Student engagement in online learning enhance students performance and the outcomes of the learning process in online learning environment. The existed literature revealed various factors influencing student engagement in online leaning, however these studies were before the COVID-19 crisis. The purpose of the current paper is to explore the factors that influence student engagement in online learning during the COVID-19 crisis in middle school settings in developing countries where is a lack of studies about the factors influencing student’s engagement in emergency remote learning during the crisis. A qualitative approach was used for data collection and analysis. Semi-structured interviews with 34 participants (14 students, 13 teachers, and 7 parents) were conducted for 20–30 min. Furthermore, online class observations were used for data collection; 13 online classes were observed. Each class was 40 min. A thematic analysis was used to categorize the findings into themes and subthemes. The findings of the study revealed that various factors influence student engagement in online learning during the crisis including infrastructure factors, cultural factors, digital inequality, and the threat to digital privacy. Cultural factors were the important factor that influences females because of parents’ culture and their bias against females using online learning compared to male students. Teachers’ presence and quality of content were the major factors that influence student engagement, where parental concerns, norms, and traditions emerged as the major factors in the crisis, influencing engagement. Most of the participants reported that teaching and learning online during the crisis has broadened the digital inequality and threatened their digital privacy which influenced negatively student engagement. The limitations of this research included the limited number of participants covering a large geographic area, and the research design using diverse and often limited educational software and delivery methods. Future studies could utilize a mixed-method approach and include more participants. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10639-021-10566-4.

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The purpose of this study is to explore and analyse the user experience (UX) of Arabic educational and entertainment applications designed for children aging 8-10 years. This paper reports the results of an experimental study conducted on a sample of 53 children in two elementary schools in Qalqilya and Nablus, Palestine. The context of the current study is different from previous studies that were conducted in a western environment in terms of knowledge, awareness, demographic changes and background variables. Qualitative methods captured the enjoyable and attractive parts of the software being used. The qualitative content analysis showed that participants' enjoyment using the system was quite different. During sessions, children showed much excitement and interest while working with the math app more than the science app. However, girls were less interested to use the math application compared with their use of the device itself. Following Hassenzahl's model, the descriptions of UXs were also categorised into two categories: pragmatic and hedonic; the functionality, technical and ease of use aspects of UX of both the tablet and the math application were categorised as pragmatic. Enjoyable, exciting, confusing and upsetting experiences were categorised as hedonic. Male participants were more familiar with the use of mobile devices than female participants. The results of the present study showed that gender, culture and religion are important factors that affect children's experience to use new technological devices since three female participants were reluctant to use the tablet especially due to cultural and religious factors.

The present study investigates English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ use of motivational strategies (MS) in Hungarian high schools. It also seeks to identify whether students recognize these strategies. Keller’s (2010) motivational model was employed through the instructional materials motivational survey (IMMS) questionnaire that was translated into Hungarian. A population of 117 Hungarian high school students from grades 9 to 12 filled out questionnaires on their teachers’ use of MS, and 62 high school teachers completed the same questionnaire to report their MS. Classroom observa- tions were also conducted following the Motivational Orientation of Language Teaching (MOLT) scheme proposed by Guilloteaux and Dörnyei (2008). For each grade, face-to-face and online classes were observed. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to process the data. The results show that teachers’ mean scores for all the ARCS categories were higher than those of students, with significant differences between students’ and teachers’ views on attention and relevance. Teachers reported using satisfaction-generating strategies most often, while the observation results indicated that the most frequently used strategy was attention. Students’ grades had no correlation with students’ perception of the use of MS, which might be due to the homogeneity of the sample selected.

Keller (2010) ARCS-modellje a második nyelvi motivációs elméletek és az osztálytermi gyakorlat közötti szakadékkal foglalkozik, melyben a motiváció négy kategóriájára összpontosít: figyelem, relevancia, bizalom és elégedettség. Jelen kutatás célja, hogy betekintést adjon a tunéziai egyetemi tanárok motivációs stratégiáiba, melyeket a tantermi oktatás során alkalmaznak (MotS) (Dörnyei 2001). Továbbá, arról is szót ejtek, hogy a diákok mennyire tartják ezeket a stratégiákat hatékonynak. A tanulmány célja továbbá még annak a feltárása, hogy milyen kapcsolat van a hallgatók önértékelése és a tanáraik által alkalmazott MotS-ek között. Ezen kívül rávilágít minden olyan hasonlóságra vagy különbségre, amely a MotS használatáról beszámoló tanárok és a tényleges motivációs gyakorlatuk között mutatkozik. A kutatási kérdések megválaszolásához és az adatgyűjtéshez a következő eszközöket használtam: (a) az IMMS kérdőívet (Keller 2010), (b) az L2MSS kérdőívet (Dörnyei 2009), és (c) a MOLT osztálytermi megfigyelési sémát (Guilloteaux és Dörnyei 2008). Az adatok elemzéséhez kvantitatív és kvalitatív módszereket alkalmaztam. Statisztikai elemzéseket végeztem a négy MotS-kategória leíró statisztikáinak kiszámítására mind a diákok, mind a tanárok esetében. Ezután független mintás t-próbát végeztünk, hogy megállapítsuk, van-e szignifikáns különbség a diákok és a tanárok MotS-ről alkotott felfogása között. Korrelációs elemzéseket is végeztem, hogy az L2MSS-modellen keresztül azonosítsam az alkalmazott MotS hatását a diákok jövőbeli önképére. A megfigyelési eredményeket először kvalitatív módon elemeztem a MOLT sémát követve. Az eredmények azt mutatják, hogy jelentős különbség van a tanárok és a diákok visszajelzésében, ami a MotS-ot illeti. A diákok eredményeit az órai megfigyelések során megerősítették. Ezen túlmenően az L2MSS és az IMMS kategóriák közötti összefüggések a kérdőíves eredmények fényében voltak megmagyarázhatóak.