Online engagement during COVID-19: Role of agency on collaborative learning orientation and learning expectations

During the COVID-19 outbreak, students had to cope with succeeding in video-conferencing classes susceptible to technical problems like choppy audio, frozen screens and poor Internet connection, leading to interrupted delivery of facial expressions and eye-contact. For these reasons, agentic engagement during video-conferencing became critical for successful learning outcomes. This study explores the mediating effect agentic engagement has on collaborative language learning orientations (CLLO) within an EFL video-conferencing course to understand better how interactions influence academic learning expectations. A total of 329 (Male = 132, Female = 197) students were recruited from four South Korean universities to participate in this questionnaire study. Data analysis was carried out using the statistical software packages SPSS, and a series of data screening procedures were carried out. Findings revealed that collaborative language learning orientations were a statistically significant predictor of academic learning expectations, but this relationship was fully mediated when agentic engagement was added to the model. Students with a propensity for social language learning strategies believe they will succeed; however, this relationship is explained by their propensity to interact with the instructor when video-conferencing. An assortment of learning activities should be provided to support both collaborative and individual learning orientations for academic success. Students with collaborative learning tendencies and a propensity to actively engage the instructor during video conference classes are active participants in the eLearning context, possibly leading to positive course expectations.     

应用型高校翻转课堂教学模式可行性调查研究

本文从学生视角研究翻转课堂教学模式开展的可行性。采用问卷调查法,对应用型高校的学生进行随机抽样。分别从学生课余学习时间、希望得到的帮助、学习工具与平台、课堂态度及表现等四个维度进行调查研究。结果发现:首先,约有70%的学生有充足的课余学习时间,能够保证翻转课堂课前学习任务的完成,仍有30%的学生因课余时间不足或学习态度不端正,不能保证课前学习任务的完成;其次,学生自主解决问题的能力与学业水平成正相关性。成绩优秀的学生喜欢自主解决问题,成绩较差的学生喜欢依靠同伴的帮助解决。学生成绩处于良好和中等的学生,喜欢教师给予指导和帮助;再次,学生具备翻转课堂硬件设备。但对学业水平较差的学生以及低年级的学生,要进行MOOCS学习平台和教学管理平台的培训;最后,学生受传统教学模式影响深刻,仍喜欢课堂上以教师讲授为主。因此教师要充分分析其可行性,对存在的问题采取措施进行解决,才能保证翻转课堂顺利开展。     

Technology use,self-directed learning,student engagement and academic performance: Examining the interrelations

The widespread technology use among current college and university students has made higher educational institutions worldwide acknowledge the need of incorporating it in teaching and learning for explicit reasons. But does access and usage of technology enhance academic performance and foster student engagement in reality? Researches in the last over two decades have conjectured both the positive and negative outcomes of the students’ continuous interface with technology. Student engagement and self-directed learning (SDL) are the two other themes that have independently attracted considerable interest of researchers, ascribable to the explicit and implicit assertions that both are related to the academic success. Additionally, the relationship of technology use with these two academic behaviors have also been investigated although not very extensively. The current study aimed to inspect a path model with technology use, student engagement, self-directed learning and academic performance among undergraduate students. 761 students responded to an online survey comprising three scales: Media and Technology Usage and Attitude Scale (MTUAS), Self-Rating Scale of Self-Directed Learning (SRSSDL), and student version of Utrecht’s Work Engagement Scale (UWES-S). The results showed that use of technology has a direct positive relationship with students’ engagement and self-directed learning, however, no significant direct effect was found between technology use and academic performance. The findings point towards the complex interchange of relationships of the students’ technology use with student engagement, self-directed learning and academic performance. The implications and future research directions are discussed.     

The effect of reflective learning e-journals on reading comprehension and communication in language learning

This study focused on the use of reflective learning e-journals in a university web-based English as a foreign language (EFL) course. In the study, a multimedia-based English programme comprising fifteen different units was delivered online as a one-semester instructional course. Ninety-eight undergraduate students participated, and they were divided into two groups: the treatment group used reflective learning e-journals, while the control group completed content-related exercises. The study investigated the effects of reflective learning e-journals and how students used them to aid learning. Results show that when learning from web-based instruction, students who used reflective learning e-journals outperformed students who did not do so in terms of reading comprehension. Using reflective e-journals improved the academic performance of learners in the online course. In addition, journal writing students claimed that they also improved their organisational skills and writing abilities through their reflective learning e-journal writing and found the journal writing to be a very helpful tool in reviewing the course and preparing for the exam.     

