The effects of UZWEBMAT on the probability unit achievement of Turkish eleventh grade students and the reasons for such effects

This study aimed at determining the effects of UZWEBMAT (Turkish abbreviation of Adaptive and INtelligent WEB based MAThematics teaching–learning system) on the probability unit academic achievement of students and the underlying reasons for these effects. The study was conducted in an Anatolian High School located in a district of Trabzon province, Turkey in the fall semester of the academic year 2011–2012. The research sample consisted of 106 eleventh grade students and 2 mathematics teachers. Semi-experimental method was used in the study. Pre-Probability Unit Achievement Test (pre-PUAT), Post-Probability Unit Achievement Test (post-PUAT), Scale for Evaluation of the UZWEBMAT by Students (SEUS), Student Interview Form (SIF), and Teacher Interview Form (TIF) were used for collecting data. Research results indicated that there was a statistically significant difference in favor of the experimental group (EG) students between the academic achievement of the EG students and that of the control group (CG) students. In addition, male EG students were found to be more successful than female EG students. However, no statistically significant relationship was found between the learning styles and the academic achievements of the EG students with different learning styles (visual–auditory–kinesthetic). In addition, no statistically significant relationship was detected between the genders and the academic achievements of the EG students having different learning styles. It was concluded that the higher achievement of the EG students resulted from the fact that they received education in accordance with their learning styles via UZWEBMAT, the learning objects included in UZWEBMAT had appropriate structural characteristics, students enjoyed learning in that environment, and students had continuous interest in the lesson.     

The impact of access to ICT,student background and school/home environment on academic success of students in Turkey: An international comparative analysis

This paper utilizes OECD's original PISA 2012 dataset to investigate the impact of access to ICT, student background and school/home environment on academic performance of students. Using cross-section data from 4848 15-year-old students in Turkey, ordered logit models are developed and analyzed. The results indicate that (i) availability of internet connection at home or school and student's possession of his/her own room at home have positive impacts on academic success, (ii) internet connection at schools may not be used for school-related activities and therefore distracts student's attention from schoolwork, (iii) as student-per-teacher ratio or school size increases, the academic success of students declines, (iv) pre-primary education and education in student's native language contribute to academic achievement, (v) there is a positive relationship between education level of parents and student's performance at school. Using additional data from 22,273 students, the paper also presents an international analysis that compares the results from Turkey with those from Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Finally, the urgent need for collection of micro level (at student, school or parent level) data on Turkish education system is underlined.     

Building virtual cities,inspiring intelligent citizens: Digital games for developing students’ problem solving and learning motivation

This study investigates the effectiveness digital game-based learning (DGBL) on students’ problem solving, learning motivation, and academic achievement. In order to provide substantive empirical evidence, a quasi-experimental design was implemented over the course of a full semester (23 weeks). Two ninth-grade Civics and Society classes, with a total of 44 students (15–16 years old), were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: an experimental group (incorporating DGBL) and a comparison group (taught using traditional instruction). Two-way mixed ANOVA was employed to evaluate changes in problem solving ability and compare the effectiveness the two strategies, while ANCOVA was used to analyze the effects on learning motivation and academic achievement. The results of this study are summarized as follows: (1) The DGBL strategy was clearly effective in promoting students’ problem solving skills, while the control group showed no improvement. Additionally, data from the mid-test and post-test demonstrate that, as a higher order thinking skill, problem-solving requires a full semester to develop. (2). DGBL resulted in better learning motivation for students in the experimental group as compared to learners receiving TI. (3) Contrary to some suggestions that digital games could inhibit academic achievement, no statistically significant difference was found between the two groups. Most importantly, the quantitative improvement in problem-solving and learning motivation suggest that DGBL can be exploited as a useful and productive tool to support students in effective learning while enhancing the classroom atmosphere. Future research in DGBL should emphasize the evaluation of other higher order elements of the cognitive domain in terms of academic achievement outcomes and skills, such as critical and creative thinking.     

