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Makerspaces are an area that is of increasing interest in education. While studies exist about makerspaces in tertiary education, not many studies have explored makerspaces in primary and secondary education. The current study focuses on pupils’ motivation and engagement in makerspace activities—digital fabrication and physical computing—in the context of a primary school, using the Activity Theory as its theoretical framework. The study follows an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. Primary school pupils participated in a six-week design-based makerspace programme in a Fablab and a school computer lab, and they completed a survey and participated in focus group discussions afterwards. Both quantitative and qualitative findings showed that pupils perceive maker activities as being motivating (in terms of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, interest/enjoyment, satisfaction) and engaging (in terms of behavioural, cognitive, emotional, and social engagement). The Activity Theory provides further insights on how motivation and engagement in makerspaces relate to the components of the activity system. The study advocates for the use of maker activities in the primary classroom. Implications on educational practices and future research are discussed.

The integration of augmented reality (AR) in education is promising since it enhances teaching and offers more engaging and appealing learning experiences. Teachers can have a catalytic role towards the adoption of AR in education; therefore, their perspectives with regard to AR in teaching and learning are very important. The current study explores teachers’ views on the integration of AR in education through an open-ended questionnaire that has been answered by 93 educators worldwide. A set of digital skills that can support student-centered pedagogies in an appropriate infrastructure are the main requirement for effective teaching with AR. Among the perceived benefits and opportunities are interactive teaching and learning, increased interest and engagement, better understanding of complex concepts. As barriers, participants reported the lack of AR educational applications, the cost of buying and maintaining AR equipment and resources, the lack of teachers’ and students’ digital skills, classroom management issues, and security and ethical issues. Moreover, survey participants highlighted the need for raising teachers’ awareness for the added value of AR in education and the need for teachers’ continuous professional development. Implications and future research recommendations on the integration of AR in education are discussed.

Augmented reality, the technology that augments real environments with virtual components, is constantly evolving. Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to offer immersive, authentic, and meaningful learning experiences to students and therefore enhance learning. However, the effective integration of augmented reality into teaching requires from teachers to master a special set of digital competencies. The current study proposes a framework that defines the augmented reality competencies that teachers should have in order to effectively integrate augmented reality into their teaching. The framework comprises four dimensions: basic augmented reality literacies, create, use, and manage augmented reality learning resources. Based on the proposed framework, the study introduces also the Teachers' Augmented Reality Competencies (TARC) questionnaire that can help educators to self-assess and develop their AR competencies in order to integrate augmented reality in their practice.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to compare the overall usability and user experience of desktop computers and mobile-devices when used in a summative assessment in the context of a higher education course. Design/methodology/approach The study follows a between-groups design. The participants were 110 first-year undergraduate students from a European university. Students in the experimental group participated in the assessment using mobile devices, whereas students in the control group participated using desktop computers. After the assessment, students self-reported their experiences with computer-based assessment (CBA) and mobile-based assessment (MBA), respectively. The instruments used were the user experience questionnaire and the system usability scale. Findings Attractiveness and novelty were reported significantly higher in the experimental group (MBA), while no significant differences were found between the two groups in terms of efficiency, perspicuity, dependability and stimulation. The overall score for the system usability was not found to differ between the two conditions. Practical implications The usability and user experience issues discussed in this study can inform educators and policymakers about the potential of using mobile devices in online assessment practices, as an alternative to desktop computers. Originality/value The study is novel, in that it provides quantitative evidence for the usability and user experience of both desktop computers and mobile devices when used in a summative assessment in the context of a higher education course. Study findings can contribute towards the interchangeable usage of desktop computers and mobile devices in assessment practices in higher education.

Mobile learning is a fast-growing area in the field of education. Previous research has highlighted the importance of the continuance intention to use information technology as a post-adoption behaviour. However, while research exists for the behavioural intention to use mobile learning, not many studies exist that have investigated the continuance intention towards using mobile learning. The current study explores factors that influence the continuance intention towards using mobile learning in the context of secondary science education. The study proposes and evaluates a model to explain and predict continuance intention to use mobile learning, using constructs from both the Technology Acceptance Model and the Self-Determination Theory of Motivation. Forty-eight students from a European secondary school participated in outdoors mobile learning activities during a science class and filled out a survey questionnaire about their attitudes. Structured equation modelling was used for analysing the data. The analysis confirmed the proposed model, explaining and predicting students’ continuance intention to use mobile learning in terms of satisfaction, perceived ease of use and autonomy. The study can guide education professionals towards the design and development of more motivating mobile learning activities that promote student satisfaction and their continuance intention to use mobile learning.

