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This study aims at understanding the role of the tools chosen throughout the processes of solving a non-routine mathematical problem and communicating its solution. In assuming that problem-solving is a synchronous activity of mathematization and expression of mathematical thinking we take our proposed Mathematical Problem Solving with Technology (MPST) model to analyze the processes of solving-and-expressing-problems. Resorting to qualitative methods for data collection and analysis, we report on the case of an 8th grader working on a covariation problem to examine the role that paper-and-pencil and digital tools play in the development of a conceptual model of the situation. We found that the resources used throughout the solving-and-expressing activity influenced the depth of the conceptual model developed, within a process of progressive mathematization. Whereas paper-and-pencil led to the emergence of a conceptual model based on exploring particular cases, the digital transformation of the solution was triggered by the process of communicating its mathematical justification and expanded the previous model. Moreover, the complexity of this activity is evidenced by its multiple sequences of processes. Finally, the integration process seems crucial as the concomitant use of technological and mathematical resources precedes major advancements in the expansion of the conceptual model.

An evaluation for the development of a paper-based test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) for English Education Department students at one of the colleges in Langsa, Aceh, Indonesia, is necessary, considering their unsatisfactory scores even though the preparation program has been conducted. This research employed context, input, process, and product (CIPP) model developed by Stufflebeam upon the program. Methodologically, interviews, questionnaires, and observation were executed to five TOEFL lecturers and 34 students, while the data obtained were analyzed with the qualitative analysis method of Miles and Huberman. Based on the evaluation of context, the program had an appropriate background, goals, and objectives. Regarding the input, it still had problems related to the availability of resources and facilities. There were no standardized learning materials available, including the broken language laboratory. It affected the process since the lecturers could not maximize the facilities to create an effective learning environment. Eventually, it affected the product since most students could not reach an expected score. Most of the participants agreed that the program needed to be improved. Several improvements can be made to overcome these problems by providing required learning facilities, designing standardized learning materials, and clustering classes in accordance with students’ abilities.

This study aimed to describe and test environmental problem solving ability, analyze differences in environmental problem solving ability when viewed from gender and school differences. To test the ability of students environmental problem solving, a test instrument that refers to the Sanjaya indicator in 2008 was developed. The items on the test were developed by researchers and validated by material and language experts. After revising the results of expert validation, then the environmental problem solving instrument was tested. The trial results obtained a test instrument was valid and reliable. The test was conducted on 136 students in Banjarmasin Indonesia. Quantitative data obtained from students' answers were then analyzed using non-parametric statistical tests with the assistance of SPSS 23 for Windows. The results show that: 1) the ability of students environmental problem solving was still low, 2) there is no relationship between gender differences and the ability of environmental problem solving. 3) There is no relationship between school differences and problem solving abilities. The result of study suggests further researchers need to facilitate students through teaching materials in the implementation of learning and improve student activity in learning to increase environmental problem solving ability

Mobile learning has been increased in past years and has attracted the interests of academicians and educators in the past many years especially in higher education. The mobile-based online test is the buzzing in the current pandemic time. Institutions need to use online learning as a powerful tool for conducting exams and assess the students effectively. Integrating technology in education can be advantageous for universities and help engage better results for students. Therefore, it is important to understand each student their capacities and create a different test based on the required difficulty. Students should be graded based on their capabilities. The purpose of the research study is to develop the progressive model with the calibration of difficulty level according to the student capacity. To achieve the goal, a test of 20 python questions was conducted on 120 students with each question having difficulty given by 8 field experts. To verify the model, 5 categories were formed with different difficulty levels which in turn gave satisfactory results. To find a relation between the initial difficulty and the calculative difficulty based on the student response, a correlation test was conducted. After careful analysis of the question difficulty and student responses, it was observed that both are highly dependent on each other wherein the difficulty level of any question can be calculated using incorrect answers. The correlation coefficient obtained between them was 0.9833. Upon collecting the difficulty of the questions and student responses, respective grading could be done using the stated formula. Later on, the progressive model was simulated with five different cases (Best case, above-average case, below average case, the average case, worst case). The model outperformed in all the cases with appropriate difficulty levels. Online Tests have ushered a revolution in the assessment of students but yet they tend to be unpopular in India as the evaluation based on pen-paper approach is preferred. The main reasons for this are difficult to grade everyone at the same level, susceptible to cheating, and transition to open books. Using our study, universities can identify obstacles, and prepare an appropriate result-driven plan of action for implementing the mobile-based online test and make easy migration from paper-based test to online test.

