You Cannot Have Your Cake and Eat It, too: How Induced Goal Conflicts Affect Complex Problem Solving

Managing multiple and conflicting goals is a demand typical to both everyday life and complex coordination tasks. Two experiments (N = 111) investigated how goal conflicts affect motivation and cognition in a complex problem- solving paradigm. In Experiment 1, participants dealt with a game-like computer simulation involving a predefined goal relation: Parallel goals were independent, mutually facilitating, or interfering with one another. As expected, goal conflicts entailed lowered motivation and wellbeing. Participants’ understanding of causal effects within the simulation was im- paired, too. Behavioral measures of subjects’ interventions support the idea of adaptive, self-regulatory processes: reduced action with growing awareness of the goal conflict and balanced goal pursuit. Experiment 2 endorses the hypotheses of motivation loss and reduced acquisition of system-related knowledge in an extended problem-solving paradigm of four conflicting goals. Impairing effects of goal interference on motivation and wellbeing were found, although less distinct and robust as in Experiment 1. Participants undertook fewer interventions in case of a goal conflict and acquired less knowledge about the system. Formal complexity due to the interconnectedness among goals is discussed as a limiting influence on inferring the problem structure

The significance of motivation in student-centred learning : a reflective case study

The theoretical underpinnings of student-centred learning suggest motivation to be an integral component. However, lack of clarification of what is involved in motivation in education often results in unchallenged assumptions that fail to recognise that what motivates some students may alienate others. This case study, using socio-cognitive motivational theory to analyse previously collected data, derives three fuzzy propositions which, collectively, suggest that motivation interacts with the whole cycle of episodes in the teachinglearning process. It argues that the development of the higherlevel cognitive competencies that are implied by the term, student-centred learning, must integrate motivational constructs such as goal orientation, volition, interest and attributions into pedagogical practices

Further exploring the dynamicity, situatedness, and emergence of the self: The key role of context

Drawing on theoretical insights from a complex dynamic systems framework, this work explores the ways that learner selves, as they relate to learning and using languages, manifest across different contexts and timescales and emerge in interaction with various factors. First, a broad overview of dynamically-oriented L2 motivation research is provided before critically considering the need for research that aligns with conceptual advances made under the dynamic turn in SLA. In particular, this critical overview highlights a crucial need for more research employing dynamic methods capable of revealing how learner perceptions of self emerge in relation to their interlocutors and in interaction with external factors, including language ideologies that may uniquely characterize sociocultural contexts where target languages other than English are learned. The chapter concludes by discussing ways to implement dynamically oriented methodology that can provide much needed insights into the inherent dynamic, emergent, and contextually and socially embedded nature of learner selves

Toward a Theory of Learner-Centered Training Design: An Integrative Framework of Active Learning

[Excerpt] The goal of this chapter, therefore, is to develop an integrative conceptual framework of active learning, and we do this by focusing on three primary issues. First, we define the active learning approach and contrast it to more traditional, passive instructional approaches. We argue that the active learning approach can be distinguished from not only more passive approaches to instruction but also other forms of experiential learning based on its use of formal training components to systematically influence trainees\u27 cognitive, motivational, and emotion self-regulatory processes. Second, we examine how specific training components can be used to influence each of these process domains. Through a review of prior research, we extract core training components that cut across different active learning interventions, map these components onto specific process domains, and consider the role of individual differences in shaping the effects of these components (aptitude-treatment interactions [ATIs]). A final issue examined in this chapter concerns the outcomes associated with the active learning approach. Despite its considerable versatility, the active learning approach is not the most efficient or effective means of responding to all training needs. Thus, we discuss the impact of the active learning approach on different types of learning outcomes in order to identify the situations under which it is likely to demonstrate the greatest utility. We conclude the chapter by highlighting research and practical implications of our integrated framework, and we outline an agenda for future research on active learning

Active Learning: Effects of Core Training Design Elements on Self-Regulatory Processes, Learning, and Adaptability

This research describes a comprehensive examination of the cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes underlying active learning approaches, their effects on learning and transfer, and the core training design elements (exploration, training frame, emotion-control) and individual differences (cognitive ability, trait goal orientation, trait anxiety) that shape these processes. Participants (N = 350) were trained to operate a complex computer-based simulation. Exploratory learning and error-encouragement framing had a positive effect on adaptive transfer performance and interacted with cognitive ability and dispositional goal orientation to influence trainees’ metacognition and state goal orientation. Trainees who received the emotion-control strategy had lower levels of state anxiety. Implications for developing an integrated theory of active learning, learner-centered design, and research extensions are discussed

Proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET 2013)

