Not everybody needs help to seek help: Surprising effects of metacognitive instructions to foster help-seeking in an online-learning environment

Offering help functions is a standard feature of computer-based interactive learning environments (ILE). Nevertheless, a number of recent studies indicate that learners are not using such help facilities effectively. We compared the effects of different metacognitive supports to foster learners’ help-seeking behavior in an ILE for plant identification. Four groups of university students (n = 51), each receiving a different metacognitive instruction, had to determine living plants. They had to think-aloud and were video recorded during the experiment. At the end of the session they completed a knowledge test. The surprising effect was that students in all groups were effective help-seekers. They adapted their help-seeking behavior to the complexity of the plants in an effective way. The results indicate that for students on university level effective help-seeking seems to depend largely on motivational factors.     

Motivation to seek help and help efficiency in students who failed in an initial task

In the present study, we investigated whether help-seeking behaviors differ in their respective links to motivational variables such as achievement goals, help-seeking perceptions and self-efficacy. Eighty-two students who had failed to solve an initial word-processing task were invited – but not forced – to choose help before engaging in a comprehension task. While 19 of them did not seek help of any kind, 63 students opted for help. Taken together, our results suggest that i) those who refused to seek help did not differ from those who agreed to seek help on either motivational variables (except for self-efficacy), but ii) those who succeed on the comprehension task after using help were those who showed higher self-efficacy. The implications of these results for future research on the help-seeking process in interactive learning environments are discussed.     

Variability in human response to whole-body vibration The effects of instructions

Two studies are described in this paper with the aim of assessing the degree to which the instructions given to a subject during an experiment designed to investigate human reaction to vibration, affect the vibration equal sensation contour which is produced.

In the first study, 100 subjects produced equal sensation contours by equating pairs of vibration stimuli. After each pair, subjects were required to record the basis on which they had made their judgements. The results demonstrated that subjects differ in the concepts which they use to equate vibration stimuli, although the majority equate in terms of the degree to which parts of the body are shaken.

In the second study, 48 subjects were required to produce equal sensation contours using the terms of either ‘comfort’ or ‘discomfort’ or ‘body shake’ or ‘sensation’. The overall contour shapes produced by the four instruction groups were not significantly different, although the frequency ranges of maximum vibration sensitivity were shown to be significantly different.

Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Factors of problem-solving competency in a virtual chemistry environment: The role of metacognitive knowledge about strategies

The ability to solve complex scientific problems is regarded as one of the key competencies in science education. Until now, research on problem solving focused on the relationship between analytical and complex problem solving, but rarely took into account the structure of problem-solving processes and metacognitive aspects. This paper, therefore, presents a theoretical framework, which describes the relationship between the components of problem solving and strategy knowledge.In order to assess the constructs, we developed a virtual environment which allows students to solve interactive and static problems. 162 students of grade 10 and the upper secondary level completed the tests within a cross-sectional survey. In order to investigate the structure of problem-solving competency, we established measurement models representing different theoretical assumptions, and evaluated model fit statistics by using confirmatory factor analyses.Results show that problem-solving competency in virtual environments comprises to three correlated abilities: achieving a goal state, systematical handling of variables, and solving analytical tasks. Furthermore, our study provides empirical evidence on the distinction between analytical and complex problem solving.Additionally, we found significant differences between students of grades 10 and 12 within the problem-solving subscales, which could be explained by gaming experience and prior knowledge. These findings are discussed from a measurement perspective. Implications for assessing complex problem solving are given.     

Factors of problem-solving competency in a virtual chemistry environment: The role of metacognitive knowledge about strategies

The ability to solve complex scientific problems is regarded as one of the key competencies in science education. Until now, research on problem solving focused on the relationship between analytical and complex problem solving, but rarely took into account the structure of problem-solving processes and metacognitive aspects. This paper, therefore, presents a theoretical framework, which describes the relationship between the components of problem solving and strategy knowledge.     

Supporting problem-solving performance in a hypermedia learning environment: The role of students’ prior knowledge and metacognitive skills

This study investigated how students with different prior knowledge and metacognitive skills benefited from continuous and faded domain-general and domain-specific scaffolds. Students’ scores on a multiple-choice pretest, inventory of metacognitive self-regulation, and solution forms were analyzed. Results indicated that while students with lower regulation of cognition and objectivity benefited more from the domain-general scaffolds than the domain-specific ones, students with lower prior knowledge, knowledge of cognition, and problem representation took advantage of both domain-general and domain-specific conditions. Moreover, while students with lower prior knowledge, regulation of cognition, and problem representation took advantage of both continuous and faded domain-general scaffolds, students with lower knowledge of cognition and objectivity benefited more from the domain-general continuous conditions. In addition, students with lower prior knowledge, knowledge of cognition, and objectivity might have difficulties when the domain-specific conditions are faded. On the other hand, results of the study suggested that scaffolds did not substantially benefit the students with higher prior knowledge and higher metacognitive skills.     

