The Effects of Communication Modality on Outcomes of Collaborative Tasks

Collaborative learning involves students working in small groups to complete tasks related to class instruction. Collaborative learning techniques are widely used in business schools. There is research evidence to suggest that collaborative learning leads to positive outcomes. Specifically, the interaction that occurs among students in completing the group task provides both educational and social benefits. The easy availability of communication technology has changed the modality of interaction among students. This change has been furthered by an increase in the number of students who work full-time and also enroll in business schools. Such students tend to interact more using communication technologies, such as electronic mail and not necessarily face-to-face. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of these changes in communication modalities on the outcomes of group work. The results indicate that while students have a preference for using traditional face-to-face interaction, there seems to be no significant correlation between communication modality and measures of group outcomes.     

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.     

Development and evaluation of multimedia whiteboard system for improving mathematical problem solving

This study developed a web-based multimedia whiteboard system to help students learning with mathematical problem solving. The purpose is to promote a new online mathematical learning model that students not only use electronic whiteboard to write down their mathematical problem solving solutions but also use voice recording tool to give oral explanations about their thinking behind the solutions. To cultivate students’ critical thinking capability and encourage collaborative peer learning, the new learning model also requests students to criticize others’ solutions and reply to others’ arguments. With the multimedia supporting tools, students can communicate easily with each other about what they think and how they solve mathematical problems. We have conducted an experiment with sixth grade primary school students for evaluation. After the experiment, a questionnaire about students’ attitude toward the multimedia whiteboard system for math learning was then held. The results show that students were satisfied with the use of the multimedia whiteboard system for helping them with learning fractional division. Most students were interested in studying mathematics with the multimedia whiteboard system and thought this tool is particularly useful for doing collaborative learning. After analyzing the recorded solving processes and discussions content of students, we found that the performance of female students was superior to male students in communications and mathematical problem solving. Additionally, students with higher final exam grades had better mathematical abilities for doing critiques, arguments and communications.     

Exploring the characteristics of an optimal design of digital materials for concept learning in mathematics: Multimedia learning and variation theory

Design principles emerging from the cognitive theory of multimedia learning can be applied to engage cognitive processing, and teaching methods that have evolved from variation theory can encourage thinking through comparisons in mathematics education. Applying these principles and teaching methods in designing digital material should be a sound proposition. However, there is a disconnection between research in digital educational material and classroom practices. Teachers often have doubts about the effectiveness of the materials. Thus, this paper presents a design-based research of developing a digital material for algebra concept learning. We collaborated with two experienced teachers and a subject expert from a university, and designed some digital learning material that was presented to 68 students through an iterative redesign development cycle; the effectiveness of the final product was tested on another group of 66 students the following year. Characteristics of an optimal design generated from the data collected are presented in this paper. The characteristics may have useful practical implications for instructional designers and teachers and contribute to improvements in the design of digital learning materials.     

A web-based e-learning application for wound diagnosis and treatment

Pressure ulcers (PrU) are considered as one of the most challenging problems that Nursing professionals have to deal with in their daily practice. Nowadays, the education on PrUs is mainly based on traditional lecturing, seminars and face-to-face instruction, sometimes with the support of photographs of wounds being used as teaching material. This traditional educational methodology suffers from some important limitations, which could affect the efficacy of the learning process. This current study has been designed to introduce information and communication technologies (ICT) in the education on PrU for undergraduate students, with the main objective of evaluating the advantages an disadvantages of using ICT, by comparing the learning results obtained from using an e-learning tool with those from a traditional teaching methodology. In order to meet this major objective, a web-based learning system named ePULab has been designed and developed as an adaptive e-learning tool for the autonomous acquisition of knowledge on PrU evaluation. This innovative system has been validated by means of a randomized controlled trial that compares its learning efficacy with that from a control group receiving a traditional face-to-face instruction. Students using ePULab gave significantly better (p  <  0.01) learning acquisition scores (from pre-test mean 8.27 (SD 1.39) to post-test mean 15.83 (SD 2.52)) than those following traditional lecture-style classes (from pre-test mean 8.23 (SD 1.23) to post-test mean 11.6 (SD 2.52)). In this article, the ePULab software is described in detail and the results from that experimental educational validation study are also presented and analyzed.     