The administration of A/B exams usually involves the use of items. Issues arise when the pre-establishment of a question bank is necessary and the inconsistency in the knowledge points to be tested (in the two exams) reduces the exams &lsquo, fairness&rsquo, These are critical for a large multi-teacher course wherein the teachers are changed such that the course and examination content are altered every few years. However, a fair test with randomly participating students should still be a guaranteed subject with no item pool. Through data-driven decision-making, this study collected data related to a term test for a compulsory general course for empirical assessments, pre-processed the data and used item response theory to statistically estimate the difficulty, discrimination and lower asymptotic for each item in the two exam papers. Binary goal programing was finally used to analyze and balance the fairness of A/B exams without an item pool. As a result, pairs of associated questions in the two exam papers were optimized in terms of their overall balance in three dimensions (as the goals) through the paired exchanges of items. These exam papers guarantee their consistency (in the tested knowledge points) and also ensure the fairness of the term test (a key psychological factor that motivates continued studies). Such an application is novel as the teacher(s) did not have a pre-set question bank and could formulate the fairest strategy for the A/B exam papers. The model can be employed to address similar teaching practice issues.

Students are increasingly connected to an online world. As such, they expect their university learning experience to emulate their everyday online experiences. Until recently, however, traditional university teaching has tended to focus on 'knowledge transfer'. In order to reengage with students, many universities are providing online tools and courses. But, not all topics are suitable for online learning. Some topics still require hands-on experience - especially where the outcome is targeted to the manufacturing industry. The 3D printer is a teaching tool that benefits from both hands-on and online support. Moreover, it can be used to help reengage students disaffected by traditional teaching methods and as a tool for transitioning to more online teaching methods. This paper outlines how the 3D printer is being used in university classrooms to supplement online teaching which is career focussed.

This paper presents an augmented reality-based Chinese character composition game (ARC) that employs augmented papers to engage lower primary school students in collaborative Chinese character learning. A design research approach was used to gain a holistic view of designing, enacting, and evaluating the ARC. The participants included four teachers and five classes of students from two primary schools. The school-based research findings suggested that: 1) the ARC was an effective system for improving beginning learners’ orthographic knowledge of Chinese characters, particularly for those students with low Chinese language proficiency; 2) the tangible paper interface engaged students in group work and increased the game playfulness; and 3) students’ language proficiency had a significant effect on their perceptions of ease of use and usefulness of the augmented paper game. This paper not only substantiated the potential of the augmented paper as a carrier of educational content, but also instantiated how to implement it to promote social and cognitive supports for interaction and collaboration.

Integrating science learning with game experience and physical manipulatives not only overcomes the rigidity of traditional teaching, but also makes the learning experience pleasant for students and improves their science inquiry ability. Today, with the popularization of mobile devices and technology, both the value and feasibility of gamified science learning have increased significantly. However, several studies showed that students might get lost or feel bored during science inquiry. To let students enjoy the science inquiry process and improve their science process skills, the researchers combined mobile technology, game design elements, and science inquiry and designed the gamified science inquiry activity “we are aircraft designers”. Here, students designed and manipulated a smartphone-controlled paper airplane by mobile devices connected via Bluetooth. To investigate the effects of the gamified science inquiry activity, the flow state and science process skills of 71 students of a junior high school in China were explored. The proposed gamified science inquiry activity enhanced flow and science process skills of students with high and middle level flow. No differences were found on flow and science process skills between males and females. Based on these results, the guidelines for the design of a gamified science inquiry activity are discussed.

The present article aims at presenting several points-commonly not realized by potential TOEFL test takers-that may be utilized to take the paper-and-pencil TOEFL. To these ends, several topics will be presented covering mainly the test format and the scoring scheme. It is under these topics that several technical strategies are discussed with the perspectives on successful paper-based TOEFL test taking.

This case study examines how elementary preservice teacher candidates used “hybrid” (both paper and digital) notebooks, the extent to which the digital portfolio showed evidence of changes ...

The aim of this study is to investigate whether personalization of mathematical word problems affects student achievement; and if it does, to find out whether the outcomes vary depending on computer and class environment in the teaching of mathematics. The sample of the research, conducted in the 2006-2007 fall semester, consists of 90 seventh grade in four sub-groups. During the application in the classroom, paper-based personalized and paper-based non-personalized problems were given. As to the computer environment, web-based personalized and web-based non-personalized problems were presented. After the application, an achievement test was performed as an achievement post-test parallel to the pre-test. The results show no significant difference between the scores of the groups who used personalized materials and the groups who used non-personalized materials. The results also indicate that no significant difference exists between those who studied in the computer-based environment and those in the paper-based environment.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the effects of paper-based and computer-based concept mappings on computer hardware achievement, computer anxiety and computer attitude of the eight grade secondary school students. The students were randomly allocated to three groups and were given instruction on computer hardware. The teaching methods used for each group were the conventional method, paper-based concept mapping and computer-based concept mapping. At the end of a 4-week instruction, posttests were administered to assess computer hardware achievement, computer anxiety and computer attitude of the students. The findings indicate that paper-based and computer-based concept mapping strategies produce better results than the conventional method. However, the effects of paper-based and computer-based concept mapping strategies were not significantly different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a part of each graduate program study, graduate students need to conduct research in a specific field and, most importantly, publish the results of their work in journals and conference publications. While this might sound easy to some graduate students, it may be the most challenging task for many, specifically those in the early years of their studies. Particularly, students have questions regarding transferring the results of their work from a "report" into a research paper, writing high-quality research papers, and how to choose among the various journals and conference publications in their fields. Very often, many students have good results but they have a difficult time publishing them.

