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As information technologies develop, social networking services have gradually gained attention from both researchers and practitioners. However, little is known about the technology adoption of social networking from the perspective of hedonic motivation. For this purpose, this study applied the hedonic motivation system adoption model (HMSAM) to TikTok and incorporated two innovative factors, i.e., perceived boredom and personal innovativeness. Via structural equation modeling (SEM), this study used SmartPLS 4.0.8 to analyze 246 valid responses from Chinese university students via an online survey. The results showed that the research model was adequate for the adoption of TikTok. Curiosity and perceived boredom significantly mediated the positive relationships between perceived ease of use and behavioral intention. Additionally, the educational level moderated the relationship between joy and focused immersion. The results of this study provided insights for future researchers and innovative teaching.

An increasing number of studies have been committed to the effectiveness of mobile learning applications. This study examined motivation, learning strategies, learning outcomes, and their mutual correlations in mobile English language learning via two experiments. Results suggested that in mobile English language learning, (a) motivation was significantly stronger than in traditional English language learning; (b) students adopted significantly more learning strategies than in traditional English language learning; (c) learning outcomes were significantly better than in traditional English language learning; and (d) motivation, learning strategies, and learning outcomes were positively correlated in both learning approaches at the significance level 0.025. Although it is necessary to further identify the underlying mechanisms, findings suggest interdisciplinary cooperation in future research.

Bilibili, a popular video-sharing and danmaku-themed platform, has played a crucial role in online learning. However, limited research has been conducted to examine the factors that influence its users' continuance intention. Thus, this study proposes an integrated model of technology acceptance model, expectation-confirmation model, and task-technology fit based on the data collected from 265 Chinese participants. The model also includes content richness and a newly introduced variable, danmaku interface, to fill the research gap. The results show that 1) content richness has no positive influence on satisfaction and perceived usefulness, 2) danmaku interface significantly and positively influences satisfaction at the significant 0.05 level but has no positive effect on perceived usefulness, 3) task-technology fit positively and significantly predicts perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness at the significant 0.05 level, and 4) the other hypotheses within TAM and ECM are well accepted. The features and educational functions of Bilibili could be further explored in the future.

Since Facebook announced itself as Meta, the metaverse has been popular with educationalists. However, scanty studies have bibliographically analyzed the use of the metaverse in education. This study complements the missing link in the literature by bibliometrically analyzing the research into the use of the metaverse in education using both VOSviewer and CitNetExplorer. The study identified the top authors, organizations, countries, keywords, documents, sources, the research trends, and challenges of the metaverse used in education, together with the effects of the metaverse on learning environments, interactions, educational outcomes, and learning attitudes. This study paves a solid ground and provides a meaningful reference for future research in the use of the metaverse in education. Implications for future research were also provided.

Digital academic reading tools on computers bring multiple benefits to higher-education students. Through structural equation modeling methods, this study contributes to the following findings: (1) Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and lecturers' positive responses significantly predict students' positive attitudes toward digital academic reading tools on computers; (2) perceived ease of use, lectures' positive responses, and expectations of academic achievement are significantly positive predictors of students' perceived usefulness of these tools; (3) attitudes and expectations of academic achievement significantly predict students' positive intentions to use these tools; (4) academic experience significantly predicts students' negative attitudes toward these tools; (5) perceived ease for collaborative learning and self-efficacy are significantly positive predictors of students' perceived ease of using these tools. Findings in this study may contribute to understanding the external factors influencing students' acceptance and use of digital academic reading tools on computers with a substantial explanatory power of the proposed model (R[superscript 2] = 64.70-84.20%), which may benefit researchers, instructors, students, and technology designers.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of self-paced flipped learning has received considerably critical attention, because the physical face-to-face classroom has become one of the major obstacles during the pandemic. This research aims to figure out the effects of self-paced flipped learning on students' learning efficiency, satisfaction, and achievements. By collecting and analyzing data from the web of science core collection, the authors concluded that the self-paced flipped learning assisted with technology was conducive to students' learning engagement, satisfaction, and outcomes; as well as their self-regulation skills, effort-invested capacity, and monitoring ability. Challenges exist for both teachers and students as this learning model demands higher investments from both sides. Future empirical research, which takes these variables into account, will need to be undertaken.

