The Educational Digital Divide for Vulnerable Students in the Pandemic: Towards the New Agenda 2030

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper addresses an interesting and up-to-date topic.

I find its structure clear and concise, but I think the manuscript needs a little improvement with respect to the questionnaires. In fact, paragraph 3.3. Data collection procedure does not discuss on the structure of the questionnaires, so we know nothing about what questions were submitted to students. On the other hand, we know everything about data analysis.

I also note a couple of possibile issues:

 

p. 1	It was also reported that by mid-September 2021, schools worldwide had been fully closed.	Is the sentence complete? I feel like a number is missing.
p. 2	It has been reported that female school students are less likely to own or access to smartphones and internetenable devices, and they more likely to have limited skills and  confidence to use technology, thus, causing them to be less likely to be involved and benefit from high technological learning modalities implemented during school closures.	Who refers this?

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1: I find its structure clear and concise, but I think the manuscript needs a little improvement with respect to the questionnaires. In fact, paragraph 3.3. Data collection procedure does not discuss on the structure of the questionnaires, so we know nothing about what questions were submitted to students. On the other hand, we know everything about data analysis. 

Response 1: Thanks for the comments. We have made changes as follows on Line 226.

An online questionnaire, was developed using Google Forms, and consists of two sections and 13 questions. The questionnaire was designed to assess the demographical data of students and frequency of iPad usage. The demographical section was designed to investigate aspects which included gender, age, household income, school location, access to iPads with Internet connectivity, and usage of iPad for learning purposes. Meanwhile, for the second section, questions were designed in terms of access and connectivity as well as use and exploitation for four categories, which were asynchronous learning, synchronous learning, productivity skills and creativity skills. For asynchronous learning, the questions covered iPad usage frequency that involved three elements: Internet browsing using Safari (internet browsing), LMS learning using the national learning management platform (LMS learning), and text-based messaging using Messages. Meanwhile, synchronous learning included questions covering iPad usage frequency with regards to: video and audio chatting using Facetime (video audio chatting), and video conferencing (video conferencing). As for the productivity skills category, the three questions covered iPad usage frequency in terms of digital note-taking using Notes (digital note taking), mathematical calculations using Numbers (mathematical calculation), and presentation slides creation using Keynote (presentation slide creation). With regards to creativity skills, five questions covered iPad usage frequency in terms of augmented reality content using Reality Composer (AR creation), animation creation using Clips (animation creation), digital book creation using Notes (digital book creation), digital music composition using GarageBand (digital music composition), and video production using iMovie (video production). The questionnaire was developed by a panel of experts consisting of subject matter experts, educational technologists, professors and lecturers, instructional designers, technical experts, and language experts.

Point 2: It was also reported that by mid-September 2021, schools worldwide had been fully closed. Is the sentence complete? I feel like a number is missing.

Response 2: Thanks for the comments. We have made changes as follows on Line 41.

It was also reported that by mid-September 2021, schools worldwide had been fully closed for an average of 18 weeks since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Point 3: It has been reported that female school students are less likely to own or access to smartphones and internetenable devices, and they more likely to have limited skills and  confidence to use technology, thus, causing them to be less likely to be involved and benefit from high technological learning modalities implemented during school closures. Who refers this?

Response 3: Thanks for the comments. We have made changes as follows on Line 74 by adding a citation number to the reference.

It has been reported that female school students are less likely to own or access to smartphones and internetenable devices, and they more likely to have limited skills and  confidence to use technology, thus, causing them to be less likely to be involved and benefit from high technological learning modalities implemented during school closures [1].

Additional Changes

1. Author Name (Line 4): The name of a co-author is spelled wrongly. It is spelled as “Avgoustos Tsninakos.” The correct spelling is “Avgoustos Tsinakos.”
2. Reference to construct name (Line 204, Line 378, Line 380, Line 389): The name of the construct is referred to incorrectly as “live classroom.” The correct label of the construct is “video conferencing.”
3. Acknowledgments (Line 532): The name of the organization is incorrect. It is displayed as “Yayasan Petronas.” The correct organization is “Yayasan Hasanah.”

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I am pleased to have the opportunity to review this research paper entitled “The Educational Digital Divide for Vulnerable Students in the Pandemic: Towards the New Agenda 2030” - Sustainability-1837973. However, the topic of this research study is interesting and fits within the journal scope. I think the authors should apply the comments below to increase the quality of research.

