Exploring students' flow experiences in business simulation games

Business simulation games are a motivational and engaging tool for teaching business management. However, relatively little is known about what factors contribute to their success. This study explores the role of flow experienced while using business simulation games. Specifically, this research investigates the influence of challenge, skills, feedback, and goal clarity on students' flow experience. It also explores the impact of flow on generic skills development, perceived learning, and satisfaction. Based on a survey of 167 undergraduate students who used a classroom‐based business simulation game, the findings show that the challenge provided by the game, students' skills to meet the challenge, and instant feedback positively influenced students' flow. Conversely, goal clarity did not foster the optimal experience. Flow positively impacted generic skills development, perceived learning, and satisfaction.     

Developing a collaborative learning environment using a web-based design

Abstract Today, technology is being used to support teachers in designing interesting and stimulating learning environments for students. In this paper, a web-based design project is used to create a collaborative learning environment with the aim of inculcating collaborative skills into the learners and increasing their problem-solving and critical thinking skills. The design project was created using multimedia tools such as Dreamweaver and Adobe-Photoshop. Students worked in groups and were actively responsible for their own learning processes. Results showed that students engaged in collaborative learning enhanced their problem-solving and critical thinking skills, learned to work in a team and became more autonomous learners.     

An experience of a three-year study on the development of critical thinking skills in flipped secondary classrooms with pedagogical and technological support

The aim of this study was attempting to investigate the outcome of critical thinking achievement of learners when its development is infused into subject teaching with pedagogical and technological support. A total of 124 junior secondary students participated in the three-year trial teaching in Integrated Humanities subject. Flipped classroom strategy was implemented to engage learners in online pre-lesson learning preparation, in-class group discussion inside digital classroom and after-class extended learning using social learning platform. The critical thinking tests found that the students had good performance in the tasks on hypothesis identification, induction and deduction; and some achievements in the tasks on explanation and evaluation. It was found that students needed more time to develop capacities of deduction, explanation and evaluation. The semi-structured interviews found that the teachers and students valued the pedagogical way of providing guidance for students' group sharing for fostering critical thinking skills development. Three implications are discussed to shed light on the infusion of critical thinking skills development into the process of domain knowledge learning, the deployment of appropriate pedagogy to mobilize learners to engage in learning process, and the use of appropriate technology to facilitate learning process inside and outside of classroom.     

Using a Murder Mystery to Teach Evaluation Skills: A Case Study

Evaluation of sources and information is an important part of information literacy and the research process. Evaluation skills and their application to daily life might be reduced to a checklist in a one-shot lesson or a semester-long information literacy class. To demonstrate the transferability of evaluation skills, one teaching librarian created an active-learning, online murder mystery to engage students. Instructors have established using games as an active-learning lesson in the face-to-face classroom. A murder mystery game challenges students to evaluate information from the course, verify the information using online searches, and demonstrate critical thinking skills in the context of a game. This case study explains the rationale of using such a game in an online, semester-long class, the process of creating the mystery, and its benefits in the virtual classroom.     

Organizational schemata of e-portfolios for fostering higher-order thinking

The information technology of online e-portfolio systems have been widely used during the past several years along with the diffusion of electronic teaching-learning systems. However, for the time being e-portfolio is viewed more as an assessment tool or a showcase tool, but less as an active learning tool. The current generic e-portfolio systems store artifacts in the chronological order on the course basis, providing few facets for active thinking. The question of how we can make e-portfolio a useful learning tool to improve students’ learning outcomes is still open to research. Among various students’ learning outcomes, higher-order thinking has become an important outcome of education. One vision of education evolution is to change the modes of thinking of students. This study is to meet the challenge of e-portfolios by investigating a significant research question: how e-portfolios can be used as a learning tool for students to foster higher-order thinking. Specifically, this study proposes an ontological approach to organizational schema of e-portfolios so that e-portfolios can be logically and dynamically organized into thinking-driven networks. The ontological schemata can serve as visible maps for the virtual e-portfolios repository shared by all teachers and students to foster higher-order thinking. A case study that implements a prototype of organizational schemata of e-portfolios demonstrates the usefulness of the proposed approach for fostering higher-order thinking.     