The Digital Learning Classroom: Improving English Language Learners’ academic success in mathematics and reading using interactive whiteboard technology

This study presents the findings from the first-year evaluation of the Round Rock Independent School District’s (ISD) Digital Learning Classroom project, an initiative focused on the improvement of English Language Learners’ (ELL) learning using interactive whiteboard (IWB) technology. An objective of the evaluation was to determine the extent IWB technology could foster performance parity in academic achievement between ELL and regular students, that is, reduce the student achievement gap between these two student groups in 3rd and 5th grade mathematics and reading. These grade levels and subjects were the primary focus of the project because students in grades 3 and 5 that do not pass the state’s standardized assessments in mathematics and reading cannot be promoted to the next grade level and therefore, these are “high stakes” tests for students. A second evaluation objective was to determine whether and the extent to which the Digital Learning Classroom could increase ELL students’ academic learning relative to that of ELL students in traditional classrooms (i.e., without IWBs). Using a quasi-experimental design, the results strongly indicate that IWBs can foster performance parity thereby closing the achievement gap between ELL and regular students while increasing ELL student achievement. Pedagogical implications for teachers of ELL students within the context of Digital Learning Classroom project implementation are presented, as well as recommendations for future study of the Digital Learning Classroom in ELL classroom settings.     

Is students’ computer use at home related to their mathematical performance at school?

Recent research has provided evidence that students’ computer use at home is positively associated with their performance at school. However, most of the previous studies have failed to take into account the multiple determination of school performance and, in addition, to explain why using computers at home should benefit students’ academic achievement. The study described in this article takes a step towards filling this gap by circumventing the theoretical and methodological problems of previous research. First, we analyzed students’ home computer use and their performance in mathematics while accounting for other factors that have been found to affect students’ achievement. Second, we investigated possible differences in students’ school performance depending on how they used the computer. Based on the data from German students who took part in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2003, our results showed that students’ access to a computer was not linked with their performance in mathematics. In addition, it did not matter how often students used a computer at home. A positive effect on mathematical achievement was, however, observed for a small group of students who used the computer in a self-determined way that largely engaged them in problem-solving activities. Overall, the findings indicate that for the majority of students the computer had no substantial influence on their academic achievement. At the same time, the results are suggestive of ways in which performance in mathematics might be enhanced through the use of computers.     

Student trajectories in high school mathematics: Issues of choice,support, and identity‐making

Abstract

This study explores the range of experiences students have when making two kinds of decisions in relation to high school mathematics courses: what course to take, and how to and how much to apply themselves. Looking at the choices of students about to enter Grade 10, the first decision is their choice of courses. In mathematics, students leaving Grade 9 selected one course (usually), from five possibilities, for their Grade 10 year: an advanced‐placement Honours stream, an academic course with a traditional symbol‐manipulation approach, an academic course with a technology‐based applications approach, a non‐academic mathematics‐for‐citizenship course, and (as an imposed choice) repeating the Grade 9 mathematics course. The second point of decision‐making occurred within their mathematics and science courses—students constantly made choices about how, and how much, to apply themselves to the challenges of succeeding in the courses they had chosen. These students’ course choices, to a considerable extent, conformed to expectations based on the influence of socioeconomic status and prior achievement. Overwhelmingly, students were concerned more in the credentialing value of courses than their educational value or structural nature. Within their courses, most students focused their attention on doing the work rather than the content or the learning process. Students reported being encouraged to do their work by teachers, but could not provide any indication of tactical support with becoming effective learners. The final outcomes of the students’ marks suggest that, in the context of the study, Grade 10 mathematics courses are much more effective as gate‐keeping mechanisms than as opportunities for students to improve and succeed.     