The effects of animated pedagogical agents in an English-as-a-foreign-language learning environment

Animated pedagogical agents (APAs) have frequently been used as a powerful addition to learning environments, since APAs have been known to facilitate learning. APAs can present various features, such as voice, movements, gestures and pointing, and researchers have sought to verify specifically which features of agents effectively contribute to learning. Previous studies have studied these features by comparing different degrees of agent embodiment in the evaluation of the image effect (i.e., students learn more when learning systems have visual APAs), the embodied agent effect (i.e., fully embodied agents that deliver instruction aurally and use gestures to improve learning outcomes in text-only learning systems), the modality effect (i.e., oral instruction contributes to the learning process), and the expressiveness effect (i.e., fully embodied agents promote more effective learning than static ones). Some of these studies have investigated the image, embodied agent and modality effects in the same learning environment, but they were not the same studies that investigated the expressiveness effect. The expressiveness effect allows us to separate the movements of the agent from its other features, such as the agent's image, so investigating this effect is as important as investigating the other effects. We are not aware of any studies that investigated all of these four effects within the same learning system, nor that evaluated any of these effects in language learning environments. Accordingly, this paper describes the design, implementation, and analysis of an APA designed to evaluate the abovementioned effects. The APA was integrated into a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) system to teach English as a foreign language to Brazilian students. A total of 72 Brazilian undergraduate students were divided into four groups, each of which used a different version of the APA in the same CALL system: no agent, a voice-only agent, a static agent, or a fully embodied agent. We compared students’ gain scores (i.e., difference between pre- and posttest scores) across groups to evaluate each of the four effects. Though the outcomes of our study supported the presence of the embodied agent and modality effects, we were not able to demonstrate the image or expressiveness effects in the experiment. Our results indicate that the voice of the agent might contribute more positively to learning than movements, gestures and pointing.     

The influence of achievement goals and perceptions of online help on its actual use in an interactive learning environment

This study explored the influence of achievement goals and perceptions of help-seeking on a learner’s actual use of help in an interactive learning environment. After being shown a web site on statistics, 49 psychology students answered a questionnaire on achievement goals and their perceptions of help-seeking. They were then asked to solve statistics problems in an interactive learning environment. In this environment, they were allowed to use instrumental and executive help. The results showed that high mastery goals were related to a high perception of a threat to the learner’s autonomy but not to the use of help. Performance goals were positively related to a perception of threat of not being considered competent and negatively related to the use of help and especially instrumental help. The implications of these results for future research on the help-seeking process in an interactive learning environment are discussed particularly in relation to the Technology Acceptance Model of the use of help.     

2D artificial life system using network-type assembly-like language: influence of change in environment with costs of instructions

To unlock the full potential of evolution in digital media, a Tierra-like system using network-type assembly-like language has been constructed. In the system, like Avida, digital creatures, self-replicating programs, live in a discrete 2D torus space and an interaction between creatures is restricted locally. Bearing a genetic network in mind, network structure is introduced. In the previous works, it is shown that the possibility that the network-type model has more potential of evolution than a linear-type model like Avida in a simple environment. In this paper, to study the potential of evolution more precisely, we model the effects of environment other than creatures. As one of the simplest models of such environment, the cost of execution, i.e. executing time, is introduced. The difficult environment to live in costs high to execute instructions, the easy environment does low. In computer experiments, we have investigated the influence of change in environment by analyzing the process of evolution and diversity of the system. Experimental results show that the network-type system keeps more stable diversity than the linear-type system does, even when the environment changes drastically. This indicates the possibility that the network-type system has more potential of evolution than the linear-type system has. This work was presented in part at the 13th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 31–February 2, 2008     

Driving in an urban environment,the stress response and effects of exercise

Driving may be detrimental to health, with one hypothesis suggesting that driving may elicit an acute stress response and, with repeated exposures, may become a chronic stressor. The present study examined the stress response to driving and the effectiveness of a prior exercise bout in dampening this response. Twenty healthy adults performed three tasks: control, driving and exercise plus driving. Heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), blood pressure (BP) and cortisol were measured to quantify the acute stress response to each condition. Data indicated a stress response to driving: HR was elevated and HRV was reduced during the driving task compared with control. HR was elevated and HRV was reduced comparing the exercise plus driving with the driving condition. BP and cortisol were not different among conditions. The potential of interventions, such as exercise, to counter daily stressors should be evaluated to safeguard long-term health.