Effects of an online problem based learning course on content knowledge acquisition and critical thinking skills

This study investigated how the online problem based learning (PBL) approach employed in an online learning environment influenced undergraduate students’ critical thinking skills (CTS) and content knowledge acquisition. The pretest–posttest control group design was used in the study. The subjects included the students who were enrolled at the Department of Primary School Mathematics Teaching in Anadolu University Education Faculty. Subjects attended to Computer II course in 2008 spring. Experiment group attended the online PBL course whereas the control group attended the online instructor-led course. Each group consisted of 20 students. Data collection tools consisted of a multiple choice content knowledge acquisition scale and the Watson–Glaser critical thinking skills test. The results of two-way mixed design ANOVA indicated that learning in the online PBL group did not have a significant effect on the content knowledge acquisition scores. It was also revealed that learning in the online PBL group had a significant effect on increasing the critical thinking skills.     

Preparing to work in the virtual organization

Forming virtual organizations (VOs) is a new workplace strategy that is also needed to prepare information, technology, and knowledge workers for functioning well in inter-organizational teams. University information studies programs can simulate VOs in courses and teach certain skill sets that are needed in VO work: critical thinking, analytical methods, ethical problem solving, stakeholder analysis, and writing policy are among the needed skills and abilities. Simulated virtual teams allow participants to learn to trust team members and to understand how communication and product development can work effectively in a virtual workspace. It is hoped that some of these methods could be employed in corporate training programs also.In an innovative course, inter-university VOs were created to develop information products. Groups in four geographically dispersed universities cooperated in the project; at its conclusion, students answered a self-administered survey about their experience. Each team’s success or difficulties were apparently closely related to issues of trust in the team process. Access to and ease of communication tools also played a role in the participants’ perceptions of the learning experience and teamwork.     

Empowering students through digital game authorship: Enhancing concentration,critical thinking,and academic achievement

Digital game-based learning is a popular strategy for engaging students by making learning fun. Actively involving students as designers and producers of digital games may have even greater potential for student empowerment through enhancing concentration and engagement, fostering higher order thinking, and improving learning outcomes. Thus, this study empirically investigated the impact of digital game authoring on students' concentration, critical thinking skills, and academic achievement. A total of 67 students in two seventh-grade classes participated in this 19-week-long experiment, and were divided into an experimental group (32 students designing digital games) and a comparison group (35 students designing Flash animations). The interdisciplinary approach involved integrating biology and computer programming classes. Students in the experimental group designed digital games based upon biology course content, while the comparison group collaboratively produced Flash animations based upon the same course content. The experimental results, using MANCOVA for pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest scores, demonstrate significant improvements in critical thinking skills, and academic achievement, with increased retention of both course content and critical thinking skills observed for the delayed posttest. For concentration, a relative advantage for the experimental group as compared with the comparison group was noted, but did not reach statistical significance. Based on the results of this study, implications for practitioners and researchers are provided, including the integration of programming or computer science with other courses for digital game authoring and the evaluation of other learning outcomes such as creative thinking, problem-solving, and flow.     

Why Teachers Must Learn: Student Innovation as a Driving Factor in the Future of the Web

User innovation is the key to the development and vitality of technology. As Huatong Sun wrote, “expanding the scope of localization practices and linking user localization efforts” to design cycles—including pedagogical design—will help bridge the gap between what teachers/designers create and what skills users/students need and want. This article theorizes the role of modern composition students and teachers as co-constructors of productive spaces for learning critical inquiry based on students’ statuses as digital natives. It focuses on a class of first-year composition students who reshaped an assignment to fit their own needs within the physical classroom and also enacted a shift to a virtual classroom. While doing so, they provided ways for each class member to individualize space within that digital environment, and they focused their project on examining the ways in which social networking forums colonize their daily lives. This article argues that by letting student innovation drive pedagogical practice—just as social media creators let user innovation drive the digital structures they produce—composition teachers can be assured of having a text for critique that blurs the lines between “private” student underlife and “public” classroom practice and legitimizes the creation of student-produced learning spaces. Using critical and cyberfeminist theories as lenses, this article draws conclusions about the future of computer usage in composition pedagogy based on students’ abilities to re-appropriate physical and digital classroom space.     

Rethinking HCI Education for Design: Problem-Based Learning and Virtual Worlds at an HCI Design Studio

The practice of teaching and learning human–computer interaction (HCI) design has to develop its own approaches that balance method and technology use with reflective and situated practice. This article presents our HCI design studio course that makes a combined use of constructivist pedagogies and virtual worlds aiming to aid students critically review and reflect on the use of related methods and technologies in design and to cultivate more general skills like self-directed learning, intrinsic motivation, and critical thinking. Our HCI design studio course can be thought of as an iterative and incremental teaching and learning process that blends HCI methods, design practice, and technology between a real and a virtual design studio. The course introduces problem-based learning to the pedagogies of project-based learning and studio-based learning currently employed in most HCI design studios. The positive student responses and our reflection and experiences focusing on a number of challenges for further implementation are also outlined.     

