research gaps

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (Generative AI), such as ChatGPT, has brought significant changes to higher education, including Arabic language learning for non-native speakers (Arabic as a Foreign Language). Writing skills (Maharah al-Kitabah) are considered a relatively complex productive skill. Learners are required not only to master word formation (Sarf) and Arabic grammar (Nahwu), but also to organize ideas coherently and logically. This article employs a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach based on the PRISMA 2020 standards to map the use of ChatGPT in Arabic writing, examine the reliability of AI in Arabic grammar, and identify research gaps that remain underexplored. The review findings indicate that ChatGPT can serve as a useful writing partner (human-AI co-writer), particularly for generating ideas, enriching vocabulary, and correcting basic grammatical errors. However, AI still frequently produces errors or “hallucinations” when dealing with morphologically complex words, variations in Arabic dialects, and unvocalized texts. As a result, AI-generated writing may appear linguistically polished on the surface while containing grammatical inaccuracies. Furthermore, excessive reliance on AI may pose risks to academic integrity, while AI detection tools themselves often produce inaccurate results when identifying Arabic-language texts (false positives). This review also finds that existing research remains overly focused on English, tends to examine only the final writing outcomes without investigating students’ cognitive processes, and has paid limited attention to AI models specifically developed for the Arab region, such as ALLaM and Jais. Therefore, the approach to AI-assisted learning needs to shift from merely using AI toward purposeful and reflective utilization through frameworks such as the Spiral Learning Model and Genre-Based Pedagogy, so that AI functions as a scaffold without diminishing students’ autonomy and critical thinking.

Music has been investigated as a potential influence on exercise performance, perceived exertion, recovery, and sleep. However, studies vary in their interventions, populations, exercise contexts, and measured outcomes. This scoping review aimed to map experimental evidence on music interventions in resistance, isometric and handgrip, aerobic exercise, acute recovery, and sleep, and to identify evidence gaps. PubMed/MEDLINE, SPORTDiscus, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched for studies published between 1980 and October 2026. Eligible studies involved human participants, compared a music intervention with a control or alternative condition, and reported exercise performance, perceived exertion, psychological responses, physiological recovery, or sleep outcomes. Screening was conducted using Rayyan. Findings were synthesised descriptively across four domains. Thirty studies involving 1,183 participants were included. Studies were published between 1981 and 2021 and examined resistance exercise (n=11), isometric and handgrip exercise (n=8), aerobic exercise and acute recovery (n=7) and sleep (n=4). The evidence maps a broad range of music interventions and outcomes, with variable findings across exercise and sleep contexts. Research gaps include limited participant diversity and insufficient investigation of sleep and recovery in athletic populations. Further studies are needed to clarify how music characteristics, individual preferences, and task demands relate to outcomes.

Background While the COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruptions to social connections and lifestyles, many countries continued the sale of alcohol as an essential commodity. Evidence on change in alcohol use, and its association with mental health and wellbeing during the pandemic is, however, mixed and limited to initial periods of the pandemic. This study aimed to address these research gaps. Methods Data were drawn from the COVID-19 Risks Across the Lifespan (CORAL) Study, a three-wave longitudinal study conducted between May 2020 and April 2021. The present sample included 2,369 participants (age M = 38.81 ± 16.94 years, range = 11–100; 90% females) from the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia. Measures included pre-pandemic alcohol use and changes in consumption frequency, quantity, drinking behaviours (e.g., drinking earlier in the day), and motivations (e.g., drinking for enjoyment) during the pandemic. General perceived stress, COVID-19-related stress, loneliness, and symptoms of depression and anxiety were also assessed. Findings Drinking frequency and quantity remained stable across the first year of the pandemic; however, non-linear age associations were found. Young individuals aged between 11 to 20 years, and mid-aged individuals aged between 50 to 70 years, had the highest probability of increased alcohol use frequency and quantity. Drinking behaviours and motivations also remained largely stable, although age- and country-specific differences emerged, potentially reflecting policy differences such as alcohol access restrictions and lockdown measures. Finally, loneliness unidirectionally predicted subsequent alcohol use quantity. Conclusions These findings highlight the heterogeneous alcohol use patterns across age groups and countries during the pandemic, and underscore loneliness as an important public health issue with implications for alcohol misuse.

