Restrictions on physical gathering due to COVID-19 has compelled higher education institutions to rapidly embrace digital technologies to support teaching and learning. While logistically, the use of digital technologies offers an obvious solution, attention must be given to these methods' pedagogical appropriateness, mainly how students engage and learn in the spaces supported by these technologies. In this context, we explored the degree to which digital technologies have contributed to teaching and learning practices over the past decade. The study employed a systematic review using a newly developed tripartite model for conducting and presenting literature review reports. The model approaches the literature review process systematically and employs three phases for the critical examination of literature: description, synthesis, and critique. The current review focused on student engagement across technologies that encompass social media, video, and collaborative learning technologies. Relevant articles were obtained from the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Three core themes were identified: there was no shared understanding of what constitutes student engagement with learning technologies, there was a lack of explanation concerning the contextual variation and modalities of student engagement across the digital technologies, and self-reporting was the primary method of measuring student engagement, rendering results as perceptual rather than behavioural. We argue that using multiple datasets and different methodological approaches can provide further insights into student engagement with digital technologies. This approach to measuring engagement can substantiate findings and most likely provide additional insights into students' engagement with digital technologies.

This systematic literature review of 36 peer-reviewed empirical articles outlines eight strategies used by higher education lecturers and students to maintain educational continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic since January 2020. The findings show that students’ online access and positive coping strategies could not eradicate their infrastructure and home environment challenges. Lecturers’ learning access equity strategies made learning resources available asynchronously, but having access did not imply that students could effectively self-direct learning. Lecturers designed classroom replication, online practical skills training, online assessment integrity, and student engagement strategies to boost online learning quality, but students who used ineffective online participation strategies had poor engagement. These findings indicate that lecturers and students need to develop more dexterity for adapting and manoeuvring their online strategies across different online teaching and learning modalities. How these online competencies could be developed in higher education are discussed.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a framework intended to guide students and novice researchers in learning about the necessary dimensions for assessing the rigour of qualitative research studies. The framework has four dimensions – (T)rustworthiness, (A)uditability, (C)redibility and (T)ransferability. The development of TACT is informed by various discourses of rigour in the qualitative research methods literature. Results of an empirical verification of TACT suggests that postgraduate students and faculty learning qualitative research found the framework useful for learning rigour in qualitative research methods. TACT also serves as an important theoretical tool for setting directions for further discourses on teaching and learning critical aspects of rigour in qualitative research methodology. Design/methodology/approach: The formal verification of the TACT started with a development of a rating tool. The tool consisted of a total of 16 items, 4 items per each dimension. The items were ranked on five-scale Likert points (1=very important, 2=important, 3=neutral, 4=less important, 5=not important). The instrument was piloted and tested for reliability revealing an overall Cronbach’s α (α=0.86), which indicates a good level of internal consistency (George and Mallery, 2003) among the dimensions. The tool was put online and sent out to participants enroled in workshops on “assessing rigour in qualitative research studies”. Findings: Overall, participants found TACT to be a useful framework for learning different dimensions for assessing qualitative research. They saw various benefits associated with the use of the framework including providing a better process for undertaking and reporting outcomes of qualitative research and for exploring different dimensions of rigour. Participants also indicated that using TACT facilitates reflexivity and fosters dependability of research outcomes. They stated that TACT could help researchers think about their personal relationship with a phenomenon being studied as well as the quality of data collected. Others said that TACT allows researchers to think about achieving transference and gaining confidence in the research findings. Research limitations/implications: TACT is best suited as a teaching toolkit in qualitative research methodology courses. It is also useful as a platform for fostering a shared language in undertaking peer-review of methodological dimensions of qualitative research studies. Practical implications: Though a general framework for accessing rigour in qualitative research studies is highly desirable, the usefulness of TACT in rendering rigour is subject to a particular academic tradition. Social implications: TACT facilitates the exploration of different dimensions for assessing the outcome of qualitative research. Originality/value: TACT is a general framework drawn from the literature and teaching practice and empirically validated.

This qualitative inquiry investigates postgraduate students’ conceptions of research methodology and how it contributes to their learning. It explores factors likely to motivate student choice of research methodology and challenges in understanding research methods. The research was carried out at research-intensive universities in New Zealand and in Malaysia with similar postgraduate programmes. Participants were enrolled in Masters and Ph.D. programmes. Findings revealed that participants share a recognition that research methodology is a significant body of knowledge in postgraduate education. However, there were noticeable differences in perspectives regarding what constitutes research methodology and whether or not it should be conceived as a discipline. To some participants, learning research methodology is less of a discipline but rather an acquisition of a set of isolated facts and skills without necessarily acquiring a deeper understanding of research. Furthermore, postgraduate students choose research methodology based on a number of factors such as familiarity with a method, methodological orientation of the primary supervisor, the domain of study, and the nature of research problems pursued. Participants reported that the key challenges they face in understanding research methodology include framing research questions, understanding the theory or literature and its role in shaping research outcomes, and difficulties in performing data analysis.