From Distance Learning to Integrated Digital Learning: A Fuzzy Cognitive Analysis Focused on Engagement, Motivation, and Participation During COVID-19 Pandemic

This work focuses on Distance Learning during the COVID-19 pandemic to improve students’ motivation, participation, and engagement, trying to contain the drop-out phenomenon. Distance Learning at the time of COVID-19 is an educational methodology and it can be considered the only occasion to keep an educational connection between students and teachers. Experimentation in a Mathematics STEM class was carried out evaluating the impact of Distance Learning on students’ levels of motivation, participation, and engagement, computed through a Fuzzy Cognitive Map. Specifically, it was performed on some affective and interaction parameters derived from using an adaptive e-learning platform and from the answers of a semi-structured questionnaire. The results, which have been analysed through Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Instrumental Genesis theories, show on one hand that Distance Learning is valid as an additional and support methodology but, on the other hand, they highlight the ineffectiveness of completely remote teaching. Therefore, a teaching method that integrates moments of distance teaching with activities carried out in the presence, in the classroom, or in other university environments, is hoped to be used as soon as the emergency is over: a mix of styles, a fluid flow of knowledge between the physical classroom and the virtual classroom. We will call this Integrated Digital Learning.