency structure among these sensors and represent it with a graph. When only one feature per sensor is observed, vector auto-regressive (VAR) models are commonly used to infer Granger causality, resulting in a causal graph. The first contribution extends VAR models to matrix-variate models for the purpose of graph learning. Additionally, two online procedures are proposed for both low and high dimensions, enabling rapid updates of coefficient estimates as new samples arrive. In the high-dimensional setting, a novel Lasso-type approach is introduced, and homotopy algorithms are developed for online learning. An adaptive tuning procedure for the regularization parameter is also provided. Given that the application of auto-regressive models to data typically requires detrending, which is not feasible in an online context, the proposed AR models are augmented by incorporating trend as an additional parameter, with a particular focus on periodic trends. The online algorithms are adapted to these augmented data models, allowing for simultaneous learning of the graph and trend from streaming samples. Numerical experiments using both synthetic and real data demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

I don’t care, I share! – The importance of self-disclosure overwrites the risks of sharing on Social Media

High levels of self-disclosure on different Social Media platforms are part of our everyday lives nowadays. Users tend to share detailed information about their personal lives willingly while often underestimating its negative consequences. Previous studies emphasize the complexity of the processes of online self-disclosure. Our aim with this current research is to examine how online self-disclosure is influenced by different psychological factors: the attitude towards the value of the users’ own data, perceived control over personal information and perceived risks associated with sharing on Social Media, with a multimethod study. In Study 1, a qualitative approach was introduced (N = 37), in Study 2, we conducted an online survey on a representative sample (N = 1597). In Study 1, we found that participants often underestimate the value of their own personal data and its usability by others. This (incorrect) interpretation gives them an increased sense of confidence about the security of their personal data in online contexts and facilitates them to share personal information on Social Media. In line with this, in Study 2 we found that the more the participants engage in self-disclosure on Social Media, the less risky they perceive their online activity. This suggests, the importance of sharing may overwrite the risks of sharing. Our results also show that higher engagement in online self-disclosure comes with a higher sense of control, which in turn decreases risk perception on Social Media sites. In sum, processes of self-disclosure on Social Media are influenced by not just the users’ sense of control and risk perception but their perceptions towards the value of their own personal data.

Grief is the price we pay for love: Emotions disclosed by Chinese mourners in online memorial platform

The present paper undertakes an in-depth analysis of the messages within the ‘Grief-expressing’ section of the online memorial platform ‘Heavenly Remembrance.’ Utilizing Grounded Theory alongside a mixed-methods approach incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, this study delves into the emotional categories and referential features in the online discourse of Chinese mourners, drawing upon the Affective Lexicon Ontology. The findings of this study reveal that: firstly, the expressions of Chinese online mourners demonstrate a remarkable diversity and complexity, encompassing a spectrum of emotional categories characterized by both positive and negative attributes. This highlights the capacity of online memorial platforms to provide inclusive spaces for emotional disclosure, thereby facilitating the transformation of traditionally singular and concentrated grief into more personalized and varied emotional experiences. Secondly, the emotional disclosure of Chinese online mourners is directed towards the self, the deceased and the community respectively. Notably, there appears to be a trend over time towards a gradual transition in emotional expression from predominantly negative to increasingly positive, as well as from predominantly individual-focused to more collective-oriented expressions. In light of this, the study also attempts to explain the motivations behind such grief disclosure through the Motivation Model of Pragmatics, thereby theoretically contributing to the research on discourse and emotion in the Chinese mourning context and offering a new perspective on the emotional dynamics of individuals experiencing bereavement in online context.

INSTRUCTOR AND STUDENT EXPERIENCES OF MIGRATING TO ONLINE LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION

This article considers the similarities and differences between two constructivist studies examining the experiences of emergency remote teaching and learning English. One project explored instructors’ descriptions of facilitating the transition from in-person to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second investigation analyzed the experiences of multilingual students as they made the transition from in-person to online. The first study elicited data through a Qualtrics open-ended questionnaire, while the research on students’ experiences examined student writing samples from their coursework. After the researchers coded both data sets through thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022), they collaborated to ensure interrater reliability (Belur et al., 2021). Results indicated that the nature of their concerns differed based on their role as the course consumer versus the course creator. Instructors struggled more with transforming their in-person content to an online context, while the students struggled with accessing and participating in the online learning experience. Accordingly, the authors recommend that both instructors and students receive instruction on how to engage in online learning. Additionally, instructors should build redundancy into their online courses so that students have multiple means of accessing and responding to instructional content.

Mechanism of Quantified-Self Consciousness in Customer Participation Behavior: Based on Self Concept Theory

The era of big data has driven quantified-self activity to become a common mass-life practice, yet there is a necessity of research on how to navigate through this problem now that quantified-self activity often produces results that are contrary to the original intent and creates data anxiety. Therefore, understanding the psychological dimension of the quantified-self would give new perspectives on individual and organization oriented positive outcomes. This study proposed the concept of quantified-self consciousness (QSC) based on the psychological dimension and investigated how customers' QSC influences their participation behavior in online contexts. Utilizing self-concept theory, this study incorporate extroversion and tie strength as moderating variables to refine the framework from both individual and organization perspectives. The results informed that QSC positively influences customers' information, task, and personal interactive behavior and is mediated by the variable arousal. At the individual level, customers with extroversion were more inclined to join in participation behavior, whereas at organization level, tie strength in the online community only moderated the path of QSC acting on task interactive behavior. These findings provide positive implications for how customers should act in the face of quantitative information to alleviate the anxiety and aversion associated with information overload, and provides companies with concrete strategies for managing online marketing.