Search

The aim of this study is to use augmented reality and hands-on activity with phonics cubes to create an augmented reality English learning system named the Rolling Alphabet-AR System to investigate its impact on English learning, flow experience, and English self-efficacy for sixth graders. This study adopted quasi-experimental research on 114 sixth graders from Taiwan, which comprised experimental and control groups. The experimental group used the Rolling Alphabet-AR System to learn, and the control group used flash cards and picture cards. Before and after the experiments, these two groups took the Phonics vocabulary, flow experience, and English self-efficacy scales as pre- and posttests. The study was conducted 7 times in 7 weeks for a total of 280 minutes. The pre- and posttest results were analysed by independent sample t tests in SPSS 20.0. Using the Rolling Alphabet-AR System in English learning positively impacts English learning effectiveness and flow experience for sixth graders. This study combined AR learning with manual operations to prove that this combination can effectively improve students' English learning results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To situate students in authentic English learning and practicing contexts so as to facilitate their writing performance, in this study, a mind mapping-based contextual gaming approach was proposed. A quasi-experiment was implemented by recruiting two English tourism classes of students from a university of science and technology in northern Taiwan. One class was scheduled to learn with the proposed approach, and the other was arranged to learn with the conventional contextual gaming approach. The students' writing performance, learning perceptions and generative uses were measured to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. It was found that, compared to the control group students; the experimental group students who learned with the proposed learning approach had better writing performance in the aspects of fluency and elaboration with a small effect size. Additionally, it was found that most students considered the game to be beneficial and interesting, and they were in favor of the mind mapping strategy. Moreover, it was also found that the proposed learning approach is more likely to help students produce positive thoughts and feelings, generate diverse ideas, create a sense of exoticism and express actions or intent of actions. Finally, the limitations of the study and some suggestions for improvement of this proposed gaming learning environment and approaches are provided. • A mind mapping-based contextual gaming approach was proposed. • An experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. • The approach has been applied to an English tourism course. • The approach improved the students' writing performance and language use. • Some suggestions for improvement of this proposed approach are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture right have become a newly emerging human rights around the world after 1980. From a long term perspective of culture protection, it is very important to focus on culture propagation and preservation. Under the erosion of mainstream culture, the preservation issue of aboriginal culture has become a particular important issue. For the sake, this study explores how information technology can be used to effectively help preserve, promote and revitalize traditional Formosan aboriginal cultures through the implementation of digital archives, which can make a culture to be more readily accessible to the general public. To have a better understand about what factors prompt users to continually access the digital culture archive. This paper first presents an adaptation of ‘Web 2.0’ to build a digital archive for the Atayal Culture Museum in Taiwan. Then, explores correlations between constructs such as Web 2.0 site characteristics, media richness, para-social presence, user experience, user satisfaction and user intention. The results could be useful in developing integrated platforms or tools for educational purposes, allowing teachers and students to effectively share and apply cultural and educational resources. Another objective is to revitalize and commercialize the cultural industry, using the digital archive's content as the basis for collaboration with teachers and other relevant professionals to achieve maximum creativity and create practical and innovative digital learning products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the potential of a digital game that overlays popular game-play mechanics with formal physics representations and terminology to support explicit learning and exploration of Newtonian mechanics. The analysis compares test data, survey data, and observational data collected during implementations in Taiwan and the United States with students in grades 7–9. Results demonstrate learning on some core disciplinary measures and high levels of learner engagement, indicating the potential benefits of this genre of conceptually-integrated games, but also suggesting that further research and development will be needed to more fully harness this potential. Encouragingly, striking similarities were observed across the two countries in terms of learning and engagement, suggesting that this genre of learning games may prove suitable for engaging students in active exploration of core science concepts across multiple countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The advancement of mobile and wireless communication technologies has encouraged an increasing number of studies concerning mobile learning, in which students are able to learn via mobile devices without being limited by space and time; in particular, the students can be situated in a real-world scenario associated with the learning content. Although such an approach seems interesting to the students, researchers have emphasized the need for well-designed learning support in order to improve the students’ learning achievements. Therefore, it has become an important issue to develop methodologies or tools to assist the students to learn in a mobile learning environment. Based on this perspective, this study proposes a formative assessment-based approach for improving the learning achievements of students in a mobile learning environment. A mobile learning environment has been developed based on this approach, and an experiment on a local culture course has been conducted in southern Taiwan to evaluate its effectiveness. The experimental results show that the proposed approach not only promotes the students’ learning interest and attitude, but also improves their learning achievement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In Taiwan, promoting knowledge of “Labor Safety” which relates to life and work right is very important. Safety training and learning effectiveness become essential issues of adult learning. To reduce the costs of educational training, enterprises have also started to aggressively introduce e-learning education training. Unlike the construction industry, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of e-learning and conventional learning. This study tested the effectiveness of the safety education to prevent falls by different learning modes used to assess safety behavior and learning effectiveness during the education training period. According to the average pass rate, satisfaction degree of course and total number of unsafe behavior, the e-learning mode improves learning effectiveness. Additionally, when the e-learning mode is introduced in the construction safety education training, the labor can use the teaching material more independently and multimedia system, such as animated teaching materials, case teaching, and repeated course learning, to reduce the error rate of operation, property loss rate, and light (heavy) injury. Under this condition, the e-learning mode is positively associated with the learning effectiveness of construction safety education training. High learning effectiveness promotes safe behavior during construction operations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study developed a Mobile Plant Learning System (MPLS) that provides instructors with the ways and means to facilitate student learning in an elementary-school-level botany course. The MPLS represented in this study was implemented to address problems that arise with the use of a didactic approach to teaching and learning botany, as is typically used in elementary schools in Taiwan. To extend opportunities for learning beyond the classroom, this study used personal digital assistants (PDAs) equipped with the MPLS, which provided both teachers and students access to plant information while in the field. A quasi-experimental research design was used to investigate the effectiveness of using the MPLS to support student learning. The responses to questionnaires and interviews indicate that students valued the outdoor learning activities made possible by use of the PDA and its functions. Pre- and post-test results demonstrated that students also benefitted academically from the use of the MPLS and the PDA. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

