Measuring Students’ Cognitive Engagement During Emergency Online Learning in the Amidst of COVID-19 Pandemic

The aim of the study was to measure the students’ cognitive engagement by considering their motivational drives during the remote learning process as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. Stipulated this, the study employed Biggs’s (1987) Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) to measure students’ cognitive engagement enrolled in the public and private universities by offering them online learning facility. Statistically significant results were witnessed for the demographic variables (gender, university type, discipline, and prior online experience) in relation to students’ cognitive engagement. Stepwise regression analysis predicted cognitive engagement of social sciences’ students through surface approach and surface strategy for the postgraduate students. Furthermore, it also estimated that students with earlier experience of online learning predicted more profound (deep) motive drive and female students projected more deep strategy as compared to their male counterparts. This study presents implications to the teachers to employ useful online teaching strategies to engage students remotely and to organize their teaching sessions according to the needs of the learners.