The purpose of this study was to compare student performance on two proctored quizzes and one practice test taken in paper-based or computer-based testing mode using an equal number of algorithmic, conceptual, and definition questions to examine the effect of testing mode when students take multiple tests in class. Data were collected from 221 students enrolled in a general chemistry course at a Midwestern university. After learning the material in lecture, students completed two quizzes: Quiz 1 and Quiz 2. One quiz was delivered on paper and another quiz was taken on computer. Each quiz tested student understanding of different chemistry concepts and the quizzes were proctored on different days. Several days after Quiz 2, students took a practice test that tested the knowledge of Quiz 1 and Quiz 2 with different yet similar questions, and again, the testing mode of the practice test was either paper-and-pencil or computer. After each quiz and the practice test, students received feedback on their performance. Differences in performance between the quizzes and the practice test were measured with normalized gains and the differences between the normalized gains for each condition were analyzed using an Analysis of Variance. The results showed no significant testing mode effects among the four conditions overall, or for algorithmic, conceptual, or definition type of questions. Altogether, the results of the present study do not provide evidence to suggest that instructors need to be concerned about testing mode (paper versus computer) when designing and administering chemistry tests.

Many colleges have either begun or are contemplating using the web-based survey to gather student feedback on faculty teaching. Unlike the paper-based method, the web-based approach gives every student in the class the opportunity to provide feedback. Hence, the populations that participate in the webbased and paper-based methods may be quite different, and so may be the feedback. This paper compares the results of student feedback gathered through paper-based and web-based approaches.The results provide information to faculty and administrators on any differences they may expect as they make the transition from a paper-based to a web-based survey of faculty teaching.

Learning to question is essential for determining pathways of conservation and development in southwestern Amazonia during a time of rapid global environmental change. Teaching such an approach in graduate science programs in regional universities can be done using play-acting and simulation exercises. Multiple working hypotheses help students learn to question their own research results and expert witnesses. The method of successive approximations enables students to question the results of complex calculations, such as estimates of forest biomass. Balloons and rolls of toilet paper provide means of questioning two-dimensional representations of a three-dimensional Earth and the value of pi. Generation of systematic errors can illustrate the pitfalls of blind acceptance of data. While learning to question is essential, it is insufficient by itself; students must also learn how to be solutionologists in order to satisfy societal demands for solutions to environmental problems. A little irreverence can be an excellent didactic tool for helping students develop the skills necessary to lead conservation and development efforts in the region.

Developing higher-order critical thinking skills as one of the central objectives of education has been recently facilitated via software packages. Whereas one such technology as computer-aided argument mapping is reported to enhance levels of critical thinking (van Gelder 2001), its application as a pedagogical tool in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) settings has been rarely explored. In addition, the literature fails to acknowledge whether having the basic skill of representing an argument diagrammatically even with paper and pencil can lead to similar results. That being the case, this study was conducted with the aim of comparing the impact of teaching argument mapping via Ra- tionale TM software versus paper and pencil on Iranian EFL majors' critical thinking skills development. To this end, 180 EFL participants were screened into low and high levels of reading proficiency based on their scores on a sample reading proficiency test. Next, they were randomly assigned to two experimental and one comparison groups. During 12 sessions, the experimental groups were provided with argument mapping instructions while the comparison group received a conventional reading instruction. All participants were pre- and post-tested with the California critical thinking skills test (CCTST). Results suggested that students in the software group significantly outperformed those in the paper and pencil group on overall CCTST and the sub-skills of inference and inductive rea- soning. They also scored significantly higher on all tests compared to the comparison group. However, participants' level of proficiency as well as sex did not show any sig- nificant effect on their performance on overall CCTST and its sub-skills.

