Comparative Analysis of Student Engagement in Digital Textbook Use during Quarantine

Abstract

Following the suspension of classes in Morocco due to the health crisis related to COVID-19, an adaptation of the pedagogical intervention of teaching is required. Distance learning is an essential lever contributing to ensuring the educational continuity of students. In this sense, our contribution is to ensure the educational continuity of students during the period of containment through the use of a digital manual. The digital textbook is made available to students of the 1st year of the qualifying secondary education. Through a tracking grid, we measured the student engagement during two different periods without and with the use of the digital textbook. The results show that the digital textbook was able to elicit student engagement in the completion of learning activities with a remarkable improvement of 57.1% in student engagement rate over the two periods (t (273) = 11.059, p < 0.001). Student engagement while using a digital textbook can lead to better academic performance (r = 0.743, p = 0.000 < 0.01). No one can deny the importance of distance learning as a powerful tool that allows teachers to improve their professional practices in the presence of solid, quality instruction in the classroom that promotes the acquisition of skills and the development of competencies in students.