1. At the end of the Introduction section, it would be good to present:

ü  the purpose of the research

ü  the novelty of the research

ü  the usefulness of research for various stakeholders

ü  the paper research gap and originality

ü  present the work structure

2. The Literature review section must be significantly improved, considering the numerous studies carried out at the international level regarding the Digital Divide and Digital Inclusion. A much more detailed analysis of the research in the field will help to reflect the gap in the literature and the actual contribution of your research.

3. I recommend creating two distinct sections: a results section and a discussion section.

4. “4.2.3. Results and discussion for hypothesis testing” - What are the research hypotheses? These must be presented in the methodology section.

5. I recommend adding a discussion section. Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted from the perspective of previous studies. The findings and their implications should be addressed in the broadest context possible.

6. I recommend that the conclusions section presents the results obtained from the research, the theoretical, economic/managerial implications, and the research limits.

7. I recommend removing the citations from the conclusions section. This section reflects the own results obtained from the research.

8. The positioning of the obtained results concerning other research is carried out in the discussion section.

9. I recommend adding the questionnaire in the appendix.

 

I wish success to the authors in the process of reorganization and improvement of the article.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Point 1: At the end of the Introduction section, it would be good to present:

• the purpose of the research
• the novelty of the research
• the usefulness of research for various stakeholders
• the paper research gap and originality
• present the work structure

Response 1: Thank you for the comments. The following statement has been added to Line 130.

As such, the purpose of the research was to investigate the educational digital divide for vulnerable students in the COVID-19 pandemic, in terms of access and connectivity and use and exploitation of information and communication technology (ICT), particularly, iPads with mobile and internet connections. The research contributes to the body of knowledge in terms of a new research model for the field analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), with regards to aspects such as access and connectivity and use and exploitation, and elements such as synchronous learning, asynchronous learning, productivity skills, and creativity skills among vulnerable students during the pandemic. The paper is structured as follows. The paper starts with a literature review on digital divide and digital inclusion. It is then followed by a methodology section involving the research model applied, participant selection, data collection procedures, online learning environment used, as well as data analysis procedures. Results and discussion are then presented to highlight the contribution of the study to the field, as well as assessment of the research hypotheses. The paper is ended with conclusions, implication, and future direction with regards to the field.

Point 2: The Literature review section must be significantly improved, considering the numerous studies carried out at the international level regarding the Digital Divide and Digital Inclusion. A much more detailed analysis of the research in the field will help to reflect the gap in the literature and the actual contribution of your research.

Response 2: Thank you for the comments. The following statement has been added to Line 94.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the digital divide and digital inclusion in both developed and developing countries. Governments and private sectors have been giving attention to policies and projects that could help improve the digital inequalities and inadequacies in our education systems [3,4,5]. According to [3], mitigation effectiveness for high-income countries to compensate for school closures and learning losses was higher, ranging from 15% to 60%, in terms of technology and internet access. For upper-middle and lower-middle income countries, the government’s ability to mitigate this crisis was moderate, ranging from 7% to 40%, reflecting household access to mobile phones, computers, and the internet. In low-income countries, technology and internet access were around 7 and 6 percent, respectively, and the low effectiveness limits the ability of governments to mitigate this crisis. COVID-19 provided an opportunity for reducing learning poverty, addressing inequality, and reimagining education. Schools and educational institutions need to change to prepare students for the future and ensure all students are learning. A successful strategy for online and remote learning relied on many delivery approaches [3,4,5]. The efforts made for online and remote learning, such as digital content and assessments, as well as online training and support for teachers are more personalized, providing a more resilient education [3].

Point 3: I recommend creating two distinct sections: a results section and a discussion section.

Response 3: Thank you for the comments. Although the usual convention is separating the two sections (results and discussion), we have retained the results and discussion sections as is, to maintain the flow of discussion.

Point 4: “4.2.3. Results and discussion for hypothesis testing” - What are the research hypotheses? These must be presented in the methodology section.

Response 4: Thank you for the comments. The research hypotheses has been added to Line 210.

H1: Access and connectivity is positively related to asynchronous learning

H2: Access and connectivity is positively related to synchronous learning

H3: Use and exploitation is positively related to access and connectivity

H4: Use and exploitation is positively related to creativity skills

H5: Use and exploitation is positively related to productivity skills

Point 5: I recommend adding a discussion section. Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted from the perspective of previous studies. The findings and their implications should be addressed in the broadest context possible.