Practitioner Summary: this study confirms that driving induces a stress response, with the exercise intervention providing mixed results (an increase in cardiovascular measures and a decrease in cortisol measure trending significance). Given the known consequences of stress and evidence that exercise can mitigate acute stress, further evaluation of exercise interventions is recommended.     

Helping older pedestrians navigate in the city: comparisons of visual,auditory and haptic guidance instructions in a virtual environment

Preserving older pedestrians’ navigation skills in urban environments is a challenge for maintaining their quality of life. However, existing aids do not take into account older people’s perceptual and cognitive declines nor their user experience, and they call upon sensory modalities that are already used during walking. The present study was aimed at comparing different guidance instructions using visual, auditory, and haptic feedback in order to identify the most efficient and best accepted one(s). Sixteen middle-age (non-retired) adults, 21 younger-old (young-retired) adults, and 21 older-old (old-retired) adults performed a navigation task in a virtual environment. The task was performed with visual feedback (directional arrows superimposed on the visual scenes), auditory feedback (sounds in the left/right ear), haptic feedback (vibrotactile information delivered by a wristband), combinations of different types of sensory feedback, or a paper map. The results showed that older people benefited from the sensory guidance instructions, as compared to the paper map. Visual and auditory feedbacks were associated with better performance and user experience than haptic feedback or the paper map, and the benefits were the greatest among the older-old participants, even though the paper-map familiarity was appreciated. Several recommendations for designing pedestrian navigation aids are proposed.     

Contribution of rainfall vs. water management to Mediterranean wetland hydrology: Development of an interactive simulation tool to foster adaptation to climate variability

Mediterranean wetlands are increasingly managed to maintain their functions and services following modification in water allocation, embankment and climate change, calling for proactive and adaptive water management. In a first step, we used long-term monitoring of water levels in 37 adjacent embanked marshes in the Camargue as a repeated non-controlled experiment to build a hydrological model. Without information on water input/output by marsh users, we could nevertheless estimate evapotranspiration under flooding and dry conditions, and soil water coefficient. The model provided a high predictive accuracy (adjusted R² = 0.73–0.83) of monthly water levels when applied to an independent sample of 12 marshes. In a second step we developed an interactive decision-aid tool that allows users to visualize the impact of their management strategy (desired water level at a specific month) on subsequent water levels, and their consequence on different components of the ecosystem over a 10-yr period.     

Expertech: Issues in the design and development of an intelligent help desk system

As more companies turn to expert systems to support traditional help desk activities, the need to understand the particular issues inherent in the development of such systems becomes increasingly important. This article describes the design and development of Expertech, a prototype expert system intended to assist a help desk operator in the resolution of common problems encountered by the users of a telecommunications network. Expertech, a rule-based system, is a partial implementation of a model of human expertise in network diagnosis. We argue that developers of intelligent help desk support systems (IHDSS) must consider several challenges not typically encountered in other environments. An IHDSS, for example, must consider the heterogeneous nature of the end users, and tailor its interface to encompass the varying technical knowledge of those users. Furthermore, an IHDSS must deal with the three-party nature of computer-based support, where the system does not interact directly with the end user. Instead, communication between the IHDSS and the end user takes place indirectly, through a human intermediary, the help desk operator. In the context of these considerations, we describe the approach we took in developing Expertech.     

The effectiveness of using a robotics class to foster collaboration among groups of children with autism in an exploratory study

This article describes an exploratory study involving the design of an after-school robotics class for groups of children at the higher-functioning end of the autistic spectrum. The aim of the study was to foster collaboration among the children in the context of a class where they programmed Lego robots under the guidance of an experimenter. The class took place once a week over several months and used many different measures to assess the children’s collaborative behaviours. Detailed analysis of behavioural data is presented, and despite the small sample size, our findings suggest that the number of potentially collaborative behaviours the children displayed during a class is more strongly related to the amount of enjoyment the children derived from the classes than to the number of classes in which the children participated. Parallel-run, free-form drawing sessions conducted before certain classes gave some indication that these behavioural changes partly generalized to a different context. Additionally, many of the children in the class either found their experiences in class to be helpful in other social interactions or expected them to be.     

Priming,sense-making and help: Analysis of player behaviour in an immersive theatrical experience

Understanding how people behave in prototypical forms of ubiquitous computing systems can help determine future designs and technical requirements. In a theatrical puzzle game called “Last Will” we were able to observe two hundred participants over the course of a week immerse themselves in an instrumented environment and use a tangible interface to complete a series of tasks. Based on an analysis from interviews, questionnaires and observation we highlight priming, sense-making and context sensitive help as three perspectives that we think are highly relevant to pervasive computing.     