This chapter aims to highlight some mentoring strategies when working with beginning teachers who are at different developmental stages of teaching. For example, a beginning teacher you are mentoring might be observing and practising some basic teaching skills, but not yet teaching a full lesson, or they might have started to incorporate a range of teaching strategies in lessons, but these strategies are not specifically focusing on promoting pupils’ learning and so on. Therefore, you should use your judgement and knowledge about the beginning teacher to identify the best mentoring strategy to use at any one time. The chapter starts with a brief description of the stages of development using Maynard and Furlong’s (1995) model of a beginning teacher’s development concerning basic teaching skills, teaching strategies and teaching styles. Next, some characteristic behaviours of an effective teacher are presented. A range of mentoring steps to support the beginning teacher’s journey of becoming an effective teacher, starting from ‘early idealism’ then ‘survival’, ‘recognising difficulties’, ‘hitting a plateau’ and finally to ‘moving on’ stages of development are then given. The chapter closes with a discussion on how to support a beginning teacher to self-evaluate their lessons by using lesson debriefs (called post lesson discussions in Chapter 8) and pupils’ feedback. Objectives At the end of this chapter you should be able to: 1. Recognise that it is a mentor’s responsibility to identify a beginning teacher’s stages of development and support them towards becoming an effective teacher; 2. Support a beginning teacher to develop the characteristic behaviours of an effective teacher; 3. Assist a beginning teacher to be able to identify and develop basic teaching skills, teaching strategies and a pupil-centred teaching style; 4. Encourage a beginning teacher to self-evaluate their lessons with the aid of lesson de-briefs and pupils’ feedback.

Advancements in mobile and wireless technologies have increased the adoption rate of mobile learning. Mobile learning offers numerous affordances to education: time and location independence, ubiquity and context awareness, adaptivity and personalization, social interactivity and easier administration. However, for the effective integration of mobile learning in schools, teachers should have the appropriate competencies in order to integrate mobile technologies into their professional practise. Existing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) frameworks provide general guidelines to pre-service and in-service teachers for the appropriate use of digital technologies across education. Examples of such frameworks are the UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers (ICT CFT v.3), the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards and the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu). While the aforementioned frameworks provide a set of competencies that educators need to master in order to effectively use digital technologies in their professional practise, they are not focused on specific educational technologies. Wireless and mobile technologies, on the other side, have introduced a set of characteristics that are rather unique to mobile learning: personalisation and adaptivity, ubiquity and context-awareness, interactivity and authenticity, self-directedness and collaboration. The current study proposes the development of a framework that explicitly defines the mobile learning competencies that teachers need to have in order to effectively integrate mobile learning into their professional practise so as to enhance and innovate education and training. The proposed framework is based on current digital competencies frameworks and incorporates the following aspects of teachers’ professional practise: mobile technologies, digital citizenship, safety, classroom management, pedagogy, teaching, assessment, and professional engagement. Moreover, the framework introduces a progression model identifying three expertise levels: beginner, competent and proficient. The proposed framework for teachers’ mobile learning competencies is aiming to function in a complementary fashion to the current general digital competency frameworks by providing explicit links between mobile learning competencies and teachers’ practise and continuous professional development. The framework can provide a useful guidance for the development of teachers’ training programs that promote mobile learning competencies and also for self-assessment to evaluate individual mobile learning competence levels.

Mobile devices not only provide a medium for delivering personalized and context-aware learning but also facilitate the delivery of assessment activities anytime and anywhere. With the growing adoption of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) practices in education, Mobile-Based Assessment (MBA) is an emerging field in the context of mobile learning research. Although a considerable number of literature reviews exists about mobile learning, there is no such review study to provide insight into mobile-based assessment. The current study is a review of forty-three (43) articles about mobile-based assessment published in seven major educational technology research journals from January 2009 to February 2018. Major findings include that most mobile-based assessment studies focused on formative assessments with elementary students and in STEM subjects. Most of the reviewed articles reported a significant positive impact on student learning performance, motivation and attitudes. Moreover, the study identified several gaps in the mobile assessment literature. More research is needed to investigate issues and concerns related to negative perceptions against mobile assessment, especially form the teachers’ point of view. Also, a stronger alignment needs to be developed between student motivation and different mobile-based assessment practices. The study can be a valuable reference for educators and researchers working in the field of mobile-based assessment.

