Zooming in or zoning out: examining undergraduate learning experiences with zoom and the role of mind-wandering

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a systematic change in course modalities due to the nationwide suspension of in-person instruction, resulting in the transition to emergency remote distance learning via Zoom. This transition certainly facilitated affordances of flexibility and continuity, but with it brought issues of unfamiliarity, lack of confidence, anxiety, distractions, and validity from both the instructors and the student perspectives. This in situ study aimed to better understand the students' learning experiences with Zoom by assessing the social, cognitive, and behavioral factors influencing learner's mind-wandering and its effect on online engagement. Undergraduate students from 14 classes across two research institutions in California (N = 633) were recruited to participate in an online survey while distance learning through a pandemic. Structural equation modeling was used to conduct a path analysis to explain the factors impacting students' online engagement mediated by students' frequency to mind-wander. Study findings revealed that (1) self-efficacy and trait anxiety had significant direct effects on students' mind-wandering; (2) self-efficacy, trait anxiety, task-value beliefs, and mind-wandering had significant direct effects on students' online engagement; and finally (3) the frequency of students' mind-wandering partially mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and engagement and between trait anxiety and engagement. Identifying these structural relationships further confirmed our hypotheses on sources contributing to students' mind-wandering while learning remotely, provided insights into potential mechanisms underpinning students' online engagement, and suggests practical pedagogical learning experience design recommendations for instructors to immediately implement while teaching and learning with Zoom..