A NEW E‐LEARNING ACHIEVEMENT EVALUATION MODEL BASED ON ROUGH SET AND SIMILARITY FILTER

The trend of utilizing information and Internet technologies as teaching and learning tools is rapidly expanding into education. E‐learning is one of the most popular learning environments in the information era. The Internet enables students to learn without limitations of space and time. Furthermore, the learners can repeatedly review the context of a course without the barrier of distance. Recently, student‐centered instruction has become the primary trend in education, and the e‐learning system, which is considered with regard to of personalization and adaptability, is more and more popular. By means of e‐learning systems, teachers can adjust the learning schedule instantly for each learner according to a student's achievements and build more adaptive learning environments. Sometimes, teachers give biased assessments of students’ achievements under uncontrollable conditions (i.e., tiredness, preference) and are in dire need of overcoming this predicament. To solve the drawback mentioned, a new model to evaluate learning achievements based on rough set and similarity filter is proposed. The proposed model includes four facets: (1) select important features (attributes) to enhance classification performance by feature selection methods; (2) utilize minimal entropy principle approach (MEPA) to fuzzify the quantitative data; (3) select linguistic values for each feature and delete inconsistent data using the similarity threshold (similarity filter); and (4) generate rules based on rough set theory (RST). The practical e‐learning achievement data sets are collected by an e‐learning online examination system from a university in Taiwan. To verify our model, the performances of the proposed model are compared with the listing models. Results of this study demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms the listing models.     

Form one students’ engagement with computer games and its effect on their academic achievement in a Malaysian secondary school

The main purpose of the study was to address the association between computer games and students’ academic achievement. The exceptional growth in numbers of children playing computer games, the uneasiness and incomplete understanding foundation when starting the discussion on computer games have stimulated this study to be conducted. From a survey conducted on 236 form one students in one of the Malaysian secondary school, 75.8 percent were gamers. Playing computer games seemed to be more stereotypically boy’s activity with 91.3 percent of the boys engaged in computer games compared to 54.1 percent among the girls. They spent an average of 8.47 hours per week playing computer games. Parents and teachers’ concern about computer games was not something that went unwarranted as an overall result was predicting computer games as having negative associations with students’ academic achievement. However, in-depth analyses by combinations of classes done step by step indicated that the initial results could be overruled by students from the last class, whom need extra attentions. As a conclusion, the findings in this study suggest some interesting yet ultimately weak associations between playing computer games and students’ academic achievement. Nevertheless, caution is warranted in making any generalization as looking at the population as a whole will be different from its components. The generalizability of this study’s findings is limited by the nature of the sample. Even so, blaming computer games for the students’ bad academic performance in school is unjustified as there are many more other factors to look into before finding computer games as the scapegoat.     

Engaging college science students and changing academic achievement with technology: A quasi-experimental preliminary investigation

Can modern, computer-based technology engage college students and improve their academic achievement in college? Although numerous examples detail technology’s classroom uses, few studies empirically examine whether technologically oriented pedagogical changes factually lead to positive outcomes among college students. In this pilot study, we used a quasi-experimental design to examine whether a technology enhanced research methods classroom led to increased student engagement and academic achievement among college students. Two features generally characterized the technology enhanced classroom experience: specific feedback generated from recordings of small group discussions and podcasts of class recordings. Technology enhanced classroom students demonstrated statistically significant increases in student engagement and improved academic achievement. These findings support previous efforts to use technology to enhance engagement and achievement among college students and they encourage future efforts.     

A group decision classifier with particle swarm optimization and decision tree for analyzing achievements in mathematics and science

Group decision making is a multi-criteria decision-making method applied in many fields. However, the use of group decision-making techniques in multi-class classification problems and rule generation is not explored widely. This investigation developed a group decision classifier with particle swarm optimization (PSO) and decision tree (GDCPSODT) for analyzing students’ mathematic and scientific achievements, which is a multi-class classification problem involving rule generation. The PSO technique is employed to determine weights of condition attributes; the decision tree is used to generate rules. To demonstrate the performance of the developed GDCPSODT model, other classifiers such as the Bayesian classifier, the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifier, the back propagation neural networks classifier with particle swarm optimization (BPNNPSO) and the radial basis function neural networks classifier with PSO (RBFNNPSO) are used to cope with the same data. Experimental results indicated the testing accuracy of GDCPSODT is higher than the other four classifiers. Furthermore, rules and some improvement directions of academic achievements are provided by the GDCPSODT model. Therefore, the GDCPSODT model is a feasible and promising alternative for analyzing student-related mathematic and scientific achievement data.     

