Student engagement in online learning in Latin American higher education during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A systematic review

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced higher education institutions to implement online learning activities based on virtual platforms, allowing little time to prepare and train faculty members to familiarize students with digital technologies. While previous studies have looked at how students engaged with digital technologies in their learning activities, the characteristics of the student engagement in online learning remain underexplored. Therefore, a systematic review of the literature on student engagement in online learning in higher education is much needed.

Emergency Remote Learning in Higher Education in Cyprus during COVID-19 Lockdown: A Zoom-Out View of Challenges and Opportunities for Quality Online Learning

“…The positive association between prior learning experiences and students' evaluation of and satisfaction with online education is in line with the findings of other studies conducted during the pandemic [95][96][97]. Studies have also shown the positive association between students' self-rated readiness for online learning and their satisfaction with ERL [95,98,99].…”

“…Forming of online peer support groups: One of the issues affecting emergency remote learning witnessed in our study and the literature is the stress and isolation due to the lack of face-to-face contact [99]. To combat this, students should be encouraged to develop and utilize online peer support networks.…”

“…Thus, higher education systems that aspire to be open and inclusive need to ensure that every student has reliable access to at least one hardware device (desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile phone), and country systems need to become ready for the digital era from a technical/infrastructural point of view (internet connection, number of laptops per person) [44]. The serious challenges faced by students (and their instructors) across the world due to low internet speed and stability have underscored the necessity of providing students with quality internet access in higher education [99]. Responding to the need for a higher-quality network, there are currently many ongoing projects worldwide for the development of broadband network infrastructure.…”

Academic engagement: assessment, conditions, and effects—a study in higher education from the perspective of the person-situation interaction

“…Forth, according to Janosz (2012), engagement can be considered in the contexts of different nature: (a) the context of specific learning activities, (b) the classroom context, in which the students have to manage not only academic but also socioemotional learning, and (c) the school context, which can be more or less learningoriented . To these factors, it should be added a fourth one: whether the teaching context is face-to-face, distance, or virtual (Martin et al, 2022;Salas-Pilco et al, 2022). Therefore, the determinants and outcomes of engagement at each level can be different.…”

Virtually the same?: Online higher education in the post Covid‐19 era

“…In addition to the seven original research papers, the special section includes two review papers. Salas‐Pilco et al ( 2022 ) conduct a systematic review of literature on online student engagement in Latin American higher education. Student engagement is examined in three dimensions: behavioural, cognitive and affective.…”