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The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a huge opportunity for the development of online education (Crawford et al., 2020; Mumford & Dikilitaş, 2020). Not only are an increasing number of students taking their courses online (Abou-Khalil et al., 2021), but also more and more online teaching platforms, techniques, and approaches are accessible to teachers and students (Yu et al., 2019). Tencent Meeting is one of the online platforms that is used for online education. Many universities especially those in China have used Tencent Meeting as a tool for teaching because of its efficient and convenient video conferencing service (Quadir & Zhou, 2021). However, few studies have examined the engagement of the online courses using Tencent Meeting.
As in the traditional classroom, engagement is critical to student learning in online courses (Martin & Bolliger, 2018), rejuvenating the classical issue in a new setting. From the point of instructors, to engage students in online classes, teachers need to know which engagement strategies are the most effective (Abou-Khalil et al., 2021) and promote a favorable language learning environment that is interactive, supportive, and attractive (Han et al., 2021). From the point of objective conditions, the use of the mobile devices has an impact on student engagement and success (Nichter, 2021), and online learners may have better learning experiences and learning outcomes through the assistance of learner support services (He et al., 2019). From the point of students themselves, many young people will be stressed and anxious because of online learning, which will lower their engagement (Chiu, 2022).
A plethora of studies have focused on the effect of the role of teachers, students, and objective conditions on student engagement in online courses, while relatively few studies have examined this classical topic in a new setting from the view of the three roles simultaneously. Even fewer studies have examined the effect of the three roles on online course engagement through the use of Tencent Meeting. This study will thus focus on the relationship between teaching presence, self-regulation, social interaction, and engagement in the online courses using Tencent Meeting (see Table 1).
Table 1.
Comparison of research focus between other studies and this study
| N | Other studies | This study |
| 1 | Online learning engagement strategies (Abou-Khalil et al., 2021) | Online learning engagement and teaching presence, self-regulation, social interaction |
| 2 | Online learning engagement and learning environment (Han et al., 2021) |
| 3 | Online learning engagement and mobile device (Nichter, 2021) |
| 4 | Online learning engagement and learner support services (He et al., 2019) |
| 5 | Online learning engagement and student psychology (Chiu, 2022) |