Opportunities and Challenges of Connections, Trust, Diversity, and Conflict for Motivation, Volition, and Engagement in Online Learning

Motivation is an important parameter for successful completion of the course by the student. There are many factors that can mar such motivation like digital fatigue, poor instructional design, facilitator competency, course design, assessment practices, and student support. For online teaching learning, the authors spend a lot of time in front of computer monitors, keep typing on computer keyboard, listen to audio using headsets, etc. The students may be sitting in live meeting of their class and not understand what is expected of them. They may have a sense of being lost and demotivated. The students may not want to ask questions for fear of appearing foolish. This chapter looks into the factors related to motivation in online teaching and learning settings. It examines the factors related to motivation like deepening connections, dealing with diversity, managing conflict, teacher capabilities for online facilitation, providing feedback, providing educational resources to students, digital fatigue, assessment and evaluation practices for online learning, and conversing.

Emotional Design and Engagement With Multimedia Learning Materials in E-Learning

Multimedia learning materials (MLM) play an important role in learning. Engagement is a state that contributes to care of and positive approach to MLM, to pay attention to and deep processing of it, to do activities in it while preventing learners from quitting MLM. The quality of MLMs and students' characteristics are important in the engagement process. Cognitive theories provide valuable principles when designing MLMs, whereas the emotional design of the MLMs and the affective responses they evoke in students remain in the background. The emotional design ensures students' engagement with MLMs, and their interpretation of the knowledge and their learning can be manipulated. In this chapter, student engagement has been elaborated within scope of MLMs. Secondly, the relationship between emotional processes and engagement was examined. It was focused on organizing students' emotional process using emotional design elements and their effects on learning outcomes. Finally, suggestions were made for maintaining interaction with MLM and engagement for learning.

Perception of Learning Among Students From India Set Against the Pandemic

India is the second-most populous country in the world. There had been a tremendous shift towards online learning through the Indian government's digital initiatives in general, and during COVID-19 lockdown in particular. An online self-report survey (n = 1318) was conducted to assess students' perception of online learning in this changed situation in comparison with traditional classroom learning. The study analysed eight independent variables on student perception towards online learning (e.g., gender, nature of the settlement, economic background, religiosity, primary electronic device, technology-receptiveness, age, and educational institution), with each of these variables forming respective research hypotheses. Results revealed several exciting facets of student perceptions. Receptiveness towards online learning was significantly higher for students from urban areas compared with rural areas. Possible reasons for these results are discussed, and the findings are contextualized in a broader perspective.

Engagement in Emergency Remote Education

Digital storytelling (DST) has been effective for student engagement in second language (L2) education. Yet, its impact on engagement has commonly been examined in the classroom through synchronous DST tools and platforms. This study enquires whether DST can be equally engaging in the context of emergency remote education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants of the study are 42 student-teachers of English who developed an asynchronous online DST project. Data were collected through a DST questionnaire and were analysed using quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods. DST was found to generate mainly cognitive engagement through self-reflection processes and behavioural engagement in the form of effort and time invested in the speaking and writing parts of the project. Emotional engagement was less frequent and emerged through positive emotions. Insufficient technology skills, the wrong timing and duration of the project, negative emotion arousal, and the absence of teacher and peer feedback and support appeared as potentially disengaging factors.

Examining Transactional Distance in Synchronous Online Learning Environments

Even though there have been many studies focused on different points of transactional distance (TD) and it has been measured in different ways, it needs to be further assessed using different distance learning contexts to understand the interaction of the constructs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of association among dialogue, structure, and learner autonomy components and TD and to examine the effects of these components on satisfaction and perceived learning of distance learners in Turkey. The results of this study indicated a negative significant correlation between dialogue and TD and a positive significant correlation between TD and course delivery, which is one of the sub-components of the structure. Results of the study indicated TD was negatively related with satisfaction and perceived learning as expected. The current study intended to contribute to the operational definition of TD and to contribute to the field of distance education by providing a unique experience from a national context.

Determining the Trends of Motivation Research in Distance Education

The aim of this study is to analyze 26 articles that include “motivation” in their titles and “distance education” as a topic in the Web of Science database in SSCI and ESCI indexed educational sciences journals between 2010 and 2020, and thus to determine the current situation and trends of motivation research in distance education. According to some findings, the most articles on motivation in distance education were published in 2018. Achievement was the most examined variable associated with motivation. As a theory, self-determination theory is the most widely used theory. The country with the highest number of articles is the USA, the most used research method is a quantitative method, and the most used data collection tool is a questionnaire. Lastly, some suggestions are offered to shed light on future research.

Learning Theories, Motivation, and Distance Education

Education is a related structure that can never be defined or even exist as separate from human beings. Behavioral, cognitive, and constructivist paradigms each try to explain learning with different concepts and principles. Well, did these theories survive the distance education process? Let's say each theory survived in distance education. Then the following questions come up: What does motivation mean for these theories? How do these theories make the motivational structure sustainable in distance education? Aiming at a comprehensive discussion of these questions, the chapter offers many answers and brings many different questions to mind. This chapter will guide instructors and instructional designers to design efficient learning opportunities for learners.

Foundations of Motivational Research and Design in Online Distance Learning

An effective and efficient teaching process in online distance learning requires more than just implementing a traditional course design and delivery process that typically focuses on organizing and sequencing content. These are necessary components of a well-designed course and might sometimes be sufficient for success, but only if students want to learn the content and if the course is not implemented in a way that kills their motivation. This can be a serious problem in online instruction, especially with self-instructional courses where it might be assumed that students will be motivated to succeed simply because they have enrolled in the course. Within this context, the aim of this chapter is to provide a framework and foundation for theoretical and applied papers dealing with motivation and performance in online distance learning.

Engaging Online Learners Through Cloud-Based Collaborative E-Books

E-books can be harnessed for collaborative use thanks to cloud-based technologies. This enables e-books to offer effective interaction patterns. The study explores how learners can be engaged in such an environment. With the “Activetextbook” platform selected from among 30 platforms, an action study was conducted with 78 volunteer students from Anadolu University Open Education System who agreed to participate in the study. In addition to the comments and analytics obtained throughout the research period, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 learners who made at least one comment on the platform. The results revealed that the scaffolding given during the research was effective and increased the interaction and motivation of the learners. It was also observed that the training, orientation studies, and activities provided before the implementation process were effective in terms of sense of community and social presence. Based on the results, implications and suggestions for e-book platforms, instructors, and institutions are provided.

Formative Feedback in Online Distance Language Learning

Today, in open and distance learning environments, employing different technologies and methods for individual formative feedback is possible with artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence-based software can contribute to the learning processes by providing effective and immediate automated feedback (AF). This chapter highlights the importance of formative feedback in the context of distance foreign language teaching and elaborates the use of AF technology as a mean to provide effective, efficient, and attractive feedback. The effectiveness of artificial intelligence-based AF tools in increasing achievement, motivation, and self-sufficiency in English writing activities in distance foreign language learning is discussed within Keller's ARCS (attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction) motivation model. The potential advantages of AF tools and suggestions for their effective use in distance language teaching and learning processes are elaborated within the framework of the ARCS model.