Teachers' role can be catalytic in the introduction of innovative digital tools in order to create new learning and assessment opportunities. This study explores science technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers' intention to use mobile‐based assessments in the teaching practice. The study proposes the teachers' acceptance mobile‐based assessment (TAMBA) model which extends the technology acceptance model by introducing individual, social, institutional and instructional design factors. An appropriate questionnaire was developed and answered by 161 STEM teachers from 32 European countries. Their responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The proposed TAMBA model explains about 50% of the variance in teachers' intention to adopt mobile‐based assessment. Perceived Ease of Use was found to be the most important determinant in teachers' intention to use mobile‐based assessment. Facilitating Conditions and Output Quality were the most influential external variables in the model. The study findings revealed that focusing on mobile assessment quality design as well as on institutional support are important factors for STEM teachers in order to accept mobile‐based assessments in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acceptance and intention to use mobile learning is a topic of growing interest in the field of education. Although there is a considerable amount of studies investigating mobile learning acceptance, little research exists that investigates the driving factors that influence students' intention to use mobile technologies for assessment purposes. The aim of this study is to provide empirical evidence on the acceptance of Mobile-Based Assessment (MBA), the assessment delivered through mobile devices and technologies. The proposed model, Mobile-Based Assessment Acceptance Model (MBAAM) is based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). MBAAM extends TAM in the context of MBA by adding to the Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness, the constructs of Facilitating Conditions, Social Influence, Mobile Device Anxiety, Personal Innovativeness, Mobile-Self-Efficacy, Perceived Trust, Content, Cognitive Feedback, User Interface and Perceived Ubiquity Value and investigates their impact on the Behavioral Intention to Use MBA. 145 students from a European senior-level secondary school experienced a series of mobile-based assessments for a three-week period. Structured equation modeling was used to analyze quantitative survey data. According to the results, MBAAM explains and predicts approximately 47% of the variance of Behavioral Intention to Use Mobile-Based Assessment. The study provides a better understanding towards developing mobile-based assessments that support learners, enhance learning experience and promote learning, taking advantage of the distinguished features that mobile devices may offer. Implications are discussed within the wider context of mobile learning acceptance research. The study investigates factors influencing students' adoption of mobile-based assessment.The study introduces Mobile-Based Assessment Acceptance Model (MBAAM).MBAAM explains about 47% of the total variance in Behavioral Intention to Use.

Mobile-Based Assessment (MBA) is an alternative or complementary to paper- or computer-based assessment delivery mode. Its successful implementation depends on users' acceptance. However, no study exists exploring the factors that influence students' acceptance of mobile-based assessment. Furthermore, research that combines acceptance with motivational factors is limited. The current study builds on the theoretical framework of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) of Motivation and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and proposes the Mobile Based Assessment - Motivational and Acceptance Model (MBA-MAM), a combined model that explains and predicts Behavioral Intention to Use Mobile-based Assessment. One-hundred and forty students (N = 140) from a European senior-level secondary school participated in mobile-assisted assessment activities and self-reported their perceptions about ΜΒΑ afterwards. Structured equation modeling used to analyze quantitative survey data. The study confirmed the proposed model, explaining and predicting students’ intention to use MBA in terms of both acceptance and motivational (autonomy, competence and relatedness) factors. The study provides a better understanding towards the development of mobile-based assessments by relating acceptance and motivational factors into an integrated model. Implications are discussed within the wider context of mobile learning acceptance research.

The present study focuses on the implementation of a self - assessment procedure in a Physics class, extended during a seven weeks period in a European secondary level school. The researchers used three modes of assessment based on paper and pencil, computer-web and mobile devices respectively. The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of each mode of assessment on students' motivation and achievement. Analysis of pre- and post-motivation tests revealed a more positive motivational orientation of students towards computers and mobile devices as assessment delivery mediums. Also, student evaluation implemented after the phase of the experimental procedure showed a significant increase in learning achievement for low-achieving students who participated in the mobile-based and computer-based assessment. The positive effects of computers and mobile devices on students' learning motivation suggest that they can be used as a promising alternative to paper and pencil assessment procedures. We investigate the impact of self-assessment delivery modes on student motivation and achievement.Computer- and mobile-based self-assessment increases science learning motivation.Computer- and mobile-based self-assessment contributes to better learning achievement.Low- and medium-achieving students benefit more from computer- and mobile-based self-assessments.