A study of the use of the laptop XO in Brazilian pilot schools

This article presents a study on the perception of 63 students and 15 teachers of two Brazilian public school, which took part in the pilot test of the OLPC educational laptop XO. For the students, the XO turned classes more attractive mainly because they changed from individual learning to collective research. The internet, the games and the learning aid are the most important XO's functionalities but gender and age impacted the results. Boys value the laptop for its recreation attribute while girls use the computer for interaction with people and to improve learning at school. Younger students like mostly the games while the older ones value the social interaction and research. The XO design is suitable for students under 6 years old but considered too toyful by the older ones. Rather than an educational tool, the students recognize the XO as a means of communication/entertainment. Despite an initial resistance to the OLPC project, the teachers understand that the introduction of a laptop as a pedagogical tool was worthy, because it enhanced learning, communication and social skills. Technical problems should be override and a sustainability plan should be promoted before the educational project is implemented countrywide.     

Multimedia and its impact on training engineers

This article presents empirical research conducted on the effectiveness of the Advanced Technology Classroom (a computer‐integrated, multimedia learning environment) on engineering‐based curriculum. Multimedia offers the opportunity to enhance learning through greater audiovisual perceptions and interactive participation. Effectiveness of the ATC multimedia system was determined through a series of empirical studies that compared instruction with multimedia to traditional instruction methods. Courses in production/operations management and mechanics of materials were chosen for examination using undergraduate engineering students. The research findings suggest that multimedia is an applicable, pedagogical tool for use in training engineers.     

Exploring the relation between learning style models and preferred multimedia types

There are many adaptive learning systems that adapt learning materials to student properties, preferences, and activities. This study is focused on designing such a learning system by relating combinations of different learning styles to preferred types of multimedia materials. We explore a decision model aimed at proposing learning material of an appropriate multimedia type. This study includes 272 student participants. The resulting decision model shows that students prefer well-structured learning texts with color discrimination, and that the hemispheric learning style model is the most important criterion in deciding student preferences for different multimedia learning materials. To provide a more accurate and reliable model for recommending different multimedia types more learning style models must be combined. Kolb's classification and the VAK classification allow us to learn if students prefer an active role in the learning process, and what multimedia type they prefer.     

Expectations and reality: Evaluating patterns of learning behaviour using audit trails

Developers of educational multimedia programs have expectations about the way in which they will be used. These expectations can be broadly categorised as either functional (primarily related to the interface) or educational (related to learning designs, processes and outcomes). However, student users will not always engage with educational multimedia in the ways developers envisage and the adoption of a particular learning design, however well implemented, does not guarantee particular learning processes or outcomes. We investigated the relationship between intended and actual user behaviour by analysing detailed electronic records of user activities (audit trails) within a multimedia program in which medical students adopt the role of a doctor in a simulated clinical interview. Audit trails of 294 users across three years were analysed, focussing on two critical learning activities (interviewing and note taking). Cluster and χ² analyses revealed four distinct types of users: ‘confused or strategic’ (12.9%), ‘disengaged’ (40.8%), ‘expected’ (26.5%) and ‘diligent’ (19.7%). Our work in the future will focus on using audit trails in investigations of students learning processes and outcomes in educational multimedia environments.     

Electronic [re]constitution of groups: Group dynamics from face-to-face to an online setting

The authors work as online tutors for a BSc (Hons) physiotherapy programme at Coventry University in the United Kingdom. This paper represents a stage in our developing understanding, over a 3 year period, of the impact of group dynamics on online interaction among physiotherapy students engaged in sharing with their peers their first experiences of clinical practice. The literature exploring online interaction tends to situate meaning either in theories borrowed from conventional face-to-face interaction or on virtual interaction. Research focusing on ‘blended learning’ that combines face-to-face and online interaction is limited in terms of considering how group dynamics impact groups that are constituted and reconstituted in the two very different learning contexts. Using a case study approach, the authors consider how group dynamics change as groups move from face-to-face to online collaboration in pursuit of learning objectives. We characterize typical features of the cases and draw conclusions based on similarities and differences. Findings suggest that group learning is linked to group cohesion, which appears to be mediated by social and cognitive factors that students bring with them. Social presence appears vital to positive group dynamics and is a precursor to cognitive presence, which develops when groups rise above their desire to be sociable and supportive. Group dynamics, whether positive or negative, and their consequent impact on interaction appear to be relatively stable across contexts once the group scene is set through face-to-face interaction. Engagement and interaction of individual students, however, can alter when face-to-face interaction moves online.     