Mobile technology: students perceived benefits of apps for learning neuroanatomy

Technology‐enhanced learning is expanding rapidly because of research showing the benefits for learners in terms of engagement, convenience, attainment and enjoyment. Mobile learning approaches are also gaining in popularity, particularly during practical classes and clinical settings. However, there are few systematic studies evaluating the impact of tablet devices on students’ learning in practical settings. The main aim of this three‐year study was to gather rigorous evidence about students’ use of apps on a preconfigured tablet device in a neuroanatomy practical class, their perceptions of this and the impact of the intervention on learning outcomes, using data collected from three cohorts of students between 2011 and 2013. Results showed that students made extensive use of resources provided, considered the devices to be beneficial for learning, and found them to be easy to use with minimal support and training. Students’ ownership of touch screen devices increased significantly during the trial period as did their use of devices for academic study. Analysis of examination scores showed a statistically significant increase in performance for neuroanatomy‐related questions after the introduction of tablet devices.     

Smartphones or laptops in the collaborative classroom? A study of video-based learning in higher education

This paper explores how the use of smartphones vs. laptops influences students’ engagement, behaviour and experience watching academic videos in a collaborative classroom. Experiments were run in authentic teaching sessions with a total of 483 first-year higher education students. The methodology applied is a quasi-experimental design with post-test-only, being the independent variable, the device used to visualise the academic videos. Results indicate that the use of laptops has provided better results in terms of student’s engagement with the videos, their collaborative behaviour and satisfaction with the device. Hence, the findings of this research suggest that the type of mobile device used in activities that consider the use of videos in a collaborative class need to be carefully chosen to maximise the student’s comfortability – and in consequence, their engagement with the video-based learning activity and their positive behaviour and experience within the collaborative context.     

Application of high-level fuzzy Petri nets to educational grading system

For the purpose of understanding the students’ learning achievement, the most direct way is to implement a test. Due to the rapid development of information technology, all kinds of combination of information technology with the adaptive test have been incessantly noted by many scholars. In general, the computerized adaptive test includes the item response theory that tests the students’ learning ability of subjects. However, the results based only on the dichotomy of correct answers and wrong answers are not so comprehensive judgments. Situations of correct answers and wrong answers should be different in their degrees; for example, completely correct, partially correct, completely wrong, and partially wrong. But the partially correct or partially wrong is vague and difficult to define. Thus it is appropriate to use fuzzy theory to solve the vagueness problem. Therefore, this study presents a novel learning evaluation model which applies high-level fuzzy Petri net (HLFPN) and infers via a fuzzy reasoning method the different answering performances generated by different examinee’s abilities corresponding to the test items in different degrees of difficulty. Finally, we synthesize the answering performance of every test item and make a reasonable evaluation.     

Teacher-created video instruction in the elementary classroom—Its impact on students and teachers

Despite the proliferation of multimedia devices in elementary classrooms, there is limited research examining teacher-created video instruction, particularly regarding its effect on academic growth and engagement. This study investigated the effect of teacher-created computer-based video instruction (CBVI) using iPads on students' academic, behavioural and affective learning in elementary classrooms. The study used a repeated-measures design with counterbalancing to measure the effects of CBVI during mathematics lessons on student achievement scores, time on-task and attitudes towards learning. Three year three classes (n = 49) completed three lessons, each using a different mode of instruction: CBVI created by the class teacher, CBVI created by a stranger, and a traditional live lesson delivered by the class teacher. Results were analysed using a Linear Mixed Model. No significant growth in performance was detected during video instruction, however a significant growth result was achieved for the traditional live teaching mode (p < 0.001), possibly attributable to the longer duration of experimental session. Behavioural engagement was considerably higher during CBVI lessons than live lessons and students preferred their teacher's voice during CBVI. Three teachers were interviewed to examine how CBVI affected teaching and learning, with two main themes emerging: (1) positive impacts of CBVI upon students; and (2) positive impacts on teacher wellbeing. This research indicates benefits for students and teachers when using teacher-created CBVI. Further research is needed to better understand the factors that influence cognitive development of students using CBVI and to also further explore the effect of CBVI on teacher wellbeing.     

