Implementation and design of new functions for a web-based E-Learning system to stimulate learners motivation

Due to the opportunities provided by the Internet, people are taking advantage of e-learning courses and during the last few years enormous research efforts have been dedicated to the development of e-learning systems. So far, many e-learning systems are proposed and used practically. However, in these systems the e-learning completion rate is low. One of the reasons is the low study desire and motivation. In our previous work, we implemented a e-learning system that is able to increase the learning efficiency by stimulating learners motivation. In this work, we designed and implemented new functions to improve the system performancePeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The evolution of foreign language learning from a diachronic perspective

The present project offers a linguistic theoretical approach about foreign language teaching methodologies based on English in regard to the importance that English has gained throughout the last decades. This paper portrays a vision of the current situation of English as well as it reviews many different methods of teaching a second or foreign language, paying especial attention to Communicative Language Teaching, analysing from a diachronic perspective their corresponding impact and development. The final aim of this dissertation is to provide a critical review of traditional teaching approaches in order to propose some potential improvements on methodologies teaching English as a foreign language.El presente trabajo brinda una base teórica lingüística sobre diversos tipos de metodología y enseñanza en lenguas extranjeras basándonos en el inglés debido a la importancia que ha cobrado en las pasadas décadas. Este TFG ofrece una visión de la actual situación del inglés así como de diversos métodos de enseñanza de un segundo idioma, con especial atención al método comunicativo (CLT), analizando desde una perspectiva histórica el impacto de los mismos y su evolución. El objetivo final de este trabajo es proyectar una perspectiva crítica de estos métodos de enseñanza con el fin de proponer posibles mejoras respecto a la enseñanza del inglés como segundo idioma.Departamento de Filología InglesaGrado en Estudios Inglese

Evidence-Based Intervention for Sleep Disturbance in Healthy Elderly Individuals

Elderly individuals have a predisposition to experiencing sleep disorder, yet many remain untreated. Consequences of untreated sleep disturbance may result in decreased cognitive functioning, lowered perceived quality of life, and loss of independence. A literature review describes the definition of sleep, consequences of sleep disorder, sleep disturbance in the elderly population, intervention efficacy, principles of gerogogy, and the role of occupational therapy in sleep intervention. The scholarly project presents a manual designed for use with well-elderly populations and intended to be guided and/or distributed by occupational therapists. The manual is entitled “Take Control of Your Sleep: An Occupational Therapy Manual to Improve Sleep Quality in Elderly Individuals” is a synthesis of cognitive-behavioral strategies and complimentary interventions aimed at life-style change and increased knowledge of sleep processes in elderly individuals. The Model of Human Occupation is selected to serve as a foundation for the sleep manual and addresses concepts of personal values and desires (volition), sleep routines (habituation), and metacognition (performance capacity), as well as attention to the sleep environment. The cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) approach is well-supported in the research literature for its application to the selected population and is the main intervention strategy used throughout the sleep manual. Principles of gerogogy specific to older adult learning are utilized to guide the development of chapter content in the self-help manual

Distance Learning during Moments of Crisis: Opportunities, Challenges and Implications of Online Instructional Design

The ongoing COVID 19 pandemic has shown that distance learning is no more regarded as a mere luxury or just a complementation to in-person learning. It is increasingly being considered by educationalists as an important source and asset of education, especially within the context of the twenty-first century education and the different ICT and soft skills it requires. Starting from a number of webinars and trainings I did during this period, and based mainly on  a personal online training at Harvard university’s edX platform on ‘Family Engagement in Children’s Education’ that lasted four months, this paper attempts to explore the potential that online learning and training represents for learning and teaching English. Specifically, emphasis will be on dissecting the formal and content qualities of successful online course designing. Finally, the paper will end with a discussion of some results and recommendations for educational practitioners as to material selection and design of distance learning

