e-learning
F. Zamani; B. Talebi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: The use of information and communication technology in schools is one of the symbols of classroom intelligence which has become more prominent with the advent of virtual social networks and has become widespread with the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. One of the major ...
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Background and Objectives: The use of information and communication technology in schools is one of the symbols of classroom intelligence which has become more prominent with the advent of virtual social networks and has become widespread with the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. One of the major results of this pandemic is that the application of information and communication technology in schools can lead to the promotion of students' academic engagement. The purpose of this study is to explain the effects of language learners' use of social networks on their academic engagement in learning the English language.Methods: This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive and correctional in nature. The statistical population in this study includes all of the 1874 language learners in Iran Language Center - Tabriz Branches, who were studying English in the spring semester of 2016. From this number of students, based on Krejcie and Morgan table, 204 people including 90 girls and 114 boys were selected, first using the stratified random sampling method equally according to the branches of the Center and in the next stage, using the relative stratified random sampling method according to gender. The criteria for inclusion in the study were regular class attendance and taking the mid-term and final exams as well as the interest in continuing participating in the research and providing the required information. Moreover, the criteria for exclusion from the study were lack of class attendance or lack of interest in providing the required information. The instruments used in this study were the Academic Engagement Questionnaire (α₌0.96) and the Educational Use of Social Networks Questionnaire (α₌0.96). Both questionnaires are based on the Likert scale and 5 degrees. In order to analyze the data, the test of structural relationships and prediction with PLS software at the significance level of 0.05 was used.Findings: Descriptive statistics showed that the average academic engagement was 93.82 ±14.2, the average behavioral engagement was 30.27 ± 4.41, the average emotional engagement was 33.8 ± 5.8, the average cognitive engagement was 29.57 ± 5.47, the average educational use of social network for classroom activities was 22.97 ± 9.7, the average educational use of the social network for extracurricular activities was 33.38 ± 8.95 respectively. The use of structural relationships test with PLS software showed that there was an increase in the students' academic engagement, behavioral engagement and emotional engagement with increasing their educational use of social network for classroom activities (p₌0.05). Moreover, there was an increase in academic engagement and emotional engagement of students with an increase in their educational use of social network for extracurricular activities (p₌0.05). The effects of learners’ educational use of social networks for classroom activities on their cognitive engagement and the effect of the learners' educational use of social networks for extracurricular activities on their behavioral engagement and cognitive engagement were not significant (p >0.05). According to the corrected coefficient of determination (0.17), changes in academic engagement can be predicted based on the educational use of language learners of the social network.Conclusion: By increasing the use of technologies based on virtual social networks in the classroom, principled planning and appropriate content regulation can improve academic engagement in language learners. Launching various educational software applications during the Covid-19 pandemic is a good opportunity for appropriate use of information and communication technology in schools and foreign language classes in language teaching centers which will be a good investment to promote academic engagement in language classrooms.
e-learning
E. Jafari; N. Homayooni Bakhshayesh; J. Alamolhoda
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Nowadays, virtual education has become one of the most important applications of information and communication technologies in the world and extensive activities have been started in this field. This can be one of the favorite options to fill the educational gaps, in the unavailability ...
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Background and Objectives: Nowadays, virtual education has become one of the most important applications of information and communication technologies in the world and extensive activities have been started in this field. This can be one of the favorite options to fill the educational gaps, in the unavailability of face to face education and eventually leading to the promotion of educational justice for people in rural and remote areas. The aim of this study was determing whether those who were the target audience for this form of education have perceived it as a fair experience. To be more precise, which part of this type of education has led to a feeling of justice in these individuals and which part has led to a significant feeling of injustice in their experiences. In short, the aim of this study was to investigate the experiences of virtual students of Tehran’s comprehensive universities of the state of educational justice in virtual education in order to determine its aspects and dimensions. Methods: This study was conducted as a qualitative research using the phenomenology method. One of the suitable cases to apply the phenomenological method is providing an answer to the following question: Is there any need to further clarify a specific phenomenon? The state of justice in virtual education has not yet been properly studied in any research; therefore, the researchers in the present study selected the above approach to study this issue. Based on its goal, in this study, standard sampling was used among virtual students who have experienced virtual courses of Tehran Comprehensive Universities (Amirkabir University, Shahid Beheshti University, Iran University of Science and Technology, K. N. Toosi University of Technology and Tehran University) and met the criteria for being included in this study. The sampling process continued until the data were saturated in 32 interviews. A semi-structured interview was used for data collection. The interviews were analyzed using the Smith method. In order to confirm the validity and accuracy of the research, the reliability and verifiability of the data were examined. To ensure validity, the findings of this study were presented to the participants and they expressed their views to the researcher on the correspondence of the findings with their experiences; moreover, collaborative reflection on the emerged themes was conducted by the researcher. The researchers ensured the validity of this research by maintaining the documentation at all stages of the study. Due to ethical considerations, before starting the interview, the participants were informed of the goals and importance of the research and participated in the research with informed consent. Participants were also assured that their identity would be kept confidential during and after the study. Findings: The main question of this research was: What experiences do students have regarding justice and injustice in virtual education? In analyzing the interviews, the main concepts were extracted from the sentences expressed by the participants and were represented in a reduced conceptual form, resulting in 153 descriptive codes. In the next step, by reflecting on the descriptive codes, overlapping, similar, and related codes were identified. These concepts were integrated in the form of 20 interpretive codes based on commonalities, similarities and semantic overlaps. Finally, in the last step, the interpretive codes were reduced to 7 explanatory codes: students' equity with different characteristics (geographical condition, job status, and learning competence), students' equality in their interaction with professors (equality despite differences in appearance features and cultures), lack of real interactions (short and fragile interactions), content problems (non-practical content, lack of supervision in content development and lack of codified and specific planning in presenting courses), organizational misconceptions toward virtual students (having capitalistic attitude to students and not paying attention to students' real abilities), inequality in the use of facilities and costs (high educational costs and inequality in the use of facilities), and inequality in providing educational services (lack of appropriate organizational behavior patterns suitable for virtual teaching, low staff number to meet the educational needs of students, high number of students in classrooms and the use of inappropriate teachers for teaching). Conclusion: Justice and its realization has always been one of the main slogans in the field of education. Participants in the present study have sometimes focused on communication and sometimes focused on the facilities provided in the training process. If we take a general look at the themes obtained, we can divide them into two spectrums of justice and injustice although more examples have been found in the section on injustice. Another main conclusion that is drawn from the present study is the predominant link between the instances of justice and the inherent characteristics of virtual education and the predominant link between the instances of injustice in the way the virtual teaching is managed and lack of facilities appropriate for this form of education. Finally, it should be noted that due to the increasing use of virtual education and its fundamental difference from face-to-face education, ethical issues also appear differently in its process which require accurate recognition and study.
