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Ensuring equity in education is a goal for sustainable development. Among the factors that hinder equity, socioeconomic status (SES) has the highest impact on learning Mathematics. This paper addresses the issue of equity at the secondary school level by proposing an approach based on adopting automatic formative assessment (AFA). Carefully designed mathematical activities with interactive feedback were experimented with a sample of 299 students of grade 8 for a school year. A control group of 257 students learned the same topics using traditional methodologies. Part of the sample belonged to low SES. The learning achievement was assessed through pre-and post-tests to understand if the adoption of AFA impacted learning and whether the results depended on the students' SES. The results show a positive effect of the experimentation (effect size: 0.42). Moreover, the effect size of the experimentation restricted to the low-SES group is high (0.77). In the treatment group, the results do not depend on SES, while in the control group, they do, suggesting that AFA is an equitable approach while traditional instruction risks perpetuating inequalities.

While augmented reality (AR) technology has shown the potential to facilitate students' hands-on activities, few studies have explored its effectiveness in acoustic topics. This paper introduces an AR-based application for learning about the Doppler effect and investigates its educational effectiveness on students' learning achievement, interest, and attitude compared to a two-dimensional (2D) learning tool. Eighty-five junior high school students participated in our study, and they were randomly assigned to two groups (AR: n = 44, 2D: n = 41). The results revealed that students in the AR group outperformed those in the 2D group in terms of their learning achievement and interest. Both groups showed positive attitude toward the Doppler class and physics learning. Moreover, students presented a high level of cognitive perception toward the AR learning tool. This study provides a case for the application of AR in acoustics learning.

Background: Augmented reality (AR) is receiving increasing interest as a tool to create an interactive and motivating learning environment. Yet, it is unclear how instructional support affects performance in AR. Objectives: This study sought to explore how varying the instructional support in AR can affect performance-related behaviours of students with low cognitive abilities during assembly work. Methods: A total of 90 Belgian secondary school students repeatedly executed four different realistic assembly tasks. Three levels of instructional support (low, medium, and high) in AR as well as a control condition with paper instructions with a high level of detail were systematically varied across tasks and participants. Results and Conclusions: Multilevel regression analyses showed that AR instructions yielded lower assembly times and a lower perceived physical effort than paper instructions. Additionally, participants perceived tasks as less complex when given AR instructions with a high or a medium level of detail than when given a low level of detail. No effects of instructional support were established for other performance-related behaviours, namely necessary assistance, error-making, cognitive load, competence frustration, and stress. Effect sizes were small, at least among the instructional support conditions studied, yielding a limited base for adaptivity. Presumably, tailoring the instructional support in AR is only beneficial for highly complex tasks. The results might be useful for the design and implementation of AR in educational settings.

This paper investigates the impact of digital creativity educational practices on the improvement of academic performance and creative thinking development of Chinese high school students. The study defined the importance of the concept of STEM learning in the development of modern skills needed to live and work in a digital socio-economic change caused by the development of Industry 4.0. An educational experiment involving 60 9th grade Chinese students evaluated the impact of digital creativity learning practices on the development of students' creative thinking on such indicators as fluency, flexibility, originality, detailing, and metaphoricity. The impact of digital creative learning practices on the performance of students in the control group and the experimental group was assessed. The analysis of the results of practical research on the impact of digital tools and pedagogical models of learning on the acquisition of students' creative thinking skills was conducted, which proved that the digital environment is the optimal place for students' creative manifestations and provides opportunities to improve creative thinking skills by implementing learning practical activities using innovative tools for the manifestation of digital creative skills.

This study examines the effect of using animation-based worked examples (ARAWEs) that are prepared using Augmented Reality (AR) technology instead of using traditional paper-based worked examples (TWEs) on the achievement, motivation, and attitude of high school students during their programming education. The research was designed through the "Nonequivalent Control Group Model", one of the quasiexperimental models. The participants consisted of second year students (N=94) who were taking the "Basics of Programming" course in the Department of Information Technologies a vocational and technical Anatolian high school in Turkey. An achievement test was applied to the participants as pre-test and final test. Motivation of the students was measured by means of the "Instructional Materials Motivation Survey" developed by Kutu and Sözbilir (2011), and participant attitudes towards using AR was measured by means of the "AR Attitude Scale" developed by Küçük, Yilmaz, Baydas and Göktas (2014). According to the results, both the achievement and motivation levels of the students studying on ARAWEs increased significantly compared to those studying on TWEs. There was a high level of correlation between the final test scores and the attitude levels of the students studying on ARAWEs. Considering that instructional materials containing animation-based worked examples prepared using AR technology increase students' interest and motivation in the subject, their use in lessons that include teaching problem solving skills, such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry, can be implemented in future studies.