You Are How You Behave-Spatiotemporal Representation Learning for College Student Academic Achievement

Scholarships are a reflection of academic achievement for college students.The traditional scholarship assignment is strictly based on final grades and cannot recognize students whose performance trend improves or declines during the semester.This paper develops the Trajectory Mining on Clustering for Scholarship Assignment and Academic Warning(TMS)approach to identify the factors that affect the academic achievement of college students and to provide decision support to help low-performing students attain better performance.Specifically,we first conduct feature engineering to generate a set of features to characterize the lifestyles patterns,learning patterns,and Internet usage patterns of students.We then apply the objective and subjective combined weighted k-means(Wosk-means)algorithm to perform clustering analysis to identify the characteristics of different student groups.Considering the difficulty in obtaining the real global positioning system(GPS)records of students,we apply manually generated spatiotemporal trajectories data to quantify the direction of trajectory deviation with the assistance of the PrefixSpan algorithm to identify low-performing students.The experimental results show that the silhouette coefficient and Calinski-Harabasz index of the Wosk-means algorithm are both approximately 1.5 times to that of the best baseline algorithm,and the sum of the squared error of the Wosk-means algorithm is only the half of the best baseline algorithm.     

Educational interface agents as social models to influence learner achievement,attitude and retention of learning

This study examined the impacts of educational interface agents with different attributes on achievement, attitude and retention of elementary school students in their science and technology courses. The study was implemented in four different eighth- grade classes (aged 13–14) of an elementary school. Four different types of educational software, covering living things and life unit of 8th graders, were developed to analyze the impacts of educational software agents with different attributes on the results of learning. The study was conducted according to experimental model with pretest and posttest control group, which is one of the quasi-experimental designs. For five consecutive weeks experimental and control group students used the software designed for this research. The students were asked to fill an attitude scale on science and technology both before and after the implementation. And following completion, an achievement test was applied. The results of the study revealed that students who used a human-like educational interface agent were more successful than both the rest of the experimental groups and the control group in terms of achievement, attitude and retention of learning in science and technology classes. It is also revealed that the software to be developed for elementary school 8th graders (aged 13–14) should be supported with human-like educational interface agents.     

基于SSM框架的学术论坛管理系统设计与实现

针对高校师生之间学术交流的实际需求,开发了一套基于SSM(Spring+Spring MVC+MyBatis)框架的学术论坛管理系统.该学术论坛管理系统前端主要分为教师端和学生端,学生端提供发表帖子、帖子评论、帖子收藏和关注他人等功能;教师端提供帖子审核、用户管理和话题分类管理等功能.系统前端使用jQuery框架进行数...     

A mobile gamification learning system for improving the learning motivation and achievements

This paper aims to investigate how a gamified learning approach influences science learning, achievement and motivation, through a context‐aware mobile learning environment, and explains the effects on motivation and student learning. A series of gamified learning activities, based on MGLS (Mobile Gamification Learning System), was developed and implemented in an elementary school science curriculum to improve student motivation and to help students engage more actively in their learning activities. The responses to our questionnaire indicate that students valued the outdoor learning activities made possible by the use of a smartphone and its functions. Pre‐ and post‐test results demonstrated that incorporating mobile and gamification technologies into a botanical learning process could achieve a better learning performance and a higher degree of motivation than either non‐gamified mobile learning or traditional instruction. Further, they revealed a positive relationship between learning achievement and motivation. The correlation coefficient for ARCS dimensions and post‐test shows that the ARCS‐A (attention) is greater than ARCS‐R, ARCS‐C and ARCS‐S. This means that the attention (ARCS‐A) of this system is an important dimension in this research. The results could provide parents, teachers and educational organizations with the necessary data to make more relevant educational decision.     