Response 5: Thank you for the comments. Although the usual convention is separating the two sections (results and discussion), we have retained the results and discussion sections as is, to maintain the flow of discussion. We have discussed how the results can be linked to previous studies as well as the findings’ implications. These discussions can be found at Line 303, 323, 336, 353, 381, 402, 420, 433, 449.

Point 6: I recommend that the conclusions section presents the results obtained from the research, the theoretical, economic/managerial implications, and the research limits.

Response 6: Thank you for the comments. For the conclusion section, the results obtained from the research can be found at Line 494, while the research limits are embedded in the future directions section in Line 509. With regards to economical/managerial implications, the statement in Line 502 is refined as follows:

This study’s findings with regards to educational digital divide for vulnerable students in the pandemic could assist future developers and educators in the development of effective emergency teaching and learning strategies and design. This study could also help educational managers foresee and implement technological integration, in terms of enabling and empowering vulnerable students for synchronous and asynchronous learning, including software that allows for video audio chatting such as FaceTime, as well as production and creativity skills including software that allows for augmented reality creation such as Reality Composer. Yet, these technologies should be carefully looked at, as they may disrupt learning, if not designed properly with appropriate pedagogical approaches.   

Point 7: I recommend removing the citations from the conclusions section. This section reflects the own results obtained from the research.

Response 7: Thank you for the comments. We did not remove the citations as it is important to connect and link our research and future directions to the existing studies.

Point 8: The positioning of the obtained results concerning other research is carried out in the discussion section.

Response 8: Thank you for the comments. We have discussed how the results can be linked to previous studies as well as the findings’ implications at Line 303, 323, 336, 353, 381, 402, 420, 433, 449.

Point 9: I recommend adding the questionnaire in the appendix.

Response 9: Thanks for the comments. We have not added the questionnaire in the appendix as the following changes have been made on Line 226.

An online questionnaire, was developed using Google Forms, and consists of two sections and 13 questions. The questionnaire was designed to assess the demographical data of students and frequency of iPad usage. The demographical section was designed to investigate aspects which included gender, age, household income, school location, access to iPads with Internet connectivity, and usage of iPad for learning purposes. Meanwhile, for the second section, questions were designed in terms of access and connectivity as well as use and exploitation for four categories, which were asynchronous learning, synchronous learning, productivity skills and creativity skills. For asynchronous learning, the questions covered iPad usage frequency that involved three elements: Internet browsing using Safari (internet browsing), LMS learning using the national learning management platform (LMS learning), and text-based messaging using Messages. Meanwhile, synchronous learning included questions covering iPad usage frequency with regards to: video and audio chatting using Facetime (video audio chatting), and video conferencing (video conferencing). As for the productivity skills category, the three questions covered iPad usage frequency in terms of digital note-taking using Notes (digital note taking), mathematical calculations using Numbers (mathematical calculation), and presentation slides creation using Keynote (presentation slide creation). With regards to creativity skills, five questions covered iPad usage frequency in terms of augmented reality content using Reality Composer (AR creation), animation creation using Clips (animation creation), digital book creation using Notes (digital book creation), digital music composition using GarageBand (digital music composition), and video production using iMovie (video production). The questionnaire was developed by a panel of experts consisting of subject matter experts, educational technologists, professors and lecturers, instructional designers, technical experts, and language experts.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The article entitled “The Educational Digital Divide for Vulnerable Students in the 2 Pandemic: Towards the New Agenda 2030” is an interesting and valuable contribution to the existing literature on teaching and learning during the pandemic. However, some sections of the paper may benefit from additional information:

 Provide clear operational definitions of the variables of interest. For instance, define “access and connectivity” and “use and exploitation”.  How is access conceptually different from connectivity? How is use conceptually different from exploitation? The information about these domains of inquiry on Line 144 is insufficient.

 The operational definition of “vulnerable students” is to be clarified. What is exactly vulnerability in this study?

Additional information about the participants is also required. What were their educational levels? What was the response rate after the distribution of the questionnaire? Can the students who did not fill out the survey be described as different from those who did complete it?

The main hypothesis or hypotheses should be clearly stated and justified in the introductory section. What is the rationale for the selected statistical analyses? Please note that statistical analyses need to be unambiguously linked to the research question(s) and hypotheses of the study.

The literature on learning and teaching during the pandemic should be explored further.

