Digital divide in quantitative methods: The effects of computer‐assisted instruction and students' attitudes on knowledge acquisition

Computer‐assisted instruction can change the way introductory statistics and quantitative methods courses are taught. Using a two‐group pretest–posttest design, we conducted an experiment using an undergraduate social science student sample to investigate whether the introduction of statistical software to teaching quantitative methods would improve knowledge acquisition and attitudes toward quantitative methods courses. Our project confirmed that implementing computer‐assisted instructional methods increased knowledge acquisition in quantitative methods courses compared with students' academic performance in other courses, measured by grade point average. We also found that student attitudes have weak and mostly nonsignificant influence on quantitative methods knowledge tests. Additionally, the paper suggests a curriculum‐level approach to teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate students.     

Gender differences and similarities in attitudes toward computers

Gender differences among university students in attitudes toward and involvement with computers were examined. Males were found to have taken more computer science courses, to be more knowledgeable about computer languages, to be more likely to want to major in computer science, and to have played video games more than females. There were no gender differences in reported nonvideo-game computer use or in exposure to computers in noncomputer science courses. Males and females did not differ on their reported personal interest in and enjoyment of computers. Consistent with previous research, however, males reported more comfort and confidence with computers and more positive attitudes toward mathematics than did females. Women believed more strongly than men that females should learn and are as capable of learning about computers and science as are males. It appears that these university women were as intrigued by computers as the men were. However, they were apparently somewhat inhibited from the pursuit of specialized training and careers in computer science. This inhibition may be linked to their anxiety about their own skills and to the communication, by male peers, of the attitude that women are less capable than men of learning about computers.     

Participation rates in physics 12 in BC: Science teachers’ and students’ views

Abstract

In recent years, participation rates in the British Columbia (BC) provincial physics exams have been low, compared with chemistry and biology. A qualitative study employing questionnaire and interview methods sought the views of teachers and students of senior science courses on why this is the case. Data analysis revealed that students’ decisions about Physics 12 were influenced by their perceptions of the mathematical content of physics, the physics teachers’ personalities and teaching styles, the perceived difficulty of physics, and prior experience of physics. We conclude that enhancing student interest in taking physics at advanced high school levels may necessitate a wider, more articulated exposure to topics in physics, together with more careful attention to mathematical background and skills.     

The impact of Technology-Enabled Active Learning (TEAL) implementation on student learning and teachers’ teaching in a high school context

Technology-Enabled Active Learning (TEAL) is a pedagogical innovation established in a technology-enhanced multimedia studio, emphasizing constructivist-oriented teaching and learning. In Taiwan, an increasing number of schools are adopting the TEAL notion to deliver courses. This study examines the impact of TEAL on both student performance and teachers’ teaching of physics in the context of one of the high schools. A quasi-experimental research approach was used to conduct the study. Data sources include pre-/post-tests, interviews, class observations, and the researcher’s journals. The findings reveal that the benefits that the participants gained from exposure to the innovative instruction appear in various aspects in addition to the students’ test results. Having higher interest in attending physics classes and being more active in participating in extracurricular science activities on the part of the students, and being more enthusiastic about and confident in helping students strengthen their physics concepts on the part of the teacher, are among the non-test score gains. The students’ achievements and positive responses to the teacher’s instruction seem to have motivated his dedication and confidence. It is also found that teachers’ teaching beliefs and desire to change greatly affected their classroom practices and technology integration. To more effectively implement instructional innovations in a school, suggestions are provided.     

Assessment based on Serious Gaming Interactive Questions (SGIQ)

The case study presented in this paper describes the pedagogical aspects and collected experience in using e‐learning tool named IPA‐PBL. Improving assessments in the preparation for AMET's (Air Medical Evacuation and Transport) complex task of transfer of injured or sick patients from the place of accident to the hospital or between hospitals represents the main motive for developing this tool. In IPA‐PBL, the problem‐based learning is applied as a pedagogical strategy as well as a set of concrete methods implemented in the software. Together with the pedagogical model, specific domain ontology is designed. This way, the learner's knowledge can be analysed in order to collect the data necessary for dynamical adaptation of system behaviour. The results collected during the exploitation of IPA‐PBL are compared without using the system. Statistical analysis as well as considerations and conclusions about them are also presented in the paper. The predominant number of trainees who participated in the survey expressed positive attitudes about the new interactive type of questions. Therefore, it is considered to extend using such questions not only in assessments but in other parts of the training process.     

