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%).     

The role of feedback and self-efficacy on web-based learning: The social cognitive perspective

The social cognitive perspective of self-regulated learning suggests that effective learning is determined by the interactions among personal, behavioral, and environmental influences; particularly, high self-regulated learners hold higher motivation (personal), apply better learning strategies (behavioral) and respond to environmental demand more appropriately (environmental). The study thus uses the social cognitive perspective to explore the role of self-efficacy (personal), student feedback behavior, use of learning strategies (behavioral), performance and receiving feedback (environmental) in Web-based learning. There were 76 university students participated in this study. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied for data analysis. The results supported that self-efficacy predicted student use of learning strategies and related to elaborated feedback behavior (personal → behavioral). High self-efficacy students applied more high-level learning strategies, such as elaborative strategy and critical thinking. Students who provided elaborated feedback also had higher self-efficacy than those who did not. Moreover, receiving elaborative feedback significantly promoted student self-efficacy (environmental → personal), while receiving knowledge of correct response improved student performance. However, the results indicated that feedback behaviors did not predict academic performance, which may be interfered by modeling effects.     

The effects of feedback protocol on self-regulated learning in a web-based worked example learning environment

The current research investigated the effects of differing feedback protocols in a Web-based worked example learning environment to determine if changes would occur over time in goal orientation, self-regulation, self-efficacy or achievement. Participants from an undergraduate chemistry course were assigned to either a norm-referenced or self-referenced feedback group to receive feedback in relation to their performance on a weekly quiz administered via the Web. Results revealed that participants did not significantly change their goal orientation type or magnitude as a result of the differing feedback protocols, even with the addition of learning environment perception as a potential mediating variable. However, participants made significant decreases along the mastery approach and performance approach goal orientation sub-scales, regardless of the type of feedback received. While this was not anticipated, the results are consistent with other recent research within this context. An unanticipated trend also emerged, as those from the norm-referenced feedback group with a class-task perception of the learning environment were less likely to use worked examples but also demonstrated the greatest gains in self-efficacy. These were unanticipated outcomes and contrary to prior research. Recommendations for future research within this context such as authenticating participants’ perceptions of their assigned treatment condition, introducing additional feedback protocols such as a combined, choice, or control condition and building in a better gauge to track the time and context of changes within the constructs of interest are also discussed.     

Withholding effort in knowledge contribution: The role of social exchange and social cognitive on project teams

Few investigations have been made to determine what factors influence people in withholding knowledge from their colleagues. We created a construct, knowledge withholding (KW), defined as the likelihood that individuals contribute less knowledge to others in the organization than they could. We have formulated a model, based on social exchange theory and social cognition theory, to analyze the antecedents of KW from both personal and contextual perspectives. The contextual influencers were subdivided into dimensions of rational choice, normative conformity, and affective bonding to help in understanding KW. Results of a survey of 162 MIS alumni of a university, who had experienced software development, trust, distributive justice, and team-related work showed that personal outcome expectations had a substantial influence on KW.     

Effects of visual feedback on medical students’ procrastination within web-based planning and reflection protocols

Procrastination is a very common problem among students that results from ineffective selfregulation. In two field-experimental studies (N = 18 and N = 49), we investigated whether visual feedback on students’ previous procrastination was effective in provoking a decrease in students’ future procrastination as well as improvements in self-regulated learning. The visual feedback was implemented as a dynamic line chart in a web-based planning and reflection protocol used once a week by medical students to record their class preparation and homework once a week. In the protocols, the students planned and reflected on their personal learning processes and they estimated retrospectively their inclination to procrastinate. The results of both studies consistently showed that presenting students a line chart that adaptively visualizes the course and extent of their self-reported previous procrastination led to a statistically significant and practically relevant decrease in their future procrastination. Furthermore, the visualization had positive effects on other variables central to self-regulated learning. The studies provide converging evidence that the inclination to procrastinate can successfully be counteracted both by a parsimonious and easy-to-implement method. They are suggestive of ways how Internet technology can be used support students’ self-regulated learning.     

An empirical examination of factors affecting college students’ proactive stickiness with a web-based English learning environment

Drawing on the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and Uses and Gratifications (U&G) theory, this study develops a conceptual model to investigate the determinants of college students’ proactive “stickiness” with a web-based English learning (WBEL) environment. The model was validated using a cross-sectional survey of 306 college students. The partial least squares (PLS) method was applied to validate the measurement properties and proposed hypotheses. Overall, the empirical results show that computer self-efficacy, system characteristics, digital material features, interaction, learning outcome expectations and learning climate are critical affecting factors in determining student learning gratifications with WBEL, which is crucial to a college student’s proactive stickiness with the WBEL system. This study demonstrates the value in integrating findings from cognitive science and mass communication research to understand the WBEL processes involved. The findings provide initial insights into those factors that are likely critical antecedents for promoting college students’ English learning effectiveness through web-based technologies.     