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.     

Mobile phone dependency and its impacts on adolescents’ social and academic behaviors

This study aimed to examine the possible intrapersonal (i.e., attention, depression) and interpersonal (i.e., social relationships with friends, social relationships with teachers) problems related to mobile phone dependency and their impacts on academic achievement in adolescents in South Korea using a national sample of 2159 middle and high school students (1074 male and 1085 female). A structural equation modeling approach with mediation analysis was employed to test the seven hypotheses drawn from conceptual and empirical bases. Results showed that mobile phone dependency negatively predicted attention and positively predicted depression, which in turn, affect social relationships with friends and both Korean language arts and mathematics achievement. Also, the mediating roles of attention, depression, and relationships with friends were found between mobile phone dependency and the academic achievement of middle and high school students in S. Korea. Based on the findings, implications of the current study and future directions for research were discussed.     

Predicting students’ learning style using learning analytics: a case study of business management students from India

ABSTRACT

Business Management Education in India has shown an upward growth trend in the last couple of decades. Due to the diverse nature of the course, students from diverse academic backgrounds are being admitted to the course. Therefore, differences in students’ abilities and their learning styles have a significant effect on their learning outcomes. Meanwhile, with the development of learning technologies, learners can be provided a more effective learning environment to optimise their learning. The purpose of this study was to develop a model to automatically detect the students’ learning styles from their personal, academic and social media data and make recommendations for students, teachers, educators and administrators for overall improvement of learning outcomes. Data analysis in this research was represented using data collected from post-graduate business management students in India. A 10-fold cross-validation was used to create and test the models. The data were analysed by R and R-Studio. Classification accuracy, Precision, Recall, Kappa, ROC curve and F measure were observed. The results showed that the accuracy of classification by the C4.5 technique had the highest value at 95.7%, and it could be applied to develop Felder–Silverman’s learning style while taking into consideration students’ academic, personal information and social media preferences.     

Who are interested in online science simulations? Tracking a trend of digital divide in Internet use

Although the Internet has become a major source for disseminating educational resources for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), little is known about the extent to which these resources are being used, their relationship to academic performance, and the type of users accessing these resources online. This study used two innovative tools, Google Trends and Web analytics, to explore interest in and usage of the PhET website, one of the most well-known online science simulation resources. This study found that search interest in the PhET science simulations has been growing continuously since 2005. However, search interest in PhET was positively correlated with academic performance and income, and negatively correlated with the achievement gap between high- and low-performing students. Moreover, Internet users in states with more White students were more interested in the PhET science simulations. Yet Internet users in states with more Black students were less interested in these science simulations. These findings suggest that the way online STEM resources are being used is likely to widen, rather than narrow, the achievement gap. This is the first study to utilize Internet search trend data and Web analytics tools for monitoring Internet use for educational purposes.     

The effects of augmented reality on students' academic achievement and motivation in a biology course

This study aimed to investigate the effects of augmented reality (AR) activities on students' academic achievement and motivation in a biology course. For this purpose, a mixed study was conducted, and a pretest and posttest control group model was used. In addition, the opinions of the experimental group students and the teacher about the AR activities were taken, and classroom observations were made during the study. The study group consisted of 40 (22 female and 18 male) ninth‐grade biology course students. The control group followed the biology course programme, whereas the experimental group students conducted AR activities in addition to the course programme using tablets. Consequently, it was found that the motivation of the students in the experimental group increased more than that of the students in the control group. However, no significant difference was found between the academic achievement scores of the groups. The teacher and the students stated that AR activities might be effective in increasing course success and motivation.