Predicting Students’ Online Learning— Character Strengths, Online Self-Regulated Learning, and Learning Satisfaction

Abstract

Online learning provides numerous benefits to students. However, it remains unclear how psychological and learning-related factors influence how well a student performs in online learning environments. In this paper, we dive into the various psychological and learning-related factors (e.g., character strengths, online self-regulated learning, self-efficacy, learning satisfaction) that may predict learning performance in online environments. Results indicated that after controlling gender, disciplinary background and proportion of online or hybrid courses, self-efficacy in online learning was a significant positive predictor of learning performance. A possible explanation is that self-efficacy pushes students to persist in achieving their academic goals. In contrast, humanity (a character strength) and time management (a subconstruct of online self-regulated learning) were negatively associated with learning performance. Other predictors were not statistically significant. The results suggest that when one focuses more on nurturing relations with others, exhibiting humanity strengths, they may have less energy for their academic work; when one has good time management for online modules, they may neglect their face-to-face modules and do not perform well in overall performance. Future research should investigate the underlying mechanisms of how humanity and time management impact students’ learning performance in online learning environments.