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The purpose of this paper is to explore why digital games based learning (DGBL) is spreading rapidly in all educational settings, when the literature does not provide clear empirical evidence of the pedagogical benefits. The paper seeks to understand why DGBL is constantly developing despite this lack of consensus about the learning outcomes.

In order to identify the motivations for DGBL adoption and implementation beyond pedagogical ones, the authors use organizational theories to propose a three‐dimensional framework in which pedagogical motivation is articulated with political (linked to local characteristics) and institutional (linked to the macro‐environment) motivations. They then study the respective importance the three kinds of motivation in the adoption decisions and the implementation process of DGBL. To this end, they conducted a retrospective analysis of four embedded case studies in European business schools.

The authors find that institutional motivation plays a major role in adoption decisions while political motivations can contribute to the decision but are not necessarily present. Isomorphic pressure is essentially mimetic for early adopters and combined with coercive elements for late adopters.

During the implementation phase customization is mainly driven by political objectives while institutionalized ideas about the best way to implement the game are not typically influential.

The study shows that pedagogical benefits are a prerequisite rather than the core motivation for adoption or implementation. Second, the study is a call for both academics and practitioners not to over‐rationalize or under‐rationalize DGBL and, more broadly, pedagogical innovations and adoption decisions.

This study aims to establish the online teaching behaviour of university lecturers as well as examine issues and challenges for online teaching in universities in Zimbabwe during the COVID-19 era and beyond.

The study assumed a quantitative approach that employed a structured questionnaire for data collection. Structural equation modelling using AMOS version 22 and independent samples t-test were used for data analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis was used for data purification.

The results of the study showed that organisational factors, technological factors, pedagogical factors, student factors and the gender of lecturers have a significant influence on the behavioural intentions of lecturers to teach online. The results also showed that the behavioural intentions of lecturers to teach online has a significant influence on the actual online teaching behaviour of the lecturers. The results also showed that lecturers mostly used the WhatsApp platform for teaching. Issues and challenges affecting the online teaching behaviour of lecturers in universities in Zimbabwe were also identified.

The results of this study have implications for policy and practice with regard to online teaching and learning during periods of pandemics and beyond.

The results showed that for effective teaching to be done in universities, universities should not continue focusing on single platforms such as blackboard, Moodle and others, but should allow for a multimedia approach that factors in platforms such as WhatsApp, Google Classroom and others. This will ensure that even universities with limited technology infrastructure will be able to have online teaching occurring.

The study demonstrated the influence of gender in online teaching by showing that there are gender differences in the way university lecturers conduct online teaching. This also has implication on teaching and policy as these results demonstrate a need for universities to come up with strategies and policies that ensure despite gender differences, university lecturers should be able to effective teach online.

While the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology has been widely used in research, the current study represents the first opportunity that the theory has been used to establish the online teaching behaviour of university lecturers in the context of Zimbabwe.

Being literate can change the lives of Australian students. Therefore, graduating effective teachers of literacy is an imperative for Australian schools. Professional experience provides an opportunity for preservice teachers to refine their skills for teaching literacy under the guidance of a mentor teacher. This study investigates from the perspective of preservice teachers, the attributes and practices primary mentor teachers demonstrate when mentoring literacy teaching during professional experience.

This investigation utilised survey design to gather data from primary preservice teachers (n = 402) from seven Australian universities. The 34 survey items were underpinned by the Five Factor Model of Mentoring and literacy practices prescribed by the Australian curriculum. Preservice teachers self-reported their responses about their literacy mentoring experiences on a five-point Likert scale. The Five Factor Model of Mentoring provided a framework to analyse and present the data using descriptive statistics.

Findings revealed 70% or more of preservice teachers agreed or strongly agreed mentor teachers had the personal attributes, shared the pedagogical knowledge, modelled best practice and provided feedback for effective literacy teaching. Conversely, only 58.7% of the participants reported their mentor teachers shared the system requirements for effective literacy teaching.

The preservice teachers self-reported their experiences, and although this may be their experience, it does not necessarily mean the mentor teachers did not demonstrate the attributes and practices reported, it may mean they were not identified by the preservice teachers. While there were 402 participants in this study, the viewpoints of these preservice teachers' may or may not be indicative of the entire population of preservice teachers across Australia. This study included primary preservice teachers, so the experiences of secondary and early childhood teachers have not been reported. An extended study would include secondary and early childhood contexts.

This research highlighted that not all mentor teachers shared the system requirements for literacy teaching with their mentee. This finding prompts a need to undertake further research to investigate the confidence of mentor teachers in their own ability to teach literacy in the primary school. Teaching literacy is complex, and the curriculum is continually evolving. Providing professional learning in teaching literacy will position mentor teachers to better support preservice teachers during professional experience. Ultimately, the goal is to sustain high quality literacy teaching in schools to promote positive outcomes for all Australian school students.

