Digital Opportunities for Student's Motivational Enhancement

AbstractYoung people, who are the fundamental asset of our economies and societies across the world, face a real and increasing difficulties in finding a decent job with each day. Three additional merging factors are worsening the youth employment crisis even further, causing challenges while transiting to decent jobs, namely (i) numbers of discouraged youth, in other words, young people, who are neither in education nor in employment or training (NEETs) are increasing, (ii) unemployment among university graduates of tertiary education in general are rising and (iii) potential NEET group students, especially in the 1st year, who, apart from reduced study fees, require extra motivation and moral support from educators. The study aim - to find the e-learning and conventional learning as the optimal ratio for 1st year students to increase motivation. Research methods – during two academic years (2013/2014th and 2014/2015th.) the first year students of the course “Entrepreneurship (Distance Learning e-course)” were tested about quality of this course using different research methods. Students had been tested by: 1) survey about the course on “Entrepreneurship (Distance Learning e-course)” assessment; 2) psychologist M.Lusher color test, based on the method of projection individual's emotional state of the diagnosis; 3) the degree of risk appetite according to Schubert's method of success; 4) motivation after T.Elersa methods, failure avoidance motivation in correlation with T.Elersa method; 5) survey about optimal proportion between traditional and e-learning studies. Paper contains analyses of these results

Elements of digital media in vocabulary remote-learning achievement

The urge of finding the most suitable method of remote teaching in a pandemic situation has become the center of recent studies. Equipped with instructional scaffolding, the absence of a teacher as a mentor in an asynchronous online class could be replaced by more interesting media for students’ self-study. This study was to look at games, songs, and a movie as media to enhance students’ achievement in English vocabulary. Further, elements in each media were observed along with students’ perceptions to explain the affected area in detail. This descriptive quantitative study used paired samples t-test toward students’ post-test scores of a control group (n=100) and an experimental group (n=100) in vocabulary. Students’ perception of taking media as learning tools in experimental class was measured in a questionnaire to explain the results. Results showed that the significantly experimental group outperformed in the final score. Trend on students’ perception in an experimental group toward these teaching media involved shared and specific features in media design, psychological and pedagogic elements. Further, it turned out that some primary and subsidiary features in games exceeded two other media (songs and movies) in vice versa generating some recommendations for future improvement

Motivations of NCAA Student Athletes in Community Service

Research Focus. Research is ongoing around the United States on volunteer motivations; however, NCAA student athletes remain an understudied population. This quantitative study investigated the motivations of NCAA student athletes in community service to determine if the importance of motivational functions differ demographically. The specific purpose of this study was to examine and determine the order of the motivational function of importance for NCAA student athletes in connection to their participation in mandatory community service. Determining if the importance of motivational functions differ demographically by gender (male, female), academic classification (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate students), and by sport type (team, individual) was an additional focus of this study. The research aimed to contribute beneficial insight and establish base knowledge regarding the importance of the motivational functions of NCAA student athletes in community service. Research Methods. The instrument used in this study is the Volunteer Functions Inventory (Clay et al., 1998), developed to understand the motivations of volunteers; demographic questions were also asked. The VFI categorizes individuals’ motivations for volunteering into six different functions; values, understanding, enhancement, career, social and protective. The authors of the inventory have established reliability and validity of the VFI (reported later). SurveyMonkey was used to collect demographics and VFI responses from NCAA student athletes who were listed on a current roster at the University of The Incarnate Word. The 150 student athletes participating in the study included 90 female and 60 male; this total population included 40 freshman, 33 sophomore, 36 junior, 28 senior, and 13 graduate level students. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS (IBM, 2016) predictive analytic software and Microsoft Excel. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations), independent t-test, and ANOVAs were used to explore significant differences between function by gender, academic classification, and sport type. An independent sample t-test was used to compare the means of different demographic variables to determine whether there was statistical evidence that the associated population means were significantly different. ANOVA tests were used to identify if any demographics differ from each other. Data analysis equality of variance in all cases was checked and homogeneity of the variances was confirmed through a Levene’s test. Since data met the assumptions of homogeneity of variances, a post Tukey’s HSD was used when the ANOVA analysis identified a difference between groups. Research Results/Findings. Findings conclude participants (N = 150) scored the motivational functions in the following order of importance: Values, Understanding, Career, Enhancement Social and Protective. Females scored all but one motivational function higher than males, indicating that females may be more inclined to volunteer. The Social function showed statistical differences in the academic classification with freshman compared to both junior and seniors. The Social function additionally identified a statistical significance in female freshman and female juniors. Male seniors reported the lowest mean score on all functions. Male seniors showed statistical differences for Value and Enhancement compared to male freshman and juniors. Conclusions from Research. This study may provide insight into what motivates current student athletes to participate in community service and identifies demographic differences within functions. Student athletes in this study did not directly benefit from the results of this study but may be indirectly affected when it is used for future community service events. This study align with literature in females reporting higher mean scores on most of motivational functions (Chesbrough, 2011; Metz, McLellan, & Youniss, 2003), suggesting females are more inclined to volunteer than males (Sullivan et al., 2013). The high level of importance for the social function in males suggests that they are more motivated by team events and working with others rather than independently. Male seniors were identified as a population with the lowest level of motivation to complete community service