An enhanced genetic approach to optimizing auto-reply accuracy of an e-learning system

With the rapid development in Information Technology (IT), the Internet has become one of the central media for conducting learning. However, most of the existing web-based learning systems only provide stand-alone subject materials for browsing and may face some drawbacks. For example, if students encounter problems during the learning process, their learning performances could be significantly devastated due to no instant aid. As an on-line learning system may interact with thousands of students, it is almost impossible for the teachers or the teaching assistants to answer all the students’ questions manually, which is not only inefficient, but also human laborious. To cope with this problem, an e-learning system that is able to automatically answer the students’ questions on the fly based on the training cases given by the teacher will be presented in this paper. Moreover, an enhanced genetic approach is proposed to optimize the weights of keywords for each candidate answer according to the feedbacks provided by the students, hence more accurate answers can be provided in the future. Experimental results have shown that the developed system can provide more accurate answerers than existing approaches by employing the self-adjusting method.     

The influence of student characteristics on the use of adaptive e-learning material

Adaptive e-learning materials can help teachers to educate heterogeneous student groups. This study provides empirical data about the way academic students differ in their learning when using adaptive e-learning materials. Ninety-four students participated in the study. We determined characteristics in a heterogeneous student group by collecting demographic data and measuring motivation and prior knowledge. We also measured the learning paths students followed and learning strategies they used when working with adaptive e-learning material in a molecular biology course. We then combined these data to study if and how student characteristics relate to the learning paths and strategies they used. We observed that students did follow different learning paths. Gender did not have an effect, but (mainly Dutch) BSc students differed from (international) MSc students in the intrinsic motivation they had and the learning paths and strategies they followed when using the adaptive e-learning material.     

An intelligent system for monitoring students' engagement in large classroom teaching through facial expression recognition

Students' disengagement problem has become critical in the modern scenario due to various distractions and lack of student-teacher interactions. This problem is exacerbated with large offline classrooms, where it becomes challenging for teachers to monitor students' engagement and maintain the right-level of interactions. Traditional ways of monitoring students' engagement rely on self-reporting or using physical devices, which have limitations for offline classroom use. Student's academic affective states (e.g., moods and emotions) analysis has potential for creating intelligent classrooms, which can autonomously monitor and analyse students' engagement and behaviours in real-time. In recent literature, a few computer vision based methods have been proposed, but they either work only in the e-learning domain or have limitations in real-time processing and scalability for large offline classes. This paper presents a real-time system for student group engagement monitoring by analysing their facial expressions and recognizing academic affective states: ‘boredom,’ ‘confuse,’ ‘focus,’ ‘frustrated,’ ‘yawning,’ and ‘sleepy,’ which are pertinent in the learning environment. The methodology includes certain pre-processing steps like face detection, a convolutional neural network (CNN) based facial expression recognition model, and post-processing steps like frame-wise group engagement estimation. For training the CNN model, we created a dataset of the aforementioned facial expressions from classroom lecture videos and added related samples from three publicly available datasets, BAUM-1, DAiSEE, and YawDD, to generalize the model predictions. The trained model has achieved train and test accuracy of 78.70% and 76.90%, respectively. The proposed methodology gave promising results when compared with self-reported engagement levels by students.     

How to solve students’ problems in a flipped classroom: a quasi-experimental approach

With the adoption of online learning and the development of educational technologies, many universities and teachers are attempting to provide qualified teaching for their students. In order to improve students’ learning, the authors designed and provided flipped learning (FL) and treatment of online academic help-seeking (OAHS) in a computing course to help students develop computing skills for using Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. The participants in this study were 126 undergraduates from three classes taking a compulsory course titled “Applied Information Technology: Office Software.” According to the analysis, students who received the treatment of OAHS had significantly better computing skills for using Microsoft Word and PowerPoint than those without. However, the treatment of FL did not result in better development of students’ computing skills. Based on the results obtained, the authors present possible implications for online teachers, educators, and schools, particularly to assist those students who may feel bashful and are not willing to ask questions or seek for help in traditional classrooms. This study designs and provides reference for an integration of FL with OAHS to improve students’ learning outcomes.     

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.     

Guiding the use of collective feedback displayed on heatmaps to reduce group conformity and improve learning in Peer Instruction

Peer Instruction is an active learning method widely used in higher education, whereby students answer a series of questions twice, once before and once after peer discussion. There is an ongoing debate as to whether a collective feedback should be given after the students' initial answer, and if so, how the frequently observed group conformity can be avoided. This study examined whether guiding on the use of this feedback can reduce group conformity and improve learning using an interactive learning environment to administer a new type of quiz using graphics, and delivering collective feedback to the whole class in a novel heatmap format. In the experimental group, the teacher told the students that the answer indicated by the heatmap was not necessarily the correct one; this information was not given to students in the control group. Results revealed that guided students were less likely to adopt the (incorrect) majority answer than the non-guided students, and consequently, they were more likely to improve their learning by reaching an agreement about the correct answer through discussion with their peers. These findings suggest that guiding students in their use of collective feedback may have a crucial role in Peer Instruction.     