The purpose of this study is to give an overview of the evolution of digital learning paradigms, its implementation in Indian institutions and the challenges and opportunities which it provides. The review also seeks to identify gaps in the current research that can be used to direct future empirical and theoretical research. The study adopts a systematic literature review methodology to explore the academic literature on the topic of online education and digital learning paradigm in India. Secondary data sources such as peer-reviewed journal articles, conference proceedings, government reports, policy documents and institutional publications were referred for the exhaustive review of literature. The search strings and keywords used were in various combinations such as online education, digital learning, distance education, e-learning, MOOCs, SWAYAM, OER and ICT in education and e-learning in Indian higher education. Only English-language publications that had an Indian focus were considered. To ensure comprehensive coverage, conceptual, empirical and review studies were included. The literature was broken down into themes and the following main categories were identified: distance learning, online education models, digital learning technologies, OER initiatives and national educational platforms. This systematic synthesis enables the structured understanding of the developments, trends and research gaps in the field. It is evident in the literature that low completion rates, lack of multilingual content, digital divide issues as well as a lack of learner engagement and mentoring, are still issues. However, the platforms are crucial for lifelong learning and skill development.

Introduction Digital textbooks are becoming increasingly important in mathematics and geography lessons, as interactive and multimedia features that go beyond the capabilities of printed resources are believed to offer particular learning benefits. Despite this growing significance, there has so far been no systematic research review that examines digital textbooks as a subject in their own right in these disciplines. The issue of accessibility, in particular, has been largely overlooked in previous textbook research and has gained particular relevance due to current legislation. This scoping review therefore aims to map the existing literature and to answer three questions: what are the main research foci, which design features of digital textbooks are being investigated, and in what way and to what extent is accessibility addressed. Methods Based on a systematic search in Web of Science and Scopus following the PRISMA-ScR framework, 78 studies (73 in mathematics, five in geography) were included in the final analysis corpus and evaluated using a common coding guide. Results The results reveal a young, rapidly growing, yet unevenly distributed field of research. Studies in the field of mathematics substantially outnumber those in geography, and the research focus lies predominantly on the development, production and use of digital textbooks, whilst effectiveness and content analyses are comparatively rare. At the feature level, research concentrates primarily on immediately visible functions such as text or visualizations, whilst system-based and adaptive functions are scarcely investigated. Although accessibility is clearly present in the literature, it is conceptualized inconsistently. Discussion The review highlights key research gaps, in particular the disciplinary asymmetry between subjects and the need for an explicit examination of accessibility, thereby providing a basis for future research and the inclusive design of digital textbooks.

مقدمه: کتاب‌های درسی دیجیتال در درس‌های ریاضی و جغرافیا اهمیت فزاینده‌ای یافته‌اند، زیرا ویژگی‌های تعاملی و چندرسانه‌ای آن‌ها که فراتر از قابلیت‌های منابع چاپی است، تصور می‌شود مزایای یادگیری ویژه‌ای را فراهم می‌کند. با وجود این اهمیت رو به رشد، تاکنون هیچ مرور نظام‌مندی انجام نشده است که کتاب‌های درسی دیجیتال را به عنوان موضوعی مستقل در این رشته‌ها بررسی کند. مسئله دسترسی‌پذیری به‌ویژه در پژوهش‌های پیشین درباره کتاب‌های درسی تا حد زیادی نادیده گرفته شده و به دلیل قوانین جاری اهمیت خاصی یافته است. بنابراین، این مرور دامنه‌ای با هدف ترسیم ادبیات موجود و پاسخ به سه پرسش انجام شده است: کانون‌های اصلی پژوهش چیست، کدام ویژگی‌های طراحی کتاب‌های درسی دیجیتال مورد بررسی قرار گرفته‌اند و دسترسی‌پذیری به چه صورت و تا چه اندازه مورد توجه قرار گرفته است. روش‌ها: بر اساس جستجوی نظام‌مند در پایگاه‌های Web of Science و Scopus مطابق با چارچوب PRISMA-ScR، ۷۸ مطالعه (۷۳ مطالعه در ریاضی و پنج مطالعه در جغرافیا) در مجموعه نهایی تحلیل وارد و با استفاده از راهنمای کدگذاری مشترک ارزیابی شدند. یافته‌ها: نتایج نشان‌دهنده حوزه پژوهشی جوان، در حال رشد سریع و در عین حال نامتوازن است. مطالعات در حوزه ریاضی به طور قابل توجهی بیش از جغرافیا هستند و تمرکز پژوهش عمدتاً بر توسعه، تولید و استفاده از کتاب‌های درسی دیجیتال است، در حالی که پژوهش‌های اثربخشی و تحلیل محتوا نسبتاً نادرند. در سطح ویژگی‌ها، پژوهش‌ها عمدتاً بر عملکردهای بلافاصله قابل مشاهده مانند متن یا تجسم‌ها متمرکز است، در حالی که عملکردهای مبتنی بر سیستم و تطبیقی به ندرت بررسی شده‌اند. اگرچه دسترسی‌پذیری به وضوح در ادبیات حضور دارد، اما به طور ناسازگار مفهوم‌پردازی شده است. بحث: این مرور شکاف‌های کلیدی پژوهشی را برجسته می‌کند، به ویژه عدم تقارن رشته‌ای میان موضوعات و نیاز به بررسی صریح دسترسی‌پذیری، و بدین ترتیب مبنایی برای پژوهش‌های آتی و طراحی فراگیر کتاب‌های درسی دیجیتال فراهم می‌کند.

The rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT in second language (L2) writing instruction has produced a fast-growing body of research on AI-generated written corrective feedback. Two recent scoping reviews have mapped this literature broadly, focusing on feedback quality, learner uptake and pedagogical integration. However, neither review specifically examined how this literature treats grammatical and lexical development as distinct, measurable constructs, nor how it addresses the moderating role of learner proficiency over time. This scoping review synthesizes 30 empirical and methodological sources, identified through a targeted, PRISMA-ScR-informed search of Google Scholar, Scopus-indexed journal content and ERIC, together with citation networks, to map the state of longitudinal research on generative-AI-mediated feedback and grammatical-lexical development in L2/EFL writing. The review finds that most intervention studies remain limited to a single semester or shorter, that grammatical accuracy and lexical development are rarely measured as separate, co-tracked outcomes and that only a small number of very recent studies (2025-2026) have applied longitudinal growth-modelling techniques, none of which disentangle grammar from vocabulary or systematically test proficiency level as a moderator of developmental trajectories. No such study appears to have been conducted in the Vietnamese EFL context, based on the sources identified in this review. The review proposes a research agenda for longitudinal, multi-proficiency-level, construct-differentiated research on generative-AI-mediated feedback and outlines implications for instructional design and future primary research.

پذیرش سریع ابزارهای هوش مصنوعی مولد مانند ChatGPT در آموزش نگارش زبان دوم (L2) منجر به رشد سریع پژوهش‌ها در زمینه بازخورد اصلاحی نوشتاری تولیدشده توسط هوش مصنوعی شده است. دو مرور محدوده‌ای اخیر این ادبیات را به طور کلی ترسیم کرده‌اند و بر کیفیت بازخورد، جذب یادگیرنده و ادغام آموزشی تمرکز داشته‌اند. با این حال، هیچ‌یک از این مرورها به طور خاص بررسی نکرده‌اند که این ادبیات چگونه توسعه دستوری و واژگانی را به عنوان سازه‌هایی متمایز و قابل سنجش مورد توجه قرار می‌دهد و یا نقش تعدیل‌کننده سطح مهارت یادگیرنده در طول زمان را چگونه بررسی می‌کند. این مرور محدوده‌ای با ترکیب ۳۰ منبع تجربی و روش‌شناختی، که از طریق جستجوی هدفمند مبتنی بر PRISMA-ScR در Google Scholar، محتوای مجلات نمایه‌شده در Scopus و ERIC، همراه با شبکه‌های ارجاعی شناسایی شده‌اند، وضعیت پژوهش‌های طولی درباره بازخورد مبتنی بر هوش مصنوعی مولد و توسعه دستوری-واژگانی در نگارش زبان دوم/انگلیسی به عنوان زبان خارجی (EFL) را ترسیم می‌کند. یافته‌های مرور نشان می‌دهد که اغلب مطالعات مداخله‌ای به یک ترم یا کمتر محدود می‌شوند، دقت دستوری و توسعه واژگانی به ندرت به عنوان پیامدهایی جداگانه و همزمان سنجیده می‌شوند و تنها تعداد اندکی از مطالعات بسیار جدید (۲۰۲۵-۲۰۲۶) از تکنیک‌های مدل‌سازی رشد طولی استفاده کرده‌اند که هیچ‌یک از آن‌ها دستور زبان را از واژگان تفکیک نکرده یا سطح مهارت را به طور نظام‌مند به عنوان تعدیل‌کننده مسیرهای رشد بررسی نکرده‌اند. بر اساس منابع شناسایی‌شده در این مرور، هیچ مطالعه‌ای از این نوع در زمینه آموزش زبان انگلیسی به عنوان زبان خارجی در ویتنام انجام نشده است. این مرور، دستورکار پژوهشی برای مطالعات طولی، چندسطحی از نظر مهارت و متمایز از نظر سازه‌ای درباره بازخورد مبتنی بر هوش مصنوعی مولد ارائه می‌دهد و پیامدهایی برای طراحی آموزشی و پژوهش‌های اولیه آینده ترسیم می‌کند.