Abstract:

In this contribution, we examine students’ perceptions and ideas on screen-mediated teaching, with the aim of identifying the elements they consider most relevant and impactful in shaping learning processes. This area has been the focus of extensive research in recent years, highlighting both its limitations and its potential across cognitive, relational, and intrapersonal dimensions (Rapanta et al., 2020; Rivoltella, 2021).

Different teaching models—fully online, hybrid, or alternating formats—offer valuable insights for rethinking the concepts of e-learning, blended learning, and flexible learning (Laurillard, 2012; Hodges et al., 2020). To this end, we analyse data collected via 1,354 short open-ended written reflections from 274 students attending six courses at two Italian universities during the academic years 2019–20 and 2020–21. The corpus was generated in response to prompts designed to elicit reflections on their lived experiences with screen-mediated learning environments.

Following an initial descriptive analysis, we applied Structural Topic Modeling (STM; Roberts et al., 2013), a probabilistic method that inductively extracts latent themes from texts. Each document can belong to multiple topics, thus preserving the multidimensionality of student voices. The analysis was conducted with an interdisciplinary team from pedagogy, didactics, semiotics, and statistics, combining computational rigor with grounded qualitative interpretation (Glaser & Strauss, 2009; Charmaz, 2012).

The model yielded ten distinct topics, thematised through iterative interpretation of top words, topic-specific texts, and topic correlations. These themes were grouped into three conceptual dimensions:
(1) the transformation of domestic spaces into hybrid learning environments (Floridi, 2014; Flessner, 2014);
(2) the negotiation of social presence and peer collaboration, including the use of informal tools such as WhatsApp (Rivoltella & Rossi, 2019); and
(3) the crucial role of dialogic, formative, and multimodal feedback (Winstone & Carless, 2019; Nicol, 2018).

Our findings suggest that these elements are not only perceived as adaptive responses to the constraints of remote teaching, but also as transformative practices that can inform the design of future-ready educational ecosystems. Grounded in a data-driven and interpretive methodology, this study offers insights into how hybrid, student-responsive learning environments can integrate cognitive, emotional, and relational dimensions.

Keywords:

e-learning, Hybrid Learning Ecosystems, Structural Topic Model (STM), Feedback, Screen-Mediated Teaching, Post-digital.