Perspectives on personal learning environments held by vocational students

This article focuses on personal learning environments (PLEs). The idea with PLEs is to put students in a more central position in the learning process by allowing them to design their own learning environments and by emphasising the self-regulated nature of the learning. This study describes the structure, functions and challenges of PLEs made by 33 students from vocational and polytechnic level schools in Eastern Finland after the first year of using them. Document and artefact analysis revealed that students built their PLEs for: mirroring the conventional learning environment; as an environment for reflection; as an environment to showcase skills; and as an environment for collaboration and networking. Student reflections indicate that building and using a PLE is a challenging task which requires specific teacher and pedagogical support. Designing a PLE demands both ICT skills and an awareness of one’s own learning methods.     

Use of blogs in pre-service teacher education to improve student engagement

Web 2.0 technologies allow average computer users to be able to publish on the Internet without having to know complex computer technical knowledge, which gives these technologies powerful potential to facilitate student engagement in various learning environments. However, a knowledge gap exists in the literature related to factors affecting student engagement with Web 2.0 technologies. The purpose of this study is to understand factors affecting student engagement in a pre-service teacher education program that uses blogs to expand in-class discussions about technology integration. First year pre-service teachers in a mathematics education department participated in the study. Data were collected with a survey that was developed to measure student engagement with blog use. Results show that student motivation, reasons to use blog in the course, and level of challenge perceived by the students affect students' engagement with blog use. Gender and technical ability of students do not impact students' engagement. As a result, blogs can be utilized to expand in-class discussions equally well for all students.     

Leveraging a personalized system to improve self-directed learning in online educational environments

Many students who participate in online courses experience frustration and failure because they are not prepared for the demanding and isolated learning experience. A traditional learning theory known as self-directed learning (SDL) is a foundation that can help establish features of a personalized system that helps students improve their abilities to manage their overall learning activities and monitor their own performance. Additionally, the system enables collaboration, interaction, feedback, and the much-needed support from the instructor and students' peers. A Web 2.0 social-technology application, MediaWiki, was adopted as the platform from which incremental features were developed to utilize the fundamental concepts of SDL. Students were able to customize content by setting specific learning goals, reflecting on their learning experiences, self-monitoring activities and performances, and collaborating with others in the class. SDL skills exist to some degree in all learners, this study finds that students' SDL abilities can improve when a course adopts a personalized and collaborative learning system that enables the students to be more proactive in planning, organizing, and monitoring their course activities.     

Structural model of team-based learning using Web 2.0 collaborative software

This study examines the phenomena occurring among team members during their participation in team-based learning using Web 2.0 collaborative software. Based on the Grounded Theory approach, this study analyzes students' feedback related to team collaborative learning using Web 2.0 collaborative tool. Data analysis yields a structural model of team-based learning facilitated by Web 2.0 collaborative software. This study draws inferences to suggest that Web 2.0 collaborative learning environment uncovers diverse communication media in support of synchronicity and group awareness. Subsequently, synchronicity and group awareness promote team-based learning. This study also reveals that four factors, namely, synchronicity, group awareness, learner autonomy and collective intelligence, support team-based learning facilitated by Web 2.0 technology.     

Promoting self-regulated learning in web-based learning environments

Self-regulated learning with the Internet or hypermedia requires not only cognitive learning strategies, but also specific and general meta-cognitive strategies. The purposes of the Study2000 project, carried out at the TU Dresden, were to develop and evaluate authoring tools that support teachers and students in web-based learning and instruction. This paper presents how the authoring tools of the Study2000 project can implement psychologically sound measures to promote (a) active and elaborated learning activities and (b) meta-cognitive activities in a web-based learning environment. Furthermore, it describes a study involving 72 university students in the use of such a web-based learning environment in a self-regulated learning setting at the university level. Results show that students spent almost 70% of their study time with texts, 11% with learning tasks and 12% with the active and elaborated learning tools, whereas meta-cognitive aids where hardly used (<1%).     