工程试验课程计算机辅助学习系统开发环境的研制

本研究以工程试验课程为对象,研制了一个多媒体智能化计算机辅助学习系统开发环境.利用此开发环境,课程库管理者可以直观方便地建立多媒体课程库,教师可以针对不同的学生构造不同的学习规则,所建立起来的系统可以使学生进行高效率的学习.     

Developing professional skills and social capital through computer supported collaborative learning in university contexts

This study aimed to compare the efficacy of collaborative learning in face-to-face and online university courses in developing professional skills and social capital. One hundred and sixty-six psychology majors learnt professional skills in seminars taught by the same teacher online and face-to-face. The different groups of participants achieved similar growth in level of professional knowledge, social self-efficacy, self-efficacy for problem solving and empowerment. Instead, online students were top performers on competence-based tasks. Follow-up evaluation after 9 months showed that social ties, formed initially more in the face-to-face groups, lasted more among online students. Our results indicate that Computer Assisted Collaborative Learning could provide educational opportunities to new groups of learners as well as to more traditional campus-based students.     

The effects of problem-based learning on the classroom community perceptions and achievement of web-based education students

Web-based education as an alternative to face-to-face teaching is now being extended as an application to higher education. Much effort is undertaken to provide multimedia rich, attractive content to learners. While the use of multimedia technologies has a noticeable effect on students’ learning, so does the selected teaching methodology. Underpinned by the Constructivist approach, problem-based learning is one of the methods that could be applied in web-based learning environments. The current study investigates the effects of problem-based learning on students’ classroom community perceptions and their achievement. It focuses on the tertiary level course “Introduction to Computers” offered by the Department of Business Administration of the Distance Education Program at a higher education institution in Turkey. The results indicated that students who worked on problem-based projects felt much more ‘connected’ to other class members when compared to the control group. They achieved higher scores in the post-tests although their online midterm and final examination scores did not indicate any difference between the groups.     

Mind the gap: Impact on learnability of user interface design of authoring tools for teachers

Few teachers include information and communication technology in the classroom, despite their potential for increasing attention and motivation for students. Educational authoring tools are intended to turn teachers into designers and deliverers of technology-enhanced educational content, and increasing the adoption of these tools is a key element for speeding up this transformation. This paper emphasizes the importance of learnability for preventing rejection or abandonment by of such an authoring tool, and how acceptance is deeply affected by the interaction paradigm and the creation metaphor used in the tool. We present an analysis comparing two design paradigms: the widespread menu-based and choice-guided interaction paradigm versus a consistent metaphor with direct manipulation. The latter was implemented in DEDOS-Editor, a novel authoring tool that allows the creation of diverse educational activities that can be performed on different devices, such as PCs, digital blackboards, tablets, and multitouch surfaces. An experimental study shows the tremendous impact that interface choices have on the tool's learning curve. The results provide the first mapping of the choice of a direct-manipulation interface and its effect on the learning curve's entry point, as well as a consistent interaction metaphor with smoother and fast-growing learning curves. This allows users to complete more tasks and gain more knowledge through experience, in contrast to menu-based interfaces. The initial use of the tool is thus made easier for users with no experience or information about the tool, and the advantages of experience and expertize in facing new challenges are facilitating. This work also highlights the appropriateness of learning curves as a tool for measuring learnability.     

Effects of face-to-face versus chat communication on performance in a collaborative inquiry modeling task

In many contemporary collaborative inquiry learning environments, chat is being used as a means for communication. Still, it remains an open issue whether chat communication is an appropriate means to support the deep reasoning process students need to perform in such environments. Purpose of the present study was to compare the impact of chat versus face-to-face communication on performance within a collaborative computer-supported modeling task. 44 Students from 11th-grade pre-university education, working in dyads, were observed during modeling. Dyads communicated either face-to-face or through a chat tool. Students’ reasoning during modeling was assessed by analyzing verbal protocols. In addition, we assessed the quality of student-built models. Results show that while model quality scores did not differ across both conditions, students communicating through chat compressed their interactions resulting in less time spent on surface reasoning, whereas students who communicated face-to-face spent significantly more time on surface reasoning.     