"This book contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET) 2013 which was held on 16.-17.September 2013 in Paphos (Cyprus) in conjunction with the EC-TEL conference. The workshop and hence the proceedings are divided in two parts: on Day 1 the EuroPLOT project and its results are introduced, with papers about the specific case studies and their evaluation. On Day 2, peer-reviewed papers are presented which address specific topics and issues going beyond the EuroPLOT scope. This workshop is one of the deliverables (D 2.6) of the EuroPLOT project, which has been funded from November 2010 – October 2013 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLL) by grant #511633. The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate Persuasive Learning Objects and Technologies (PLOTS), based on ideas of BJ Fogg. The purpose of this workshop is to summarize the findings obtained during this project and disseminate them to an interested audience. Furthermore, it shall foster discussions about the future of persuasive technology and design in the context of learning, education and teaching. The international community working in this area of research is relatively small. Nevertheless, we have received a number of high-quality submissions which went through a peer-review process before being selected for presentation and publication. We hope that the information found in this book is useful to the reader and that more interest in this novel approach of persuasive design for teaching/education/learning is stimulated. We are very grateful to the organisers of EC-TEL 2013 for allowing to host IWEPLET 2013 within their organisational facilities which helped us a lot in preparing this event. I am also very grateful to everyone in the EuroPLOT team for collaborating so effectively in these three years towards creating excellent outputs, and for being such a nice group with a very positive spirit also beyond work. And finally I would like to thank the EACEA for providing the financial resources for the EuroPLOT project and for being very helpful when needed. This funding made it possible to organise the IWEPLET workshop without charging a fee from the participants.

Tracking the dynamic nature of learner individual differences: Initial results from a longitudinal study

Individual differences (IDs) have long been considered one of the most important factors explaining variable rates and outcomes in second language acquisition (Dewaele, 2013). While traditional operationalizations of IDs have, explicitly or implicitly, assumed that IDs are static traits that are stable through time, more recent research inspired by complex dynamic systems theory (Larsen-Freeman, 1997, 2020) demonstrates that many IDs are dynamic and variable through time and across contexts, a theme echoed throughout the current issue. This study reports the initial semester of a diachronic project investigating the dynamicity of four learner IDs: motivation, personality, learning and cognitive styles, and working memory. In the initial semester, data from 323 participants in their first year of university-level Spanish were collected and analyzed to determine what type of variability may be present across learners with respect to the four IDs studied at one time point and to discern possible learner profiles in the data or patterns via which the data may be otherwise meaningfully described. The results revealed four types of learner profiles present in the dataset

Would you accept this job? An evaluation of the decision utility of workers in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors.

In this paper, we intend to evaluate the determinants of the decision utility of workers from the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. In our setting, decision utility is the weight assigned by workers to the expected benefits from job offers. For that purpose, we use the methodology of conjoint analysis that collects experimental data on workers’ stated preferences towards hypothetical job offers characterized by ten attributes. Intrinsic motivation of nonprofit workers is investigated by specifically analyzing the influence on decision utility of three of these attributes, namely wages, working time and loyalty from the employer. The results show evidence of motivational differences between the two groups. First, nonprofit workers attain their maximum decision utility at a longer working time, showing superior intrinsic motivation for work. Furthermore, they are ready to abandon a higher percentage of their wage in order to work for another extra hour than for-profit workers as long as the working week is inferior to 33 hours. Finally, our findings show that for-profit workers evaluate more highly job offers with labour contract including explicit clause where higher effort is exchanged for employer’s loyalty. In contrast, nonprofit workers do not obtain higher utility from such a deal. We interpret this result as evidence of their intrinsic motivation. As the nature of the implicit goals pursued in the nonprofit sector provides them with high work morale, they do not obtain any gain in utility from an explicit clause of employer’s loyalty.nonprofit workers, intrinsic motivation, conjoint analysis

Modelling human teaching tactics and strategies for tutoring systems

One of the promises of ITSs and ILEs is that they will teach and assist learning in an intelligent manner. Historically this has tended to mean concentrating on the interface, on the representation of the domain and on the representation of the student’s knowledge. So systems have attempted to provide students with reifications both of what is to be learned and of the learning process, as well as optimally sequencing and adjusting activities, problems and feedback to best help them learn that domain. We now have embodied (and disembodied) teaching agents and computer-based peers, and the field demonstrates a much greater interest in metacognition and in collaborative activities and tools to support that collaboration. Nevertheless the issue of the teaching competence of ITSs and ILEs is still important, as well as the more specific question as to whether systems can and should mimic human teachers. Indeed increasing interest in embodied agents has thrown the spotlight back on how such agents should behave with respect to learners. In the mid 1980s Ohlsson and others offered critiques of ITSs and ILEs in terms of the limited range and adaptability of their teaching actions as compared to the wealth of tactics and strategies employed by human expert teachers. So are we in any better position in modelling teaching than we were in the 80s? Are these criticisms still as valid today as they were then? This paper reviews progress in understanding certain aspects of human expert teaching and in developing tutoring systems that implement those human teaching strategies and tactics. It concentrates particularly on how systems have dealt with student answers and how they have dealt with motivational issues, referring particularly to work carried out at Sussex: for example, on responding effectively to the student’s motivational state, on contingent and Vygotskian inspired teaching strategies and on the plausibility problem. This latter is concerned with whether tactics that are effectively applied by human teachers can be as effective when embodied in machine teachers