This study analyzes the effects of COVID-19 confinement on the autonomous learning performance of students in higher education. Using a field experiment with 458 students from three different subjects at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (Spain), we study the differences in assessments by dividing students into two groups. The first group (control) corresponds to academic years 2017/2018 and 2018/2019. The second group (experimental) corresponds to students from 2019/2020, which is the group of students that had their face-to-face activities interrupted because of the confinement. The results show that there is a significant positive effect of the COVID-19 confinement on students' performance. This effect is also significant in activities that did not change their format when performed after the confinement. We find that this effect is significant both in subjects that increased the number of assessment activities and subjects that did not change the student workload. Additionally, an analysis of students' learning strategies before confinement shows that students did not study on a continuous basis. Based on these results, we conclude that COVID-19 confinement changed students' learning strategies to a more continuous habit, improving their efficiency. For these reasons, better scores in students' assessment are expected due to COVID-19 confinement that can be explained by an improvement in their learning performance.

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Influence of COVID-19 confinement on students' performance in higher education.

The growing use of mobile technology on college campuses suggests the future of the classroom, including learning activities, research, and even student faculty communications, will rely heavily on mobile technology. Since Fall 2010, an interdisciplinary team of faculty from Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) has experimented with the use of iPads in the classroom. This paper includes the preliminary results of a study on student impressions of mobile technology in the classroom. The paper will report both opportunities and limitations for incorporating mobile technologies in learning environments.

iLearning: The Future of Higher Education? Student Perceptions on Learning with Mobile Tablets

The Delphi method is well suited to the research needed to inform health education and health promotion campaigns. This paper measures the current interest in the method by way of a literature review. It then describes how the method has evolved from its inception in the 1950s, to its current form. The focus is on a Delphi variant that is particularly relevant to health education – the Policy Delphi. The benefits of the method for the developer of health education and health promotion campaigns are then discussed. The main benefits relate to the gaining of expert opinions without the time and geographical restraints involved in alternative methods. The anonymity that is central to the Delphi method also has benefits for the researcher. The last section of the paper deals with potential pitfalls in the Delphi method that might undermine the successful application of the method, and recommends steps the practitioner can take to address these pitfalls.

The Delphi Method and Health Research

The concept of e-learning is a technology-mediated learning approach of great potential from the educational perspective and it has been one of the main research lines of Educational Technology in the last decades The aim of the present systematic literature review (SLR) was to identify (a) the research topics; (b) the most relevant theories; (c) the most researched modalities; and (d) the research methodologies used To this end, the PRISMA protocol was followed, and different tools were used for the bibliographic management and text-mining The literature selection was carried out in three first-quartile journals indexed in JCR-SSCI specialized in Educational Technology A total of 248 articles composed the final sample The analysis of the texts identified three main nodes: (a) online students; (b) online teachers; and (c) curriculum-interactive learning environments It was revealed that MOOC was the most researched e-learning modality The Community of Inquiry and the Technological Acceptance Model, were the most used theories in the analyzed studies The most frequent methodology was case study Finally, the conclusions regarding the objectives of our SRL are presented: Main themes and research sub-themes, most researched e-learning modality, most relevant theoretical frameworks on e-learning, and typologies of research methodologies

Trends in Educational Research about e-Learning: A Systematic Literature Review (2009–2018)

Computers & Education has been leading the field of computers in education for over 40 years, during which time it has developed into a well-known journal with significant influences on the educational technology research community. Questions such as “in what research topics were the academic community of Computers & Education interested?” “how did such research topics evolve over time?” and “what were the main research concerns of its major contributors?” are important to both the editorial board and readership of Computers & Education. To address these issues, this paper conducted a structural topic modeling analysis of 3963 articles published in Computers & Education between 1976 and 2018 bibliometrically. A structural topic model was used to profile the research hotspots. By further exploring annual topic proportion trends and topic correlations, potential future research directions and inter-topic research areas were identified. The major research concerns of the publications in Computers & Education by prolific countries/regions were shown and compared. Thus, this work provided useful insights and implications, and it could be used as a guide for contributors to Computers & Education.

Detecting latent topics and trends in educational technologies over four decades using structural topic modeling: A retrospective of all volumes of Computers & Education

Electronic learning (e-learning) is a broader approach to learning that brings new opportunities for learning and teaching in many fields of education far from the traditional classroom environment. Over the past decades, research in the field indicates a proliferation of e-learning contents and discrepancies that affect interoperability patterns in education for students and teachers; however, little has been done to assess the usability of e-learning systems. From a different perspective, this study aims to provide information on the numerous findings relating to the cumulative results of e-learning in education. This systematic review uses a full protocol with the aim of standardizing and specifying all the procedures adopted to collect and code 99 academic articles from 2010 to 2018 with keywords: education and e-learning. The text analysis as conducted using the qualitative software Leximancer to extract meaning from the large number of articles retrieved. The results highlight four dominant themes, namely education systems and learning issues that in turn promote student behaviours and the use of online learning tools. This research contributes towards providing research propositions that can be used in a cogent theoretical framework and, based on the analysis, we also propose a new definition of e-learning.

Tracking e-learning through published papers: a systematic review

There is evidence that artificial intelligence and automation will affect and be present in portions of almost all jobs, either in a greater or lesser degree. Notwithstanding, these digital transformations will eliminate very few jobs and occupations over the next decades. Taking this into account, this research intends to identify which competencies are more valuable for workers who work in a technological workplace, by the employers’ perspective. It means this research will explore, listening to employers’ opinion, which competencies are the ones that make a worker lead and responds positively to a digital implementation in their workplace. Results were gathered through a Delphi study, within a panel of six experts in the human resources for the technological industries field. It is finding that employers consider adaptability and creativity as the most important competencies for technological work. In addition, informatic competencies were less valuable by employers while considering the importance of workers dealing with digital transformations in workplaces.

Key Competencies for Digital Transformation in Workplace

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Mapping key concepts of e-learning and educational-systematic review through published papers

The widespread use of new information technologies has brought new challenges to society and in particular to forcing innovation in education and training by changing the paradigm of education. However, there still seems to be no consensus on how best to use new information technologies in educational practices. In this context, and because it is important to know, debate, think, and plan the future role of these new technologies in teaching/training, the authors conducted an exploratory study with the Delphi technique. The experience and creativity of a panel of experts will lead to a categorical scale and to the elaboration of an instrument with a preliminary list of indicators to be applied to students and professors and evaluate the sustainability of IoT in higher education.

IoT Sustainability in Higher Education

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Filomena Almeida

Papers

Tracking e-learning through published papers: a systematic review

Key Competencies for Digital Transformation in Workplace

Mapping key concepts of e-learning and educational-systematic review through published papers

IoT Sustainability in Higher Education

E-learning in mixed reality landscape: emerging issues and key trends in scientific research