Towards an analysis framework for investigating students' engagement and learning in educational blogs

Educational blogs are currently gaining in popularity in schools and higher education institutions, and they are widely promoted as collaborative tools supporting students' active learning. However, literature review on educational blogging revealed a lack of a complete and consistent framework for studying and assessing students' engagement and the impact of blogging on students' learning. This study reports on the application of an analysis framework for evaluating blogging learning activities, based on two well‐documented models, those of Community of Inquiry (CoI) and Social Network Analysis. The framework proposed is examined through an empirical study involving 21 K‐9 students, coming from two classes, in Greece. This investigation shed light into the different ways of students' engagement in a blog‐based project, namely their social and cognitive presence that supported the development of a CoI and learning. The results suggest that the students, through their different roles in the blog, achieved higher thinking and cognitive levels.     

Effects of interactivity and instructional scaffolding on learning: Self-regulation in online video-based environments

Online learning often requires learners to be self-directed and engaged. The present study examined students' self-regulatory behaviors in online video-based learning environments. Using an experimental design, this study investigated the effects of a newly designed enhanced video learning environment, which was designed to support or scaffold students' self-regulated or self-directed learning on students' learning behaviors and outcomes. In addition, correspondence between students' self-regulation strategies in traditional learning environments and observed self-regulated learning behaviors in the enhanced video environment were examined. A cross-sectional experimental research design with systematic random assignment of participants to either the control condition (common video) or the experimental condition (enhanced video) was utilized. Undergraduate and graduate students participated in the study (N = 80). Study results indicate that the newly designed enhanced video learning environment was a superior instructional tool than the common video learning environment in terms students' learning performance. In addition, there was correspondence between graduate students' self-reported self-regulation and observed self-regulation, with those high on seeking/learning information and managing their environment/behavior more likely to engage more in interactive note-taking.     

Wandering: A Web-based platform for the creation of location-based interactive learning objects

Wandering is an innovative web-based platform that was designed to facilitate outdoor, authentic, and interactive learning via the creation of location-based interactive learning objects (LILOs). Wandering was integrated as part of a novel environmental education program among middle school students. This paper describes the Wandering platform's structural architecture and an evaluation study that was conducted among grade nine students (N = 102) who participated in the innovative educational program. Our goal was to examine students' learning outcomes and experiences while creating LILOs' and providing comments. Findings indicated high motivation among students to use Wandering, not only for completing their school assignment, but also for contributing to the community. Despite the fact that the tagging and commenting tools could have been used more efficiently by students, more than one third of the LILOs received an excellent grad. In addition, our findings indicated that Wandering is a good platform for enhancing 21st century skills, including: engagement with others, personalization, control release, and change adaption.     

Facilitating application of language skills in authentic environments with a mobile learning system

We uncovered two critical issues in earlier studies: (a) some studies have shown that mobile learning technology is not beneficial for all students due to complexity of learning environments and student prior knowledge, skills, and experience and (b) familiarity of students with the authentic environments in which they learn using mobile technology did not receive much attention in earlier studies. To address these issues, we designed three learning tasks for a class of 26 junior high school students. The students applied language skills by completing the tasks in authentic environments individually in a first task, loosely collaborating with peers in a second task, and tightly collaborating with peers in a third task. A mobile learning system was also designed in this study to support students to accomplish the tasks. The aim of this study was to explore students' learning experiences using the learning system, their perceptions towards the system, and to assess how differently the students perform on the three tasks. According to our design, in the first task, the students took pictures of objects and described them orally or in writing using the mobile learning system. In the second task, after the students completed assignments, each student received comments from a partner through the system. In comments, the partner indicated flaws in student assignments and suggested how to fix them. In the third task, the students completed assignments, shared them using the system, and then exchanged comments with their partners face to face regarding issues related to their completed assignments and suggested how to improve them. Such learning behaviours in the three tasks enabled the students to practise writing and speaking skills. Our results demonstrate that most of the students highly valued our learning system and intend to use it in the future. Furthermore, the results show that the students performed best when they collaborated; namely, student performance was enhanced the most after the third task that required tight collaboration. Based on our results, we learned that students' familiarity with authentic environments is very important and beneficial for their learning. In addition, we learned that even in complex environment, less skilled and experienced students with low prior knowledge can perform well when they tightly collaborate with more skilled and experienced students with high prior knowledge, and our learning system can facilitate such collaboration.     

