Foraging for spatial information: Patterns of orientation learning using desktop virtual reality

The purpose of the study was to provide a description of how learners use desktop VR systems for orientation learning that instructional designers could use to improve the technology. The study used a mixed method, content analysis approach based on a theoretical framework that included principles of self-regulated learning (SRL) and orientation learning. Twelve participants used desktop virtual reality (VR) systems to explore the virtual surround of a residential space. A screen-recording program captured participants' navigation movements and think-aloud verbalizations. Participants' recorded think-aloud verbalizations were coded to identify the orientation learning and SRL events they used during the session. Analysis of the participant movement data revealed that eight of the participants generally moved in a single direction through the surround, whereas the remaining four moved in a direction and then reversed that direction. Movement patterns of some participants were found to be different at the beginning and end of their VR session, and some participants tended to navigate through certain areas of the surround more slowly than through other areas. Some participants tended to view the scene at a constant field of view level, whereas other varied the level. Additionally, some participants tended to view a particular area of the scene with narrower or wider fields of view, but others varied the field of view level across the scene. A model of orientation learning events was derived from content analysis of the think-aloud transcripts showing that participants engaged in four major types of learning categories: identifying, locating, regulating, and contextualizing. Participants were classified into four groups according to relative frequency distributions of the event categories. The study concluded that use of SRL events varied amongst the participants, and that the participant used a diverse set of movement and learning event patterns. Further conclusions noted that virtual scene objects possessed meaning for learners, and that thought verbalizations indicated that some of the learners attained a sense of presence in the VR environment. Finally, the study concluded that qualitative techniques such as thought verbalizations may provide a new paradigm for measuring presence in virtual environments

Engineering Design: A Cognitive Process Approach

The intent of this dissertation was to identify the cognitive processes used by advanced pre-engineering students to solve complex engineering design problems. Students in technology and engineering education classrooms are often taught to use an ideal engineering design process that has been generated mostly by educators and curriculum developers. However, the review of literature showed that it is unclear as to how advanced pre-engineering students cognitively navigate solving a complex and multifaceted problem from beginning to end. Additionally, it was unclear how a student thinks and acts throughout their design process and how this affects the viability of their solution. Therefore, Research Objective 1 was to identify the fundamental cognitive processes students use to design, construct, and evaluate operational solutions to engineering design problems. Research Objective 2 was to determine identifiers within student cognitive processes for monitoring aptitude to successfully design, construct, and evaluate technological solutions. Lastly, Research Objective 3 was to create a conceptual technological and engineering problem-solving model integrating student cognitive processes for the improved development of problem-solving abilities. The methodology of this study included multiple forms of data collection. The participants were first given a survey to determine their prior experience with engineering and to provide a description of the subjects being studied. The participants were then presented an engineering design challenge to solve individually. While they completed the challenge, the participants verbalized their thoughts using an established think aloud method. These verbalizations were captured along with participant observational recordings using point-of-view camera technology. Additionally, the participant design journals, design artifacts, solution effectiveness data, and teacher evaluations were collected for analysis to help achieve the research objectives of this study. Two independent coders then coded the video/audio recordings and the additional design data using Halfin\u27s (1973) 17 mental processes for technological problem-solving. The results of this study indicated that the participants employed a wide array of mental processes when solving engineering design challenges. However, the findings provide a general analysis of the number of times participants employed each mental process, as well as the amount of time consumed employing the various mental processes through the different stages of the engineering design process. The results indicated many similarities between the students solving the problem, which may highlight voids in current technology and engineering education curricula. Additionally, the findings showed differences between the processes employed by participants that created the most successful solutions and the participants who developed the least effective solutions. Upon comparing and contrasting these processes, recommendations for instructional strategies to enhance a student\u27s capability for solving engineering design problems were developed. The results also indicated that students, when left without teacher intervention, use a simplified and more natural process to solve design challenges than the 12-step engineering design process reported in much of the literature. Lastly, these data indicated that students followed two different approaches to solving the design problem. Some students employed a sequential and logical approach, while others employed a nebulous, solution centered trial-and-error approach to solving the problem. In this study the participants who were more sequential had better performing solutions. Examining these two approaches and the student cognition data enabled the researcher to generate a conceptual engineering design model for the improved teaching and development of engineering design problem solving

Attention and Social Cognition in Virtual Reality:The effect of engagement mode and character eye-gaze

