Luísa Aires

This article examines how students experience and build relational ties in online higher education. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, it analyses students’ lived and desired relationships across four domains: the online campus, the degree programme, teachers, and peers. One hundred and forty-four students completed an open-ended questionnaire. Their narratives informed the Relational Proximity Matrix (RPM), a framework used to map connections and distinguish transformative, functional, and residual modes of proximity. Findings indicate strong affective and supportive ties among peers, whereas interactions with teachers and the online campus are often formal or instrumental. The study concludes that relational proximity, rather than access alone, depends critically on recognition, reciprocity, and pedagogical care. The RPM offers a heuristic orientation that may inform educational design and support educators and institutions in cultivating practices that enhance relational quality.

Digital media increasingly affect how people interact with their surroundings, leading to rising levels of indoor screen time. This study examines how locative media technologies can enhance meaningful leisure and learning experiences in outdoor settings. Our goal is to understand the role of location-based games in improving outdoor leisure by implementing a geolocation program within a military community at an Armed Forces base. Therefore, we conducted a qualitative case study based on the principles of the design-based research (DBR) method. By developing, implementing, and using a location-based game prototype, we increased contact with nature and found that locative play encourages learning in outdoor leisure contexts. We also found that the digital locative game promoted a sense of social belonging and positively impacted intergenerational activities, highlighting the immense potential of locative media and ubiquitous learning in outdoor leisure experiences and the creation of new educational opportunities.

In recent years, research on the digital skills of higher education students has increased significantly. However, many of the existing studies have focused primarily on identifying these skills rather than exploring the factors that influence their development. This study investigates the digital skills of first-year undergraduate students enrolled at an online distance education university, as well as their key determining factors. Employing a quantitative methodology, the students completed a Likert-scale questionnaire as part of an online familiarization module. Based on the findings, the students' digital skills were grouped into the following categories: collaboration and creativity, networking, content sharing, information management, information evaluation, and critical thinking. Additionally, the key influencing factors were identified, including the perceived ease of using ICT for problem-solving, orientation towards learning goals, personal initiative, and self-regulation in the use of ICT and the Internet. The results suggest that both individual and social strategies related to Internet use play a crucial role on the acquisition of digital skills. Future research should explore theoretical frameworks and, especially, refine assessment tools, shifting the focus from simply describing digital competencies to examining the factors that influence and predict their development. Such theoretical and methodological adjustments are expected to significantly reshape training strategies in this field.

The challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to quickly mobilize toward emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL) practices. Teachers’ digital competences were essential in this context. This study aims to identify the ERTL practices adopted in Portugal and how they were perceived by teachers of students aged 3 to 18. Data were gathered through a questionnaire administered online during April and May 2020 to 329 teachers. ERTL was perceived as an opportunity to develop their own and their students’ digital competences. Teachers expressed a moderately positive view of the process and reported an experience of work overload. The pedagogical practices implemented by teachers during this period were diverse and differed according to gender, self-assessment of digital competence, and level of education taught. Results point to the importance of continued teacher training to achieve quality distance education.

In a viral society in which the social being claims the ability to maintain distance and the socially desirable representation of the body, in particular the face, claims its concealment, the distance educational relationship represents a critical area that deserves to be highlighted in the research agendas. This study aims to explore the sense of belonging of 144 students who attend a distance learning university. For this purpose, an open-ended questionnaire was applied, previously disclosed in closed groups on social networks. The students' sense of belonging was analysed through the types of connections they maintain with the campus, course, peers and teachers. The analysis of the narratives expresses a great diversity, density of experiences and expectations in the connections and senses of belonging. Attributing great importance to teachers in the appropriation of knowledge, it is essentially with their peers - other students - that the connections and sense of belonging acquire greater expression.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered profound social consequences, affecting all aspects of human activity, including education. The process of remote teaching that was implemented in response to this crisis is known as emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL). The present study focuses on Portuguese parents’ perspectives about this process. Data were gathered through an online questionnaire, answered by 203 parents of preschool, basic, and secondary education students (ages 3–18), focusing on self-perceived digital competence, satisfaction with ERTL, and pedagogical activities developed with their children. Parents were moderately satisfied with ERTL but expressed a marked increase in their workload, particularly those working from home. Parents of children in the second cycle of basic education (ages 10–12) were less satisfied with the process. A variety of activities was promoted, responding to different educational levels’ characteristics. Results show the importance of promoting parents’ digital competence and directing support policies, particularly to parents of younger children (ages 3–12), and raise concerns about equity.

Emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL) represent a critical and challenging time for teachers globally. To understand how Portuguese teachers interpreted their ERTL experiences of the first lockdown, we started by asking: What perspectives do teachers have about ERTL? Answering three open questions made available online between April and May of 2020, a sample of 305 preschool, basic, and secondary school teachers expressed their perspectives on (i) difficulties throughout ERTL; (ii) students’ constraints in participating in ERTL; (iii) the potential and benefits resulting from this exceptional period. Data were analyzed using content analysis. While Portuguese teachers perceived ERTL with concern, a majority also saw it as an opportunity. Workload, work conditions, and time management were the most frequently mentioned difficulties. Regarding students’ constraints, teachers emphasized participation, the role of parents, lack of contact, and autonomy. Despite the constraints and difficulties, teachers highlighted gains such as the development of digital competencies and the opportunity to transform teaching and learning. Only 18 teachers suggested there were no positive outcomes from this experience. Since this is an exploratory study, further studies are needed to triangulate the findings.

A pandemia de Covid-19 teve impactos profundos no ensino superior. Em Portugal, afetou cerca de 350000 estudantes, envolvidos num processo de transição de emergência para práticas de ensino remoto. Consideramos fundamental identificar práticas adotadas pelas instituições de ensino superior nesse contexto, assim como a forma como têm sido reajustadas ao longo do tempo, e como o processo foi percecionado, quer por professores, quer por estudantes. Para tal, foi aplicado um questionário online dirigido a professores e estudantes do ensino superior presencial entre os dias 22 de abril e 12 de maio de 2020. Os resultados apontam para a adoção de uma pluralidade de estratégias de ensino, com destaque para práticas síncronas, e revistas ao longo do processo. Apesar de aspetos sensíveis como a avaliação, o envolvimento dos estudantes, as atividades práticas ou a gestão do tempo, são reconhecidas potencialidades e limitações ao processo.

Cultural-historical research has had a relevant presence in Spain and, to a lesser extent, in Portugal, since the 1970s. A review of the state of the art of the cultural-historical approach in these two countries allows us to identify four general lines of research: 1) sociocultural activities, mental actions, and semiotic mediation; 2) education in schools; 3) education beyond schools, including educational practices in community-cultural contexts; and 4) identity construction in (other) sociocultural settings. This perspective has been developed by an active community of researchers in the fields of psychology, education, and other social sciences.