A creative thinking approach to enhancing the web-based problem solving performance of university students

Along with the advancement of information and communication technology, researchers have pointed out the necessity and challenges of developing effective instructional strategies to enhance students' web-based problem-solving performance, which refers to the ability of investigating a series of related problems via searching for, abstracting and summarizing information on the web. In this study, a creative thinking strategy is proposed to cope with this problem. Moreover, an experiment was conducted on 80 freshmen from two classes of a university to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The experimental results show that the proposed approach improved the students' web-based problem solving performance in comparison with the conventional approach in terms of “problem finding” and “idea finding.” Moreover, it was found that the proposed approach could improve the “fact finding” performance of the students with intuitive-type cognitive style. Accordingly, some implications and suggestions are given for educators who attempt to conduct web-based problem-solving activity.     

Applying learning behavioral Petri nets to the analysis of learning behavior in web-based learning environments

This paper proposes the learning behavioral Petri nets (LBPN) to model learning behavior in web-based environments. Fully useful records of learning behaviors must contain their expended time and corresponding contents. Therefore, the LBPN extends the colored tokens of colored Petri nets to identify learners and learning contents, and raises the time variable to represent diverse learning times for individual learners. To verify the viability of the LBPN, this paper also proposes a LBPN-based learning behavioral model to simulate a situation in which many learners participate in an e-learning course, and then to generate their behavioral patterns. The experimental results illustrated in this paper confirm that (1) the generated behavioral pattern based on the LBPN-based model is very close to actual data, (2) the time and cost spent to verify the effectiveness of an ITS is substantially reduced, (3) adequate testing data for estimating the performance and accuracy of an ITS is easily acquired, and (4) the LBPN-based model can be built to recommend appropriate learning contents and to accomplish adaptive learning.     

Effects of an integrated concept mapping and web-based problem-solving approach on students' learning achievements,perceptions and cognitive loads

Although students could effectively search for web data with proper keywords and select web pages related to the studied core issue, however summarizing or organizing the retrieved information remains a difficult task for them. Concept mapping is known to be an effective knowledge construction tool for helping learners organize important concepts related to a core issue. To address the problem, an integrated concept mapping and web-based problem-solving environment, CM-Quest, has been developed; moreover, an experiment has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach on students' learning performance, learning satisfaction and cognitive load in an elementary school social studies course. The results show that the concept map-integrated approach can significantly enhance the students' web-based problem-solving performance, although the students showed lower degrees of technology acceptance and learning satisfaction in comparison with the conventional web-based problem-solving approach. Moreover, it is found that the students in the concept mapping group revealed higher cognitive loads than those in the control group, which could be the factor contributing to the lower technology acceptance degree and learning satisfaction. As a consequence, it is concluded that the integrated concept mapping and web-based problem-solving approach is helpful to students in guiding them to learn in a more effective way. On the other hand, it remains an open issue to find a suitable way of integrating concept maps into the learning process without introducing too much extra cognitive load so as to promote students' acceptance degree of using technology for better learning.     

On-line peer assessment and the role of the peer feedback: A study of high school computer course

The purposes of this study were to explore the effects and the validity of on-line peer assessment in high schools and to analyze effects of various types of peer feedback on students. The participating students, a total of 184 10th graders, developed their individual course projects by involving the on-line peer assessment learning activities in a computer course. The peer assessment activities consisted of three rounds, and each of the students acted as an author and a reviewer. Research data as evaluated from peers and experts indicated that students significantly improved their projects as involving the peer assessment activities. The scores determined by the learning peers were highly correlated with those marked by the experts, indicating that peer assessment in high school could be perceived as a valid assessment method. Moreover, this study also examined the relationships between the types of peer feedbacks in which students obtained from peer assessment and the subsequent performance of their projects. We categorized peer feedbacks into four types: Reinforcing, Didactic, Corrective and Suggestive. It was found that Reinforcing peer feedback was useful in helping students’ development of better projects; however, Didactic feedback and perhaps Corrective feedback provided by peers might play an unfavorable role for subsequent improvement of students’ projects. The Suggestive feedback may be helpful in the beginning of peer assessment activities; however, in the later parts of peer assessment, the effect of this type of feedback on learning might not be significant.     

The interactions between problem solving and conceptual change: System dynamic modelling as a platform for learning

This study examines the interactions between problem solving and conceptual change in an elementary science class where students build system dynamic models as a form of problem representations. Through mostly qualitative findings, we illustrate the interplay of three emerging intervening conditions (epistemological belief, structural knowledge and domain knowledge), the choice of learning strategy and the learning outcomes through a theoretical model.     

The role of collective efficacy, cognitive quality, and task cohesion in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)

Research has suggested that CSCL environments contain fewer social context clues, resulting in various group processes, performance or motivation. This study thus attempts to explore the relationship among collective efficacy, group processes (i.e. task cohesion, cognitive quality) and collaborative performance in a CSCL environment. A total of 75 Taiwanese college students (divided into 25 groups) participated in the study. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied for data analysis. The results indicate that collective efficacy significantly predicted task cohesion but not cognitive quality in the CSCL environment. For the role of group processes in performance, both task cohesion and cognitive quality significantly predicted group performance, but cognitive quality predicted better than task cohesion. In addition, for the predictive capability of prior performance, task cohesion, and cognitive quality in collective efficacy, the results showed that only task cohesion predicted subsequent collective efficacy significantly in the CSCL environment.     