Alphabet books are an important instructional text used in early education. Advances in mobile technology have led to alphabet books of an electronic format with accompanying sound, animations, and interactive hot spots. This study investigates the differential effectiveness of paper alphabet books and alphabet eBooks in training alphabetic knowledge in 4-year-olds. Three groups of approximately 30 children were assigned to one of three conditions: paper alphabet book, alphabet eBook, or storybook control. Book reading sessions composed of three to four children were run twice a week over eight weeks, with child-book behaviours coded at each session. Measures of early reading ability were collected pre and post-intervention. Children in all conditions improved over time in emergent literacy but no significant differences between conditions were found. Children using paper alphabet books were more likely to say letter names, and their time oriented to the books predicted post-test letter-name and phonological awareness after controlling for pre-test scores. In contrast, time oriented to the alphabet eBooks made no prediction to post-test sores. Preschoolers were observed using various paper/electronic ABC books in 16 sessions.Participants in the ebook condition were more engaged with the books.ABC ebook users frequently activated hotspots but rarely said object or letter names.Paper ABC book users more often named letters, along with corresponding objects.Engagement with paper ABC books but not ABC ebooks predicted post-test early literacy.

Computer-based testing, by facilitating the interaction between teaching and learning, can improve the quality of learning through improved formative feedback which is a key aspect of formative assessment. This study makes a contribution to the research on computer-based testing by examining the mode differences between the paper-and-pencil test and computer-based test. The previously conducted researches in this area dealt with the students of primary and secondary schools. In those researches the points of observation were the students’ successes in mathematics, English and social sciences; no research was done in field of programming languages such as C++ with post-secondary students. The main aim of this study was to find out whether there are differences in the achieved results in two ways of testing: computer-based testing and paper-and-pencil test. Also, the intention was to detect those characteristics of computer based test, which may have a negative effect on students’ achievements. The participants were a representative sample of the population of all engineering students studying computer science at Subotica Tech. The findings of this study led the authors to reach the conclusion that there are no significant differences in scored results for the paper-and-pencil testing and the computer-based testing.

E-Learning also known as electronic learning has gained a wide acceptance from all educational fields and academic institutions. In the past decades we have experienced a profound growth of e-learning courses in education and multiple systems have appeared from medicine to management covering different needs and users. Previous studies indicate a proliferation and discrepancy of e-learning contents that affect interoperability patterns in education for students, teachers and academic staff and have done little to assess the usability of e-learning educational systems leading to contradictory findings that can mislead academics and users. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

This study examines the role of guided induction as an instructional approach in paper-based data-driven learning (DDL) in the context of an ESL grammar course during an intensive English program at an American public university. Specifically, it examines whether corpus-informed grammar instruction is more effective through inductive, data-driven learning or through traditional deductive instruction. In the study, 49 participants completed two weeks of ESL grammar instruction on the passive voice in English. The learners participated in one of three instructional treatments: a data-driven learning treatment, a deductive instructional treatment using corpus-informed teaching materials, and a deductive instructional treatment using traditional (i.e., non-corpus-informed) materials. Results from pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test indicated that the DDL group significantly improved their grammar ability with the passive voice, while the other two treatment groups did not show significant gains. The findings from this study suggest that in this learning context there are measurable benefits to teaching ESL grammar inductively using paper-based DDL.

The paper-and-pencil programming strategy (PPS) is a way of representing an idea logically by any representation that can be created using paper and pencil. It was developed for non-computer majors to improve their understanding and use of computational thinking and increase interest in learning computer science. A total of 110 non-majors in their sophomore year were assigned to either a Logo or a PPS course with attendance being 2 hours per week for 15 weeks. To measure the effectiveness of PPS, the Group Assessment of Logical Thinking and a self-assessment survey pre- and post-test were used. Findings indicated that PPS not only improved students' overall logical thinking as much as did Logo programming learning, but also increased scores on one more subscale of logical thinking than did the Logo course. In addition, PPS significantly helped students understand the concept of computational thinking and increased their interest in learning computer science.

This study examined the impact of different forms of feedback on the writing of a group of 82 adolescent students in secondary English classes. During a 6-week intervention, students were randomly assigned to one of three feedback groups: peer feedback on pen-and-paper drafts, teacher feedback delivered electronically through a course management system, and automated feedback generated through computer-based writing evaluation software. Pre- and post-measures of student writing quality, length, and correctness were analyzed, and survey data explored student perceptions of their experiences. Findings indicate that all students, regardless of which form of feedback they received, wrote longer essays and scored higher on holistic ratings at post test than they did at pretest. Neither language status nor group assignment had a greater or lesser impact on performance on length or holistic quality. However, differences between feedback groups spiked on the proximal measure that examined mastery of particular aspects of the genre being taught. Both peer feedback and teacher feedback delivered electronically had a statistically significant impact on student performance in the genre of open-ended response. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for future research and instruction in the secondary context.

