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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, 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.

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.

Studies on gender differences in mobile English learning are in their initial stages. College English IV, designed by a number of professors and engineers in a university in China, serves as a mobile English learning platform. This study aims to determine gender differences in cognitive loads, attitudes, and academic achievements in English language learning assisted with this mobile English learning platform. Through a mixed research design, 79 randomly selected participants join the research, together with interviews and posts to collect qualitative data. Cognitive loads, attitudes, and academic achievements are measured through related scales to collect quantitative data. It is concluded that there are significant gender differences in cognitive loads, attitudes, and academic achievements in English language learning assisted with the mobile learning platform. Future research on gender differences in mobile English learning should also examine relationships between gender differences, learner motivation, achievement goals, and learning outcomes.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, a large number of university students have been required to adapt to e-learning. E-learning engagement, a key indicator of academic success, is thus a great concern of educational partitioners and researchers. Although previous studies have identified various determinants of e-learning engagement, there is a paucity of research that examines the associations between university students' personalities and their engagement in e-learning. Moreover, the mechanisms underlying the personality-engagement relationship are still poorly understood. The present study used the five-factor model of personality as the main theoretical framework to explore how students with different personality traits engaged in e-learning. Additionally, it examined whether achievement emotions and adaptability mediated the personality-engagement relationship in the e-learning context. A sample of 1004 students enrolled at Guizhou University participated in an online survey to collect data for the study. Employing structural equation modeling, the findings unveiled several significant results: (1) extroversion, agreeableness, openness to new experiences, and conscientiousness exhibited positive associations with e-learning engagement, (2) neuroticism demonstrated a negative relationship with e-learning engagement, (3) the mediating effect of enjoyment as an achievement emotion was observed between personality traits (excluding neuroticism) and e-learning engagement, (4) adaptability played a mediating role in the relationship between personality traits (excluding conscientiousness and neuroticism) and e-learning engagement, and (5) the negative achievement emotion of anxiety did not operate as a mediator between personality traits and e-learning engagement. This study enriches the understanding of the relationship between personality and engagement in the emerging field of e-learning. Moreover, it offers a fresh perspective on how to investigate mechanisms underlying the relationship between personality and engagement in the e-learning context. The findings could provide a basis for instructors who wish to deploy emotional and adaptability interventions to increase university students' engagement in e-learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the production of a mobile learning app--the Superstar Learning System. Designed by Superstar Company, the Superstar Learning System is a mobile application for curriculum learning assisted with PPTs, knowledge dissemination, and management sharing based on micro-service architecture. To identify the effects of the Superstar Learning System, we randomly selected 71 tertiary students to participate in the study. The data were obtained through three research instruments: a scale to measure learning interest, a scale to measure learning attitudes, and a scale to measure academic achievements. Based on the analysis of a Mann-Whitney U test, it was concluded that the Superstar Learning System could: (1) enhance significantly more learning interest than the multimedia projecting system, (2) cultivate significantly more positive attitudes of students than the multimedia projecting system, and (3) lead to significantly better academic achievements than the multimedia projecting system. In the future, interdisciplinary cooperation, involving statistics, computer sciences, education, linguistics, and related disciplines, is necessary to arrive at solid conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on gender differences in mobile English learning are in their initial stages. College English IV, designed by a number of professors and engineers in a university in China, serves as a mobile English learning platform. This study aims to determine gender differences in cognitive loads, attitudes, and academic achievements in English language learning assisted with this mobile English learning platform. Through a mixed research design, 79 randomly selected participants join the research, together with interviews and posts to collect qualitative data. Cognitive loads, attitudes, and academic achievements are measured through related scales to collect quantitative data. It is concluded that there are significant gender differences in cognitive loads, attitudes, and academic achievements in English language learning assisted with the mobile learning platform. Future research on gender differences in mobile English learning should also examine relationships between gender differences, learner motivation, achievement goals, and learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]