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Background: The use of e‐exams in higher education is increasing. However, the role of student diversity in the acceptance of e‐exams is an under‐researched topic. In the current study, we considered student diversity in terms of three sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, and second language) and three dispositional student characteristics (computer anxiety, test anxiety, and technology openness). Objectives: The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between student diversity and acceptance of e‐exams. Methods: Our research combined cross‐sectional analyses (N = 1639) with data from a natural experiment on the introduction of e‐exams versus the established paper‐pencil exams (N = 626) and used both self‐report and institutional data. Sociodemographic and dispositional characteristics were indirectly related to pre‐exam acceptance via expectancy variables from the Technology Acceptance Model framework. Results and Conclusions: Comparisons of post‐exam acceptance showed that practical experience with the e‐exam led to a significant increase in e‐exam acceptance, and that students with low openness toward technology particularly benefited from this effect. Students' exam performance (i.e., grades) was unrelated to the exam format or their pre‐exam acceptance of the e‐exam format, and this was true across students' sociodemographic and dispositional characteristics. Takeaway: Student diversity plays a role in e‐exam acceptance, but its influence is mitigated by first‐hand experience with e‐exams. The practical implications for higher education institutions aiming to implement e‐exams are discussed. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: The use of e‐exams in higher education is increasingThe role of student diversity for e‐exam acceptance is unclearTechnology acceptance is predicted by expectancies towards new system What this paper adds: We investigated students' sociodemographic and dispositional diversityDiversity predicted e‐exam acceptance via the expectanciesIn a natural experiment, first‐hand experience increased e‐exam acceptanceNo difference between performance in e‐exams and paper‐pencil‐exams found Implications of the study findings for practitioners: Higher education institutions implementing e‐exams should consider diversitySupport for older students and students with low technology openness neededNo student groups systematically disadvantaged by e‐exam implementationPractice rooms can increase experience with new system before exam [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID‐19 crisis, digital informal learning is important for students' academic engagement. Although scholars have highlighted the importance of students' digital competence in improving digital informal learning (DIL), the mediating role of DIL between digital competence and academic engagement has remained ambiguous. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between students' digital competence and their academic engagement with the mediating role of DIL in the higher education context. This study used a descriptive correlational design, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The study sample included 308 students from Shiraz University, Iran. The results showed that digital competence positively and significantly correlated with students' DIL and their academic engagement. Furthermore, DIL, as the mediator variable, was found to mediate the relationship between students' digital competence and their academic engagement. Since higher education institutions have a key role in improving students' academic engagement, particularly in the COVID‐19 pandemic, academic administrators should pay more attention to students' digital competencies and provide them with efficient and user‐friendly DIL platforms that can increase their academic engagement. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: One of the challenges of online learning environments is students' engagement especially in the COVID‐19 crisis.The role of digital informal learning (DIL) in the students' engagement is ambiguous.Little work has been done to support the relationship between digital competence, DIL and academic engagement. What this paper adds: The structural equation model of academic engagement, digital competence, and DIL was examined.There is a significant relationship between digital competence and DIL of students.The engagement of students will increase both with the use of digital competencies and DIL. Implications for practice and/or policy: Administrators should provide efficient DIL platforms to increase students' academic engagement.Educators should consider students' digital competencies to increase their academic engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]