This study extends the community of inquiry (CoI) framework and self‐regulated learning (SRL) theory through an exploration of the structural relationships among existing CoI variables, learning ...presence (i.e., self‐efficacy and online SRL strategy) and learning outcomes in the context of K‐12 online learning. To help understand the influence of K‐12 mentoring – which is unique to online learning in the U.S. – mentor presence is also included. Structural equation modelling of 696 online 8th through 12th graders' survey responses and final grades showed that adding learning presence to the CoI framework helped to explain how these learners translated their online‐learning perceptions into cognitive and affective learning outcomes. We also found that mentor presence significantly and positively predicted online SRL strategy, one of the two components of learning presence. Lastly, we established a connection between the CoI model and various types of learning outcomes that are indicators of K‐12 online learning success – though it should be noted that important differences existed between a model based on final grades and two other outcome models. It is hoped that the processes identified in this study will be useful and relevant to K‐12 online‐learning institutions and educators seeking to improve their offering via a wide range of approaches.
Lay Description
What is already known about this topic
Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework has been found capable of capturing the interrelationships of collaborative thinking and learning in an online learning setting
Learning presence captures learner's metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral aspect.
Mentors helped to facilitate students' online learning.
What this paper adds
Adding learning presence to the CoI framework helped to explain how learners translated their online‐learning perceptions into cognitive and affective learning outcomes.
Mentor presence significantly and positively predicted online SRL strategy, one of the two components of learning presence.
Established a connection between the CoI model and various types of learning outcomes that are indicators of K‐12 online learning success.
Implications for practice and/or policy
It is important for teachers and mentors to trigger the self‐regulation aspect of the learning presence.
Contact between instructors and mentors needs to be strengthened if students' self‐regulation is to be triggered.
The importance of establishing and maintaining a positive classroom environment to boosting learning presence.
Students' active regulation of learning, through being motivated and a variety of cognitive and metacognitive strategies, is crucial to their online learning success. Despite the large numbers ...enrolled in online language courses, very little is known about students' motivation and strategy use in these learning environments, or how they may affect their online learning outcomes. This study helps fill this gap by examining students' motivation and learning-strategy use across a number of online language courses, and investigating the role of motivation and such strategies within the framework of self-regulated learning. Based on data about online language-learning strategies collected from 466 high-school-level online language students in a Midwestern virtual school, our findings indicated that online learning strategies operated at a moderate level in the process of foreign language-learning. Further analysis using structural equation modeling revealed that the use of online learning strategies predicted students’ online learning outcomes.
•Students used learning strategies in their online courses at a moderate level.•Online learning outcomes were not predicted by intrinsic or extrinsic motivation.•Learning strategy was the only predictor of the three learning outcomes.
Computer‐supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has shown considerable promise, but thus far the literature has tended to focus on individual technological tools, without due regard for how the ...choice of one such tool over another impacts CSCL, either in outline or in detail. The present study, therefore, directly compared the learning‐related uses of an online discussion forum against such use of a mobile instant‐messaging app by the same group of 78 upper‐division undergraduate pre‐service teachers in China. The participants were asked to use one of the two communication tools during the first of three learning activities, then to switch to the other during the second, and to choose their preferred tool for the third. Based on the results of content analysis, social‐network analysis and a survey of the students' attitudes, it was found that while both tools facilitated collaborative learning, they appeared to have different affordances. Specifically, using the online discussion forum resulted in more communication aimed at knowledge construction, while using the mobile instant‐messaging app resulted in more social interactions.
Over the past decade, the number of one-to-one laptop programs in schools has steadily increased. Despite the growth of such programs, there is little consensus about whether they contribute to ...improved educational outcomes. This article reviews 65 journal articles and 31 doctoral dissertations published from January 2001 to May 2015 to examine the effect of one-to-one laptop programs on teaching and learning in K-12 schools. A meta-analysis of 10 studies examines the impact of laptop programs on students' academic achievement, finding significantly positive average effect sizes in English, writing, mathematics, and science. In addition, the article summarizes the impact of laptop programs on more general teaching and learning processes and perceptions as reported in these studies, again noting generally positive findings.
Background Study
Previous systematic reviews concluded that online professional‐learning communities (OPLCs) have positive effects on teachers' development, but explored neither the technological ...affordances that make this possible nor the potential negative impacts of technology use in OPLCs.
Objectives
The aim of this study is to systematically analyse previous research on teachers' OPLCs, and thus help answer the question of what technological affordances (dis)empower members of teachers' OPLCs, and how they do so.
Methods
This study applied the systematic‐review method. A total of 28 studies were identified and analysed using rigorously defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The results are reported as a synthesis.