Computer-assisted instruction: ‘JClic’ as a new pedagogical tool for EFL learners

The present study has a double purpose: firstly, to evaluate the effect of JClic on students' performance in the use of Simple Present Perfect in English and secondly, to establish the impact of the use of JClic on students' engagement and motivation. In other words, this research seeks to find out if student engagement and motivation in the learning process are heightened while using JClic, as a pedagogical tool, to carry out instruction. In this study, the Simple Present Perfect is presented in contrast to Simple Past in order to strengthen students' knowledge and understanding of the two tenses, although only the first one is evaluated as it was more problematic for them (according to the results from the 2nd end of term exam). Furthermore, a description and practice activities, involving the use of both tenses, are presented. In this study, we use mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative), in order to answer the research questions and obtain a better triangulation and complementarity regarding data collection. The findings reveal that the use of the JClic software, as a computer-assisted language-learning (CALL) tool, can increase students' engagement, motivation, and learning achievement. Thus, computer-assisted instruction (CAI) might complement teacher-directed instruction through motivating activities that are helpful to students so as to improve their academic performance. Finally, the results of this study may be useful for English teachers as they can use students' achievement data in order to make instructional decisions to change classroom environment and improve learning

How to design for persistence and retention in MOOCs?

Design of educational interventions is typically carried out following a design cycle involving phases of investigation, conceptualization, prototyping, implementation, execution and evaluation. This cycle can be applied at different levels of granularity e.g. learning activity, module, course or programme. In this paper we consider an aspect of learner behavior that can be critical to the success of many MOOCs i.e. their persistence to study, and the related theme of learner retention. We reflect on the impact that consideration of these can have on design decisions at different stages in the design cycle with the aim of en-hancing MOOC design in relation to learner persistence and retention, with particular attention to the European context

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills

A legacy handbook for science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)

Legacy Handbook reviewing emda's experience of STEM activity. Identifies key achievements and draws out lessons learned that may be relevant to successor bodies active in this area

Introducing innovative technologies in higher education: An experience in using geographic information systems for the teaching‐learning process

In today's world, new technologies are being used for the teaching‐learning process in the classroom. Their use to support learning can provide significant advantages for the teaching‐learning process and have potential benefits for students, as many of these technologies are a part of the work life of many current professions. The aim of this study is to analyse the use of innovative technologies for engineering and science education after examining the data obtained from students in their learning process and experiences. The study has been focused on computational geographic information systems, which allow access to and management of large volumes of information and data, and on the assessment of this tool as a basis for a suitable methodology to enhance the teaching‐learning process, taking into account the great social impact of big data. The results allow identifying the main advantages, opportunities, and drawbacks of using these technological tools for educational purposes. Finally, a set of initiatives has been proposed to complement the teaching activity and to improve user experience in the educational field.This study was supported by the Spanish Research Agency and the European Regional Development Fund under project CloudDriver4Industry TIN2017‐89266‐R