Essential assessment for quality online learning in higher education

Linking assessment with learning objectives and outcomes has become significantly important in assessing adult learners in higher education. To better understand how adults learn and their expectations for learning, this paper provides a literature review that examines adult learning theory, learner characteristics, and motivation factors that shape our understanding. Additionally, this paper provides an in-depth review on the definition of assessment, types of assessment, formative versus summative assessment, alternative assessment, self-assessment, and the most appropriate and essential implementing principles and strategies in an online learning environment. The resources were retrieved using the University of Northern Iowa Library\u27s online cataloging system - UNISTAR as well as resources from two online metadatabases - Panther Prowler and Google Scholar™. The literature review reveals that assessment is not only a key indicator for both teaching and learning; it is also an extended motivator to trigger online learners. While innovative strategies and techniques for effectively using assessment need to be further explored and developed, this paper provides some good practices for aligning assessment with course objectives and learning outcome to ensure quality online learning in higher education

The use of feedback and feed-forward action plans on the development of clinical skills in undergraduate medical students.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Background: Deliberate practice is a concentrated learning strategy aimed at achieving a defined goal and feedback enables skills and behaviours to be corrected or reinforced for improved patient care. Clinical skills are initially taught during the pre-clinical years in a clinical skills laboratory using simulated patients and manikins before applying them on real patients. There is a need to increase medical students’ engagement, orientation, acceptance and assimilation of feedback to enhance their clinical competence. To move feedback forward and to encourage a change from a unidirectional teacher-learner dialogue to a co-constructed dialogue, feedback strategies or ‘feed-forward action plan interventions’ need further investigation. Aim: To explore the medical students’ receptivity to feedback, their engagement with feedback interventions and the role of deliberate practice in tutor and peer clinical skills logbook formative assessment feedback. Methods: This mixed methods study comprised of both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Five semi-structured focus groups were conducted with twenty-five purposively selected third year medical students. In the first study, data was thematically analysed through a psychological framework, underpinned by four psychological processes: Awareness, Cognizance, Agency and Volition, to understand learner behaviour to feedback reception, interpretation and uptake. In the second study, high and low academic performing students’ experiences of self and peer feedback was explored. In the quantitative part of the study we adapted and developed a feedback scoring system based on the deliberate practice framework to assess the quality of the feed forward strategy implemented in the 2nd and 3rd year medical students tutor and peer logbooks to identify deliberate practice components i.e. task, performance gap and action plan. The sample consisted of 1025 feedback responses. Results: This study found that awareness, understanding, agency and volition revealed facilitators and barriers to feedback receptivity. Feedback aligning with the personal goals of the learner, the reliability of the teacher in delivering feedback and establishing relationships strengthened reception. The depth and timing of feedback utilization varied among students as their self-regulatory focus on the feedback process dominated their active use of feedback. Students with lower performance believed they lacked adequate skills to engage with self and peer feedback interventions. Higher-level students reported that receiving peer input helped them take responsibility for tracking and assessing their learning, suggesting that students require numerous self-evaluation opportunities to improve their judgment over time. Teacher feedback on interventions testing clinical cognition had a positive impact on feedback engagement and self-regulating learning. Analysis of the 2nd and 3rd year written feedback revealed all three deliberate practice components with a higher peer than tutor frequency in both classes respectively. Decreased student achievement was associated with increase in tutor gap xii and action feedback scores and vice versa in peer scores. The overall quality of feedback provided by tutors and peers was moderate and less specific (average score < or =2). Conclusion: Using the deliberate practice framework improved the feed-forward quality of feedback as comments contained elements facilitating deliberate practice. Providing constructive feed-forward feedback linked to tasks learning objectives and assessment outcomes has the potential to promote self-regulation by stimulating self-awareness and self-directed monitoring through reflection-in-action. The less competent learners received and used feedback differently and the above effects were either immediate or undeveloped. To motivate immediate feedback engagement due to their self-regulatory focus of postponing feedback use closer to exams, this study recommends the novelty of integrating the logbook sessions with a feedback design that makes learners actors in the feedback process after receiving feedback. Newer feedback initiatives that target a feedback intervention for learners to scaffold feedback by reflecting and formulating self-generated performance improvement goals based on what they did well and areas that need improvement would serve as a source of coaching to facilitate feedback interpretation and utilisation to feed forward. Goal setting supports learners’ active engagement with feedback by stimulating them to read and understand the feedback, identify areas that require development, develop learning goals and then convert these goals into action by adjusting their behaviour. Equipping learners to engage with peer feedback processes through the feed forward intervention enables development of shared responsibility and self-directed learners with greater agency over assessment and feedback process. Responsibility sharing has the potential to ensure sustainability of the educator’s effective feedback practices reducing the emotional burden on both students and educators. This study emphasises the importance of a clinical skills feedback culture as a faculty development programme to strategically direct student learning by reinforcing desirable behaviour change towards professional identity and professionalism. Further, a novel approach based on psychological processes to understand the barriers and facilitators of feedback receptivity is proposed. Using a theoretical framework based on deliberate practice and feedback intervention theories, this study expands our understanding of factors influencing the situational and learners’ self-regulatory use of feedback. In addition, a conceptual framework and a feedback-scoring tool are proposed to pave the way for moving feedback forward and to highlight the importance of feedback-feed-forward action plans. Key words: Clinical Logbook; Feedback; Evaluation; Deliberate practice; Feed-forward; Feedback literacy; Feedback culture; Clinical skills, Formative Assessment

