Engage Me Through BigBlueButton: Student Engagement When Attending Classes Online Is the Only Option

Introduction

E-learning has become prominent in education and is one of the most significant developments in the information systems industry (Teo & Wong, 2013). Students choose an online teaching delivery method for a variety of reasons. It is important to emphasize that the choice of this delivery method is mainly voluntary, i.e., in most cases, students choose between full-time, part-time, and distance learning delivery methods. However, in early 2020, the World went through a multi-month phase in which many institutions of higher education have been urged to cancel face-to-face classes and make a shift towards online, emergency remote teaching. Namely, due to the global emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools and universities around the World have been temporarily closed, and they made the transition to online classes delivery (Bao, 2020). In general, schools were quick in reaction. They continued their teaching activities using some of the available information technology (IT) and Internet tools, which ranged from exchanging materials by e-mail to more advanced video conferencing tools. In this case, even students who opted for full-time study mode were forced to spend most of the semester in an online teaching and learning environment during the outbreak. This raises questions about how much students were engaged in this type of education—especially considering that this teaching delivery method was not voluntary. In other words, although there are studies that have analyzed student engagement in an e-learning environment, the contribution of this study is that respondents did not voluntarily choose “online teaching” as a delivery method.

Because learning in an online environment differs significantly from the traditional one, many researchers have investigated factors that affect student outcomes (Teo & Wong, 2013). Compared to traditional teaching, teachers have less control over online teaching. In addition, the effectiveness of the teaching itself, as well as the learning of students, largely depends on active learning at a high-level outside of teaching (Bao, 2020). In this regard, student engagement is considered important for overall student outcomes, including retention, learning, performance, perseverance, experience, and achievement (Gunuc & Kuzu, 2015a). Student engagement implies “the quality and quantity of students' psychological, cognitive, emotional and behavioral reactions to the learning process as well as to in-class/ out-of-class academic and social activities to achieve successful learning outcomes” (Gunuc & Kuzu, 2015a). Hence, this study aims to analyze student engagement in the online teaching environment during the COVID-19 outbreak, and the convenience of the technology used on engagement, as well as course content and course rigor. Content and rigor are important predictors of student engagement since these two parameters can motivate or demotivate students in learning particular course lessons. Online course content should be updated and delivered to motivate students (Sebastianelli, Swift, & Tamimi, 2015). According to (Peltier, Schibrowsky, & Drago, 2007), course content is the number one perceived learning experience quality driver. Also, students' perception of the quality of online learning is largely determined by the degree of course rigor which therefore affects student engagement (Sebastianelli et al., 2015).

Hence, this study aims to offer a conceptual model that conjoin students 'perceptions of course content, course rigor, and perceived technology convenience with students' engagement in conditions of compulsory online classes at an uncertain time. In this way, the results of this study will contribute to the theory by offering answers to the questions to what extent the content and rigor of the course, as well as the specific videoconferencing technology, determines the student's psychological, cognitive, emotional and behavioral engagement. Previous studies have mainly analyzed the impact of these predictors on student engagement considering distance learning as a selected type for education. However, in this study, the respondents are students who have selected the traditional mode of studying in the classroom, but due to the emergency were required to attend classes online for almost the entire semester, as well as to take exams online. The practical contributions of our study are reflected in the utilization of the results by higher education institutions to improve student engagement in the online teaching environment, especially considering the possibility of future virus outbreaks. Besides, our study contributes to the theory of student engagement in the online course since heretofore research results remain mixed (Kahn, Everington, Kelm, Reid, & Watkins, 2017).