Leveling up: Are non-gamers and women disadvantaged in a virtual world classroom?

Today's young gamers are tomorrow's students who expect more immersion from their online learning experiences. Teachers and administrators, however, must ask are some students at a disadvantage in such a class and does gender play a role? We examine the degree to which gaming experience and gender influence sense of presence in a virtual world learning classroom. Feelings of presence are key to involvement in virtual worlds. Participants, 348 undergraduates, interacted within a custom designed virtual world classroom focusing business negotiation skills. Results reveal that while gaming experience gives a slight advantage, lack of previous software ownership and gender do not put learners at a disadvantage. This finding shows that non-gamers and females can equally participate in a virtual world classroom, relieving concerns of adoption.     

Synchronous learning best practices: An action research study

Low cost and significant advances in technology now allow instructors to create their own virtual learning environments. Creating social interactions within a virtual space that emulates the physical classroom remains challenging. While students are familiar with virtual worlds and video meetings, they are inexperienced as virtual learners. Over a nine year period we applied iterative cycles of action research through numerous large classes to systematically uncover attributes of success when executing synchronous learning in distributed environments. Findings show technology is not the source of problems; rather, difficulties emerge from human behaviors and their interactions with system features. We conclude with practical takeaway guidelines for video conferencing and immersive virtual environments and a model of nexus of control that elaborates software and classroom management attributes that can lead to successful execution.     

Using learning methodologies and resources in the development of critical thinking competency: An exploratory study in a virtual learning environment

This study aims to design and implement new learning methodologies and resources that seek to advance the development and assessment of one of the fundamental students’ competencies from any Business Administration Degree, such as critical thinking, that is, this is an exploratory study on computing for human learning, specifically, learning of key competencies for business. We are going to use audiovisual case methodology through the use of short film clips, usually real stories, to help students understand the practical implications of theoretical concepts explained in the classroom. A theoretical model test uses data from 32 business students from the Open University of Catalonia. The first results show positive attitudes toward a new technological resource ‘audio-visual cases’. They indicate that the use of this tool can improve the comprehension of a problem and its origins and, at the same time, stimulate learning. In addition, this tool helps to develop critical thinking competency. This study offers important contributions to an e-learning environment and their applicability to the workplace, since it is the first type of research about the impact of audiovisual cases in the acquisition of critical thinking competency. Furthermore, this methodology promotes collaborative learning.     

The hybrid course: Merging on-line instruction and the traditional classroom

The efficacy of on-line learning environments has received considerable attention in recent years. Generally, researchers have found little impact of virtual learning environments on learning outcomes. With a few exceptions, however, these studies have focused upon distance learning courses where students enter the course without expectations of significant amounts of face-to-face contact with the instructor(s). Information technology, and particularly Web-based multimedia, increasingly offers opportunities to transfer content delivery and other associated activities from face-to-face settings to on-line venues. However, in order for this transference of content and process to be effective in courses recognized as face-to-face courses, students must find the virtual environment appealing. They must also achieve learning outcomes at least as high as those achieved in traditional class settings. The research reported upon herein demonstrates the utility of on-line learning environments in traditional classes both as an efficient means for executing activities previously tethered to the classroom setting and as a means to allow the pursuit of higher levels of learning. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Face-to-face,blended, flipped,or online learning environment? Impact on learning performance and student cognitions

This study compares four learning environments: face-to-face learning (F2F), fully e-learning (EL), blended learning (BL), and flipped classroom (FC) with respect to students' learning performance. Moreover, this present research studies changes in perceived flexibility, intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy beliefs of students, and the interaction effects in these student variables on learning performance. Two learning environment design elements: (1) lectures (2) group discussions building on guiding questions, were manipulated to create the four learning environments. Third-year undergraduate students (n = 106), enrolled in the “Animal and Human Physiology” course at CanTho University (Vietnam), were randomly assigned to one of the four learning environments. The results suggest a significant positive differential effect on learning performance when studying in a FC and BL setting. No significant interaction effects could be observed regarding changes in perceived flexibility, intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. However, significant differences between learning conditions were observed in perceived flexibility. Analysis of focus group data corroborate the finding that students experience more flexibility in time and place when studying in FC, BL and EL environments. In addition, students in a FC environment reflect significantly larger positive changes in their self-efficacy. But, the qualitative data show how positive perceptions about flexibility, motivation and self-efficacy are often cancelled out by negative perceptions.     