The Effect Of Visualized Student\u27s Self-set Learning Progress Goals On East Asian Chinese Student\u27s Motivation And Self Confidence In Learning

This study was conducted to determine if visualized goal achievement can help enhance East Asian Chinese students‟ motivation in learning and elevate their confidence in reaching their goals thus improving their performance. The goal achievement was visualized on a goal achievement progress chart that was self-created and self-managed by the East Asian Chinese students and the goal creating was under the supervision of their instructor. In this study, literature reviews on the theories, previous research studies in the perspectives of East Asian students‟ motivation in learning, goal setting on motivation, self-determination, self-efficacy, and expectancy theories are conducted to provide theoretical ground and legitimate evidence for this particular research. The researcher conducted an experiment in which students were given a learning task and required to set their own learning goals for that learning task under the supervision of their instructors. In this specific experiment, a total of 106 students from a university that was funded by American Educators in a central province in China agreed to participate in stages one, and two of the study, but some students withdrew from this research and some did not participate in both research stages therefore their data were take out from the data to make research result more consistent. Therefore eventually 72 students were considered eligible to go through the whole process of turning in the questionnaires and participating in the performance test. In this particular goal setting research study, the students were given the freedom of setting their own learning pace iii and managing their own progress on a visualized progress chart. The progress chart was visualized as a climbing/progressing line, which goes from bottom to top (see appendix C) once students achieved their learning goals. At the same time, the instructor provided feedback concerning the students‟ progress. Although some of the research results displayed no statistical significance for motivation and self-confidence during the pre and post session of the research, there is a positive correlation among motivation, self-confidence, and performance outcome. One research result did corroborate the previous research study that goal setting strategy would improve learning outcome