Visual representations and the process of visualisation have an important role in geometry learning. The optimal use of visual representations in complex multimedia environments has been an important research topic since the end of the last century. For the purpose of the study presented in this paper, we designed a model of learning geometry with the use of digital learning resources like dynamic geometry programmes and applets, which foster visualisation. Students explore geometric concepts through the manipulation of interactive virtual representations. This study aims to explore whether learning of geometry with digital resources is reflected in higher student achievements in solving geometric problems. This study also aims to explore the role of graphical representations (GRs) in solving geometric problems. The results of the survey show a positive impact of the model of teaching on student achievement. In the post-test, students in the experimental group (EG) performed significantly better than students in the control group (CG) in the overall number of points, in solving tasks without GR, in calculating the area and the perimeter of triangles and quadrilaterals than the CG students, in all cases with small size effect. The authors therefore argue for the use of digital technologies and resources in geometry learning, because interactive manipulatives support the transition between representations at the concrete, pictorial and symbolic (abstract) levels and are therefore important for understanding mathematical concepts, as well as for exploring relationships, making precise graphical representations (GRs), formulating and proving assumptions, and applying different problem-solving strategies.

The presence of tablets and laptops in schools has burgeoned in recent years, with $4.9 billion spent on over 10.8 million devices in 2015. Despite the large and increasingly prevalent monetary and time investments in education technology, little causal evidence of its effectiveness exists. I estimate the effect of a Math and English Language Arts tablet educational program that supplements core instruction using a randomized controlled trial in a Boston charter middle school. I find that the personalized learning technology can substantially increase end-of-year test scores by 0.202 standard deviation in Math, but find no effects for the summative English exam. For the quarterly formative exams, I find positive, but insignificant effects for Math and marginally significant effects for English. This paper demonstrates the potential of technology to enhance student learning in Math and could serve as a cheaper alternative to high-intensity tutoring for school districts without funding or labor supply for extensive tutoring programs.

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is one of the most important learning strategies. Augmented Reality (AR) is an effective way to support this strategy, which is considered conducive to enhance academic achievements of students during IBL. This paper investigated teacher-student interactions during AR-supported IBL by comparison and case study. First, four video clips carried by two high schools were coded by improved Flanders Interaction Analysis System (iFIAS) with two clips in AR-supported class and others in no AR-supported class. Then, Lag Sequence Analysis (LSA) was used to extract sequence features based on the codes. Finally, suggestions on using AR in IBL and details about study were discussed. Results show that AR-supported IBL has more active responses from students and a higher response rate from teachers. Student responses in AR-supported IBL have more tendency to be approved by teachers. The interactive component of AR software is in positive relation to its capacity of flexible inquiry, but it requires more time to learn to operate and demands more demonstration behavior from teachers. Teachers should develop skills of asking questions to guide and give timely feedback when carrying out IBL supported by AR.

While infusion of technology into schools has been one of the top priorities of the education reform agenda across the world, findings from many large-scale international assessments indicate that students' use of information and communication technology (ICT) has mixed effects on their academic achievements. In this paper, we argue that these ambivalent findings were due to the oversight of the indirect effects of ICT use mediated by other ICT-related variables. We employed multilevel structural equation modelling to unfold the relationship between students' ICT use and their academic achievements based on PISA 2015 data. The results indicated that students' autonomy in ICT use and students' interest in ICT use were found to have significant positive direct effects on students' academic achievements at both within-school and between-school levels. These two variables played a significant role in mediating the indirect effects of ICT use outside school for schoolwork and ICT resources on students' academic achievements. On the contrary, ICT resources and ICT use at school exerted either no direct effect or a negative direct effect on students' academic achievements and students' perceived autonomy related to ICT use, suggesting that mere provision and use of ICT resources in school did not necessarily guarantee success in student performance. At the school level, school's transformational leadership and collaborative climate helped promote students' autonomy in ICT use.

