Digital Artifacts in Education: How Design Properties Are Associated with Self-Regulated Learning, Participation, and Performance

Digital artifacts are preferred by both students and instructors to achieve various educational goals; yet the understanding of how digital artifacts and their properties are associated with academic development remains insufficient. Such understanding is also important as the design, modification, and use of digital artifacts, such as infographics, videos and illustrations, support both learners and instructors. Thus, drawing on the theory of semiotic mediation, this study examines how three core properties of digital artifacts, i.e., design, elaborateness, and semantic ability, are associated with learner outcomes through self-regulated learning, student participation, individual innovativeness, and learning continuance. Digital artifacts are conceptualized broadly to include conventional digital resources. Data were collected from 350 university students in Saudi Arabia and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings show that design, elaborateness, and semantic ability are positively associated with both self-regulated learning and student participation. Such understanding, in turn, is associated with individual innovativeness, which is positively associated with learning continuance and learner performance. The results suggest that the educational value of digital artifacts depends not only on their technological availability but also on how their design characteristics support learners’ regulation, participation, experimentation, and sustained engagement. The study extends the application of semiotic mediation theory to contemporary digital learning environments and provides a behavioral explanation of how digital artifact properties are associated with academic development.