Chinese undergraduate students' perceptions of mobile learning: Conceptions,learning profiles,and approaches

Close links between students' conceptions of and approaches to learning were established in the past research. However, only a few quantitative studies investigated this relationship particularly with regard to mobile learning (m‐learning). The correlation between learners' conceptions and approaches to m‐learning was analysed using a partial least squares analysis applied to data obtained from a sample of 971 undergraduate students in China. The results indicated that students' conceptions of m‐learning could be classified into reproductive, transitional, and constructive levels. Students may hold multiple m‐learning applications than a predominant one; hence, examining m‐learning as one monolithic entity may provide limited information. Latent profile analysis identified four learning profiles based on students' preferred m‐learning applications: passive, mixed, surface‐supportive, and high‐engagement.. Moreover, a general trend was observed, whereby students with reproductive and surface‐supportive learning profiles showed a tendency to adopt surface approaches, whereas those expressing constructive and mixed learning profiles were more inclined to adopt deep approaches. Interestingly, students with transitional conceptions and high‐engagement learning profiles tended to take both surface and deep approaches.     

A contextual game-based learning approach to improving students' inquiry-based learning performance in social studies courses

Inquiry-based learning, an effective instructional strategy, can be in the form of a problem or task for triggering student engagement. However, how to situate students in meaningful inquiry activities remains to be settled, especially for social studies courses. In this study, a contextual educational computer game is developed to improve students' learning performance based on an inquiry-based learning strategy. An experiment has been conducted on an elementary school social studies course to evaluate the effects of the proposed approach on the inquiry-based learning performances of students with different learning styles. The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach effectively enhanced the students' learning effects in terms of their learning achievement, learning motivation, satisfaction degree and flow state. Furthermore, it is also found that the proposed approach benefited the “active” learning style students more than the “reflective” style students in terms of learning achievement. This suggests the need to provide additional supports to students with particular learning styles in the future.     

Developing a survey for assessing preferences in constructivist context‐aware ubiquitous learning environments

This study developed a survey to explore students' preferences in constructivist context‐aware ubiquitous learning environments. A constructivist context‐aware ubiquitous learning (u‐learning) environment survey (CULES) was developed, consisting of eight scales, including ease of use, continuity, relevance, adaptive content, multiple sources, timely guidance, student negotiation, and inquiry learning. The survey responses were gathered from 215 university students from five universities in Taiwan. The students all had actual experience of using u‐learning systems in u‐learning environments. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that the CULES had high reliability and validity. The structural model revealed that the provision of realistic and close‐to‐real‐life information could enhance students' preferences for timely guidance, student negotiation, and inquiry‐learning activities. In addition, the attainment of inquiry learning is quite challenging when designing u‐learning activities, as it involves the enhancement of the other CULES scales.     

Motivation factors and barriers to the continuous use of blended learning approach using Moodle: students' perceptions and individual differences

ABSTRACT

Practitioners of blended learning encounter challenges on how to cater students individual needs and to increase their motivational involvement with the system. Therefore, this study aims to identify and evaluate the motivation factors and barriers that influence students' decisions to continue using blended learning based on Moodle platform. The study proposes a research model to gain a better understanding of students' behavioural attitudes, motivations, and barriers to the continuous use of blended learning. In addition, a multi-group analysis was conducted to examine individual differences between students from three different universities in Palestine. The findings provide a comprehensive understanding of students' behaviours and the investigated factors of the proposed model were truly significant in forming students' perceptions and reflecting their decisions to continue using such learning approach. Features of blended learning system were found to be the most significant motivational antecedents in relation to influencing students' perceptions and involvements in the learning environment, while perceived behavioural control and subjective norms were found to be the primary factors driving students' continuous use. Finally, the findings shed light on the impact of individual differences on students' perceptions and usage behaviours and suggest that these differences could be leveraged to provide adaptive usage decisions.     