This study has aimed to measure the effect of electronic tests on the academic achievements of middle school students in Arabic course. The sample has been divided into two groups; the experimental group and the non-experimental group after using the mixed experimental method. Statistical measurements had been used before, and after, the experiment for both groups; whereas, study tools were consisted of achievements test and focus group. The results have assured the existence of statistical differences between the experimental group and non-experimental group in the (language classification) category marks. The results have shown no statistical differences on the audio comprehension, reading comprehension, writing, handwriting skills, language style, grammatical function and writing expression categories marks, which give preferences to use the electronic test rather than the traditional (pen and paper) test. The study has concluded that teachers must be encouraged to perform continuous evaluation throughout the academic semester by applying electronic tests. They must emphasize on the importance of grounding rules and regulations to apply electronic tests in the educational institutions.

This paper examines from the perspective of teachers the problems faced by a telesecondary school for the achievement of its educational objectives, as well as the implemented actions to overcome their problems, located in the state of Yucatan, Mexico. A case study was carried out, selected on the basis of the good results obtained by students in the ENLACE test, belonging to a highly marginalized context. The methodological and data triangulation allowed to verify and validate data, obtained through interviews, focus groups, documentary analysis and qualitative observation. The results indicate that there are individual and general factors that need to be considered to improve the students' education: lack of effectiveness in the development of educational policy programs, lack of some resources and infrastructure, lack of technological resources, teachers training and management of the school center. The strategies the school makes to address these problems are helping to improve student performance.

There is increasing interest in how educational technologies can be used to promote and create meaningful learning opportunities and, more specifically, how social media tools can be harnessed to encourage language learning through online interactions. Educational social media tools, however, thrust student learning from a private space into a public one and raise ethical concerns regarding digital surveillance. Drawing from Norton's (2013) conceptualisation of language investment and identity and Bourdieu's (1990) thinking tools of habitus and field, this paper explores the attitudes and experiences of 30 Japanese exchange students studying at a high school in Australia, as they engage with the educational social media platform, Edmodo. This action research study aimed to encourage language investment by providing an online space for students to develop their English language identities in and amongst their Japanese peers. However, this study found that many of the participating students resisted and/or disliked using Edmodo because they felt restricted by the platform, highlighting the need for students to have a sense of autonomy in the midst of teacher control and surveillance. Additionally, this study reveals that the students who engaged regularly, and without the prompting of the teacher, were students who were academically stronger, suggesting that students' self-efficacy is closely linked to language investment and the willingness to develop their language identity.

In recent years, the innovative applications of integrated augmented reality (AR) into educational settings had increased rapidly in Taiwan. AR provides the scene of the real world while interacting with the virtual and physical objects and increases students' learning motivation. This paper presents an empirical study that investigated the middle-school students learning health education courses related to human body structure knowledge integrating AR technology with different learning style preferences. A two-way t-test was applied to examine the experimental (AR-based) or control (traditional lecture) group in health education courses for four consecutive weeks, comparing with pre-test and post-test scores. The findings revealed that students in the AR experimental group apparently had a higher learning achievement than the students in the control group. Moreover, students with different learning styles had the significant differences in learning achievement. The research outcomes provided the practical implications for educators in incorporating AR applications for enhancing learning motivation and to study the differences in students' learning style.

The paper investigates the internet utilizing in online homework accomplishing at Saudi High Schools. The study covered three Saudi cities, namely; Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. The paper concerned about the teachers, parents and students perceptions toward using internet in education path with concentration on online home works, and its effect in the view of student performance and grades. The study methodology represented in Questionnaires distributed over the study's sample and interviews with participants. Questionnaires distributed on 91 students, 45 teacher, and 43 parents where the interviews involved 3 students, 2 teachers, and only one parent. The study showed that the internet usages have promising consequences on the homework completion and students' performance. Furthermore, there were some unpersuaded participants towards the benefits of internet usages on students' growth. Also, the study finding proposed related aspects to be studied and taken in concern in future studies.