How university students write from sources has been an issue of long-standing interest among researchers of advanced academic literacy. Previous research in this regard in the context of L2 writing has tended to focus on novices' textual borrowing; less attention has been given to exploring the potential light that theories from other intellectual domains may shed upon students' process of source-based academic writing. The study to be reported in this paper used activity theory as an analytic tool to examine three ESL students' activities of fulfilling a policy paper assignment at a university in Hong Kong. In the paper I present a description of the activity system concerned and its internal contradictions, characterize the sequences of actions that constituted the individual students' activities, and analyze the students' source-use practices in terms of their efforts to address a set of source-bound systemic tensions. At the end of the paper I propose a few lines of future explorations using activity theory as a heuristic to study literacy activities in academic contexts.

This paper provides a descriptive content analysis of biology education research papers published in eight major academic journals indexed in Social Science Citation Index [SSCI] of Thomson Reuters® from 1997 to 2014. Total of 1376 biology education research [BER] papers were examined. The findings indicated that most of the papers were published in the JBE and IJSE, and frequently studied topics were environment and ecology, genetics and biotechnology, and animal form and function. The findings were also indicated that learning, teaching and attitudes was in the forefront as the frequently investigated subject matters, undergraduate and secondary school students were mostly preferred as sample group and sample size mostly varies between 31-100 and 101-300. In addition, it was found out that interactive qualitative research designs were mostly preferred. Besides, that single data collection tool was generally used and this data collection tool included questionnaires, interviews and documents. Finally, frequency/percentage tables, central tendency measures, statistical analysis such as t-test and ANOVA/ANCOVA and content analysis were commonly used as data analysis.

The purpose of this study was to carry out a content analysis on the papers published in high-impact educational journals between 2009 and 2014 and to identify the trends over the selected years. The criteria for the analysis were; number of authors, time between the submission and publication of the papers, keywords, the field and rationale of the study, sample size, descriptions of participants, data collection tools and analysis, and software. The current study was designed as a descriptive content analysis study and utilized a purposive sampling technique. A total of 789 papers were selected from the “Journal of Educational Psychology”, “Educational Psychologist”, “Educational Researcher” and “American Education Research Journal”. Content analysis was employed to analyze the collected data. The results of the analyses showed that the most commonly studied fields were educational psychology, linguistic properties and mathematics in the four journals. In terms of the content, the rationales for writing the papers were generally related to gaps in the literature and theoretical discussion. It was found that generally, studies involving research were conducted with elementary/high school students and data was collected from large samples (larger than 10000) using achievement tests and questionnaires. It was revealed that concerning the trends in data analysis methods, there was a similar pattern from 1970s to date, and generally, multilevel modelling was used when appropriate to the data sets. This situation indicates standard data analyses are essential for researchers. From the findings of the current study, it is recommended for researchers to work with heterogenous sample and various types of participants together (family, teacher, peer, etc.)., Bu araştırmacının amacı, 2009-2014 yılları arasında en yüksek beş yıllık etki faktörüne sahip eğitim bilimleri alanındaki uluslararası dergilerde yayımlanan makaleleri, belirlenen ölçütlere göre inceleyerek yıllara göre eğilimlerini belirlemektir. Bu amaçla; makalelerdeki yazar sayısı, yayımlanma süresi, anahtar kelimeler, konu alanı, araştırmanın yapılma ihtiyacı, evren-örneklem/çalışma grubunun büyüklüğü ve özellikleri, veri toplama tekniklerinin/araçlarının özellikleri, verilerin analizinde kullanılan yöntemler/teknikler ve paket programlar ölçüt olarak seçilmiştir. Betimsel içerik analizi modelinde olan araştırmada, amaçlı örnekleme yöntemiyle seçilen “Journal of Educational Psychology”, “Educational Psychologist”, “Educational Researcher” ve “American Education Research Journal” dergilerinde yayımlanan 789 makale incelenmiştir. Verilerin analizinde, içerik analizi kullanılmıştır. Analizler sonucu, en yüksek etki faktörüne sahip eğitim dergilerinde en fazla çalışan konu alanlarının, eğitim psikolojisi, dil becerileri ve matematik olduğu görülmüştür. Bununla birlikte, bu çalışmaların yapılma ihtiyaçları genellikle alan yazındaki eksiklikler ve kuramsal tartışmadır. Ayrıca, çalışmalar daha çok ilköğretim ve lise öğrencileri ve büyük örneklemler (10000 den büyük) üzerinde yürütülürken; çalışmalarda en fazla başarı testi ve anketlerle veriler toplanmaktadır. Yapılan incelemeler sonucu, verilerin doğasına uygun olarak çok düzeyli modelleme çalışmaları yapıldığı görülmekle birlikte sık kullanılan veri analiz yöntemlerindeki eğilimlerin 1970’lerden günümüze benzer olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Bu durum, standart veri analiz yöntemlerinden vazgeçilemediğini göstermektedir. İncelenen özellikler çerçevesinde araştırmacılara, çalışılan örneklemlerde heterojenliğin (aile, öğretmen, akran vb.) sağlanmasına dikkat etmeleri önerilmektedir.