Section 3.1 needs to contain more information regarding the questionnaire used. It is fine to refer to a previous study, but critical information must be provided here regarding the data collection tool used by the researchers so that the reader can understand the participants’ experience.

Is there any information regarding students’ performance? Can students’ subjective responses be linked to performance measures? If this link is not feasible, can a speculative discussion be entertained on the extent to which the selected domains of “access and connectivity” and “use and exploitation” are related to performance? The extant literature may offer useful findings.

Word choices and syntactic structure require attention. For instance, in the abstract the statement “the paper investigates this scenario by investigating…” could be changed to “the present study investigates this scenario by examining…” Also, check the spelling of words (e.g., in Line 216, “Partcipants” should be “participants”).

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Point 1: Provide clear operational definitions of the variables of interest. For instance, define “access and connectivity” and “use and exploitation”.  How is access conceptually different from connectivity? How is use conceptually different from exploitation? The information about these domains of inquiry on Line 144 is insufficient. 

Response 1: Thanks for the comments. To address this, we have further added and rephrase Line 144, as the following:

Research by [8] identified two dimensions of the digital divide: access and connectivity, and use and exploitation. The access and connectivity aspect is related to how vulnerable students are required to have access to ICT for learning, while the use and exploitation aspect refers to the competency of ICT usage and be able to benefit from the technologies, hence exploiting the advantages for learning [8]. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the educational digital divide among the vulnerable and has shown severe implications of that vulnerability, in which the internet and ICT have become not only a necessity for education, but also for health, well-being, and survival. In a situation where restrictions are imposed for social and physical distancing, access and connectivity to ICT is crucial for learning, as well as its’ use and exploitation for learning purposes. This is important in ensuring vulnerable students are avoided from becoming further marginalized and socially excluded due to the digital divide caused by the pandemic [8].

Point 2: The operational definition of “vulnerable students” is to be clarified. What is exactly vulnerability in this study?

Response 2: Thank you for the comments. The definition of “vulnerable students” in this study is further clarified in Line 183, as follows:

Also, SDG-Education 2030 agenda states that all vulnerable groups should have the right to education [15]. Vulnerable students refer to learners who are living in marginalized or vulnerable situations including gender inequality, physical or mental disability, and low socio-economic status, as well as in rural, urban, post-conflict or post-disaster situations [15]. However, in an emergency context such as the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring and protecting the right to education for marginalized vulnerable groups can be difficult. During emergencies, the value of education is not considered as life-saving, yet it can bring emotional stability among parents and students. To some extent, education can help people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in reintegrating back into society after the emergency is over and preventing similar occurrences in the future [15]. In the light of this event, UNESCO ensures the human rights law is applied across all contexts by the international community as to minimize the harmful effects of the pandemic. As such, our study focuses on vulnerable students who are living in marginalized situations, specifically, with low socio-economic status and are living in difficulty or disaster situations, in this case, the COVID-19 pandemic.

Point 3: Additional information about the participants is also required. What were their educational levels? What was the response rate after the distribution of the questionnaire? Can the students who did not fill out the survey be described as different from those who did complete it?

Response 3: Thanks for comments. We have refine the following statements at Line 226:

The data was collected via online surveys distributed to 518 vulnerable students at lower education levels, from schools located at the north, south, east, and west regions of peninsular Malaysia (i.e. 12 states), and the states of Sabah and Sarawak. The questionnaires were distributed in November 2021 to investigate iPad usage for online learning after a two-month period of receiving their devices during the COVID-19 pandemic. All responses received were based on purposive sampling and the respondents were from throughout Malaysia. The online survey method was chosen due to geographical restrictions imposed during the pandemic. It is worth to note that the response rate of the survey was 86 percent, in which the answering of the survey, was assisted by teachers and parents as needed.

Point 4: The main hypothesis or hypotheses should be clearly stated and justified in the introductory section. What is the rationale for the selected statistical analyses? Please note that statistical analyses need to be unambiguously linked to the research question(s) and hypotheses of the study.

Response 4: Thank you for the comments. The research hypotheses has been added to Line 210.

H1: Access and connectivity is positively related to asynchronous learning

H2: Access and connectivity is positively related to synchronous learning

H3: Use and exploitation is positively related to access and connectivity

H4: Use and exploitation is positively related to creativity skills

H5: Use and exploitation is positively related to productivity skills

Point 5: The literature on learning and teaching during the pandemic should be explored further.

