Inquiry-based mobile learning in secondary school science education: A systematic review

Recent years have seen a growing call for inquiry-based learning in science education, and mobile technologies are perceived as increasingly valuable tools to support this approach. However, there is a lack of understanding of mobile technology-supported inquiry-based learning (mIBL) in secondary science education. More evidence-based, nuanced insights are needed into how using mobile technologies might facilitate students' engagement with various levels of inquiry and enhance their science learning. We, therefore, conducted a robust systematic literature review (SLR) of the research articles on mIBL in secondary school science education that have been published from 2000 to 2019. We reviewed and analysed 31 empirical studies (34 articles) to explore the types of mIBL, and the benefits and constraints of mIBL in secondary school science education. The findings of this SLR suggest new research areas for further exploration and provide implications for science teachers' selection, use and design of mIBL approaches in their teaching.     

How and what university students learn through online and face-to-face discussion: conceptions, intentions and approaches

Abstract This paper reports a phenomenographic investigation into students' experiences of learning through discussion – both online and face to face (F2F). The study context was a second-year undergraduate course in psychology for social work in which the teacher had designed discussion tasks to begin in F2F mode and to continue online. A combination of open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews was used to investigate students' conceptions of what they were learning, their intentions and their approaches to learning through discussion. Analysis of the interview and open-ended questionnaire data identified a number of qualitatively different conceptions, intentions and approaches to learning through discussion. Associations were found between what students thought they were learning through discussions, their approaches to learning through discussion and their course grade. Students with a cohesive conception and students adopting a deep approach (to learning through online discussion) got better course grades. There was no significant difference between deep and surface approaches to F2F discussion and course grade. The outcomes of this study have implications for the design of online and F2F discussion tasks and in particular for helping students adopt richer conceptions of what they stand to gain through discussion.     

A case study of Augmented Reality simulation system application in a chemistry course

The comprehension of micro-worlds has always been the focus and the challenge of chemistry learning. Junior high school students’ imaginative abilities are not yet mature. As a result, they are not able to visualize microstructures correctly during the beginning stage of chemistry learning. This study targeted “the composition of substances” segment of junior high school chemistry classes and, furthermore, involved the design and development of a set of inquiry-based Augmented Reality learning tools. Students could control, combine and interact with a 3D model of micro-particles using markers and conduct a series of inquiry-based experiments. The AR tool was tested in practice at a junior high school in Shenzhen, China. Through data analysis and discussion, we conclude that (a) the AR tool has a significant supplemental learning effect as a computer-assisted learning tool; (b) the AR tool is more effective for low-achieving students than high-achieving ones; (c) students generally have positive attitudes toward this software; and (d) students’ learning attitudes are positively correlated with their evaluation of the software.     

Semi-automatic assembly of learning resources

Technology Enhanced Learning is a research field that has matured considerably over the last decade. Many technical solutions to support design, authoring and use of learning activities and resources have been developed. The first datasets that reflect the tracking of actual use of these tools in real-life settings are beginning to become available. In this article, we present an exploratory study that relies on these datasets to support semi-automatic assembly of learning activities and resources for specific contexts. Starting from learning designs and other online sources that describe well designed learning experiences as they were used in practice, we derive sequencing patterns that capture re-occurring patterns of activities. A semi-automatic assembly framework uses these patterns to support teachers in the design and authoring of course activities. We present a case study that integrates recommendation support for sequencing activities as well as associated resources in the LAMS learning activity environment. Results indicate that the perceived usefulness is high: both teachers with expertise in the use of learning design tools as well as teachers with no background knowledge in the area indicate that the recommendations helped them in the authoring process. In addition, they feel more confident using learning design tools when support is provided that is driven by best practice knowledge.     