Task exposures in an office environment: a comparison of methods

Task-related factors such as frequency and duration are associated with musculoskeletal disorders in office settings. The primary objective was to compare various task recording methods as measures of exposure in an office workplace. A total of 41 workers from different jobs were recruited from a large urban newspaper (71% female, mean age 41 years SD 9.6). Questionnaire, task diaries, direct observation and video methods were used to record tasks. A common set of task codes was used across methods. Different estimates of task duration, number of tasks and task transitions arose from the different methods. Self-report methods did not consistently result in longer task duration estimates. Methodological issues could explain some of the differences in estimates seen between methods observed. It was concluded that different task recording methods result in different estimates of exposure likely due to different exposure constructs. This work addresses issues of exposure measurement in office environments. It is of relevance to ergonomists/researchers interested in how to best assess the risk of injury among office workers. The paper discusses the trade-offs between precision, accuracy and burden in the collection of computer task-based exposure measures and different underlying constructs captures in each method.     

A comprehensive model of the effects of online store image on purchase intention in an e-commerce environment

The aim of this study is to identify structural relationships between aspects of online store image and purchase intention. Responses from 211 website visitors were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the research hypotheses. The results demonstrated that enjoyment and familiarity are predictors of ease-of-use and settlement performance, respectively. Settlement performance and usefulness are positively related to purchase intention. The results provide some suggestions for online store owners to help them arrange budget priorities for website design. Moreover, it is important to manage image familiarity for an online store through image-enhancing techniques, such as advertising and publicity.     

Autonomous knowledge acquisition based on artificial curiosity: Application to mobile robots in an indoor environment

This paper describes an autonomous system for knowledge acquisition based on artificial curiosity. The proposed approach allows a humanoid robot to discover, in an indoor environment, the world in which it evolves, and to learn autonomously new knowledge about it. The learning process is accomplished by observation and by interaction with a human tutor, based on a cognitive architecture with two levels. Experimental results of deployment of this system on a humanoid robot in a real office environment are provided. We show that our cognitive system allows a humanoid robot to gain increased autonomy in matters of knowledge acquisition.     

Towards an end-to-end airborne remote-sensing system for post-hazard assessment of damage to hyper-critical infrastructure: research progress and needs

The objective of this article is to synthesize research findings and requirements pertaining to development of time-sensitive remote-sensing systems (TSRSS) that support decision-making pertaining to post-hazard assessment of damage to what we define as hyper-critical infrastructure (HCI), based on an aerial imaging approach known as repeat station imaging (RSI). The following TSRSS components are addressed and related findings are reported: (1) understanding information requirements of emergency managers pertaining to damage of HCI; (2) flight planning and data capture requirements for supporting bi-temporal RSI pairs; (3) automatic image registration and shadow classification and normalization routines applied to RSI pairs; (4) damage detection and delineation approach that exploits simple temporal differences in image brightness to automatically, reliably, and robustly delineates new cracks associated with damage; and (5) rapid data and information transfer to emergency managers. The highest priority follow-on research topics are: (1) integrating small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) with the RSI approach, while enabling multiple view perspectives other than vertical (i.e. nadir pointing) and (2) developing and testing of machine learning routines for automatic identification of damage features from RSI pairs, particularly those captured from integrated sUAS–RSI.     

Contrast sensitivity in a dynamic environment: effects of target conditions and visual impairment

Contrast sensitivity was determined as a function of target velocity (0 degrees - 120 degrees/s) over a variety of viewing conditions. In Experiment 1, measurements of dynamic contrast sensitivity were determined for 24 male and 24 female observers as a function of target velocity for letter stimuli of 2 sizes and 2 durations. Significant main effects were found for target velocity, target size, and target duration, but significant interactions among the variables indicated especially pronounced adverse effects of increasing target velocity for small targets and brief durations. In Experiment 2, the effects of simulated cataracts on dynamic contrast sensitivity were determined for 10 male and 10 female observers. Although the simulated impairment had no effect on traditional acuity scores, dynamic contrast sensitivity was markedly reduced under all conditions but especially with the smaller targets and at higher velocities. Results are discussed in terms of dynamic contrast sensitivity as a useful composite measure of visual functioning that may provide a better overall picture of an individual's visual functioning than does traditional static acuity, dynamic acuity, or contrast sensitivity alone. The measure of dynamic contrast sensitivity may increase understanding of the practical effects of various conditions, such as aging or disease, on the visual system, or it may allow improved prediction of individuals' performance in visually dynamic, situations, such as driving and sports.