substitutes for traditional printed textbooks and
include a variety of multi-modal resources such as
video content, audio files (like podcasts), educational
software, interactive exercises, games, hyperlinks,
QR codes, augmented reality animations, and
learning platforms that facilitate teacher-student
interactions (Moundy, K., Chafiq, N., & Talbi, M.,
2021).
21st-century students, as Digital Natives, were
born after the advent of digital technologies and grew
up with them (Shan, 2023), and they are more
inclined to learn through audio, video, and
fragmented methods. Digital teaching materials that
integrate various media are more conducive to
students’ awakening of consciousness and attention
maintenance.
From the existing research, focusing on different
disciplines, scholars have a wide discussion on the
connotation and extension of digital textbooks, which
shows that today’s education circles attach great
importance to this topic. Teachers of Chinese,
mathematics, English, and other subjects that focus
on indoor classrooms generally believe that the use of
digital textbooks revitalizes textbook content, attracts
learning interest, and thus improves students’
participation in class (Li, 2022); The online education
platform provides students with opportunities for
communication and cooperation such as virtual
experiments and interactive games, which enhances
students’ learning initiative and willingness (Huang,
2024).
Physical education, as a unique discipline, rarely
has paper textbooks in the teaching process in the
past. Therefore, the emergence of digital textbooks
has brought advanced learning experiences to
physical education classrooms. VR technology has
been used to construct multiple perception systems
and create immersive sports experiences for students
in terms of vision, touch, stress point, etc., thus
stimulating learning interest (Li & Su, 2023) and a
love of the subject.
Research indicates that digital teaching materials
have transcended the linear narrative and paper-based
presentation formats. It has been commonly
recognized that “the interactivity of multimedia
computers is conducive to stimulating students’
learning interest and their role as cognitive subjects”
(He, 2002). After integrating technologies such as
VR, big data, and artificial intelligence, teaching
materials have further promoted their development
towards contextualization and personalization,
integrating the characteristics of different disciplines,
achieving education through entertainment and
individualized teaching, and creating a more open and
diverse learning environment for students.
Since modern times, in the field of educational
psychology, the Situated Cognition Theory has been
widely accepted with regard to the issue of “How
does learning occur?” “All learning is situational, that
is, it takes place in a context with social and
interpersonal characteristics and becomes an integral
part of learning through interaction with learners
(Illeris, 2014).” The knowledge students learn is
abstracted from the life experience in a real situation,
and only when they are placed in a specific situation
can they integrate what they have learned and realize
the development process of “contextualization - de-
contextualization - re-contextualization”. As a bridge
between knowledge construction and life situations,
digital textbooks improve the relevance of students
and teaching content, thus attracting students’
learning interest and promoting students’ learning
engagement at the emotional level.
In addition, education cannot “see the wood for
the trees” (Dewey, 2005), and Salman Khan, one of
the founders of the flipped classroom, attaches great
importance to the connection between different
knowledge concepts and regards it as the most
effective way of education (Khan, 2015). For primary
school children, the context of knowledge is usually
distributed across units, cross-teaching materials, and
even interdisciplinary. Digital teaching materials can
provide conditions for multiple integration, make the
teaching process more flexible, and make the process
of students’ acceptance of knowledge more smooth
and convenient.
2.2 Learning Engagement
The concept of learning engagement was first
proposed by scholar Schaufeli. It is regarded as a
positive, complete, lasting, and healthy mental state
related to learning (Schaufeli, 2002), and can be
regarded as the sum of students’ time and energy
spent on learning activities. It is an important index
that reflects the positive aspects of students’
psychology and is closely related to students’ learning
performance and social adaptation.
It is commonly acknowledged that learning
engagement can be divided into three dimensions:
cognitive, behavioral, and emotional. Cognitive
engagement refers to the cognitive strategies and
learning methods adopted by students at the level of
thinking activities. Behavioral engagement refers to
specific behaviors such as class participation and
homework completion; Emotional engagement refers
to students’ likes and dislikes of school, classmates,