CALEE: A computer-assisted learning system for embedded OS laboratory exercises

With the popularity of embedded systems and the consequently rising demand in the job market for professionals well-versed in them, embedded operating systems (EOSs) have become one of the core courses in computer science studies across the world. The objective of EOS courses is to develop students' ability to port, modify, and customize an embedded operating system through a series of laboratory exercises. However, our teaching experience has revealed that beginners require a considerable amount of time to familiarize themselves with the development environment and the relevant processes, such as operating in a command line interface, setting environment variables, and kernel configurations. Furthermore, students need to constantly handle compiler error messages, malfunctions of the target EOS, and incompatibility issues related to development tools. These problems may frustrate and discourage students. A common strategy to address this problem is to dedicate more hours to teaching or to hire more teaching assistants to help students progress. However, none of these methods is suitable for institutions with limited resources. Therefore, in this paper, we develop a computer-assisted learning system called the Computer-assisted Learning Environment (CALEE) to assist students with their assignments and thus motivate them. CALEE consists of two parts: a self-learning assistant (SLAT) and a collaborative learning website (CLW). SLAT is a software application that provides a set of useful functions to help students perform EOS laboratory exercises, whereas the collaborative learning website seeks to encourage greater interaction among students. Our experiments show that CALEE expedites learning, improves students' motivation, and reduces the teaching load.     

Interplay of prior knowledge,self‐regulation and motivation in complex multimedia learning environments

This study examined the direct and indirect effects of medical clerkship students' prior knowledge, self‐regulation and motivation on learning performance in complex multimedia learning environments. The data from 386 medical clerkship students from six medical schools were analysed using structural equation modeling. The structural model revealed that medical students' prior knowledge directly positively affected their learning outcome, self‐efficacy and performance approach goal orientation. The learners' self‐regulation had a significant positive direct effect on learning outcome. The learners' mastery goal orientation directly affected their learning outcome. Interestingly, inconsistent with our hypothesis, the learners' performance approach goal orientation showed a significant negative direct effect on learning outcome, and performance avoidance goal orientation had a significant positive effect on learning outcome. These findings help develop a more comprehensive understanding of the role of individual characteristics on learning performance of complex tasks in multimedia learning environments.     

Enhancing middle school students' scientific learning and motivation through agent‐based learning

Facing students' decreasing motivation to pursue scientific study, schools and educators need to coordinate new technologies with pedagogical agents to effectively sustain or promote students' scientific learning and motivation to learn. Although the provision of pedagogical agents in student learning has been studied previously, it is not clear what benefits the strategy might offer with regard to student motivation. This study proposes an agent‐based mechanism that integrates problem‐solving and inquiry‐based instructions to help students better understand complex scientific concepts and to sustain their motivation to learn science. In this study, a quasi‐experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance and feasibility of our proposed mechanism. The results revealed that the agent‐based mechanism was effective and feasible for enhancing students' learning and motivation to learn. The mechanism was associated with increases in the acquisition of knowledge when compared with the control group. Its effect in promoting and sustaining students' motivation was also statistically significant. Detailed discussions of the findings are provided in this study.     

Delaying elaborated feedback within computer-based learning environments: The role of summative and question-based feedback

Elaborative feedback (EF) containing explanations on students' responses benefits learning. Computer-based environments provide learners with EF in different ways, for example, on an immediate question-by-question basis or after answering a set of questions. Recent findings also suggest that delaying EF enhances learning. However, it is unclear to what extent different types of delayed-EF favour students' performance. This study examines whether and how two types of delayed-EF (question-based vs. summative) influence students' question-answering performance and final learning over immediate-EF. One hundred thirty-three secondary-school students read a scientific text and answered 12 multiple-choice questions in a computer-based environment. A day later, students completed a final learning test with 20 open-ended questions. Results showed that neither question-based delayed EF nor summative delayed EF outperformed immediate EF. However, EF moderated the relationship between students' prior knowledge and their performance outcomes, suggesting that students with higher levels of prior knowledge receiving summative delayed EF benefited more.