Contextual facilitators for learning activities involving technology in higher education: The C♭-model

We propose a model of contextual facilitators for learning activities involving technology (in short: C♭-model) for both on-site and distance learning environments in higher education. The C♭-model aims at systematizing research on digital teaching and learning and offers a roadmap for future research to understand the complex dynamic of factors that lead to successful digital teaching and learning in higher education via suitable learning activities. First, we introduce students' learning outcomes as central benchmarks of teaching and learning with digital technologies in higher education. Second, we want to focus on a major proximal factor for students' learning outcomes and thus apply a learning activities perspective. Learning activities involving digital technologies reflect cognitive processes of students when using digital technologies and are causally connected with students' learning outcomes. Third, we highlight several contextual facilitators for learning activities involving technology in the C♭-model: learning opportunities that result from higher education teachers' instructional use of technology and students' self-arranged learning opportunities involving digital technologies. Apart from these proximal facilitators, we include more distal factors, namely, higher education teachers' knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward digital technology; higher education teachers' qualification; students' and teachers’ digital technology equipment; and institutional, organizational, and administrative factors. •The C♭-model introduces students' learning outcome as central benchmark of higher education.•The C♭-model emphasizes students' learning activities that are directly and causally related to students' learning outcomes.•The C♭-model systematizes contextual facilitators for learning activities involving technology in higher education.•The C♭-model includes contextual facilitators ranging from students and teachers to equipment and institutions.•The C♭-model specifies relationships between facilitators and learning activities in higher education.