The relationship between video games, problem-solving skills, and academic performance from IT students’ perspective

Abstract. The advancement in information technology has contributed to growth in different industries. One such industry that has gained prominence in recent years is the gaming industry. The game industry today has become a major platform of entertainment, amassing a large community of players across the globe. As most people consider video game play only as a form of entertainment, the existential educational benefits are missed. While it is true that violent games could negatively affect the psychological health of its players, playing games right can contribute positively to the improvement of skills and academics. The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between video game play, problem-solving, and academic performance on Information Technology (IT) students and to understand the kinds of video games that affect their problem-solving skills in their studies. A quantitative research method was used, collecting quantitative data from students of the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) of the University of Oulu through an online survey. The results of the study indicate that strategy and puzzle games significantly improve the problem-solving skills of students through analytical, logical, and creative thinking. The results of this study can be used in the future to investigate other phenomena such as how video games differently affect students with IT background from other students and how video games could be used as an effective educational tool for IT students

Impact of personalized recommendation and social comparison on learning behaviours and outcomes

ELearning suffers from the lack of face-to-face interaction and can deprive learners from the benefits of social interaction and comparison. In this paper we present the results of a study conducted for the impact of social comparison. The study was conducted by collecting students&rsquo; engagement with an eLearning tool, the attendance, and grades scored by students at specific milestones and presented these metrics to students as feedback using Kiviat charts. The charts were complemented with appropriate recommendations to allow them to adapt their study strategy and behaviour. The study spanned over 4 semesters (2 with and 2 without the Kiviats) and the results were analysed using paired T tests to test the pre and post results on topics covered by the eLearning tool. Survey questionnaires were also administered at the end for qualitative analysis. The results indicated that the Kiviat feedback with recommendation had positive impact on learning outcomes and attitudes.<br /

The Role of Delivery Methods on the Perceived Learning Performance and Satisfaction of IT Students in Software Programming Courses

More and more information technology (IT) programs are offering distance learning courses to their students. However, to date, there are a very limited number of published articles in the IT education literature that compare how different methods of delivering distance course relate to undergraduate students’ learning outcomes in IT software programming courses taught by the same instructor. Thus, we conducted a case study to assess the predictive relationships between distance course delivery method (face-to-face, satellite broadcasting, and live video-streaming) and students’ perceived learning performance and satisfaction in IT software programming courses taught by the same instructor. The results suggested that the choice of delivery method was related to students’ satisfaction and programming skill enhancement. However, we did not find a relationship between the delivery method and the students’ perceived learning performance. Specifically, the participants in the face-to-face delivery method group were more likely to feel satisfied with the delivery method than the students using the other two delivery methods (i.e., satellite broadcasting and live video streaming)

Causal Strategic Learning with Competitive Selection

We study the problem of agent selection in causal strategic learning under multiple decision makers and address two key challenges that come with it. Firstly, while much of prior work focuses on studying a fixed pool of agents that remains static regardless of their evaluations, we consider the impact of selection procedure by which agents are not only evaluated, but also selected. When each decision maker unilaterally selects agents by maximising their own utility, we show that the optimal selection rule is a trade-off between selecting the best agents and providing incentives to maximise the agents' improvement. Furthermore, this optimal selection rule relies on incorrect predictions of agents' outcomes. Hence, we study the conditions under which a decision maker's optimal selection rule will not lead to deterioration of agents' outcome nor cause unjust reduction in agents' selection chance. To that end, we provide an analytical form of the optimal selection rule and a mechanism to retrieve the causal parameters from observational data, under certain assumptions on agents' behaviour. Secondly, when there are multiple decision makers, the interference between selection rules introduces another source of biases in estimating the underlying causal parameters. To address this problem, we provide a cooperative protocol which all decision makers must collectively adopt to recover the true causal parameters. Lastly, we complement our theoretical results with simulation studies. Our results highlight not only the importance of causal modeling as a strategy to mitigate the effect of gaming, as suggested by previous work, but also the need of a benevolent regulator to enable it.Comment: Corrected some in-text citation

Master\u27s Thesis and Field Study Abstracts, July 1984-June 1986

This publication, the eleventh in a series which began in 1957, contains the abstracts of Master\u27s Theses and Field Studies completed by graduate students of St. Cloud State University. The bulletin contains those theses and field studies completed during the period from July of 1984 through June of 1986. A bound copy of each thesis or field study is on file in the Learning Resources Center, which houses the library on this campus. The library copy of each thesis and field study is available for use on an interlibrary loan basis. Copies of this bulletin may be obtained from the Office of Graduate Studies, School of Graduate and Continuing Studies, 121 Administrative Services, St. Cloud State University, 720 S. Fourth Avenue, St. Cloud, Minnesota, 56301-4498