The use of educational games is nowadays well-known, although its effectiveness in terms of learning and motivation has not been firmly corroborated yet. In this research, the focus is on the use of adaptive item sequencing in an educational math game (Monkey Tales) as a way to provide learning content that is adapted to the knowledge level of the learner or player. One way to provide this is adjusting the difficulty level of the content that is presented hence allowing for optimal learning during gameplay. In order to realize this, accurate estimates of the learners' skills are necessary, as well as accurate estimates of variables in the gaming environment that determine how much difficulty learners may experience while completing the items. The goal of this study is to compare difficulty ratings from users and experts in order to acquire reliable estimates of the difficulty of the math rules offered in Monkey Tales. The results suggest a double format effect: not only the gaming format adds difficulty to educational content, but also the format by which educational content is presented in a game is likely to add difficulty which affects learners' in-game performance.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using procedural scaffoldings in fostering students' group discourse levels and learning outcomes in a paper-plus-smartphone collaborative learning context. All participants used built-in camera smartphones to learn new knowledge by scanning Quick Response (QR) codes, a type of two-dimensional barcode, embedded in paper-based learning materials in this study. Sixty undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at a four-year university in southern Taiwan participated in this study. Participants were randomly assigned into two different groups, using procedural scaffoldings learning and non-procedural scaffoldings learning. The learning unit about the Long Tail, an important concept used in products sales, was the learning task that participants were expected to complete. During the experiment, pretest-posttest and the completed group worksheets were used to collect data. The researchers applied content analyses, chi-square test, t-test, and ANCOVA to answer research questions. The findings indicated that participants in the experimental group using procedural scaffoldings achieved better learning outcomes than their counterparts in the control group in terms of group discourse levels, group learning, and individual learning.

To date researchers have had difficulty establishing reliable conclusions in studies comparing traditional forms of learning (e.g. paper-based or classroom based) vs online learning in relation to student learning outcomes; no consistent results have emerged, and many studies have not been controlled for factors other than lesson mode. This paper compares the effects of presenting two versions of lessons on punctuation that differed only in their mode of presentation. Fifty-nine students completed a pre-lesson questionnaire, and after the lessons completed another questionnaire plus the [National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index] NASA-TLX which tests subjective cognitive workload stress. The results showed that students who sat the lessons on paper performed 24 per cent better than those who sat the lessons online. Reasons for this difference in learning outcomes are considered, but no clear reason is apparent in the data from this study. The study sounds a note of caution in terms of the move by tertiary institutions to online and/or blended learning, and suggests further studies are required which assess learning outcomes in different modes of learning.

Questions are used to obtain information, stimulate thinking, and redirect reasoning. Academics in higher education use questions on a daily basis to stimulate thinking and reasoning in students. Final examination papers are used by academics to assess the retention and application skills of students. The assumption, however, exists that questions relating to application skills at universities of technology should start to dominate the higher academic levels in education, with a subsequent drop in questions regarding retention skills. These questions may be categorized as either higher order or lower order questions. This article attempts to distinguish between these two types of questions in light of Bloom's taxonomy, with similar concepts such as deep and surface learning being examined. The literature review is applied to an electrical engineering module titled Electronics, which serves as the case study. The results of this study indicate that a high percentage of the final examination papers dealt with the objective ?Application,? where students had to make use of numerous mathematical equations to solve various unknowns. The results also indicated that academics in electronics are using more lower order than higher order questions in their final examination papers. A balance is suggested between these two types of questions for various academic levels at universities of technology.

This hands-on project uses a paper helicopter to teach students how to distinguish between common and special causes of variability when developing and using statistical process control charts. It allows the student to experience a process that is out-of-control due to imprecise or incomplete product design specifications and to discover how the process can be brought into control through the use of standardized product specifications and associated construction procedures. It also allows the student to experience common causes of variability, to distinguish these from the special causes of variability resulting from the incomplete design specifications, and to discover how standardization reduces process variability. The project has been used in both undergraduate and MBA classes and demonstrates these concepts in a way that is easy for the student to understand and remember.