Response 5: The literature and past studies during the pandemic have been discussed and described in the results and discussion sections to further related our studies’ findings to existing literature. These discussions can be found at Lines 303, 323, 336, 353, 381, 402, 420, 433, 449.

Point 6: Section 3.1 needs to contain more information regarding the questionnaire used. It is fine to refer to a previous study, but critical information must be provided here regarding the data collection tool used by the researchers so that the reader can understand the participants’ experience.

Response 6: Thanks for the comments. The comments have been addressed on Line 226.

An online questionnaire, was developed using Google Forms, and consists of two sections and 13 questions. The questionnaire was designed to assess the demographical data of students and frequency of iPad usage. The demographical section was designed to investigate aspects which included gender, age, household income, school location, access to iPads with Internet connectivity, and usage of iPad for learning purposes. Meanwhile, for the second section, questions were designed in terms of access and connectivity as well as use and exploitation for four categories, which were asynchronous learning, synchronous learning, productivity skills and creativity skills. For asynchronous learning, the questions covered iPad usage frequency that involved three elements: Internet browsing using Safari (internet browsing), LMS learning using the national learning management platform (LMS learning), and text-based messaging using Messages. Meanwhile, synchronous learning included questions covering iPad usage frequency with regards to: video and audio chatting using Facetime (video audio chatting), and video conferencing (video conferencing). As for the productivity skills category, the three questions covered iPad usage frequency in terms of digital note-taking using Notes (digital note taking), mathematical calculations using Numbers (mathematical calculation), and presentation slides creation using Keynote (presentation slide creation). With regards to creativity skills, five questions covered iPad usage frequency in terms of augmented reality content using Reality Composer (AR creation), animation creation using Clips (animation creation), digital book creation using Notes (digital book creation), digital music composition using GarageBand (digital music composition), and video production using iMovie (video production). The questionnaire was developed by a panel of experts consisting of subject matter experts, educational technologists, professors and lecturers, instructional designers, technical experts, and language experts.

Point 7: Is there any information regarding students’ performance? Can students’ subjective responses be linked to performance measures? If this link is not feasible, can a speculative discussion be entertained on the extent to which the selected domains of “access and connectivity” and “use and exploitation” are related to performance? The extant literature may offer useful findings.

Response 7: Thanks for the comments. The focus of the study is rather to investigate on the relationships of the constructs and sub-constructs of the research model with regards to measurement and structural model analysis. The students’ performance was not measured. To address this issue, the following statement is added in Line 518:

Fourth, the focus of the study was to investigate on the relationships of the constructs and sub-constructs of the research model with regards to measurement and structural model analysis using PLS-analysis. It would be interesting to measure students’ performance with regards to constructs and sub-constructs in the study to understand how vulnerable students perform under emergency remote learning conditions.

Point 8: Word choices and syntactic structure require attention. For instance, in the abstract the statement “the paper investigates this scenario by investigating…” could be changed to “the present study investigates this scenario by examining…” Also, check the spelling of words (e.g., in Line 216, “Partcipants” should be “participants”).

Response 8: Thank you for the comments. The abstract at Line 11 has been rephrased as follows: Thus, the present study investigates this scenario by examining the educational digital divide for vulnerable students in the pandemic, in terms of access and connectivity and use and exploitation.

In Line 216, the typo for the term “participants” has been changed, as suggested by the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Section 2. Literature Review: Digital Divide and Digital Inclusion is extremely poorly documented. As we mentioned in the previous evaluation, the authors must significantly improve this section by analyzing a significant number of articles published internationally. Although the authors had this recommendation before, they made a superficial addition. I also recommended removing the citations from the conclusions. Future research directions should be based on the authors' research and not on other articles.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments Second Round Review

Point 1: Section 2. Literature Review: Digital Divide and Digital Inclusion is extremely poorly documented. As we mentioned in the previous evaluation, the authors must significantly improve this section by analyzing a significant number of articles published internationally. Although the authors had this recommendation before, they made a superficial addition. I also recommended removing the citations from the conclusions. Future research directions should be based on the authors' research and not on other articles.

Response 1: Thanks for the comment. We have amended the manuscript as follows.

