The purpose of this phenomenological study is to investigate the impact of instructional design elements on cognitive load for adult neurodiverse learners in online learning environments. For the utility of this study, cognitive load will be generally defined as the working memory and mental resources needed to perform a task. This study is…

Student mental health in higher education has been worsening for some time, even prior to the pandemic, showing up in various ways that learners struggle in online learning and other modalities. More recent research on health, sleep, and chronic illness as aspects of online learner mental fatigue and academic performance suggests that online…

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Citadel transitioned from a face-to-face to an emergency online modality. We conducted a study to track changes in self-directed learning readiness (SDLR) among engineering students during the Spring 2020 semester, including trends based on demographic, performance, and cognitive load factors. SDLR was…

Picture-in-Picture (PIP) is an effective lecture video design that includes a screen capture video in the center and the instructor's talking head in one corner. Few research studies have directly investigated the usage of PIP lecture design by non-native English-speaking (NNES) instructors. The current study investigated the effects of PIP…

Although the utilization of mobile technologies has recently emerged in various educational settings, limited research has focused on cognitive load detection in the pen-based learning process. This research conducted two experimental studies to investigate what and how multimodal data can be used to measure and classify learners' real-time…

Gamifying online homework activities and learning assignments is an effective approach to facilitate students' engagement and enjoyment. While incorporating game elements to gamify homework and learning assignments promoted positive psychological and learning outcomes, the mere use of these elements brings several flaws associated with the gameful…

The goal of this qualitative study was to answer the question: How do educators make sense of learning in virtual reality? This study utilized multimedia learning theory and cognitive load theory to explore how educators understand virtual reality in education. Pre- and post-interviews as well as a VR experience were conducted with 13 educators…

In this article, student video visualization profiles are analyzed with two objectives: 1) to identify difficult sections in videos and 2) to predict student performance based on their video visualization profiles. For identifying critical sections in videos two novel indicators are proposed. The first one is designed to measure the complexity of…

The empirical evidence concerning the question whether an instructor should be presented on online lecture slides is equivocal and two lines of theoretical reasoning exist. On the one hand, the instructor may distract from the content, thereby hampering learning; on the other hand, the instructor may function as a social cue that triggers a more…

Cognitive load is a critical internal state associated with learners' learning process and significantly influences learning outcomes. With the worldwide popularity of video-based learning (VBL), tracking real-time cognitive load variations becomes more and more important for the timely provision of adaptive learning support during the learning…

Background: Online collaborative learning has been widely adopted in the field of education. However, learners often find it difficult to engage in collaboratively building knowledge and jointly regulating online collaborative learning. Objectives: The study compared the impacts of the three learning approaches on collaborative knowledge building,…

E-learning has become an emerging approach to delivering knowledge and information to students. It presents significant challenges to sharing and understanding learners' knowledge, inquiries, interest, and needs. Educational organizations are expected to apply the appropriate practice to address knowledge-sharing challenges in the e-learning…

The metaverse, along with its various Web 3.0 subdomains, represents a ground-breaking extension of both the physical and digital worlds. In this emerging landscape, the real and virtual worlds are integrating in a way that allows for seamless interactions, creating an immersive experience. This integration has significant implications for diverse…

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the challenge of online teaching to graduate courses, without prior preparation for students and teachers. In this context, the aim of the study was to identify sociodemographic predictors of difficulty in carrying out online academic activities by graduate students, by region of Brazil, during the COVID-19…

This study investigates the effects of online instructors' use of initiation and maintenance rapport-building strategies (RBS) on Chinese EFL learners' CALL motivation and cognitive load management. Mixed methods research was used to concurrently triangulate different strands of data on the effects of RBS on 86 randomly sampled EFL learners. The…