A study of building a resource-based learning environment with the inquiry learning approach: Knowledge of family trees

This study aims to provide teachers with ways and means to facilitate learners to develop nomenclature knowledge of family trees through the establishment of resource-based learning environments (RBLEs). It discusses the design of an RBLE in the classroom by selecting an appropriate context with the assistance of computer-mediated learning resources and tools and employing the inquiry learning approach as the pedagogy. This study reports on the creation of the RBLE within the learning context of family trees. The computer-mediated learning resources and tools comprise three components: an audio-visual database for guided and coupled inquiry, an interactive interface for conceptualising the nomenclature and a tool for learners to construct their own family trees. Scaffolds were designed for an inquiry mode of learning and teaching to support the use of the resources and tools in learning about family trees. The learning and teaching process, including the outcomes for learners, through the RBLE with inquiry learning approach are studied. The findings of an interview and a pre-test/post-test study indicate that the RBLE can assist learners to build knowledge of family trees. The role of teachers in such an environment is to guide and encourage learners to inquire during the learning process.     

以任务为中心的LAMS学习活动设计

以网络教学平台的LAMS(学习活动管理系统)为依托,以"Photoshop图像处理"课程中的实际应用为例,阐述在网络辅助教学中,在以任务为导向的学习活动设计和应用中遇到的问题,及其对学生的学习兴趣和学习效果的影响,并提出LAMS改进方向。     

A blended learning Approach to teaching foreign policy: Student experiences of learning through face-to-face and online discussion and their relationship to academic performance

This article presents research on students’ experiences of learning through a blend of face-to-face and online discussion. The participants in our study were students enrolled in a foreign policy course at a major Australian university. Students’ conceptions of learning through discussion, and their approaches to both face-to-face and online discussion, were elicited through open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Students’ responses to both open-ended questionnaires and interviews were analysed using a phenomenographic framework. Qualitative variations in students’ conceptions and approaches were categorised and were found to form a hierarchy. Subsequent quantitative analysis found associations between students’ conceptions of learning through discussion, their approaches to both face-to-face and online discussion and their academic performance (as indicated by the final mark for the course). Implications for teaching and further research are discussed.     

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.     

Semi-automatic assembly of learning resources

Technology Enhanced Learning is a research field that has matured considerably over the last decade. Many technical solutions to support design, authoring and use of learning activities and resources have been developed. The first datasets that reflect the tracking of actual use of these tools in real-life settings are beginning to become available. In this article, we present an exploratory study that relies on these datasets to support semi-automatic assembly of learning activities and resources for specific contexts. Starting from learning designs and other online sources that describe well designed learning experiences as they were used in practice, we derive sequencing patterns that capture re-occurring patterns of activities. A semi-automatic assembly framework uses these patterns to support teachers in the design and authoring of course activities. We present a case study that integrates recommendation support for sequencing activities as well as associated resources in the LAMS learning activity environment. Results indicate that the perceived usefulness is high: both teachers with expertise in the use of learning design tools as well as teachers with no background knowledge in the area indicate that the recommendations helped them in the authoring process. In addition, they feel more confident using learning design tools when support is provided that is driven by best practice knowledge.     

An exploration of students' strategy use in inquiry-based computer-supported collaborative learning

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate students' use of cognitive learning strategies in inquiry-based computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). A process-oriented interview framework on cognitive activity, self-regulation and motivation, and a coding category for analysing cognitive learning strategies and cognitive self-regulation was developed. The students of an intervention group (n=18) participating in inquiry-based CSCL and a comparison group (n=8) were interviewed six to eight times during the 3 years of the study. The results derived from the mixed-method analysis of altogether 161 interviews were compared between the two groups. The results indicate that the students who participated in the inquiry-based CSCL activities reported deeper-level cognitive strategies such as monitoring, creating representations and sharing information collaboratively. The students of the comparison group reported more surface-level strategies such as memorization. However, the findings concerning the utility of CSCL inquiry on cognitive learning strategies were not uniformly positive. It was found that the students of the comparison group reported significantly more strategies under the category of content evaluation. Nevertheless, the results suggest that computer-supported inquiry-based learning can enhance the use of cognitive strategies that support learning.     