Evaluation of fostering students' creativity in preparing aided recalls for revision courses using electronic revision and recapitulation tools 2.0

In this study, the electronic revision and recapitulation tools 2.0 (EREP2.0) were used to foster creative moments while creating aided recalls (ARs) (pictures electronic notes etc.). Creative and critical thinking is associated with vital skills which enable students to deal with often complex knowledge domains through an informal way of learning. Enabling learners to develop their own representations of information can be a first step to deal with complexity and to foster creativity. In an exploratory study, n = 25 students used EREP2.0 to develop learning questions and ARs for an ongoing course on biological psychology. EREP 2.0 was evaluated with respect to user friendliness, the fostering of creativity and the expected support for cognitive skills according to Bloom's taxonomy. The influence of students' experienced creativity on experienced learning support was tested via Kruskal–Wallis test. Fifteen students reported moderate to high, 4 students low and 5 students no support in creativity. Students who experienced their work as creative felt better supported in comprehension, χ ²(3) = 9.04; p = 0.029, and synthesis, χ ²(3) = 9.46; p = 0.024. No statistically significant effects were found for other categories of Bloom's taxonomy. EREP 2.0 did support the experience of creativity and thus synthesis and comprehension skills.     

Secondary school students’ collaboration during dyadic debates face-to-face and through computer chat

Communicative competence needed in today’s constructive learning environments both in virtual and physical classrooms requires most of all critical and argumentative thinking skills as well as abilities to use reciprocal and collaborative language. This study clarifies the quality of secondary school students’ collaboration in dyadic face-to-face and computer chat debates during argumentative discussions. The speech acts produced in 24 debates were first classified into either on-task or off-task categories. The on-task speech acts were then further classified into six collaborative and two non-collaborative categories. The students commonly presented questions and made requests for clarification or reactions as well as responded to issues put forward by their interlocutor. However, they seldom engaged in collaborative completion or recapitulated their arguments. The study suggests that while students appear to have the basic cognitive and social prerequisites for collaborative learning situations, in future they should be encouraged to collaboratively complete each others’ thoughts and recapitulate their own arguments.     

How cues of what can be done in a virtual world influence learning: An affordance perspective

What we know about learning outcomes for collaborative tasks in virtual environments is a confusing set of results. Many organizations have been hesitant about their use of virtual environments for this reason. Virtual worlds (VWs) have received attention as environments for learning, yet little is known about their attributes, or how they affect learning in collaborative tasks. James Gibson proposed a theory of affordance to explain how cues in an environment are perceived and lead to some course of action. Based on his theory, we developed a model to describe how cues of what can be done in a VW influence learning. In doing so, we focused on the situativity afforded by VWs through context and social facilitation. We showed how VW artifacts and cues make it easier for users to understand the conditions and interactions in a VW.     

The study on integrating WebQuest with mobile learning for environmental education

This study is to demonstrate the impact of different teaching strategies on the learning performance of environmental education using quantitative methods. Students learned about resource recycling and classification through an instructional website based on the teaching tool of WebQuest. There were 103 sixth-grade students participating in this study and broken down into three groups: traditional instruction, traditional instruction with WebQuest and WebQuest instruction with outdoors. The major contribution of this study is the introduction of WebQuest into the outdoor instruction. The results of this study show that using WebQuest in outdoor instruction influences students’ learning performance positively. Two other interesting results are: (1) when WebQuest was used in real situations, students could acquire more knowledge and experiences, and (2) in the learning activity of the experiment, the students accomplished different learning tasks and expressed their own opinions and perspectives, which could foster their critical thinking skills. On the other hands, the students in outdoor situation could be positive to participate in learning activity; furthermore, they could ponder the learning contents by observing the real context and then they began to classify/categorize the resources. These findings will contribute to the development of teaching and learning for government, schools and teachers; for instance, teachers act as assistants or tutors and provide students with others public network resources, including PDAs, smartphones, tablet personal computers or the Internet, to improve their learning in outdoor learning environments, such as campus, museums or zoos.