학습자 동기 부여 지원을 위한 MOOCs 인터페이스 개발

학위논문(석사) -- 서울대학교대학원 : 사범대학 교육학과(교육공학전공), 2022.2. Young Hoan Cho.With the development of information and communication technology (ICT), many people get educated not only in traditional classrooms but also online nowadays. As one way of online education, the market of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) has been growing continuously since the first platform was opened to the public in 2012. Today in 2021, the number of MOOCs learners has reached up to 220 million, and MOOCs are playing an irreplaceable role in higher education, lifelong education, corporate education, etc. Although we can expect that MOOCs will become increasingly important in the field of education, with its rapid growth during the last decade, some issues of it have been exposed. One of the issues is the low completion rate. Compared to traditional education, MOOCs learners are reported more likely to drop out, which leads to the average completion rate at around 10%. According to previous studies, one of the reasons that causes this phenomenon is lacking motivation. As a part that interacts directly with users of an application, interface is crucial because it offers affordance and determines the way users use the application. And the interface becomes even more important when it comes to E-learning because motivators, which can affect learners' motivation, can be designed in the user interface. However, studies have shown that the current interface design of MOOCs lacks motivation factors and fails to facilitate interactive communication among MOOCs learners. Therefore, in this research, a MOOCs interface that focuses on improving learners' motivation was designed. To achieve this goal, the research questions considered were: 1) What are the interface design guidelines and interface functions to motivate MOOCs learners to sustain their learning? 2) What is the interface to motivate MOOCs learners to sustain their learning? and 3) What are the learners' responses to the interface? To answer the research questions, the type 1 design and development methodology proposed by Richey and Klein was followed. First, MOOCs interface design guidelines were derived by literature review and followed by 2 rounds of expert review conducted by 4 experts to ensure the internal validity. Second, a prototype of MOOCs interface was designed based on the guidelines by using prototyping tool Figma. Third, the prototype was given to 5 learners along with a series of tasks for learner response tests to ensure the external validity of the design guidelines, and based on the result, both the prototype and the guidelines were revised. The final version of the MOOCs interface design guidelines consists of 3 motivational design principles （Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness）, 12 motivational design guidelines (5 autonomy-supported, 4 competence-supported, and 3 relatedness-supported) along with 34 design guidelines developed for MOOCs interface. Based on these design guidelines, the functions of the MOOCs interface in this research were designed. Based on the autonomy-supported guidelines, functions such as learning mode selection (self-paced, scheduled, premiere), learning group, learning activity, goal setting, dashboard, reminder, recommendation, and feedback were designed. And based on the competence-supported guidelines, functions such as account register, course enrollment, learning path, team activity support, dashboard, and goal setting were designed. Meanwhile, based on the relatedness-supported guidelines, functions such as dashboard, feedback, keyword checklist, learning group, chatting window, group/team activity, course evaluation, team assignment, mind map, and note were designed. The participating learners were satisfied with the design. The survey data showed that learners’ general perceptions of the MOOCs interface reached 4.44, perceived autonomy reached 4.40, perceived competence reached 4.52, and perceived relatedness reached 4.66 (5 points Likert scale). The in-depth interview data was open coded into three categories: 1) Advantages of the MOOCs interface, 2) Problems with the MOOCs interface, and 3) Suggestions for improvement. The advantages include providing choices for autonomy support, providing scaffolding and adaptive learning for competence support, providing interactive learning for relatedness support, and providing novel meanwhile helpful functions that existing platforms don’t have. The problems include lacking tutorials for novel functions, inconsistent icons and choice of words, and improper positioning and interaction. The suggestions for improvement include adding the wiki function, adding the reminder function, and visualizing the timetable. The significance of this research can be summarized as follows: 1) proposed an intrinsic motivation oriented MOOCs interface. 