Information science instruction and changes in girls' and boy's expectancy and value beliefs: In search of gender-equitable pedagogical practices

In this study, which was situated in the context of information science instruction, data were collected twice using student self-reports to examine the effects of pedagogical practices on changes in boys' and girls' expectancy and value beliefs about computing. Participants were 326 7th-grade students, enrolled in three middle schools that were located in a Greek metropolitan city. At both times boys expressed more positive intrinsic-value beliefs about computing. Teachers' pedagogical practices had effects on students' motivation. All students benefited from practices that highlighted the social benefits and applications of technology. Also, girls benefited from practices that connected information science to other school subjects and boys from practices encouraging social interaction. Findings challenge some assumptions about gender/technology relations and have implications for teaching about technology in a gender-equitable way.     

Supporting children's online identity in international communities

Increasingly, adults and children socialise and communicate online. Children's safe and secure online communication with people from all over the world can increase their understanding of other cultures, which is an important goal in today's multicultural world. Our research studied such interactions between children from three countries, Hungary, Mexico, and the USA. The goals of our research were to study how children represent their identity online and what the implications are for the design of children's online communities. We used qualitative methods to derive a deep understanding of children's behaviours and motivations. Our results show that children exposed their true and complete identities online. They focused on sharing and learning about personal, ethnic, and gender identities via online media and largely ignored cultural identity. They learned about children from other countries and developed positive attitudes towards them. Based on our results we describe design guidelines for children's online identity tools.     

Engaging Elementary Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Adopting Problem-Based Learning in the Context of Science Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This study examined how facets of elementary teachers' pedagogical content knowledge are “engaged in practice” in the context of Problem-Based Learning (PBL). A secondary objective was to identify challenges teachers experienced during the development and implementation of PBL learning experiences. Collaborative Inquiry (Bray, Lee, Smith, & Yorks, 2000), a participatory, action-based inquiry approach was used as a means to develop and implement PBL. Outcomes report on how teachers developed and engaged various facets of their pedagogical content knowledge, including orientations to teaching science, and knowledge of and beliefs about curriculum, student learning, instruction, and assessment.     

Augmented reality in science laboratories: The effects of augmented reality on university students’ laboratory skills and attitudes toward science laboratories

This study investigated the effects of the use of augmented reality (AR) technologies in science laboratories on university students' laboratory skills and attitudes towards laboratories. A quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test control group design was employed. The participants were 76 first-year university students, aged 18–20 years old. They were assigned to either an experimental or a control group. Qualitative and quantitative data collection tools were used. The experimental results obtained following the 5-week application revealed that the AR technology significantly enhanced the development of the university students' laboratory skills. AR technology both improved the students’ laboratory skills and helped them to build positive attitudes towards physics laboratories. The statements of the students and the instructor regarding other effects of AR technology on science laboratories, both negative and positive, are also discussed.     

Analyzing Students’ Perceptions of Their Learning in Online and Hybrid First-Year Composition Courses

This article presents a study of first-year composition (fyc) courses that were taught in both online and hybrid formats in order to determine students’ perceptions on how much they learned in them. The students’ responses to an extensive survey, in which they analyzed their experiences in their courses, point to larger questions about our individual pedagogical assumptions as well as larger issues related to the structures of first-year composition courses and their required status.     