This paper deals with the field of "feedback intervention" in a distance learning environment. The study examines the influences of two types of feedback: cognitive content-oriented feedback designed to meet the student's cognitive needs relating to the curriculum, and non-cognitive feedback that refers to motivational-affective aspects of the learning process, in the form of axioms relating to the student's ability, on one hand, and the effort that the student puts into the learning process, on the other. The purpose of this study was to examine the differential effect of different types of feedback on the student's coping variables (cognitive assessment), i.e. the sense of threat and challenge, self-efficacy, and achievement. The rationale for choosing feedback axioms for motivation is based on recent theoretical models which focus on students' perceptions and beliefs as elements that affect their learning motivation. The study was conducted on 171 subjects divided into three study groups. Each group received a different type of feedback: content feedback, effort feedback, or ability feedback. The findings indicate that groups which received feedback relating to more than content show improved motivation, an increased sense of challenge and improved achievement in comparison to the group which received content feedback only. Small differences were found between the ability feedback and effort feedback groups.

FIBER (Flipped Issue-Based Enquiry Ride) is a teacher-facilitated interactive pedagogic framework that the authors propose to integrate flipped learning into social humanities education. This paper reports a quasi-experimental study (with mixed methods) which examined the pedagogic effectiveness of FIBER in the authentic setting of formal curriculum learning and teaching. The study involved totally 611 Secondary-4 students from academically top, middle and bottom schools in Hong Kong. In comparison with the conventional issue-based enquiry learning approach, FIBER had different intensity of positive effects on the high, moderate, and low academic-achieving student participants. This paper provides researchers and educational practitioners with empirical evidence for supporting wider adoption of FIBER in social humanities education, as well as harnessing flipped learning in formal schooling. Apart from discussing the benefits, the authors also underline the challenges of FIBER and suggest future work.

Ontologies have often been recommended for E-learning systems, but few efforts have successfully incorporated student data to represent knowledge conceptualizations. Defining key concepts and their relations between each other establishes the backbone of our E-learning system. The system guides an individual student through his/her course by evaluating their progress and suggesting instructional material to review based upon their answers. Three main tasks are performed within this framework: building ontologies for the course, measuring a student's understanding level for the concepts, and making personal suggestions to create an individualized learning environment. This paper presents: the integration of ontologies, assisted with student data, together with an intelligent Recommendation Module for the development of an E-learning system; the comparison and correction adaption of ontology from students' mind maps; and the assessment of students' actual weaknesses in comparison to what Recommendation Module suggests. The sample of 127 students, five classrooms, was conveniently selected among seventh grade students of a demographically average school in a major city in Turkey. The students' achievement was assessed and the scores for different questions were investigated for associations with concepts made in the students' minds. The results provided significant correlations among scores, and a fit model for the concepts represented by questions. The student suggested model slightly differed from the ontology map from the experts. Based on the data-supported model, the Recommendation Module more accurately determined the students' learning deficiencies and suggested concepts to be reviewed.