Assessing the effects of self-efficacy and competence on individual satisfaction with computer use: an IT student perspective

To explore the determinants of the success of applying computing technology to computer-related work, this study proposed a theoretical model that adopts individual satisfaction as a surrogate for the success of computer learning. Based on social cognitive theory (SCT) and competence-related literature, this study considered self-efficacy, computer competence, and near-term and long-term consequences as the determinants of individual satisfaction with computer use. The research model was tested using a questionnaire survey of 367 IT-related senior undergraduate students in five colleges. The empirical results identified self-efficacy as a strong and positive antecedent of competence, and confirmed the positive effects of self-efficacy on perceived consequences. Additionally, computer competence was found to affect individual satisfaction with computer use directly and indirectly. Moreover, perceived consequences influenced individual satisfaction more than did competence. Overall, this study provided empirical results involved theoretical explanations for understanding the effects of self-efficacy and competence on computer learning behavior. The limitations of the present study were discussed for researchers and practitioners.     

Scaffolding game-based learning: Impact on learning achievements,perceived learning,and game experiences

One of the central challenges of integrating game-based learning in school settings is helping learners make the connections between the knowledge learned in the game and the knowledge learned at school, while maintaining a high level of engagement with game narrative and gameplay. The current study evaluated the effect of supplementing a business simulation game with an external conceptual scaffold, which introduces formal knowledge representations, on learners' ability to solve financial-mathematical word problems following the game, and on learners' perceptions regarding learning, flow, and enjoyment in the game. Participants (M_age = 10.10 years) were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: a “study and play” condition that presented the scaffold first and then the game, a “play and study” condition, and a “play only” condition. Although no significant gains in problem-solving were found following the intervention, learners who studied with the external scaffold before the game performed significantly better in the post-game problem-solving assessment. Adding the external scaffold before the game reduced learners' perceived learning. However, the scaffold did not have a negative impact on reported flow and enjoyment. Flow was found to significantly predict perceived learning and enjoyment. Yet, perceived learning and enjoyment did not predict problem-solving and flow directly predicted problem solving only in the “play and study” condition. We suggest that presenting the scaffold may have “problematized” learners' understandings of the game by connecting them to disciplinary knowledge. Implications for the design of scaffolds for game-based learning are discussed.     

A hybrid approach to promoting students’ web-based problem-solving competence and learning attitude

Fostering problem-solving abilities has long been recognized as an important issue in education; however, past studies have shown that it is difficult and challenging to find effective learning strategies or tools for improving students’ problem-solving abilities. To cope with this problem, in this study, a hybrid approach that integrates the cognitive apprenticeship model with the collaborative learning strategy is proposed for conducting web-based problem-solving activities. Students’ problem-solving performance is examined in such a hybrid learning context. Furthermore, past studies indicate that cognitive load could affect learners’ performance; thus, the influence of cognitive load on students’ problem-solving effectiveness with this new approach is investigated in depth. The experimental results show that middle- and low-achievement students in the experimental group gained significant benefits from the hybrid approach in comparison with those who learned with the traditional approach. Accordingly, a discussion of how to accommodate the needs of different learning ability groups is provided.     

The effect of scaffolding students’ context-generating cognitive activity in technology-enhanced case-based learning

This study investigates the hypothesis that students’ learning and problem-solving performance in ill-structured domains can be improved, if elaborative question prompts are used to activate students’ context-generating cognitive processes, during case study. Two groups of students used a web-based learning environment to criss-cross and study case-based material in the software project management domain. The experimental group was additionally prompted to consistently answer a set of questions based on a model of context-generating processes, meant to engage students in deeper processing of information presented in cases. Students were also classified as having either “complex” or “simple” EB profile (based on their epistemological beliefs record), thereby establishing a 2 × 2 factorial design. Results indicated that scaffolding treatment had a significant main effect on students’ performance, with the experimental group performing better in both domain knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer post-test items. There is also tentative indication that EB profile and scaffolding treatment interact, with complex-EB learners benefiting most from the scaffolded condition. Overall, the study provides evidence that it is possible to improve individual learning in a technology environment for case-based learning, by implementing appropriate questioning strategies that trigger students to activate their context-generating cognitive processes, while studying the contextually rich material of cases.     

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.     

Evaluating learning, design, and engagement in web-based learning tools (WBLTs): The WBLT Evaluation Scale

Web-based learning tools (WBLTs), also known as learning objects, are online, interactive tools that support the learning of specific concepts by enhancing, amplifying, and/or guiding the cognitive processes of learners. Research examining the effectiveness of WBLTs is somewhat limited because sound, reliable, valid evaluation metrics are sparse, particularly in the K-12 environment. The purpose of the following study was to re-examine the Learning Object Evaluation Scale for students (LOES-S), originally developed by Kay and Knaack (2009), to assess three key constructs: learning, design, and engagement. Over 800 middle and secondary schools students participated in high quality, pre-designed lessons intended to accentuate the use of WBLTs. Data collected from the new WBLT Evaluation Scale demonstrated good internal reliability, construct validity, convergent validity and predictive validity.