模式学习在QA系统中的有效实现

开放领域的问题回（question answering）是自然语言处理领域中具有挑战性的研究方向．提出了一种基于模式学习实现问题回答的方法，核心思想是利用机器学习方法得到的答案模式获取问题答案．该方法优势在于：①模式学习完全自动化实现；②解决了目前普遍存在的模式约束性弱及答案缺乏语义类型限制等缺陷．在TREC测试集上的实验结果表明，它不但解决了简单模式所覆盖的问题集，同时也解决了需要较强约束性模式进行答案抽取的问题集，而后者的问题数目在TREC测试问题集中占约80％．     

Student engagement with assessment and feedback: Some lessons from short-answer free-text e-assessment questions

Students were observed directly, in a usability laboratory, and indirectly, by means of an extensive evaluation of responses, as they attempted interactive computer-marked assessment questions that required free-text responses of up to 20 words and as they amended their responses after receiving feedback. This provided more general insight into the way in which students actually engage with assessment and feedback, which is not necessarily the same as their self-reported behaviour. Response length and type varied with whether the question was in summative, purely formative, or diagnostic use, with the question itself, and most significantly with students’ interpretation of what the question author was looking for. Feedback was most effective when it was understood by the student, tailored to the mistakes that they had made and when it prompted students rather than giving the answer. On some occasions, students appeared to respond to the computer as if it was a human marker, supporting the ‘computers as social actors’ hypothesis, whilst on other occasions students seemed very aware that they were being marked by a machine.     

Model development in scientific discovery learning with a computer-based physics task

Based on theories of scientific discovery learning (SDL) and conceptual change, this study explores students' preconceptions in the domain of torques in physics and the development of these conceptions while learning with a computer-based SDL task. As a framework we used a three-space theory of SDL and focused on model space, which is supposed to contain the current conceptualization/model of the learning domain, and on its change through hypothesis testing and experimenting. Three questions were addressed: (1) What are students' preconceptions of torques before learning about this domain? To do this a multiple-choice test for assessing students' models of torques was developed and given to secondary school students (N = 47) who learned about torques using computer simulations. (2) How do students' models of torques develop during SDL? Working with simulations led to replacement of some misconceptions with physically correct conceptions. (3) Are there differential patterns of model development and if so, how do they relate to students’ use of the simulations? By analyzing individual differences in model development, we found that an intensive use of the simulations was associated with the acquisition of correct conceptions. Thus, the three-space theory provided a useful framework for understanding conceptual change in SDL.     

Discrepancy between language learners and teachers concerns about emergency remote teaching

Emergency remote teaching refers to the unanticipated, involuntary shift to a virtual learning environment due to, for example, a natural disaster or political instability. The sudden nature of this transition creates additional challenges to effective learning. In this article, we investigate one such challenge, namely the potential for teacher–student miscommunication. We report on a study involving 674 language learners and 61 language teachers. The participants were asked to rate a number of education-related ١problems that could potentially arise in the context of emergency remote teaching. Learners rated these concerns in terms of the extent to which they had actually experienced them, while teachers were asked to rate the extent to which they perceived these to be concerns for their students. The results showed that teachers believed that students required additional training on using learning management systems, that students did not take online teaching seriously, and that emergency remote teaching would encourage students to cheat. Students disagreed with these statements (ds = 0.53–0.65). We discuss the implications of these teacher–learner discrepancies in light of the need for explicit guidelines and clearer expectations of students during online learning and assessment.     

Effect of blended learning environment on transfer of learning: an experimental study

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of the blended learning and face‐to‐face learning on students' academic achievements and transfer of learning. The first aim of the study is to analyse the students' academic achievements to determine the change of theoretical knowledge in terms of the instructional method applied in this study. However, students' performances during the learning process are not always a good indicator. Therefore, the second aim of the study is to examine transferring students' theoretical knowledge to their educational multimedia projects. For this purpose, 14 weeks of pre‐ and post‐test experimental study is designed. The study is administered through an educational technology course in which students learn how to develop educational multimedia materials. The participants are undergraduate pre‐service teachers; they are assigned randomly to the experimental and control group. While the experimental group has both online and classroom sessions, the control group has only face‐to‐face classroom sessions. Although there is no significant difference between the groups in terms of academic achievement, the students in the blended group are more successful in transferring their knowledge to their projects than the ones in the face‐to‐face group. In conclusion, the results show that the blended learning approach has a positive effect on the transfer of learning.