While the role of mentor teacher is well recognised, there is a dearth of research that explores the mentoring of literacy during professional experience. The preservice teachers in this study self-reported inconsistencies in mentor teachers' attributes and practices for mentoring literacy prompting a need for further professional learning in this vital learning area.

Inclusive education of Roma students is a priority goal of the European Union. However, synthesising analyses reveal precious little progress scored in this area. This study aims to explore the factors that have affect Roma students’ academic achievement, specifically, whether the views of their teachers have an impact on the performance besides individual and family background factors.

A large-sample questionnaire-based research study was conducted in the 2019/2020 academic year involving 4,674 seventh-grade students and 2,656 teachers from 194 Hungarian schools. On a self-admission basis, 374 of the students were Roma.

In the schools examined, the performance of Roma students is poorer, their commitment to learning is weaker, yet they have a higher opinion of their school and their teachers than their non-Roma peers. The involvement of majority students in extracurricular private tutoring, particularly foreign language learning, is greater. Roma students’ academic achievement is mainly affected by individual background factors, in particular by their school history.

The findings suggest that although the role of the school and pedagogical views is important, they are not predominant factors determining Roma students’ performance. The explanatory power of individual characteristics is stronger than that of school factors. The comparison between Roma and non-Roma students also shows that cooperation between different sectors (education, social and health) would be essential within and outside school in terms of home learning conditions, digital access and student well-being.

This paper aims to shed light on how the composition of future blended learning (BL) courses can be changed to provide students with quality academic learning experiences. The model suggested in this study will guide instructors on how to design their course learning outcomes to ensure effective delivery.

The new model has been developed by combining Bloom's taxonomy and Carman's model. Later, a new framework entitled “PATHCO” based on an extensive literature review is applied to enhance the quality of all five components of Carman's model.

The PATHCO conceptual framework has been developed to ensure quality in the five main teaching and learning factors. This framework covers criteria like pedagogical, assessments, technical, health care and organizational. Further research is required to broaden the main elements of the suggested framework and to validate this research through a case study.

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the landscape of the education sector by encouraging an extensive acceptance of technology-enhanced learning and teaching. Blended learning (BL) has become the most appropriate medium to deliver online learning (OL). However, educators and students have reported dissatisfaction with the BL mode of delivery. To address this dissatisfaction, this study outlines, using the PATHCO model, all the essential building blocks which are required to find the right blend of both face-to-face and online components.

The purpose of this paper is to explore parents as “stakeholders” in higher education in England and how they perceive teaching excellence.

The study adopted a qualitative research design using an interpretative approach through which the authors aimed to develop understandings of parents’ perspectives as higher education “stakeholders”. The empirical data were gathered via focus group interviews and an online survey with 24 participants in the UK.

This study found that the majority of parents wished to be treated as an important stakeholder group in higher education. Parent participants perceived that teaching excellence could be evidenced through indicators and measures, for example, the design and delivery of the courses, progress measures, contact hours, speed of return of marked work, graduate employability and so on. They also saw value and significance in the students’ exposure to ideas and perspectives not previously experienced, in zeal and passion in the teaching, and in an academically nurturing, understanding and supportive pedagogical relationship between academic and student.

This study uncovered some apparent tensions, contradictions and challenges for parents as stakeholders in higher education, for example, in reconciling the co-existence of their desire to be involved and engaged with scope for students to be formed as independent young adults. Parents’ desire to measure teaching excellence is also compounded by their concern that excellent teaching is thereby reduced to a box-ticking exercise. This study has implications for higher education institutions wishing to engage parents as a stakeholder group in a meaningful way.

Studying mobile learning – the use of electronic devices (i.e. cellphone and tablets) to engage in learning across multiple contexts via connection to peers, media, experts and the larger world is a relatively new academic enterprise. This study analyzes the influencing factors of mobile learning (M-learning) motivation based on the time continuum model of motivation (TCMM).

The study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to verify relationships between mobile learning motivation, attitude, need, stimulation, emotion, ability and reinforcement. Justification for the use of both methods lies in the complementarity relationships that existed between the variables and research methodologies. The sample contains 560 mobile learners' feedback.

Results show that attitude, need, emotion, ability and reinforcement are important factors to enhance mobile learning motivation, while stimulation is not.

This work highlights the importance of training for app designers on how to design an M-learning App with high learning motivation by paying prior attention to learning content, teaching team and online learning communities.

