University students’ profiles of online learning and their relation to online metacognitive regulation and internet-specific epistemic justification

Abstract This study examined university students’ online learning profiles in terms of activities, purposes, and engagement, and how the different profiles related to metacognitive regulation and internet-specific epistemic justification. Three questionnaires were used to collect data from 389 undergraduate and graduate students in Thailand. The results indicated five emergent clusters as follows: highly-engaged self-driven online contributors, moderately engaged self-driven online viewers, less engaged self-driven online learners, highly engaged course-driven online learners, and less engaged course-driven online learners. Moreover, the students of the five clusters who demonstrated different online learning profiles showed significant differences in their metacognitive regulation and internet-specific epistemic justification. Implications are discussed.