In this article we argue that in South Africa the current format of legitimised participation and practice in the examination papers for Mathematical Literacy restricts successful apprenticeship in the discipline of scientific mathematics and limits empowered preparation for real-world functioning. The currency of the subject, then, is brought into question. We further argue that the positioning of the subject as a compulsory alternative to Mathematics and the differential distribution of these two subjects to differing groups of learners facilitates the (re)production and sustainment of educational disadvantage. We draw on Dowling’s theoretical constructs of differing domains of mathematical practice and positions and focus analysis on a collection of nationally set exemplar Grade 12 examination papers to identify legitimised forms of participation in the subject. We conclude by arguing for a reconceptualised structure of knowledge and participation in Mathematical Literacy and make preliminary recommendations in this regard.

In a recent issue of this journal, Steven D. Tripp proposed some innovations in the education of instructional designers based on his analysis of education practices in other design professions. His principal proposals were that students should analyze great instructional designs of the past and that instructional design studios should form part of the educational preparation of students entering the profession. This paper proposes some extensions and modifications to Tripp's original ideas. These include extending his concept of the analysis of great lessons of the past to the analysis of current examples of expert work, the use of an expanded jury system to incorporate peer and practitioner evaluation of students' work, and the criticality of students developing solutions to actual performance problems during the instructional design studio experience. Finally, it is proposed that opportunities for critical reflection on the process of instructional design be built into the studio experience.

Assessing students' information literacy skills can be difficult depending on the involvement of the librarian in a course. To overcome this, librarians created an assignment called the Paper Trail, where students wrote a short essay about their research process and reflected on what they would do differently. Through reviewing and grading these papers, librarians determined whether students understood the difference between the library catalog and article databases, evaluated the students' search terms to see if they used effective topic keywords and Boolean operators, and learned more on how the students reflected on their research process.

This study aimed to comprehensively investigate the impact of a word-processor on an ESL writing assessment, covering comparison of inter-rater reliability, the quality of written products, the writing process across different testing occasions using different writing media, and students’ perception of a computer-delivered test. Writing samples of 42 international students taking two tests, a paper-and-pencil based ESL placement writing test and a computer-based one, were analyzed. The results showed that while there was no significant mean difference in the holistic ratings across test occasions, all the analytic components of the computer-generated essays were marked significantly higher than those of the paper-based essays. In a holistic measurement, rater’ reliability was significantly higher in word-processed essays than in paper-written essays. A student survey revealed that habitual computer writers preferred a computer-delivered writing mode to a traditional testing mode. Suggestions and implications for further study for implementing computer-based ESL writing tests are discussed.

The present study attempted to discover plausible differences in composing processes when English as a Second Language (ESL) students write timed-essays on paper and on the computer. For this study, six Korean students with high proficiency in English were asked to write two essays across modes with two different prompts. Upon completion of the test, participants reported on their composing processes in detail. This study also examined the way in which the quality of the written products differs across paper and computer modes. The purpose of this study was to focus research on composing processes and written products across modes at the level of the individual rather than at that of the group. The results of the study show that individual participants are engaged in different ways and to differing degrees by the writing prompts and by the test-taking modality. While the lack of significant differences for essay scores across modes may be suggestive, the number of subjects is too small for generalization about the relationship between modes of composing and essay scores.

The study we present tries to explore how first year engineering students formulate hypotheses in order to construct their own problem solving structure when confronted with problems in physics. Under the constructivistic perspective of the teaching–learning process, the formulation of hypotheses plays a key role in contrasting the coherence of the students' ideas with the theoretical frame. The main research instrument used to identify students' reasoning is the written report by the student on how they have attempted four problem solving tasks in which they have been asked explicitly to formulate hypotheses. The protocols used in the assessment of the solutions consisted of a semi-quantitative study based on grids designed for the analysis of written answers. In this paper we have included two of the tasks used and the corresponding scheme for the categorisation of the answers. Details of the other two tasks are also outlined. According to our findings we would say that the majority of students judge a hypothesis to be plausible if it is congruent with their previous knowledge without rigorously checking it against the theoretical framework explained in class.

Summary In this article I present an activity introducing statistical concepts to engineering students to help them develop inductive reasoning and problem-solving skills.

This article investigates the potential value of bibliometric analysis of student research paper bibliographies to assess student behavior in terms of skills and resources addressed in instruction sessions. References from 109 freshman English papers were analyzed to determine the type of work cited, the origin of the citation, and the characteristics of cited journal titles. It is suggested that student paper bibliographies provide a flexible, non-invasive, time-efficient assessment forum for the documentation of student library use.