With the rapid development of information technologies, virtual reality (VR) has caught much attention in education. However, scanty studies have been committed to a meta-analysis of its effect in education in terms of various components. This study, through a meta-analysis, systematically reviews the effect of VR technologies on educational outcomes in terms of various components. It concludes that VR technologies generally exert a strong and positive influence on educational outcomes despite some negative findings in their effect on anxiety, cognition, creativeness, gender differences, learning attitudes, learner satisfaction, and engagement. Future research could expand the research by including more publications and examine the effect of VR technologies on educational outcomes through interdisciplinary cooperation.

Rain Classroom, as a mobile app designed and developed by Tsinghua University, has been catching increasingly intense attention since her birth in 2016. Her usability has, however, seldom been explored. The purpose of this study is to compare the usability of Rain Classroom assisted learning with other learning approaches. A mixed design was adopted to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. Via pre- and post-questionnaires, we collected quantitative data. Through analyzing the data, we concluded that the usability of Rain Classroom was significantly higher than that of the traditional learning in terms of eight attributes: effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, learnability, memorability, errors, cognitive load and timeliness. Via the semi-structured interviews, we collected qualitative data, based on which the findings are generally consistent with those from questionnaires. Future research may focus on development of more advanced mobile apps, between which the usability comparison may be conducted assisted with interdisciplinary cooperation such as statistics, education, psychology and computer technology.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, online learning has gained popularity among educators and learners, where Community of Inquiry (CoI) has caught researchers' attention. To bibliometrically analyze the framework of CoI over twenty-five years, we adopted both qualitative and quantitative research methods to examine the framework of CoI in online learning contexts. We concluded that teaching presence, social presence, cognitive presence, metacognition, and self-efficacy played important roles in the framework of CoI. This study also explored the top ten authors, sources, organizations, and countries using VOSviewer and established citation networks through the clustering techniques in CitNetExplorer. Future research could focus on how to motivate the educational institutes and educators to change their traditional educational methods and whether to include both metacognition and self-efficacy in the CoI framework.

Numerous scholars are devoted to investigating the technology acceptance model (TAM) and its extensions, but a comprehensive TAM is still under investigation. This study aims to formulate a relatively comprehensive model by including personal investment and identify factors that influence students' adoption of CCtalk-aided English as a foreign language (EFL) courses. This study tests the proposed model based on data collected from 771 participants in China using CCtalk to acquire EFL. Confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis are conducted to identify the designed model measurement. Coefficients of determination and path analyses are adopted to access the model fit index and path hypotheses. This study reveals the following results: (1) Perceived ease of use ([beta] = 0.033, P < 0.001) and perceived usefulness ([beta] = 0.04, P < 0.001) of CCtalk-aided EFL courses significantly influence attitudes towards using CCtalk-aided EFL courses; (2) Attitude towards using ([beta] = 0.028, P < 0.001), perceived ease of use([beta] = 0.019, P < 0.01),and personal investment ([beta] = 0.04, P < 0.001) in the use of CCtalk-aided EFL courses significantly influence behavioral intention to use CCtalk-aided EFL courses; (3) Self-efficacy ([beta] = 0.061, P < 0.001), and relevance ([beta] = 0.08, P < 0.001) of CCtalk-aided EFL courses significantly influence perceived ease of use of CCtalk-aided EFL courses; (4) Social influence ([beta] = 0.046, P < 0.001), personal investment ([beta] = 0.074, P < 0.01), relevance ([beta] = 0.069, P < 0.001), and perceived ease of use ([beta] = 0.035, P < 0.001) of CCtalk-aided EFL courses significantly influence the perceived usefulness of CCtalk-based EFL courses. This research may provide enlightenment to the future research of a comprehensive TAM.

The unpredictable pandemic has drastically altered learning approaches, where online learning has been booming. Through VOSviewer, this study visualizes the network of top authors, organizations, sources, and countries that have been devoted to online learning. Through meta-analyses via Stata/MP 14.0, this study identifies nine variables that may exert a significant effect on online learning outcomes during this special pandemic time in various countries and areas. The findings may be generalizable to America, Asia, and Europe. Although relatively fewer publications in Africa have been included, the findings could provide a meaningful reference for African researchers and practitioners. Future research could include more publications from more diversified backgrounds. Online learning design could also keep pace with the development of information technologies.