2) introduced three learning modes to the MOOCs learning environment. 3) introduced the learning group and learning team to the MOOCs environment to facilitate learners’ interaction. 4) provided an example of the dashboard for the context of MOOCs. And 5) provided insight into how to help learners achieve personalized learning in the MOOCs environment.정보통신기술(ICT)의 발달로 오늘날 많은 사람이 전통적인 교실에서뿐만 아니라 온라인으로도 교육을 받고 있다. 온라인 교육의 한 방법으로 MOOC(Massive Open Online Courses)의 시장은 2012년 첫 플랫폼이 공개된 이후 지속적으로 성장하고 있으며, 교육학자에게 많은 관심을 받고 있다. 특히 MOOC는 고등교육, 평생교육, 기업교육 등에서 대체할 수 없는 역할을 한다는 연구 결과가 속속히 나오고 있다. 교육 분야에서 MOOC가 점점 더 중요해질 것이라고 예상되지만, 지난 10년 동안 MOOC의 급속한 성장과 함께 MOOC의 문제점들이 일부 발견되었다. 그중 하나는 낮은 이수율로서, 기존 교육에 비해 MOOC 학습자는 평균 이수율이 약 10%에 머무를 정도로 중도 탈락할 가능성이 높은 것으로 보고되었다. 선행 연구에 따르면 이러한 현상을 일으키는 원인 중 하나는 부족한 동기부여 때문이다. 사용자 인터페이스는 애플리케이션에서 사용자와 직접 상호 작용하는 부분으로서 어포던스를 제공하고, 사용자가 애플리케이션을 사용하는 방식을 결정하기 때문에 매우 중요하다고 말할 수 있다. 특히, E-learning 상황에서는 인터페이스가 더욱 중요한데, 이는 동기 부여에 영향을 미칠 수 있는 동기 요소들이 사용자 인터페이스에 설계될 수 있기 때문이다. 그러나 선행 연구에 따르면 현재의 MOOC 인터페이스 디자인은 동기 요소가 부족하고 MOOC 학습자 간의 상호 작용을 촉진하지 못하고 있다. 이에 따라서 본 연구에서는 학습자의 동기부여에 초점을 맞추어 MOOC 인터페이스를 설계하였고, 이를 위해 다음의 연구 문제들을 고려하였다. 1) MOOC 학습자가 학습을 지속하도록 동기를 부여하는 인터페이스 디자인 가이드라인은 무엇인가? 2) 인터페이스 디자인 가이드라인에 따른 예시적인 인터페이스는 무엇인가? 3) 인터페이스에 대한 학습자의 반응은 무엇인가? 연구 질문에 답하기 위해 Richey와 Klein이 제안한 설계ㆍ개발 방법론 중 유형 1을 따랐다. 먼저 문헌검토를 통해 MOOC 인터페이스 디자인 가이드라인을 도출하고, 내적 타당성을 확보하기 위해 4명의 전문가가 2차례에 걸쳐 전문가검토를 실시하였다. 다음으로, 프로토타이핑 도구인 Figma를 사용하여 가이드라인에 따라 MOOC 인터페이스의 프로토타입을 개발했다. 마지막으로, 디자인 가이드라인의 외적 타당성을 확보하기 위해 2차례에 걸쳐 사용성 평가를 하고 학습자의 반응을 측정했다. 일련의 과제와 함께 프로토타입을 5명의 학습자에게 제공하고, 그 결과를 바탕으로 프로토타입과 가이드라인을 모두 수정했다. MOOC 인터페이스 디자인 가이드라인의 최종 버전은 3가지 동기 부여 디자인 원리 (자율성, 유능성 및 관계성), 12가지 동기 부여 디자인 가이드라인 (5개 자율성 지원, 4개 유능성 지원, 3개 관계성 지원)과 34개의 MOOC 인터페이스 디자인 가이드라인으로 구성되었다. 본 연구에서 개발한 MOOC 인터페이스는 이러한 MOOC 인터페이스 디자인 가이드라인에 따른 기능을 포함하고 있다. 자율성 지원 가이드라인을 반영하는 기능으로 학습 모드 선택 (self-paced, scheduled, premiere), 학습 그룹, 학습활동 선택, 학습목표 설정, 대시보드, 리마인더, 추천, 피드백 등 기능이 있었고, 유능성 지원 가이드라인을 반영하는 기능으로 레지스터, 수업 등록, 학습 경로, 팀 활동 지원, 대시보드, 학습목표 설정 등 기능이 있었으며, 관계성 지원 가이드라인을 반영하는 기능으로 대시보드, 피드백, 키워드 체크리스트, 학습 그룹, 채팅창, 그룹/팀 활동, 수업 평가, 팀 과제, 마인드맵, 노트 등 기능이 있었다. 사용성 평가에 참여한 학습자들은 개발한 MOOCs 인터페이스에 만족했으며, 5점 척도 구성한 설문 문항으로 조사한 결과, 인터페이스 전반에 대한 인식 4.44점, 자율성에 대한 인식 4.40점, 유능성에 대한 인식 4.52점, 관계성에 대한 인식 4.66점이었다. 그리고 심층 인터뷰에서 취득한 질적 데이터를 오픈 코딩을 통해서 정리한 결과, 개발한 MOOCs 인터페이스의 장점, 문제점, 개선점을 도출했다. 장점으로 자율성 지원을 위한 선택 제공, 유능성 지원을 위한 스캐폴딩과 적응형 학습, 관계성 지원을 위해서 제공하는 상호작용, 그리고 기존 플랫폼과의 의미있는 차이점 등이 있었다. 문제점으로 기존 플랫폼들이 제공하지 않은 새로운 기능에 대한 가이드가 필요하다는 점, 불일치한 아이콘과 용어, 부적절한 포지셔닝과 인터랙션 등이 있었다. 개선점으로 위키 기능, 알림 메시지 기능을 추가하고 시간표를 시각화 등이 있었다. 본 연구의 의의는 다음과 같이 요약될 수 있다. 1) 내재적 동기부여 지향한 MOOC 인터페이스를 제안하였다. 2) MOOC 학습 환경에 3가지 학습 모드를 도입했다. 3) 학습자의 상호 작용을 촉진하기 위해 학습 그룹과 학습 팀을 MOOC 학습 환경에 도입했다. 4) MOOC 상황에 대시보드의 예시를 제공했다. 그리고 5) 학습자가 MOOC 환경에서 맞춤형 학습을 달성하도록 돕는 방법에 대한 인사이트를 제공했다.Chapter 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Problem Statement 1 1.2. Purpose of the Research 4 1.3. Research Questions 8 1.4. Definition of Terms 9 1.4.1. MOOCs 9 1.4.2. Motivation 11 1.4.3. User Interface 12 Chapter 2. Literature Review 14 2.1. MOOCs 14 2.1.1. Characteristics and Meaning 14 2.1.2. History of MOOCs 16 2.1.3. MOOCs Platforms and MOOCs Learners 20 2.1.4. The Critiques and Drop Out Phenomenon 26 2.2. Motivation 35 2.2.1. Motivation in Learning 35 2.2.2. Motivation Theories 37 2.3.1. User Interface Design & Interface Design for Education 45 2.3.2 Motivation Supported User Interface Design 48 Chapter 3. Research Method 54 3.1. Design and Development Methodology 54 3.2. Research Participants 58 3.3. Research Tools 60 3.3.1. Internal Validation Tools 60 3.3.2. Prototyping Tool 60 3.3.3. External Validation Tools 62 3.4. Data Collection and Analysis 65 3.4.1. Expert Review 65 3.4.2. Learners' Responses 66 Chapter 4. Findings 68 4.1. The MOOCs Interface Design Guidelines 68 4.1.1. The Final Version of the MOOCs Interface Design Guidelines 69 4.1.2. The Results of the Expert Review 80 4.2. Prototype of the MOOCs Interface 85 4.3. Learners' Responses to the MOOCs Interface 118 4.3.1. Learners' Response to the MOOCs Interface (First Usability Test) 119 4.3.2. Learners' Responses to the Revised Interface (Second Usability Test) 143 Chapter 5. Discussion and Conclusion 145 5.1. Discussion 146 5.2. Conclusion 151 Reference 154 APPENDIX 1 175 APPENDIX 2 189 APPENDIX 3 197 APPENDIX 4 206 APPENDIX 5 213 APPENDIX 6 220 국문초록 224석

