Editorial - Volume 23 Issue 3 by Rory McGreal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Volume 23, Number 3
Rory McGreal
IRRODL Editor in Chief, UNESCO/COL/ICDE Chair in OER, Athabasca University, Canada
This edition of IRRODL kicks-off with four articles written in response to the reaction of educators and the educational community to the COVID epidemic. The first article, Educational Processes and Learning at Home During COVID-19: Parents’ Experiences with Distance Education, by Demir and Yildizili, investigates the views of parents who were charged with helping their school-aged children adjust to not only the digital technology, but also to online learning.
Nguyen and Tang, in their paper Students’ Intention to Take E-Learning Courses During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Protection Motivation Theory Perspective, propose a new model to integrate Protection Motivation Theory with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in the pandemic context. The various intentions of students in different educational settings were carefully examined to elicit suggestions for policy makers.
In the third COVID-related article, Emergency Online Learning: The Effects of Interactional, Motivational, Self-Regulatory, and Situational Factors on Learning Outcomes and Continuation Intentions, Lei and Lin investigated the effects of interactional, motivational, self-regulatory, and situational factors on university students’ online learning outcomes and continuation intentions. They studied the differential effects of various factors and provided predictors for facilitating emergency online learning.
Also referring to the pandemic, Sen-Akbulut, Umutlu, and Arikan’s Extending the Community of Inquiry Framework: Development and Validation of Technology Sub-Dimensions add technology for teaching, interaction, and learning using a factor analysis.
The Community of Inquiry (CoI) is also the focus of the following paper, Validating the Community of Inquiry Instrument for MOOCs and other Global Online Courses by Borup, Shin, Powell, Evemenova, and Kim. They revised the CoI Framework, expanding its usability by rendering it more accessible to users whose native language is not English.
Perifanou and Economides also address the MOOC theme with their paper, The Landscape of MOOC Platforms Wordwide. Using data from directories and through exploration, they analysed 35 MOOC platforms. Their recommendations include speeding up the websites, increased marketing, and visibility.
Drawing on the research of the Digital Open Textbooks for Development initiative at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Cox, Wilmers, and Masuku’s paper, Open Textbook Author Journeys: Internal Conversations and Cycles of Time reveals aspects of social injustices experienced by teachers. They claim that open textbooks hold promise in terms of more open access and inclusivity.
Following the theme of openness, Truan and Dressel look at the students’ views in their paper, Doing Open Science in a Research-Based Seminar: Students’ Positioning Towards Openness in Higher Education. Using a qualitative analysis, they studied students’ apprehensions and motivations in publishing academic posters. Their research suggests that open educational practices can be used in seminars successfully.
The perceptions of student teachers are the focus of Examining Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions About Virtual Classrooms in Online Learning by Debbag and Fidan. They provide insights into the opinions of students on teacher visibility, the physical environment, student-centered practices, and other issues.
Cakıroğlu, Saylan, Çevik, and Özkan look at examinations in their paper, Qualifying with Different Types of Quizzes in an Online EFL course: Influences on Perceived Learning and Academic Achievement. They studied multiple-choice, open-ended, and mixed type questions. The results indicated that the academic achievement of the students in both multiple-choice and open-ended groups increased. Significantly, they found only a weak relationship between perceived learning and actual examination scores.
Latent Profiles of Online Self-Regulated Learning: Relationships with Predicted and Final Course Grades by Mindrila and Cao uses structural equation modeling to shed light on four self-regulation factors: goal setting, environment management, peer help-seeking, and task strategies. Their findings support the thesis that when students anticipated obtaining a higher course grade, they were less likely to engage in peer help-seeking.
Unleashing Adult Learners’ Numeracy Agency Through Self-Determined Online Professional Development by Walsh, Bragg, Muir, and Oates describes a resource that incorporates consistent design elements, double-looped learning, online learning, self-reflection, and metacognition through experiential learning. There are also several recommendations to parents on everyday authentic activities for learning.
Duckworth and Halliwell, in their paper, Evaluation of Higher-Order Skills Development in an Asynchronous Online Poster Session for Final Year Science Undergraduates, investigated an online poster session to assess evidence of higher order skills development. This asynchronous poster format provides a pragmatic and easy to implement alternative to synchronous online conferences.
The final review and research notes section includes three reviews and a research note. The first book reviewed focuses on closing the gap on sustainable development as does the research note, looking at development using micro-credentials, that I have authored with other UNESCO Chairs. Another book review introduces readers to the seventh edition of the popular text: Teaching and Learning at a Distance. There is also a review of a report based on an ICDE workshop on developing a framework for open innovation.
Editorial - Volume 23 Issue 3 by Rory McGreal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.