Abstract

E-learning has emerged as a key delivery method for establishing ubiquitous learning and fully online learning environments in education, driven by the initiative of asynchronous learning and benefiting from the portability and accessibility of digital content. Nursing professional development, for instance, maybe a pedagogical focus impacted by the reconstruction of a learning environment made possible by e-learning. This study will examine the features of nursing students' engagement in a fully-online learning environment because there are few empirical studies on the topic at the post-secondary level. The data collected from a group of ten nursing students will be coded and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively from the behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement regions of the commercially licensed facial expression analysis system (FEAS). Additional calculations will be made to determine the correlations between these three aspects of engagements in a fully-online learning environment. The results will show the advantages and disadvantages of the present methods for online nursing professional development teaching and learning. The findings and discussions in this study aim to improve the pedagogical planning and execution of a fully-online learning environment in the educational setting.