This study proposes three precise solutions (scholars, managers and practitioners) to improve learning motivation based on the categorization of mobile learners.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-04-2021-0226.

Entrepreneurship education (EE) is critical for developing the skills of tomorrow's entrepreneurs and leaders. While significant research examines the content, student learning processes and outcomes, less studied are the entrepreneurship educators and their pedagogical preferences. Following a cognitive process model of decision-making, this study explores how self-efficacy, philosophy of teaching, entrepreneurship training and teaching experience influence entrepreneurship educator preferences to follow either a teacher-centric or a student-centric approach. This study also includes gender in a secondary analysis of the relationships.

The data were collected from 289 entrepreneurship educators in 2021, and fuzzy-set comparative qualitative analysis (fsQCA) was used to obtain configurations of conditions (causal recipes) that lead to teacher-centric or student-centric model. A secondary analysis explores whether there are different configurations of conditions when gender is added to the analysis.

The results of our fsQCA analysis reveal multiple configurations of conditions (causal recipes) that result in a preference for either a teacher-centric or student-centric approach to teaching entrepreneurship. The authors find that teaching experience is the main condition for the teacher-centric model, while self-efficacy and entrepreneurship training are the main conditions for the pathways leading to student-centric model. The fsQCA results also show that the configurations are affected when gender is taken into account in the analysis.

This study, one of the first of its kind, uses a configurational approach to examine pathways that contribute to the teaching preferences of entrepreneurship educators. This paper uses self-efficacy, teaching philosophy, teaching experience and entrepreneurship training as conditions to identify multiple unique pathways that result in either a teacher-centric or student-centric pedagogical model in EE. Notably, differences by gender are also found in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the critical success factors for sustainable e‐learning in an e‐learning ecosystem framework. Three critical components of the e‐learning ecosystem including principles and methods, processes and systems, and substance and content are considered based on a comprehensive review of the relevant literature in e‐learning.

Systematic interviews are conducted with experts in e‐learning for identifying the critical success factors to sustainable e‐learning within an e‐learning ecosystem framework. This leads to the development of an e‐learning success model that describes the underlying relationship between and among the identified critical success factors.

A comprehensive analysis of the interview results shows that there are several barriers to the effective adoption of the proposed e‐learning success model for improving the effectiveness of e‐learning. These barriers include a lack of understanding of the technologies behind various pedagogies, insufficiencies of the popular learning management systems, and the sustainability of the learning objects repositories.

The paper highlights the criticality of synergizing the three components of e‐learning ecosystems namely pedagogies, technologies and management of learning resources for achieving a sustainable e‐learning success.

A better understanding of these barriers would help e‐learning stakeholders develop appropriate strategies and policies for the implementation of the proposed e‐learning success model towards creating a sustainable e‐learning environment.

Specific contributions of this research to the entire e‐learning community are discussed with recommendations for concerted policy measures to eliminate the identified barriers in the process of adopting the developed e‐learning success model.

Today, the high cost of e-learning systems’ implementation and the difficulty of managing the infrastructures motivate educational institutions toward application of cloud-based e-learning systems. This new system should be aligned with the academics’ aims and pedagogical principles to be beneficial for learners and instructors. Therefore, the vendor selection of learning systems is one of the most important processes to migrate toward cloud-based e-learning. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new framework to facilitate the vendor selection of cloud-based e-learning systems in the cloud market.

To identify the initial criteria as to the vendor selection of cloud-based e-learning services, a literature review is done. To enrich the initial criteria, a focus group of experts is investigated, and the framework developed; then, a survey analysis is conducted to validate the proposed framework. The extracted criteria and sub-criteria are weighted and prioritized using best-worst method (BWM).

The results indicate that the main dimensions of vendor selection framework as regards cloud-based e-learning systems are managerial, technological and pedagogical factors. The rank orders and weights of the mentioned aspects and their sub-criteria are calculated using the BWM.

The proposed framework helps managers to get a big picture of requirements as to cloud-based e-learning and more effectively to select appropriate vendors in this initiative. In the vendor selection process, managers must pay attention to technological issues as well as managerial and pedagogical considerations.

Cloud-based e-learning systems are getting increasingly essential to offer training courses more efficiently in educational institutions. Although the intersection between cloud computing and e-learning has increasingly grown in both practical and academic contexts, there are little studies on how educational institutions and organizations could be able to select appropriate cloud-based e-learning systems. This paper explores the ignored but critically important subject of cloud-based e-learning. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a novel and integrated framework containing the important aspects of vendor selection in cloud-based e-learning services. The proposed framework comprises managerial, technological and pedagogical aspects simultaneously as well as sub-criteria denoting each aspect.