With the rapid development of information technologies, video-mediated learning has been widely used in education and studied in academia. Whether and how a teacher should be present in a video has drawn the attention of researchers. Via a mixed design involving two teaching experiments and a semi-structured interview, this study concluded that videos with teacher presence could significantly improve academic achievements and increase intrinsic cognitive loads compared with those without teacher presence and that videos with teachers' intermittent presence could significantly improve academic achievements and increase intrinsic cognitive loads compared with those with continuous teachers' presence. Future research could explore intrinsic cognitive loads and academic achievements in video-mediated learning via multimodal and interdisciplinary methods.

Mobile learning technologies and social media tools have not been studied to an exhaustive extent in terms of student engagement and learning outcomes. Using a quasi-experimental research method, the authors randomly selected 101 participants who were divided into three groups. Each group received English teaching assisted by mobile learning technology (Rain Classroom), a social media tool (WeChat) and the traditional multimedia projecting system for one semester. The authors concluded that mobile learning technologies could significantly improve behavioural, social, cognitive and emotional engagements and English learning outcomes compared with social media tools. The traditional teaching tools did not improve behavioural, social, cognitive and emotional engagements and learning outcomes as much as Rain Classroom and WeChat did. Future research could focus on development of serious games to improve student engagement and learning outcomes.

Although the flipped pedagogical approach has been exhaustively explored, the effect of video length remains sparsely studied. Through a mixed design, videos, and three ratio scales, this study determined the effect of video length on English proficiency, student engagement, and satisfaction in a flipped English classroom in China. We concluded that: (1) The short video (shorter than 5 minutes)-assisted English flipped classroom could lead to significantly higher English proficiency, student engagement, and satisfaction than the flipped classroom assisted with medium videos (10-20 minutes); and (2) The medium video-assisted English flipped classroom could lead to significantly higher English proficiency, student engagement, and satisfaction than the flipped classroom assisted with long videos (longer than 30 minutes). Designers of videos could make every effort to provide short videos to improve English proficiency, engagement, and satisfaction. They could also seriously consider a scale, a mobile platform, quizzes, pictures, and multimedia in the future design and innovation of videos.

Superstar Learning System, designed and developed by Superstar Company, is a learning platform where teachers and learners may have access to plentiful educational resources and interact with each other. Behavioral intention related to this platform has not been enough explored although many researchers have examined its use in education. A random sampling technique and a questionnaire survey were adopted to collect data to complement this missing link in literature. This study revealed numerous influencing factors of behavioral intention such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, lecturer influence, peer influence, user innovativeness, interface simplicity, and multiple functions. It also extended the extended technology acceptance model (TAM) by involving more influencing constructs, i.e. lecturer and peer influences, user innovativeness, interface simplicity, and multiple functions. Future research could adopt inter-disciplinary research methods to examine Superstar Learning System-based behavior intention of learners.

The use of social media such as Twitter has gained popularity in education during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study included 22 high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles for the meta-analysis. The authors reveal that there are no significant differences in teaching effectiveness between the Twitter and non-Twitter-assisted learning approaches. Twitter-assisted learning outcomes are significantly higher than the non-Twitter-assisted whether Twitter is used as a supplementary or an integrated tool. Twitter-assisted learning can lead to significantly higher learning outcomes than non-Twitter-assisted learning in the USA, Greece, and Sweden, but no significant difference is revealed in Spain. Swedish users hold significantly positive attitudes towards the use of Twitter in education, but no significant difference is found in the USA. Twitter-assisted learning can cause significantly more engagement than non-Twitter-assisted in the USA, and male learners have significantly higher learning outcomes than females in both the USA and Spain.

Serious games have been deemed as an effective tool to engage students with various needs and expectations. Although serious games have emerged as an important assistant in education, sparse studies have systematically reviewed the related studies in the fields of bibliographic knowledge structure and their effects. Through CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and content analysis, this study concludes that: (1) Many studies have demonstrated that serious games could improve student engagement, motivation, learning strategies, and cognition; (2) The prominent advantages of serious games may be the enjoyment, followed by enhanced happiness, satisfaction, and positive attitude; and (3) The study also discussed recently developed serious games and their effectiveness in education. It is suggested that future research could focus on the assessment of serious games to select the effective serious games and improve their design.