Epistemic Beliefs and the Innovation-Decision Process: A Mixed Methods Analysis of Faculty Classroom Assessment Practice

This study focuses on epistemic belief change and the innovation-decision processes of 193 faculty who participated in a professional development workshop series on classroom assessment. From this study population, focus groups were conducted with a criterion-based research sample of 30 workshop participants (i.e., spring workshop completers n = eight, spring workshop non-completers n =eight, fall workshop completers n = seven, and fall workshop non-completers n = seven). Very little attention in higher education research is devoted to how faculty conceptualize new knowledge during professional development, and how decisions about new knowledge affect existing knowledge. This study addresses this gap by examining the mechanisms of epistemic belief change as it pertains to faculty epistemic beliefs about assessment of learning. Components from Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers, 2003) were embedded into the Integrated Model of personal epistemology development (Bendixen & Rule, 2004) and examined in a new conceptual model, the Integrated Model of Innovation Decision-Making (IM-IDM), to explore mechanisms of epistemic belief change. The purpose of this convergent parallel mixed methods study was to examine the cognitive processes of epistemic change (i.e., epistemic doubt, epistemic volition, resolution strategies, affect, reciprocal causation, and metacognition) and determine the influence of two professional development teaching strategies (i.e., innovativeness and collaborative learning) on faculty epistemic beliefs, as well as how epistemic change is associated with the innovation- decision process when faculty consider adopting innovative classroom assessment strategies. Findings indicate statistically significant increases in sophistication of faculty beliefs for all four epistemic domains after completing a professional development series. Additionally, an examination of cognitive processes used in innovation decision-making suggest that attributes of innovativeness have a role in pre-decisions and epistemic beliefs have a role in both pre-decisions and decisions. However, the role of collaborative learning was not evident within in this study. The findings of this study may have pragmatic value to higher education institutions interested in social and personal change strategies. It is recommended that future research of the IM-IDM be conducted with a larger sample size and determine direct, indirect, and mediation effects of innovativeness and collaborative learning on faculty epistemic beliefs