In this paper We present a pilot study providing ICT resources at some Italian junior high schools. In 2009, 156 classes at 6th grade were endowed with additional resources earmarked for purchasing ICT equipment. By selecting an equivalent number of classes in the same schools, we are able to conduct an evaluation of the causal effect of ICT on student achievements, controlling for their initial level. Despite a significant investment, the impact on literacy and numeracy achievement is negligible: if we take the most encouraging results, the average improvement would be 3 test points, corresponding to 17% of a standard deviation.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine whether the use of online puzzles in the instructional process has an effect on student achievement and learning retention. This study examined students ' perception and experiences on use of puzzle as an alternative evaluation tool. To achieve this aim, the following hypotheses were tested: using puzzle activities in lessons increases student achievement, using puzzle activities in lessons increases retention of information learned by the students and students have positive attitudes toward using puzzle activities in lessons. This study uses an online puzzle system (OPS) by which instructors can prepare puzzle activities for students to solve online. The technical and functional properties of the OPS developed and used are beyond the scope of this study. Design/methodology/approach: A pre- and post-test with control group experimental research design was implemented. Study participants were tenth-grade students in the Information Technologies Department of Gazi Anatolia Technical and Industrial Vocational School in Elazig during the 2011-2012 year. Thirty students each were chosen for the experimental and control groups, totaling 60 students. During the study, a traditional instruction method was used for the control group, while the experimental group received both traditional instruction and performed activities using the OPS. The subject Fundamentals of Networking was chosen, and the implementation period lasted six weeks. Four weeks after completion of the study, the achievement level of students was calculated again to test learning retention. Findings: The first hypothesis of the study is, "Using puzzle activities in the lessons increases the achievement of the students". In the teaching of the Networking Fundamentals Module of Information Technologies Course for tenth graders, a significant difference in favor of the experimental group was seen, where online puzzle activities were used in terms of student achievement. The second hypothesis of the study is, "Using puzzle activities in the lessons increase the retention of the information learned by the students". Four weeks after completion of the study, the achievement levels of the students were calculated again to test learning retention. The learning retention of the students in the experimental group is higher than that of the students in the control group. In addition, students in the experimental group had positive attitudes toward online puzzle activities. Doing online puzzle activities accelerates learning for students and helps them learn networking terms by creating an enjoyable environment. Research limitations/implications: The current study was limited to six weeks of implementation during the 2011-2012 school year at Gazi Anatolia Technical and Industrial Vocational High School in Elazig. Similar studies could be conducted in other schools for longer periods and at different levels, so the findings can be compared with those of the current study. This study is further limited to an Information Technologies Course. Studies can be conducted with various courses using appropriate online puzzle activities. Puzzle types other than the crossword used in the OPS of the current study should be developed and added. The system should also be developed by visual multimedia objects, allowing it to be more interactive. Moreover, in the development process of such an OPS, educators, software designers, psychologists and scholars from other fields should work together. Usability tests should be conducted to improve user-friendliness of the system by adding various features related to functionality and visuality. Practical implications: From the findings of the study, it can be concluded that online puzzle activities help students understand subjects better and aid in exam preparation. Moreover, these activities are effective for students in terms of increasing understanding and retention of learned terms in and outside class, forming valuable learning experiences. Doing online puzzle activities in class as a course-end activity can be said to be more effective in students' learning than doing them outside of class. Crossword puzzles offer opportunities for students to accelerate learning by quickly mastering new words and phrases and by directing students to more actively interact with computer-related vocabulary and terminology as compared with the rote learning method. Originality/value: Paper-based puzzles are frequently used, and there are few Web-based puzzles. Despite their frequent use, preparing and evaluating paper-based puzzles can require a significant time investment; another disadvantage is the lack of immediate feedback. Based on the literature review, there is no dynamic OPS used for educational purposes. This study uses an OPS by which instructors can prepare puzzle activities for students to solve online. The originality of this study is OPS features and puzzle generation mechanism. The system presents a user-friendly interface with Turkish character (or any language) support and number-writing properties.

This paper reports on a quasi-experimental study examining the effectiveness of flipped instruction in a 9th grade biology classroom. This study included four sections of freshmen-level biology taught by the first author at a private secondary school in the Pacific Northwest. Using a block randomized design, two sections were flipped and two remained traditional. The quiz and posttest data were adjusted for pretest differences using ANCOVA. The results suggest that flipped instruction had a positive effect student achievement, with effect sizes ranging from +0.16 to +0.44. In addition, some students reported that they preferred watching video lectures outside of class and appreciated more active approaches to learning.

VISOLE (Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Environment) is a teacher-facilitated pedagogical approach to integrating constructivist online game-based learning into formal curriculum teaching in school education. This paper reports a case study on the implementation of VISOLE in secondary Geography education. We compared the pedagogical effectiveness of VISOLE and the traditional classroom teaching approach, in terms of students' knowledge acquisition with respect to a formal curriculum. One hundred and ninety-eight students from top, middle, and bottom academic-banding schools were selected and divided into three experimental groups and three control groups to participate in the research. Results showed that, in comparison with the traditional approach, VISOLE had a positive pedagogical effect on both low and moderate academic-achievement students, but not on high academic-achievement students. The findings shed light on enhancing the existing design of VISOLE, and provide researchers and educators with new insights into harnessing online games in formal school education in practice.

Technology has already become an indispensable part of our lives, and nations around the world see schools as the main agents to prepare their youth for a technology-filled future, and invest important amounts of funding to provide hardware to schools, students and teachers. The Turkish Ministry of National Education is in the midst of the FATIH project, a nation-wide attempt to provide each classroom with an interactive whiteboard and each student with a tablet computer. In this paper, the authors present interview data from teachers at first-year FATIH pilot schools who are using these technologies to understand how this national attempt is being translated into practice, and identify what is working and what areas need further attunement. Results show that teachers were especially content with being able to make their lessons visually more appealing for their students. They were, however, not satisfied with the in-service training provided, especially in understanding ways to effectively integrate the technologies into their teaching, and the limitations put upon Internet access from the tablets. The impacts of these tools on their teaching practices were very minimal.