Student mental health is a critical issue in higher education. It is understood that higher education can act to trigger or exacerbate mental health difficulties, but research in this area has focused primarily on campus environments, identifying stressors such as halls of residence. Since distance learning students disclose mental health issues…

This study explores students' perceptions of blended learning and its impact on their sense of belonging at a post-92 UK university. A critical realist framework that considers the interlocking domains of subjective experience, objective events and observations, and the mechanisms and structures that underpin them is used to situate these…

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted higher education. The sudden and profound transformations it necessitated had a direct and negative impact on higher education students, as evidenced by the widely reported instances of academic disengagement, decreased motivation, and lower performance. This was often due to student burnout caused by…

Within an international context, the role Online Learning Environments (OLEs) play in offering students opportunities to engage with other students to co-create positive experiences is complex. This paper examines the engagement facilitated by an OLE between students at a UK university and its Chinese partner. Findings show that OLEs can…

Students' perceptions towards synchronous and asynchronous online delivery modes of three engineering courses, in a large UK university is conceptualised, inspired by the Community of Inquiry theoretical framework. Using a qualitative methodology, 76 written student narratives were analysed. An overwhelming focus on the elements that helped them…

The paper describes the research of causal relationships between the factors of technological, organizational, environmental, and personal contexts and their influence on the development of learning intentions in potential students. Its purpose was to develop a mechanism for designing a public online educational resource platform based on the…

This paper utilises a Teaching and Learning Regime (TLR) approach to analyse the student experience (SE) in the COVID-19 setting. Using mixed-methods methodology, the research uses interviews and survey responses from current students at a UK university to identify the multi-dimensional and immersive relationship with their institution. TLR…

Previous research indicates that discipline identification -- the level of integration of one's discipline of study into the self-concept -- is associated with deep approaches to learning and academic self-efficacy. However, it is not known whether these relationships would hold in the context of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present…

Peer-assisted learning (PAL) involves a student peer providing some form of support to a student mentee, usually participating at an earlier point in the same programme of study. PAL has been shown to have benefits for on-campus students. However, differences in on-campus and online programme delivery make it difficult to generalise these benefits…

This article presents the methodological approach taken to investigate students' experiences of synchronous online tuition in health and social care at a large, distance learning university in the UK. Seeing the students as the 'privileged knowers' on the topic of their tutorial experiences, this study took an experience-centred narrative approach…

Generalised moves to online and more flexible delivery modes of teaching have challenged the perceptions and expectations of university educators worldwide. Congruence around educator role expectations, held by both the educator and their students, therefore is central to educator wellbeing, and by default, student success in a changing university…

One of the core aims of higher education degrees is to provide an environment for students to acquire essential skills that will help them in the workplace. Team working is one of those essential skill and it is also one that experience and research show is regularly resisted by students. This resistance can become even more amplified when the…

The extensive and intensive online teaching and learning during the pandemic has provided good opportunities for academic staff and students to experiment with learning and teaching using synchronous communication technology and learning platforms. This experience is highly valuable for helping higher education institutions move learning and…

Student wellbeing has been foregrounded during the recent Covid-19 pandemic but this is broad brush and contested with different models being followed across the sector. One aspect of concern is the extent to which access to the technology institutions require students to use contributes to additional stress. A student survey (n=30) in one UK HEI…

The article analyses the current prospects for the use of Internet technologies in the area of study 'Choreography and Dance' in the field of higher education and professional e-Learning. The work aims to determine how students studying 'Choreography and Dance' perceive the impact of online education on the formation of subject-specific…