One of the major priorities of education systems nowadays is to promote Inquiry-Based Science Learning (IBSL). Research has shown that mobile learning can support and enhance inquiry-based science learning promoting learning achievement and motivation. However, engagement, as a consequence of motivation, in the context of mobile-assisted inquiry-based science learning, has not been adequately investigated. The current study implements a collaborative mobile-assisted inquiry-based science learning intervention in the context of secondary school science. The study is aiming at explaining and predicting student engagement in terms of the three motivational concepts of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) of motivation: autonomy, competence and relatedness. Data collected for 80 secondary school students and analyzed with structural equation modeling. The proposed model explains about 63% of the variance in students' engagement in mobile­assisted inquiry-based science learning. Perceived autonomy was found to be the strongest predictor of engagement, followed by perceived relatedness. Based on the research findings, implications for practice and suggestions for future studies are also discussed.

The special track “Motivating students with Mobiles, Ubiquitous applications and the Internet of Things for STEM (MUMI4STEM)”, within the “EDUCON20I7 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference”, integrates two main areas of interest in STEM education: I) motivating students with mobile devices and 2) exploiting ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things. Following the growing interest of the educational and research community towards fostering STEM education, this special session aims at promoting the discussion about the motivational aspects of mobile learning and the benefits of ubiquitous applications and the Internet of Things (IoT), with special focus on supporting STEM education.

Mobile-devices are able to support a wide range of outdoor assessment activities. While there is a significant amount of research that investigates the acceptance of computer-based assessment from one side and the acceptance of mobile learning from the other, relatively few studies focus explicitly on the factors that influence the acceptance of Mobile-based Assessment. The current study implements a mobile-based outdoor educational activity in the city’s Botanic Gardens during an environmental education project. 50 secondary school students participated in a mobile-assisted assessment procedure using Quick Response (QR) - coding technology through their mobile devices. The study examines the impact of Perceived Mobility, Authentic Context and Interest/Enjoyment on students’ Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use and Behavioral Intention to Use Mobile-based Assessment. Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used for the data analysis. Results show that Perceived Mobility, Authentic Context and Interest/Enjoyment, Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use are all significant determinants of Behavioral Intention to Use mobile-based assessment. Furthermore, the study examines the impact of using mobile devices during the learning activity on students’ learning motivation. Implications for designing and implementing mobile-based assessment procedures are discussed.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is facing unprecedented challenges nowadays due to the increasing demand of careers in science and technology from one side and the decreasing interest of students to follow these careers from the other. According to the European Commission – Directorate General for Research and Innovation, one million net additional researchers are needed in Europe by 2020 to meet the research and development intensity target of 3% of GDP (Scientix, 2011).

Mobile-based Assessment is increasingly used in different educational settings. Its successful implementation though depends on user acceptance. While previous research provides evidence on acceptance of mobile learning and computer-based assessment, there are not many studies focusing explicitly on the acceptance of Mobile-based Assessment. This study examines the impact of Perceived Mobility, Satisfaction, Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use on students' Behavioral Intention to Use Mobile-based Assessment. 47 secondary school students, using their mobile devices and Quick Response (QR) - coding technology, participated in an outdoor Mobile-based Assessment procedure during their visit in a Botanic Garden. Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used for the data analysis of the recorded students' perceptions about the Mobile-based Assessment. Results show that Perceived Mobility, Satisfaction, Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use are all significant determinants of Behavioral Intention to Use mobile-based assessment. Several important implications for designing and implementing mobile-based assessment procedures are discussed.

In order to successfully deliver Mobile-Based Assessments in any educational setting, it is of great importance to investigate the factors that influence its adoption from the students. The present study aims to explain and predict the Technology Acceptance Model constructs “Attitudes towards Using” (ATU) and “Intention to Use” (ITU) mobile-based assessment from the perspective of the Self-Determination Theory of Motivation. 72 medical students answered a survey questionnaire about the use of a mobile-based assessment conducted after the lecture and patient examination procedure. Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used for data analysis. Results show that the main motivational factors of self-determination theory, namely Autonomy, Relatedness and Competency, explain students' attitudes about mobile-based assessment and also predict students' adoption. Our research findings suggest that in order to enhance students' learning motivation, the design and implementation of mobile-based assessments should satisfy the three basic psychological needs for competency, autonomy and relatedness.

Considering the declining enrolling in computing fields and the increasing demand in STEM disciplines, innovative methods should be employed to attract students in computing disciplines. MIT Scratch and App Inventor for Android visual programming environments are two such approaches. This is a comparative study to investigate any differences in the transition of students' motivation to learn programming using Scratch and App Inventor for Android in K-12 educational settings. Intrinsic goal orientation, task value, control of learning beliefs and self efficacy were found to be increased using these two entry-level learning programming environments from the beginning to the middle of the course. No effect on extrinsic motivation was found. Evaluating the transition in motivation throughout the whole course period for both environments (work in progress) will have an impact on educators to retain students' interest in programming and improve their attitudes towards computing.