Spatial Encoding Strategy Theory: The Relationship between Spatial Skill and STEM Achievement

Learners’ spatial skill is a reliable and significant predictor of achievement in STEM, including computing, education. Spatial skill is also malleable, meaning it can be improved through training. Most cognitive skill training improves performance on only a narrow set of similar tasks, but researchers have found ample evidence that spatial training can broadly improve STEM achievement. We do not yet know the cognitive mechanisms that make spatial skill training broadly transferable when other cognitive training is not, but understanding these mechanisms is important for developing training and instruction that consistently benefits learners, especially those starting with low spatial skill. This paper proposes the spatial encoding strategy (SpES) theory to explain the cognitive mechanisms connecting spatial skill and STEM achievement. To motivate SpES theory, the paper reviews research from STEM education, learning sciences, and psychology. SpES theory provides compelling post hoc explanations for the findings from this literature and aligns with neuroscience models about the functions of brain structures. The paper concludes with a plan for testing the theory’s validity and using it to inform future research and instruction. The paper focuses on implications for computing education, but the transferability of spatial skill to STEM performance makes the proposed theory relevant to many education communities

Supporting spatial skill learning with gesture-based embodied interaction

Prior research has revealed that spatial abilities are crucial for STEM achievement and attainment. The connection between the digital and physical worlds provided by embodied interaction has been shown to enhance performance and engagement in educational contexts. Spatial reasoning is a domain that lends itself naturally to embodied, physical interaction; however, there is little understanding of how embodied interaction could be incorporated into educational technology designed to train spatial reasoning skills. We presented a custom-built computer game for training spatial reasoning skills and a gestural interface that implements embodied interaction design in the learning setting. In addition, we proposed a series of gesture set design derived from an iterative design approach that is easy for children to acquire, shows sufficient congruency to specific spatial operations, and enables robust recognition from the system. Several guidelines for gestural interaction in spatial education games were also extracted from the design process based on an empirical study with students at a local afterschool program. We also compared children's behaviors when playing the game with our gestural interface and traditional mouse-based interface and found that children take more time but fewer steps to complete game levels when using gestures

“We Got Next”: The Struggle to Make the WNBA

2021 marks the 25th season of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), making it easily the longest running women’s professional league in the United States and defying the predictions of those who doubted that a women’s basketball league could succeed. Though the WNBA constantly faces the pessimistic voices of those who view it as on the brink of collapse, it has matured into a stable, growing league, and the players’ prominent role within social justice movements has sparked a new wave of optimism about the WNBA’s future. Despite this, the WNBA still faces questions about how best to grow the league, and perhaps more broadly, what it means for women to play basketball in the professional yet beleaguered WNBA. This thesis examines the way in which WNBA players perceive themselves and the league, and consequently how their demands for change and respect have grown. It draws upon my ethnographic research with a WNBA team—pseudonymously called the Ravens—as well as my examination of a variety of sources, including news articles, advertising and commercials, and most prominently, the players own construction of their mediated self, particularly through the use of sporting autobiographies and other autobiographical texts. I examine the intersecting forces of race, gender, class, sexuality, and religion to demonstrate the way in which the WNBA’s initial marketing emphasis on heterosexual, respectable femininity was gradually challenged over time by players, who instead pushed for alternative models of female athleticism. I argue that these gendered discourses have constructed a way of playing basketball “like a girl,” which can serve to limit players’ embodied possibilities. Furthermore, I explore what it means to play in a professional league that lacks the resources of other, male sports leagues, and the way in which WNBA players have pushed higher pay and better conditions. Through this examination of WNBA players’ experiences, I argue that it is players’ dedication and commitment to ensuring a sustainable league that has enabled the WNBA to survive in spite of an American sporting landscape hostile to women

Digital Learning in the Wild: Re-Imagining New Ruralism, Digital Equity, and Deficit Discourses through the Thirdspace

abstract: Digital media is becoming increasingly important to learning in today’s changing times. At the same time, digital technologies and related digital skills are unevenly distributed. Further, deficit-based notions of this digital divide define the public’s educational paradigm. Against this backdrop, I forayed into the social reality of one rural Americana to examine digital learning in the wild. The larger purpose of this dissertation was to spatialize understandings of rural life and pervasive social ills therein, in order to rethink digital equity, such that we dismantle deficit thinking, problematize new ruralism, and re-imagine more just rural geographies. Under a Thirdspace understanding of space as dynamic, relational, and agentive (Soja, 1996), I examined how digital learning is caught up spatially to position the rural struggle over geography amid the ‘Right to the City’ rhetoric (Lefebvre, 1968). In response to this limiting and urban-centric rhetoric, I contest digital inequity as a spatial issue of justice in rural areas. After exploring how digital learning opportunities are distributed at state and local levels, I geo-ethnographically explored digital use to story how families across socio-economic spaces were utilizing digital tools. Last, because ineffective and deficit-based models of understanding erupt from blaming the oppressed for their own self-made oppression, or framing problems (e.g., digital inequity) as solely human-centered, I drew in posthumanist Latourian (2005) social cartographies of Thirdspace. From this, I re-imagined educational equity within rural space to recast digital equity not in terms of the “haves and have nots” but as an account of mutually transformative socio-technical agency. Last, I pay the price of criticism by suggesting possible actions and solutions to the social ills denounced throughout this dissertation.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Learning, Literacies and Technologies 201

Current Issues and Future Directions in Simulation-Based Training in North America