Knowledge construction and misconstruction: A case study approach in asynchronous discussion using Knowledge Construction – Message Map (KCMM) and Knowledge Construction – Message Graph (KCMG)

This paper introduces a methodology for analyzing the knowledge construction and misconstruction processes occurring in online asynchronous discussion for Secondary 2 (Grade 8) students. The use of purposive sampling targeting specific students in a single course forum could potentially advance understanding of these processes using Knowledge Construction – Message Map (KCMM) and Knowledge Construction – Message Graph (KCMG). This paper traced the communication patterns and knowledge construction as well as misconstruction processes of students working in groups to formulate scientific ideas. This methodology reveals the dynamics of asynchronous discussion through mapping and quantifying the electronic learning process. This will equip educational practitioners and researchers with a useful tool for describing online interaction through adoption of a measurement methodology more systematic and effective than anecdotally. The research findings suggest that self-directed learning through asynchronous discussion has to be monitored by facilitators as learners possessed misconceptions that could potentially mislead other participants.     

An adaptive and innovative question-driven competition-based intelligent tutoring system for learning

ISCARE (Information System for Competition based on pRoblem solving in Education) is a new and innovative intelligent tutoring system that we have designed and implemented. This tool allows the competition among students for improving their learning process in a course. The tool takes some ideas from the Swiss-system widely used in chess and adapts them to the educational area. The competition is based on different tournaments and rounds. In each round, students are assigned in pairs of two, which compete one against another, and each pair receives different questions that students have to solve in a limit of time. Students can see their partial ratings after each round and their final rating after a tournament. A lot of knowledge from different disciplines was used to design, and implement this system, as ISCARE includes different functionality such as the students’ registration into the system, the creation of tournaments, the registration and assignment of students to tournaments, the management of each tournament life cycle (started, in execution, finished, etc.), the addition of the different exercises to tournaments, the calculation of pairs of students for each round with different algorithms, the assignment of exercises per round and pair, the scorings of the students per round and tournament, the management of the students’ ratings, or the visualization of information. This paper presents the ISCARE intelligent tutoring system, describing its different options, menus, or functionality as well as its architecture and the specific modeling to achieve the desired features.     

The success of ePortfolio-based programming learning style diagnosis: Exploring the role of a heuristic fuzzy knowledge fusion

Computer programming is a high-level thinking activity. In the educational area, using learning styles to understand how students learn is a significant issue. The electronic Portfolio (ePortfolio) is a popular educational management and assessment tool. Unfortunately, few researchers investigate programming learning style diagnosis. This paper addresses this gap in research: this study constructs an ePortfolio-based programming learning style diagnosis to detect students’ styles. The fusion of multiple fuzzy-based diagnosis knowledge is the main contribution of this work. This paper built a heuristic optimization method to integrate multiple diagnosis knowledge bases. Performance evaluations and empirical studies were implemented to verify the proposed algorithm and fusion solution. Experimental results showed that the proposed heuristic optimization firms the validity and stability of a diagnostic system, and the ePortfolio-based programming learning style diagnosis is highly accepted by students. Furthermore, teachers agreed that the knowledge fusion mechanism and diagnosis system were usable.     

Students at the centre: non-lineal narratives and self-conscious learning

This paper reflects on the design and evaluation of a multimedia learning tool developed for students of qualitative research. Two issues are explored which are pertinent to the introduction of multimedia networked learning tools into existing teaching and learning cultures. First, the concept of the non-lineal — in multimedia narratives, in the ethnographic research process, in the learning process and in relation to teaching strategies. Second, drawing from evaluations of the multimedia tool the idea of self-conscious multilineal learning, and continuities between hypermedia learning and conventional teaching and learning practices are discussed. Finally the theoretical and practical implications of these discussions are related to the question of developing 'student-centred learning'.