Results and Conclusions
First, in theme, the selected articles primarily focused on features of OPLCs and of teachers' knowledge. Second, mixed‐methods approaches were commonly used in the sampled research, and the number of studies employing advanced statistical methods and machine learning increased over time. And third, the reviewed studies' findings suggest that technology supports ‘bottom‐up’ teachers' communities (as distinct from ‘top‐down’ professional development organized by educational authorities) in seven ways: that is, by promoting collaboration opportunities, expanding the participants' networks, facilitating knowledge sharing, delivering support more rapidly, providing emotional support, allowing ubiquitous learning, and enabling multiple modes of participation.
Lay Description
What is currently known about the subject matter
Previous reviews found OPLCs have positive effects on teachers' development.
What their paper adds to this
What technological affordances empower teachers in OPLCs.
How technological affordances empower teachers in OPLCs.
The implications of study findings for practitioners
The sampled articles primarily focused on OPLC features and teacher knowledge.
Mixed‐methods approaches were commonly used.
Technology provides various affordances to ‘bottom‐up’ teachers' communities.
Interactions are the central emphasis in language learning. An increasing number of K‐12 students take courses online, leading some critics to comment that reduced opportunities for interaction may ...affect learning outcomes. This study examined the relationship between online interactions and learning outcomes for 466 students who were taking high‐school level online language courses in a Midwestern virtual school. Regression analysis was employed to examine how three broad types of interactions, learner‐instructor, learner‐learner and learner‐content (Moore, ), affected students’ perceived progress and satisfaction. After controlling for demographic information, motivation and learning strategies, the results of multiple regression showed that learner‐instructor and learner‐content interactions had significantly positive effects on satisfaction, whereas learner‐learner interaction did not affect satisfaction. Learner‐content interaction was the only factor that affected perceived progress.
Motivation is a key factor in predicting K‐12 students' online learning success. Drawing on self‐determination theory, this study used a person‐centered approach to identify the motivational profiles ...of students taking online high school language courses, and to examine such profiles' relationships to their learning outcomes, genders and reasons for enrollment. Cluster analysis of 466 students revealed the existence of four profiles: high and low quantity, and good and poor quality. Students in the high‐quantity profile demonstrated comparable learning outcomes to those in the good quality profile; and there was significant gender and enrollment reason differences across the four motivational profiles.
Practitioner Notes
What is already known about this topic
Motivation is of considerable importance to the success of online learning.
Autonomous motivation is more adaptive than controlled motivation.
Most studies have used a variable‐centered approach to investigating the unique and independent roles of motivation types in online learning.
What this paper adds
This study is believed to be the first to use a person‐centered approach to identify motivational profiles (ie, good quality, high quantity, low quantity and poor quality) among virtual‐school students taking foreign‐language courses.
It confirms the positive effect of autonomous motivation on learning, and extends exploration of this effect to online learning.
Students in the high‐quantity profile achieved comparable learning outcomes to those in the good quality profile.
Females were overrepresented in the good quality profile (ie, more females than would be expected by chance).
Motivational profiles differed significantly across enrollment reasons (ie, credit recovery, elective or requirement).
Implications for practice and/or policy
Teachers should not simply place each student in a box as having either autonomous or controlled motivation.
Online learning content and activities should be designed in ways that promote autonomous motivation.
Online educators need to be aware of potential gender and enrollment reason effects on students' motivations.
Multimodal approaches have been shown to be effective for many learning tasks. In this study, we compared the effectiveness of five multimodal methods for second language (L2) Mandarin tone ...perception training: three single‐cue methods (number, pitch contour, color) and two dual‐cue methods (color and number, color and pitch contour). A total of 303 true novice learners of L2 Mandarin (native speakers of English) completed a 3‐week online training program. Results from pretests as well as immediate and delayed posttests indicated that multimodal training aided L2 learners’ tone perception, with a small, practical advantage for pitch contours and numbers over color coding. Dual‐cue methods did not yield better learning than single‐cue training. Thus, the additive benefits of multimodal input (i.e., auditory and visual) did not extend to instruction featuring doubled visual input (i.e., visual and visual). We argue for embedding color in visuals in a way that helps make information concrete.
Mobile serious games are increasingly utilized as educational tools in elementary schools, and a considerable body of research has focused on evaluating such games’ educational effectiveness. ...However, such work has generally ignored learning processes, and especially how knowledge is constructed. Given the important role of knowledge construction in various educational settings, this study examines it in the context of 83 elementary schoolers’ mobile serious game-playing behaviors. Lag-sequential analysis of the participants’ observed behavioral patterns, and of differences in such patterns between two performance subgroups (i.e., students with high vs. low academic performance), yielded two main findings. First, all these young learners exhibited knowledge construction, and moved smoothly from lower to higher phases of it in the mobile environment; and second, the high-performing group attained a deeper level of knowledge construction through the negotiation of meaning than the low-performing group did. Some theoretical and practical implications of these results are also discussed.
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