A number of emerging challenges including globalization, economic pressures, and the changing nature of work have combined to create a business environment that demands innovative, flexible training solutions. Simulations are a promising tool for creating more realistic, experiential learning environments to meet these challenges. Unfortunately, the current literature on simulation-based training paints a mixed picture as to the effectiveness of simulations as training tools, with most of the previous research focusing on the specific technologies used in simulation design and little theory-based research focusing on the instructional capabilities or learning processes underlying these technologies. This article examines the promise and perils of simulation-based training, reviews research that has examined the effectiveness of simulations as training tools, identifies pressing research needs, and presents an agenda for future theory-driven research aimed at addressing those needs

Untangling the complexity of mentoring feedback practices in post-compulsory initial teacher education in the UK

In post-compulsory initial teacher education (ITE) in the UK, mentors are purported to play a critical role in shaping trainee teachers’ professional development through the provision of regular, constructive and purposeful feedback on their mentee’s teaching practices. However, the complexity of mentoring feedback practices – socially, spatially and temporally – situated within programmatical and institutional architectures and in the turbulent landscape of Further Education (FE), is often underestimated. Using the theory of practice architectures, this single-site case study attempts to untangle this complexity as it explores how mentoring feedback practices were realised on one post-compulsory ITE programme, examining the processes, arrangements and artefacts which enabled and constrained their enactment. The site ontological approach also examines the dynamic unfolding of mentoring feedback practices in response to these institutional conditions in time and space, concluding that their trajectory largely depends on the ‘stickiness’ of their relationship and congruence with other organisational practices and concerns

Unravelling the Influence of Online Social Context on Consumer Health Information Technology (CHIT) Implementations

While health information technology research has examined a variety of topics (e.g., adoption and assimilation of technology within healthcare organizations, critical success factors), it has remained unclear how the uniqueness of the online context (e.g., users connecting with strangers for social and emotional support) influences consumer health information technology (CHIT) implementations. Towards this goal, this dissertation examines the influence of online social context on CHIT implementations and outcomes. Using theories from social psychology, this dissertation encompasses two empirical research essays. The first essay draws on the environmental enrichment concept to examine the influential role of the online social context of a gamified CHIT on its success. By surveying existing fitness technology users, we demonstrate the influence of the social context enabled by CHITs on behavioral adherence to exercise. The second essay draws on construal level theory to examine the influence of textual information (such as race, geographic location) in online patient communities on a user’s trust of the community and the system as well as their intentions to participate in them. Using randomized experiments, we identify some of the propinquity-related factors that influence a user’s trust in online patient communities. The key contribution of this dissertation is the advancement of our understanding of the important role played by the social context enabled by the CHITs

‘I feel like we’re really behind the game’: perspectives of the United Kingdom’s intimate partner violence support sector on the rise of technology-facilitated abuse

Technology-facilitated abuse or ‘tech abuse’ in intimate partner violence (IPV) contexts describes the breadth of harms that can be enacted using digital systems and online tools. While the misappropriation of technologies in the context of IPV has been subject to prior research, a dedicated study on the United Kingdom’s IPV support sector has so far been missing. The present analysis summarises insights derived from semi-structured interviews with 34 UK voluntary and statutory sector representatives that were conducted over the course of two years (2018–2020). The analysis identifies four overarching themes that point out support services’ practices, concerns and challenges in relation to tech abuse, and specifically the Internet of Things (IoT). These themes include (a) technology-facilitated abuse, where interviewees outline their experiences and understanding of the concept of tech abuse; (b) IoT-enabled tech abuse, focusing on the changing dynamics of tech abuse due to the continuing rise of smart consumer products; (c) data, documentation and assessment, that directs our attention to the shortcomings of existing risk assessment and recording practices; and (d) training, support and assistance, in which participants point to the need for specialist support capabilities to be developed within and beyond existing services.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Key messages&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;UK statutory and voluntary support services do not feel well equipped to respond to tech abuse.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;li&gt;Shortcomings in documentation and assessment practices make it difficult to estimate the full scale and nature of tech abuse.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;li&gt;Tech abuse training and other support mechanisms are needed to amplify the UK sector’s ability to assist IPV victims/survivors.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt; </jats:p

Exploring asymmetric roles in mixed-ability gaming

Tese de mestrado, Informática, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2020Noticeably, the majority of mainstreamgames — digitalgames and tabletopgames — are still designed for players with a standard set of abilities. As such, people with someformof disability, oftenface insurmountable challengestoplay mainstreamgames or are limited to playgames specifcally designed for them. By conducting an initial study, we share multiplayer gaming experiences of people with visual impairments collected from interviews with 10 adults and 10 minors, and 140 responses to an online survey. We include the perspectives of 17 sighted people who play with someone who has a visual impairment, collected in a second online survey. We found that people with visual impairments are playingdiversegames,butface limitationsin playing with others who have different visual abilities. What stood out is the lack of intersection ingaming opportunities, and consequently, in habits and interests of people with different visual abilities. In this study, we highlight barriers associated with these experiences beyond inaccessibility issues and discuss implications and opportunities for the design of mixed-abilitygaming.Asexpected,we foundaworrying absenceofgames that caterto different abilities. In this context, we explored ability-based asymmetric roles as a design approach to create engaging and challenging mixed-ability play. We designed and developed two collaborative testbedgamesexploring asymmetric interdependent roles. In a remote study with 13 mixed-visual-ability pairs we assessed how roles affected perceptions of engagement, competence, and autonomy, using a mixed-methods approach. The games provided an engaging and challenging experience, in which differences in visual ability were not limiting. Our results underline how experiences unequal by design can give rise to an equitable joint experience