High-ranking officers require advanced military education in war tactics for future combat. However, line officers rarely have time to take such courses on campus. The conventional solution to this problem used to take the inefficient correspondence courses. Whereas Internet technologies progress, online course is the current trend for military training. However, the question is what distance learning methodology best suits such a proprietary learning purpose. This study presents a sequential process of developing distance learning courses in advanced military education. Further, the Petri-Net analytical approach is adopted to discover the essential interaction requirements of advanced military education delivered via Internet. This study developed a systematic method for designing e-learning systems according to specific requirements of target courses. The proposed approach starts by comparing on-campus programs with the existing e-learning systems to identify the steps required to transform the program into an e-learning system. After first outlining the pedagogy of the on-campus program, its proposed teaching flow through the Internet is then sketched. Finally, the Petri-Net model was used for in-depth analysis of the stages affecting the learning curve of the line office taking e-learning courses. The example of a “Joint Operations” AME course elaborated the presented approach. An e-learning system prototype was also designed accordingly. Lastly, an experiment was conducted to verify the efficiency of the presented approach. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study investigated how female elementary education pre-service teachers in the United States, Turkey and Taiwan learned spatial skills from structured activities involving discrete, as opposed to continuous, transformations in interactive computer programs, and how these activities transferred to non-related standardized tests of spatial visualization and mental rotation. The study used a pretest, intervention, posttest research design with experimental and comparison groups. The experimental group participated in transformational geometry visualization exercises, once a week for six weeks, for approximately 20minutes each session. Instruments were standardized measures of spatial visualization and mental rotation; intervention activity worksheets directed the participants through 2D and 3D transformational geometry tasks in computer environments. For Turkish and Taiwanese participants, the experimental group improved significantly more than the control group in spatial visualization, while the American participants showed no such significant improvement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Peer assessment has been regarded as an effective strategy that encourages students to compare and make reflections by reviewing peers' work. Many studies have indicated that students' learning performance improved as a result of integrating the peer assessment mode. Some researchers have been interested in what students do and what they say during peer assessment, and others have also been concerned about the correlation between the qualitative content and students' learning performance. The aim of this study was to investigate students' peer assessment behaviors, and the relationship between their behaviors and their learning performance. Therefore, an online peer assessment learning platform was developed and integrated into a musical theater course in a university in Taiwan. There were three peer assessment modes, namely peer scoring, peer commenting, and peer scoring and commenting. Three classes of students each used one of the three different peer assessment modes. The experimental results showed that the students who learned with the peer scoring and commenting mode improved their musical theater performance; in addition, they provided more critical feedback and performed more behaviors of reading the rubrics, watching example videos, watching peers' work, and reading peers' feedback. Students who learned with the peer scoring mode performed more repeated behaviors of evaluating peers' works, but few behaviors related to viewing others' comments or reading the rubrics were found. Lastly, the students who learned with the peer commenting mode did not perform better compared with those who learned with the other two modes. However, their learning motivation was the highest, and they performed more behaviors of viewing peers' feedback and peers' works. This indicates that the students who learned with the peer commenting mode focused more on the feedback provided by their peers. To sum up, the integrated peer assessment mode that guided students to score and provide comments was an effective learning approach that improved their musical theater skills and led them to perform more complex behaviors than the other two peer assessment modes (i.e., peer scoring or peer commenting). The major contribution of the present study is to perceive peer assessment from the perspectives of both performance and behaviors. Moreover, the findings can be generalized to other courses that engage students in similar forms of assessment where they are viewing videos of each other's practical performance. • An online peer assessment platform was developed for a musical theater course. • The students' learning performance and peer assessment behaviors were investigated. • The peer scoring and commenting mode can improve students' musical theater skills. • Students who learned with peer scoring and commenting performed complex behaviors. • Students who learned with peer scoring and commenting gave more critical feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the effect of an interactive simulation with embedded inquiry support, which was seamlessly embedded within the simulation, on students' scientific literacy and school science achievement, and explores the relationships among prior school science achievement, inquiry processes and scientific literacy. A total of 49 eighth-grade students at a public junior high school in northern Taiwan participated. Data collected include the students' pre- and post-scores for school science achievement, logging data that indicate their inquiry processes, and pretest, posttest, and delayed-test data that measure their scientific literacy. The results provide evidence that the designed simulation and inquiry support had a long-term effect on the students' scientific literacy. Replacing conventional teaching with inquiry activities did not harm the students' school science achievement performances. Moreover, compared to school science achievement, students' scientific literacy seems a better predictor of their inquiry behavior, especially in the aspect of making conclusions. Analyses of the students' inquiry processes indicate that the so-called low science achieving students conducted more data analyses than the other students, and demonstrated adequate inquiry engagement. The students with middle level school science achievement demonstrated the most active engagement in inquiry and showed good gains of scientific literacy after the learning. These results indicate that a guided inquiry learning environment can support students with different levels of school science achievement to highly engage in science inquiry. Implications and future studies are discussed. • The designed simulation and embedded inquiry support had a long-term effect on the students' scientific literacy. • Compared to school science achievement, students' scientific literacy seems a better predictor of their inquiry behavior. • The low science achieving students conducted more data analyses and demonstrated adequate inquiry engagement. • The middle-level achieving students demonstrated the most active engagement in inquiry and gains of scientific literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]