Technical developments in virtual humans are manifest in modern character design. Specifically, eye gaze offers a significant aspect of such design. There is need to consider the contribution of participant control of engagement. In the current study, we manipulated participants’ engagement with an interactive virtual reality narrative called Coffee without Words. Participants sat over coffee opposite a character in a virtual café, where they waited for their bus to be repaired. We manipulated character eye-contact with the participant. For half the participants in each condition, the character made no eye-contact for the duration of the story. For the other half, the character responded to participant eye-gaze by making and holding eye contact in return. To explore how participant engagement interacted with this manipulation, half the participants in each condition were instructed to appraise their experience as an artefact (i.e., drawing attention to technical features), while the other half were introduced to the fictional character, the narrative, and the setting as though they were real. This study allowed us to explore the contributions of character features (interactivity through eye-gaze) and cognition (attention/engagement) to the participants’ perception of realism, feelings of presence, time duration, and the extent to which they engaged with the character and represented their mental states (Theory of Mind). Importantly it does so using a highly controlled yet ecologically valid virtual experience

A PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH TO IMPROVING STUDENTS’ USE OF METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES

Ph.D.Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 201

Bringing Nordic mathematics education into the future : Preceedings of Norma 20 : The ninth Nordic conference on mathematics education Oslo, 2021

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Bringing Nordic mathematics education into the future : Preceedings of Norma 20 : The ninth Nordic conference on mathematics education Oslo, 2021

This volume presents Nordic mathematics education research, which will be presented at the Ninth Nordic Conference on Mathematics Education, NORMA 20, in Oslo, Norway, in June 2021. The theme of NORMA 20 regards what it takes or means to bring Nordic mathematics education into the future, highlighting that mathematics education is continuous and represents stability just as much as change.publishedVersio

Retracing Spatial Design Processes: Developing a Pedagogical Tool for Architecture

Over the recent decades, contemporary architecture and its design processes have witnessed rapid digitization - owing to the advent of Computer-Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) tools. However, these tools for the architectural discipline have yet to holistically accommodate the intuitive, “messy” and collaborative nature of its ideation processes. These creative processes of architecture students and novice practitioners have either been flattened or neglected while enforcing conventional CAAD tools with inflexible interfaces. However, students can benefit from experiential learning in design studios with tools that support and facilitate their reflective design processes. These tools could intuitively assist in brainstorming design concepts from inspirational stimuli while simultaneously documenting these thought processes and ideas through interactive design databases. Hence, given the continued adaptation of the architecture discipline with digital design strategies, tools that help in dynamically recording and tracing the evolution of design thinking and making processes can help better validate and reflect on their corresponding conceptual designs. This research is an investigation into the ongoing gap in the interactive documentation of the ideation processes in architecture education such that they could promote reflective design learning among architecture students while generating ideas for the built. This gap is attributed to the various challenges and limitations of existing CAAD tools such as the rigidity of their interfaces and lack of holistic support for collaborative design works. The research explores a digital design tool for students and novice practitioners that has the ability: (1) to record and trace the concepts and design ideas generated during creative brainstorming sessions, (2) to provoke reflective design thinking and making through proposed design modes and, (3) to facilitate collective contribution to these designs. Through experimentation with these criteria, the proposed tool is investigated for its potential to bridge the gap in reflectively communicating and collaborating on design proposals during the conceptual design phases in architecture education and practice

The effect of learning problem-solving methods on learning to program in the BASIC language

This study was designed to compare learning problem-solving methods versus non problem-solving activity (word-processing) on subsequent learning to program in the BASIC language. It also examined a method to provide students with increased knowledge and skills to enable them to learn how to program;A pretest-posttest control group design was used in this experiment with random assignment of subjects to one of three groups. Experiment groups one (deduction group) and two (induction group) first received the pretest and learning problem-solving methods; then group one received deduction instruction while group two received induction instruction, both followed by learning BASIC language programming instruction, taking midterm test one and two, and then the post-test. The control group first received the pretest and wordprocessing instruction, followed by learning BASIC language programming instruction and taking midterm test one and two, and then the post-test;The results indicated that when female students first study problem-solving methods (induction and deduction) they experience a significant increase in BASIC language programming achievement. Likewise, male students who first learn problem solving (induction) experience a significant increase in BASIC language program achievement;The study also showed that female students who first receive problem-solving instruction in induction subsequently learn BASIC language programming significantly better than female students who first receive problem-solving instruction in deduction and subsequently learn BASIC language programming;Further evidence supports that female students in group one and two on BASIC language programming in design and understanding performed significantly better than female students in the control group. In addition, male students who first learn problem solving (induction) perform significantly better than males who first receive non-problem solving instruction prior to learning BASIC language programming in design and understanding;From this study, the researcher concluded the following: (1) students who first learn problem-solving methods, rather than receiving non problem-solving instruction followed by learning BASIC programming, perform significantly better than their counterparts; and (2) female students who learn problem solving (induction) perform significantly higher than female students who learn problem solving (deduction) followed by learning BASIC language programming. Thus, first learning problem-solving skills enhances the ability to learn a programming language