Scientific literacy is an important fundamental skill for scientists. In order for students to improve their writing they require constant feedback throughout the process. They also need to learn the value of the peer review process by experience. Although they may require submission of a rough draft, typical upper-division writing assignments such as term papers and formal lab reports are usually due at the end of the semester and are not returned to the student until after the semester is finished; this precludes the establishment of a dialogue between the instructor and the student that can lead to improvement of the work. In addition, achieving scientific literacy through the critical analysis of journal articles is also a learned skill that requires constant feedback and guidance. This article describes a series of mini-assignments that culminate in a formal article and informal presentation. These assignments are designed to proceed through one semester of an upper-division chemistry course and to p...

A cross-section of 361 faculty, graduate and undergraduate students completed a survey that assessed computer availability, experience, attitudes toward computers, and use of computers while engaged in academic writing. Overall, computers served as a tool for all participants, however, undergraduates in the math and computer science areas were more comfortable with computers than others. Experience with computers increased with academic level, suggesting that academics currently use, and have been using, computers throughout their careers. Generally, there were few differences as a function of discipline or gender. Participants indicated different reasons for using computers during the process of writing academic papers relative to written/hard copies. Their responses indicate that these two formats may facilitate the writing process in unique ways. Rather than viewing continued use of hard copy as a transitional period to more extensive computer use, it may be that hard copy offers cognitive supports that may not be available in computer writing software.

Electronic mass media are more and more visited by people interested in today´s news and they are becoming a referent to be taken into consideration. Schools should incorporate these new technologies in their academic curriculum, so that students become f Los medios de comunicación electrónicos reciben cada vez más consultas del público interesado en la actualidad y, poco a poco, son un referente informativo a tener en cuenta. Los centros educativos deben acercarse a estos nuevos medios e incorporarlos a su programación de contenidos para que el alumnado los conozca, observe sus posibilidades, los utilice y adquiera una más completa educación en comunicación. El presente artículo explica una experiencia con diarios digitales y pretende demostrar que también son útiles en las clases.

This study compared compositions written by 38 sixth graders using pencil and paper with those written using a word processor. Half of the students wrote a story using the traditional pencil-and-paper approach and the other half used a word processor. One month later the students wrote a second story, switching the writing approach they used earlier. Of five response variables analyzed, results indicated that the quality of the composition, accuracy of grammar, and reading ease did not differ significantly between the two approaches. However, students using computers wrote compositions with more words and sentences than students writing with pencil and paper.

Overall Instructions The history research paper should constitute an important part of the class. The student should learn to form an opinion on a particular topic and to pro vide supporting documentation. The first stage of the writing process, the search for a general topic, allows the student?prior to any research?to con struct, organize, and arrange his or her paper in a clear, concise fashion. Fol lowing this, the student should narrow the paper to a specific area, developing a thesis. The instructor should collect the student's results two to three weeks after the original assignment, marking these with approval, rejection, or a rec ommended modification.

In this paper we present a student module modeling knowledge states and learning skills of students in the field of Newtonian dynamics. Student data recorded during the exploratory activity in microworlds are used to infer mental representations concerning the concept of force. A fuzzy algorithm able to follow the cognitive states the student goes through in solving a task and to interpret the monitored changes is discussed.

This study investigated HyperCard as a tool for assessment in science education and determined whether or not a HyperCard assessment instrument could differentiate between expert and novice student performance (balancing stoichiometric equations) in science education. Five chemical equations were presented by traditional pen-paper and by a HyperCard (Hyperequation) program. Thirty honors (expert) and 30 regular (novice) chemistry students were randomly divided into HyperCard and traditional pen-paper groups of 15 students each. Scoring was based on five dependent variables: performance scores, number of attempts, rate of attempts, time on task, and correctness. Correlation results indicated that students with high performance scores correctly balanced more equations, required fewer attempts to balance equations, and required less time per attempt than did students with low performance scores. MANOVA results showed that performance scores and correctness scores for both experts and novice were significantly higher on HyperCard compared to pen-paper assessment; the novice scores on HyperCard nearly equaled the expert pen-paper assessment scores. Significant interactions were found for time on task and for correctness. The results suggest that HyperCard can be a suitable tool for assessment in science education and that such an instrument can differentiate between expert and novice student performance.

The development of authoring tools for hypertext has generated interest in its instructional use, yet there is little research on the conditions under which learners benefit from choices available during learning. This study compared education undergraduates with high or low spatial-skill scores in four conditions: hypertext, CAI, paper, and program control. Dependent variables were: score on misconceptions test, number of problems correct, time on lesson, enjoyment rating, number of screens viewed, and number of nonsequential choices. Significant findings indicated that hypertext subjects took the least amount of time, paper subjects solved the most problems, and CAI subjects made the most nonsequential choices. High spatial subjects took more time than low spatial subjects in hypertext, paper, and program control conditions, but less time in CAI. Low spatial CAI and hypertext subjects viewed more screens than did high spatial subjects; the opposite was true for program control subjects. There wa...