Digital technologies can have positive effects on student learning in higher education. Based on the ICAP framework, they should be particularly effective when teachers use them to encourage student engagement in constructive and interactive as opposed to passive and active learning activities. Using a sample of 381 higher education students, we investigated if student engagement in these activities depends on whether technologies are implemented in class or not, and how engagement in these activities affects learning outcomes. Results indicated that when technologies were implemented in class, students felt encouraged to engage in more constructive, but also in more passive and active activities as compared to when no technologies were used. Furthermore, student engagement in active, constructive, and interactive activities was positively associated with learning outcomes.

Studying with digital media, learners often struggle because of inadequate self-regulation. Previous research presented clear evidence of metacognitive prompts being effective in supporting learning with digital media. This study examines the potential of motivational regulation prompts, which are assumed to additionally support self-regulated learning. During a 50-minute learning session in a digital media learning environment, 215 university students received either no prompts, only metacognitive prompts, only motivational regulation prompts, or both types of prompts. Task value, metacognitive control, task-related learning activities, and knowledge were assessed at a pretest, posttest, and follow-up. The results replicated known positive effects of metacognitive prompts and revealed additional supportive effects of motivational regulation prompts on all dependent variables. Path modeling of the experimentally induced changes was in line with a theoretical model specifying proximal and distal effects of both prompts. Altogether, this indicates that especially motivational regulation prompts could be an effective scaffold to support SRL with digital media.