Identifying an appropriate pedagogy for virtual worlds: A Communal Constructivism case study

As increasing numbers of educators explore the use of virtual worlds for education, there is a need to consider which pedagogical approaches can provide an opportunity to do more than recreate the traditional classroom by leveraging the unique characteristics and potential that the technology can offer. This study identifies Communal Constructivism as a potentially appropriate pedagogy for use in the virtual world Second Life. Five groups of learners took part in a learning experience specifically designed to provide opportunity for the features of Communal Constructivism to emerge through the affordances of the technology. The chat logs, learning artefacts, post-activity semi-structured interviews and researcher’s observations from each of the five groups were analysed to explore participants’ experiences and both the operation and outcome of the pedagogy in action. Findings from the qualitative analysis of the data sets indicate that learners collaboratively constructed knowledge for themselves as a group and for others, as the features of the pedagogy emerged.     

E-learning and accessibility: An exploration of the potential role of generic pedagogical tools

This paper reviews a range of accessibility tools and evaluates how successful they have been in helping teachers in higher education and further education develop accessible e-learning materials and activities for disabled learners. It is argued that these accessibility specific tools have had limited success to date, and that there may therefore be value in exploring the potential role that more general pedagogic tools might play in the development of accessible e-learning and accessibility practices. Two examples of general pedagogic tools, learning theories and learning design tools, are assessed for the extent to which they raise awareness of an association between accessibility and pedagogy; highlight potential barriers to and facilitators of accessible e-learning and offer methods and approaches for developing accessible e-learning. This assessment suggests that the general pedagogical tools will have a limited or abstract influence on the development of accessible e-learning, but that this influence could be potentially increased by “blending” the use of specific accessibility tools with the use of more general pedagogical tools. The success of a blended approach to designing and developing accessible e-learning will depend on a number of factors, including teacher and learner agency. Nevertheless such an approach could be significant in terms of seeking to make accessibility as much a pedagogical issue as it is a technical one.     

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.     

Exploring the characteristics of an optimal design for inquiry-based geography education with Geographic Information Systems

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a kind of computer software that allows people to work with digital maps in a fast and flexible way. In the past decade, more and more geography teachers have become interested in the possibilities of using GIS in secondary education. However, teaching with GIS is complex, and little is known about how to do so in an optimal way. Therefore, an Educational Design Research study (EDR) was conducted with the aim to explore the characteristics of an optimal design for GIS-supported geographic inquiry projects. In this EDR study, a project was developed via progressive cycles of designing, testing, and evaluating, together with teachers from different schools. This paper summarizes the outcomes of the EDR study, and presents some design principles for GIS-supported inquiry-based geography education. Teachers could use these design principles to design and conduct GIS-supported geographic inquiry projects, and in such a way raise their geography lessons to a higher level.This paper also shows that although GIS provides many opportunities for enhancing inquiry-based geography projects, it also holds many conditions for its use to be optimal. GIS-supported inquiry-based geography education requires more than providing appropriate software, tasks, and coaching to ensure that students do not get stuck. In order to effectively raise students’ geographic thinking to a higher level, the project should offer a considerable amount of guidance: it should include several preparatory and evaluative tasks based on a good domain-specific theory for use in educational settings. In addition, teachers should coach students in structuring, correcting, and expanding their geographic thinking via dialogical teaching.     

Students' online interactive patterns in augmented reality-based inquiry activities

Inquiry learning has been developing for years and many countries have incorporated inquiry learning into the scope of K-12 education. Educators have indicated the importance of engaging students in knowledge-sharing activities during the inquiry learning process. In this study, a location-based augmented reality (AR) environment with a five-step guiding mechanism is developed to guide students to share knowledge in inquiry learning activities. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in terms of promoting the knowledge sharing behaviors of students, an experiment has been conducted in an elementary school natural science course. The participants were 57 fourth-grade students from an elementary school in Northern Taiwan, divided into an experimental group of 28 students who learned with the AR-based approach and a control group of 29 students who learned with the conventional in-class mobile learning approach. The students' learning behaviors, including their movements in the real-world environment and interactions with peers, were recorded. Accordingly, the learning patterns and interactions of the two groups were analyzed via lag-sequential analysis and quantitative content analysis. It was found that, in comparison with the conventional inquiry-based mobile learning activity, the AR-based inquiry learning activity is able to engage the students in more interactions for knowledge construction. The findings of this study provide guidance for helping teachers develop effective strategies and learning designs for conducting inquiry-based learning activities.     