While educational games have been increasingly popular in education, insufficient studies have comprehensively reviewed their effectiveness. To complement this missing link, this study explored game-based learning outcomes including academic achievements, problem-solving, and critical thinking abilities, knowledge, learning efficiency, skills, student attitudes, and behaviors. Both negative and positive effects of educational games on motivation were also explored based on comprehensive literature analysis. The role of engagement in game-based learning was studied, coupled with the ways to enhance student engagement. We also explored the importance of gamified components in student satisfaction and provided constructive suggestions for designers and practitioners. Future research should highlight learning analytics and data mining techniques of educational game-based learning and try to find out solutions to address various problems to improve the effectiveness of educational games.

In this COVID-19 pandemic, learners across the world are encouraged to stay at home receiving online education, which has nearly caused various learning outcomes. It is thus necessary to analyze online learning outcomes, as well as their gender differences to provide constructive references for learners, teachers, and technology developers. This study obtained reliable data from various databases using searching techniques. The study also selected the research articles based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. After analyzing the forest and funnel plots drawn via Review Manager 5.3, the study arrived at the conclusion that online learning outcomes were significantly higher than the traditional learning outcomes with a large effect size (d = 1.24), while the gender differences in learning outcomes were not significant with a small effect size (d = -0.03). In the future, experts could make every effort to develop advanced emotion detection applications via interdisciplinary cooperation to improve online learning outcomes.

Social media applications such as Facebook have received wide attention in their use in education. However, it is still hard to arrive at a conclusion regarding whether a Facebook-assisted approach is effective in education and whether there are any significant gender differences in the learning outcomes. Based on rigid inclusion criteria, this study included 21 peer-reviewed high-quality journal articles. Through a meta-analysis using Reviewer Manager 5.3, the authors concluded that a Facebook-assisted approach could obtain significantly higher learning outcomes than the non-Facebook-assisted one with a medium effect size (d = 0.42) and that females could achieve significantly better learning outcomes than males with a very small effect size (d = -0.21) in the Facebook-assisted education. Future research could examine the effect of educational use of other social media applications, as well as in sociological, psychological, or educational dimensions.

With the rampant pandemic of COVID-19, an increasing number of people are acquiring knowledge through online learning approaches. This study aims to investigate how to improve online learning effectiveness during this special time. Through a mixed design, this study revealed the effect of educational levels, gender, and personality traits on online learning outcomes. It was concluded that postgraduates (N = 599) outperformed undergraduates (N = 553) in online learning, learners (N = 1152) with strong personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to a new experience outperformed those with strong extraversion and neuroticism. Future research could improve interpersonal interactions and encourage learners to post words in the online discussion forum, focus on how to design scaffolding online learning and how to improve the quality and dynamic of the online contents, and highlight blended learning rather than either merely online or traditional face-to-face learning.

The extended constructs of technology acceptance model (TAM) have rarely been linked to psychological influence factors. This study complements for the missing link in literature through structural equation modeling and a nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test based on the data obtained from a large-scale questionnaire survey. It is concluded that (a) conformity behavior can be integrated into the TAM to establish a fit model in WeChat use in language learning at the significance level 0.05, (b) self-esteem can be integrated into the TAM to establish a fit model in WeChat use in language learning at the significance level 0.05, and (c) there are no significant gender differences in the extended constructs in the TAM in WeChat use in language learning at the significance level 0.05. Future research may extend the constructs further in psychology in order to complement for missing links in current literature. It is also promising to establish a sociocultural TAM with respect to mobile device acceptance in both western and eastern contexts.

The popularity of virtual reality (VR) technologies has increased since the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic. However, there is a paucity of meta‐analytic studies that have investigated the use of VR technologies in language education. This current study addresses this gap by conducting a systematic analysis of 41 randomized controlled studies conducted between 2008 and 2021, examining the effects of VR technologies on language educational outcomes. The findings indicate that VR technologies reduce anxiety levels while enhancing motivation, performance, satisfaction, and self‐efficacy in language learning when compared to traditional learning methods. These outcomes are observed regardless of whether learners engage with immersive or nonimmersive environments and whether they use head‐mounted displays or nonhead‐mounted displays. Future research can investigate the impact of VR on intercultural communicative competence and collaborative problem‐solving abilities. The Challenge: The popularity of virtual reality (VR) technologies has increased, but are they effective when used in language education? This current study examines the effects of VR technologies on language educational outcomes through a systematic analysis of 41 randomized controlled studies conducted between 2008 and 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]