Enhancing student engagement and achievement in large undergraduate university courses is a vibrant area of research. Many existing studies have demonstrated the capacity of technologically enhanced formal and informal learning spaces to promote learning. However, this literature is dominated by studies that use assessment to incentivise student…

The time students spend actively engaged with instruction is positively correlated with their academic achievement (Dotterer and Lowe in J Youth Adolesc 40:1649-1660, 2011). Conversely, the time spent transitioning between activities is inversely related to the time spent in productive learning activities, thus limiting opportunities for student…

Online learning has become a significant part of the strategic plan to increase enrollment and college access (Crawley, 2012). Allen & Seaman (2013) noted that more than 65% of U.S. higher education institutions believe that online education is necessary to sustain and continue progress toward their strategic planning goals to increase…

Online learning has become a significant part of the strategic plan to increase enrollment and college access (Crawley, 2012). Allen & Seaman (2013) noted that more than 65% of U.S. higher education institutions believe that online education is necessary to sustain and continue progress toward their strategic planning goals to increase…

This dissertation consists of a theoretical review and two empirical studies investigating college students' academic effort beliefs (AEB) and their relationship to academic functioning. The overarching goal of this project was to (a) better understand how college students think about effort as it relates to their academic endeavors, (b) develop a…

The increasing ubiquity of social media use among teenagers has resulted in varied research findings and often contradictory advice from experts. While there is evidence of negative outcomes for excessive use of social networking sites (SNS) by adolescents, there is also evidence of positive benefits of SNS to young people. This study focused on…

Student retention and graduation in higher education are important goals for institutions across the U.S., yet improving rates of first-year retention and graduation has proven challenging. One strategy promoted for improving these rates of student success is increasing levels of student engagement in the classroom and within the larger academic…

This study investigates the effects of student engagement and rapidity of completing exams on student performance before and during the first wave of COVID-19 in March 2020, examining the effect of the shift from face-to-face to online teaching and exams in a Master's in Business Administration degree at a university in Italy. Prior literature…

This study investigated the relationships among achievement goals, self-efficacy beliefs, and engagement in science during COVID-19. Distance education was launched due to COVID-19, and there is a need to examine these relations in the online science learning context. Participants were 448 students between 5th and 8th graders receiving distance…

This study examined the role of perceived classroom goal structures and parent's goals in predicting students' achievement goals, engagement and achievement. Mastery goals were predicted by both classroom and parents' mastery goals. Both performance-approach goals and performance-avoidance goals were predicted by both classroom and parents'…

Active-learning pedagogical practices are encouraged in the education literature to improve academic outcomes. The research reported in this paper explored the effect of real-time interactive polling--a type of active learning--on three measures of academic outcome: final marks, student engagement, and failure probability. To provide credible…

With the use of social media for academic purposes gaining in popularity, the underlying motivation for this study was to seek a detailed understanding of its impact on students' academic performance. A survey of 334 first-year students in accounting courses at five Australian higher education institutions was undertaken to evaluate the different…

In the COVID-19 pandemic period, most students felt lonely, accordingly their motivation for self-learning was low. The study aimed to increase their enthusiasm for work, and to improve their learning of biochemical subjects in the medical education programme during the pandemic period. Small parts of educational materials (microlearning) were…

Problem behavior, such as non-engagement, impacts academic outcomes (McIntosh et al., 2008; Morgan et al., 2008; Nelson et al., 2003; Roberts et al., 2015). Theories examining the relationship between problem behavior and academics suggest the following regarding the directionality of the relationship: (a) academic challenges lead to problem…

Research suggests that student engagement is a multi-faceted construct yet remains essential for student success in higher education. College students' actions, attitudes, and thoughts may serve as indicators for various levels of learning and development. Since online learning slowly emerged as a viable option in higher education, research has…