Attitudes, beliefs, and attendance in a hybrid course

Since online learning technology, such as streaming video, was introduced to the college distance-learning environment, there has been a need to study the attitudes of college students toward the use of this modality in hybrid courses. Understanding students’ attitudes toward using online materials and the impact on class attendance is not only essential to ascertain how effectively the online content is delivered, it also helps teaching faculty prepare online courses and education programs. This paper studies the attitudes of college students’ about online materials in a hybrid upper division communications class. Student attitudes towards combining distance-learning techniques with traditional lecture tended to be positive. Students held the belief that hybrid courses have a negative impact on attendance, but they did not self-report an actual impact. Students do believe that they benefit from this technology, but the belief is strongest in those who are most computer/Internet literate. How these attitudes/beliefs impact the student in the context of a rural culture will be discussed.     

Enacting a technology-based science curriculum across a grade level: The journey of teachers' appropriation

Studying teacher enactment of an innovation helps us understand the process of effective spread of a curricular innovation to teachers who have differing levels of content readiness, pedagogical orientations, teaching competency, different student profiles, and professional development experiences. Towards this, we explore how different teachers in the same grade level appropriated a common science curriculum enabled by mobile technologies in their classrooms. The innovative science curriculum: Mobilized 5E (Engage–Explore–Explain–Elaborate–Evaluate) Science Curriculum was developed through an iterative cycle of design-based research. As curriculum designs were not self-sufficient by themselves, the enactments of the teachers differed in how they leveraged on students' artifacts, how they integrated the technology into the class, the ways in which they interacted with the students, and how they scaffolded students' activities in a mobile learning setting. In this study, the teachers' enactments of mobilized 5E lessons were observed, analyzed and compared, with the aim of exploring the differences of lesson enactment amongst them. The results showed that teachers' different pedagogical orientations affected their instructions, especially their ways of technology integration in the class, and their patterns of interactions with the students. Based on the exploration of the teacher enactment of the mobilized 5E curriculum, implications are drawn concerning the implementation of innovative curricula implementation and the supports for teacher professional development of such innovation with the ultimate purpose of sustaining and scaling.     

An empirically grounded framework to guide blogging in higher education

Abstract   We report on a study involving Masters-level students who blogged as a part of a distance-learning course at the Open University, UK. We present an empirically-grounded framework that can be used to guide educators when they are considering blogging as part of their courses, and can be used by students' whose courses include blogging activities. In our analysis of semi-structured interviews with students, we identified six factors that influenced their blogging: perceptions of, and need for, an audience; perceptions of, and need for, community; the utility of, and need for comments; presentational style of the blog content; overarching factors related to the technological context; and the pedagogical context of the course. The students' blogging behaviours were varied and depended upon the way in which they addressed each of the six factors. These factors, along with the associated questions in the proposed framework, provide insights about the activity of blogging from a student's perspective. Therefore, the framework can guide the design of blogging activities in courses.     

Pedagogical approaches for technology-integrated science teaching

The two separate projects described have examined how teachers exploit computer-based technologies in supporting learning of science at secondary level. This paper examines how pedagogical approaches associated with these technological tools are adapted to both the cognitive and structuring resources available in the classroom setting. Four teachers participated in the first study, undertaken as part of the InterActive Education project in Bristol; all of them used multimedia simulations in their lessons. The second study presented was part of the wider SET-IT project in Cambridge; 11 teachers in eight schools were observed using multimedia simulations, data logging tools and interactive whiteboards. Teachers were interviewed in all cases to elicit their pedagogical thinking about their classroom use of ICT.     

Drawing on technology: An investigation of preservice teacher beliefs in the context of an introductory educational technology course

This study investigated entering preservice teachers' initial beliefs and ideas with regard to the role of technology in teaching and learning. It also examined specific technology-integrated pedagogical strategies and their potential to help preservice teachers begin to shift from traditional teacher-centered beliefs to a more student-centered mindset. The work was conducted in the context of an introductory educational technology course for preservice teachers in a Mid-Atlantic University in the United States. Data sources included pre- and post-course drawings where participants depicted themselves as technology-using teachers, drawing reflections, and weekly reflective entries submitted in response to a blogging assignment. Findings indicated that preservice teachers enter their training programs with traditional, teacher-centered beliefs about the use of technology and the roles of technology-using teachers and students. Analysis of post-course drawings, however, indicated that participants' beliefs began to shift from largely teacher-centered to more mixed teacher- and student-centered. Analysis of reflective blog entries also demonstrated that participants reflected predominantly on how technology can provide opportunities for students, teachers and parents to collaborate. To a lesser extent, participants reflected on how technology can enhance teaching and learning. Based on these findings, implications specifically related to stand alone technology courses and teacher education programs are discussed.     

PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE QUALITATIVE PHYSICS

We evaluate the success of the qualitative physics enterprise in automating expert reasoning about physical systems. The field has agreed, in essentials, upon a modeling language for dynamical systems, a representation for behavior, and an analysis method. The modeling language consists of generalized ordinary differential equations containing unspecified constants and monotonic functions; the behavioral representation decomposes the state space described by the equations into discrete cells; and the analysis method traces the transitory response using sign arithmetic and calculus. The field has developed several reasoners based on these choices over some 15 years. We demonstrate that these reasoners exhibit severe limitations in comparison with experts and can analyze only a handful of simple systems. We trace the limitations to inappropriate assumptions about expert needs and methods. Experts ordinarily seek to determine asymptotic behavior rather than transient response, and use extensive mathematical knowledge and numerical analysis to derive this information. Standard mathematics provides complete qualitative understanding of many systems, including those addressed so far in qualitative physics. Preliminary evidence suggests that expert knowledge and reasoning methods can be automated directly, without restriction to the accepted language, representation, and algorithm. We conclude that expert knowledge and methods provide the most promising basis for automating qualitative reasoning about physical systems.     

Re-thinking physics teaching with web-based learning

There is extensive uptake of ICT in the teaching of science but more evidence is needed on how ICT impacts on the learning practice and the learning outcomes at the classroom level. In this study, a physics website (Getsmart) was developed using the cognitive apprenticeship framework for students at a high school in Australia. This website was designed to enhance students’ knowledge of concepts in physics. Reflexive pedagogies were used in the delivery learning materials in a blended learning environment. The students in the treatment group accessed the website over a 10 week period. Pre and post-test results of the treatment (N = 48) and comparison group (N = 32) were compared. The MANCOVA analysis showed that the web-based learning experience benefitted the students in the treatment group. It not only impacted on the learning outcomes, but qualitative data from the students suggested that it had a positive impact on their attitudes towards studying physics in a blended environment.     

Perceptions of Computer Science at a South African university

First year students at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, were surveyed about their perceptions of Computer Science before and towards the end of their first year courses. The aim of this research was to investigate how the students’ attitudes changed during these courses and to assess the impact of the innovative breadth-first curriculum that has been developed in the School of Computer Science which emphasises the fundamentals of the discipline and the mathematical nature of Computer Science. The results show that most perceptions did not change much or that there were changes in both directions. More students, and particularly female students, were positive about their own understanding of the nature of Computer Science after the course than before. However, when asking specifically about jobs and course content, there was not a substantially deeper understanding at the end of the course of what content they would expect to encounter in a Computer Science course or working as a Computer Scientist. Fewer students, particularly male students, thought that Computer Science and mathematics were closely related after the course than before and this was an unexpected result, which may be the result of discrete mathematics topics being taught in courses separate from those in which continuous mathematics topics are taught. Students became less positive about working with computers after the course, a result which supports prior research, but is an issue for concern as computers will play some role in their future careers. The students found the courses challenging and different from their expectations with few students finding the courses unenjoyable.     

Easy Java Simulations: a software tool to create scientific simulations in Java

We introduce Easy Java Simulations, Ejs, a tool created by science teachers to help teach and learn science. Ejs allows users to create simulations using their knowledge of the scientific model. The author needs to supply a small amount of code for the model; the tool provides a graphical drag-and-drop interface to build the program. The resulting Ejs generated program is an independent, high quality Java application or applet ready to be published on a Web server. Ejs can serve as an effective teaching and learning tool if used in an appropriate pedagogical setting; for instance, to help students create their own simulations in order to express their conceptions on how a given scientific process works.The Ejs program and documentation can be freely downloaded from the site http://fem.um.es/Ejs.