Evaluating online solutions for experiential support of distance learning by teachers in China

This paper describes and assesses the development of an online solution for the experiential support of distance learning by teachers. Three hundred and forty-eight randomly selected K-12 teachers participated in this pilot study using the online learning environment designed in this research. Teachers' products, surveys, and interviews were collected and analysed. Results showed that the teacher-learners could learn as well as in face-to-face learning in an earlier implementation of the course. The learning support system as designed fits teacher-learners' needs. They benefited from learning communities formed online as well as face-to-face. More support for online discussion and example cases are needed to support experiential learning. Suggestions are made to improve the design of the learning support system and the pedagogy for experiential teacher learning.     

Patterns of students' collaborations by variations in their learning orientations in blended course designs: How is it associated with academic achievement?

Background

While a number of learner factors have been identified to impact students' collaborative learning, there has been little systematic research into how patterns of students' collaborative learning may differ by their learning orientations.

Objectives

This study aimed to investigate: (1) variations in students' learning orientations by their conceptions, approaches, and perceptions; (2) the patterns of students' collaborations by variations in their learning orientations and (3) the contribution of patterns of collaborations to academic achievement.

Methods

A cohort of 174 Chinese undergraduates in a blended engineering course were surveyed for their conceptions of learning, approaches to learning and to using online learning technologies, and perceptions of e-learning, to identify variations in their learning orientations. Students' collaborations and mode of collaborations were collected through an open-ended social network analysis (SNA) questionnaire.

Results and Conclusions

A hierarchical cluster analysis identified an ‘understanding’ and ‘reproducing’ learning orientations. Based on students' learning orientations and their choices to collaborate, students were categorized into three mutually exclusive collaborative group, namely Understanding Collaborative group, Reproducing Collaborative group and Mixed Collaborative group. SNA centrality measures demonstrated that students in the Understanding Collaborative group had more collaborations and stayed in a better position in terms of capacity to gather information. Both students' approaches to learning and students' average collaborations significantly contributed to their academic achievement, explaining 3% and 4% of variance in their academic achievement respectively. The results suggest that fostering a desirable learning orientation may help improve students' collaborative learning.     

Distance learning: From multiple snapshots, a composite portrait

This article discusses the current state of distance learning in composition by reporting on and interpreting a 2005 survey that assesses trends and workload conditions in distance learning. Areas examined in the article include attitudes of faculty and administration, faculty demographics, student demographics, online course and program development, course caps, course delivery and management tools, technology support, course design freedom, impact on writing pedagogy, and institutional DE profile. The article concludes by summarizing the current DL picture, identifying areas of need, and providing research recommendations for the future.     

Facilitating student-driven constructing of learning environments using Web 2.0 personal learning environments

Web 2.0 Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are becoming a promising area of development in e-Learning. While enhancing students' control over the entire learning process including constructing learning environment appears to be an essential objective of introducing Web 2.0 PLEs to education, there is little consensus on how to attain this objective. In this paper a theory-informed model to facilitate students' engagement in constructing their learning environment using Web 2.0 PLEs is proposed and evaluated. The model consists of four components: student's control dimensions, student-centric instructional approaches, the learning potential of Web 2.0 tools and services, and technology enhanced learning activities. This model is used to conduct a design-based research in the context of a first grade class in a secondary school in the Netherlands consisting of 29 students (18 girls and 11 boys, aged 11–13 year). The results suggest that the model can facilitate students' engagement in constructing their learning environment through influencing communication between teacher and students, involving students in adding tools, resources, and people into their learning environment, and enhancing their feeling of ownership over their learning environment.