Literature review section

In general, technology accessibility, skills, and usage are contributing factors related to the concept of digital divide. In a report by Cambridge Assessment, [14] explained that there are four levels of digital divide in COVID-19, which are: (i) digital divide in relation to access; (ii) digital divided related to digital skills and types of digital media; (iii) digital divide related to outcomes of technology access, skills, and usage; (iv) digital divide which relates to a variety of other social and environmental factors. At the first level, digital divide was originally conceptualized to physical access to devices and the Internet and has now been expanded to types of digital technologies and quality of access that they offer. For example, in digital remote education, the quality of education could be affected by aspects such as screen size, up-to-date software, audio visual capabilities that differ across devices such as laptops and mobile phones. Meanwhile, the second level of digital divide is one that concerns digital skills and types of digital media. Here, [14] emphasized that it is often assumed that children who are “digital natives” have strong digital skills, yet this may not be true is some cases. Additionally, at this level of digital divide, factors such as device usage frequency, as well as usage for learning or entertainment aims are deemed to be related to digital inequalities. With regards to the third level, digital divide has been linked to outcome of technology access, skills, and usage as well as effects of technology access, skills and use on educational performance. At the fourth level, digital divide is related to the children’s surroundings such as parent support, home learning infrastructure, home learning environment (e.g. size of learning space, proximity of other sibling who is also learning at home), as well as teachers’ access, skills, and usage of digital technologies.

With regards to the global digital divide scenario during the pandemic, in the United Kingdom (the UK), the digital exclusion was reported to be more severe for secondary school children as compared to primary. Reports suggested that remote education provisions for the UK was consistent at the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic were a variety of digital remote education techniques and physical resources were applied. Later, in January 2021, lockdowns accelerated a higher level of synchronous digital remote learning strategies such as usage of video conferencing for live classroom lessons, in which private schools were reported to be hosting live online lessons as compared to public schools. Additionally, some schools also resorted to physical resources for vulnerable learners (e.g. sending physical learning packs), to cater for students whom had difficulties in learning such as limited technological access and connectivity [14-18]. In Nigeria, [19] reported that access to remote learning was quite different, where challenges were related to affordability of internet data and phone credit as well as electricity and access to devices. The study also reported that the internet penetration in Nigeria is still relatively low where only 42% of the population is online. Similar to the scenario in the UK, the study discovered that there were differences in access to digital tools in public and private schools, in which public schools had difficulties in access as compared to private schools. This further resulted in academic engagement levels, where students in private schools had a higher engagement level as compared to public ones.

In the United States (the US), [20] reported that internet access in rural areas had caused limited of distance education causing children to be left behind. It was reported that 51.6% of rural US residents had had 250/25 megabits per second (Mbps) internet access in 2018 compared to 94% urban residents. On top of that, there are also additional factors that can affect connectivity speed including multiple devices within a household, Internet usage in peak time, connectivity hardware, technological infrastructure, and distance to servers. Furthermore, although schools and public places offer a higher speed of Internet connectivity as compared to their homes, rural children face further challenges due to distance and travel mechanisms to reach these access points [20, 21]. In a related study, [22] reported that many rural residents have only access to one service provider for home Internet. Furthermore, it is reported that fifteen states in the US have median download speeds of less that 25 Mbps. This was collected from 7.2 million individual households from December 30, 2019 through June 30, 2020. This has a major impact on access to learning, in which speeds than is less that 25 MBps is only capable of supporting one or two devices simultaneously while high-quality learning content on multiple devices would requires over 50Mbps [20].

Conclusion and future directions

We have removed all citations from the conclusions and future directions as follows. Future directions in this area as follows.

First, the constructs and sub-constructs were only tested in specific vulnerable conditions with lower education at a geographical region. It would be interesting to investigate whether the findings corroborate or contradict in other educational settings, related to the level and type of student vulnerability, education levels, and different geographical locations. Second, the 13 indicators of the model (e.g. augmented reality creation) were treated in the study only as indicators. It would be beneficial to further investigate the indicators as sub-constructs to further re-confirm their relation to their respective sub-constructs and constructs. Third, the study used PLS-SEM for statistical analysis. Applying a different type of analysis (e.g. covariance-based structural equation modeling) could have yielded different results. Fourth, as the study did not focus on a particular instructional design strategy, it would be interesting to investigate how different instructional designs influence results. Fifth, the focus of the study was to investigate on the relationships of the constructs and sub-constructs of the research model with regards to measurement and structural model analysis using PLS-analysis. It would be interesting to measure students’ performance with regards to constructs and sub-constructs in the study to understand how vulnerable students perform under emergency remote learning conditions. Finally, it would also be interesting to see whether access and connectivity to technology during the pandemic had a negative effect to vulnerable students.