Examining the designs of computer-based assessment and its impact on student engagement, satisfaction, and pass rates

Many researchers who study the impact of computer-based assessment (CBA) focus on the affordances or complexities of CBA approaches in comparison to traditional assessment methods. This study examines how CBA approaches were configured within and between modules, and the impact of assessment design on students’ engagement, satisfaction, and pass rates. The analysis was conducted using a combination of longitudinal visualisations, correlational analysis, and fixed-effect models on 74 undergraduate modules and their 72,377 students. Our findings indicate that educators designed very different assessment strategies, which significantly influenced student engagement as measured by time spent in the virtual learning environment (VLE). Weekly analyses indicated that assessment activities were balanced with other learning activities, which suggests that educators tended to aim for a consistent workload when designing assessment strategies. Since most of the assessments were computer-based, students spent more time on the VLE during assessment weeks. By controlling for heterogeneity within and between modules, learning design could explain up to 69% of the variability in students’ time spent on the VLE. Furthermore, assessment activities were significantly related to pass rates, but no clear relation with satisfaction was found. Our findings highlight the importance of CBA and learning design to how students learn online

A Comparison Study of Project-Based-Learning in Upper-Division Engineering Education

A new model for engineering education was launched in January 2010 in northeastern Minnesota. The Iron Range Engineering (IRE) model is a project-based-learning (PBL) methodology that focuses on producing graduates with integrated technical and professional knowledge and competencies. A unique and important element of the IRE model has 100% of IRE student learning taking place in the context of industry projects. Students at IRE are upper-division engineering students who transferred from Minnesota community college lower-division engineering programs. To understand the impact that IRE methodology may have on preparing engineers with the competencies needed for the future workplace, a comparison study has been developed to investigate the extent to which students in integrated applied models are affected. The curriculum model and comparison study are described within this paper, along with preliminary results on student development and engagement

‘A double-edged sword. This is powerful but it could be used destructively’: Perspectives of early career education researchers on learning analytics

Learning analytics has been increasingly outlined as a powerful tool for measuring, analysing, and predicting learning experiences and behaviours. The rising use of learning analytics means that many educational researchers now require new ranges of technical analytical skills to contribute to an increasingly data-heavy field. However, it has been argued that educational data scientists are a ‘scarce breed’ (Buckingham Shum et al., 2013) and that more resources are needed to support the next generation of early career researchers in the education field. At the same time, little is known about how early career education researchers feel towards learning analytics and whether it is important to their current and future research practices. Using a thematic analysis of a participatory learning analytics workshop discussions with 25 early career education researchers, we outline in this article their ambitions, challenges and anxieties towards learning analytics. In doing so, we have provided a roadmap for how the learning analytics field might evolve and practical implications for supporting early career researchers’ development

Use of carbon-13 as a population marker for Anopheles arabiensis in a sterile insect technique (SIT) context

BACKGROUND: Monitoring of sterile to wild insect ratios in field populations can be useful to follow the progress in genetic control programmes such as the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT). Of the numerous methods for marking insects most are not suitable for use in mass rearing and mass release. Suitable ones include dye marking, genetic marking and chemical marking. METHODS: The feasibility of using the stable isotope of carbon, (13)C, as a potential chemical marker for Anopheles arabiensis was evaluated in the laboratory. Labeled-(13)C glucose was incorporated into the larval diet in a powder or liquid form. The contribution of adult sugar feeding to the total mosquito carbon pool and the metabolically active carbon pool was determined by tracing the decline of the enrichment of the adult male mosquito as it switched from a labeled larval diet to an unlabeled adult diet. This decline in the adult was monitored by destructive sampling of the whole mosquito and analyzed using isotope ratio mass spectrometry. RESULTS: A two-pool model was used to describe the decline of the (13)C-enrichment of adult mosquitoes. The proportion of the total adult carbon pool derived from the adult sugar diet over the life span of mosquitoes was determined and the ratio of structural carbon, with a low turnover rate to metabolically active non-structural carbon was assessed. The uptake and turnover of sugar in the metabolically active fraction suggests that after 3 days >70% of the active fraction carbon is derived from sugar feeding (increasing to >90% by day 7), indicating the high resource demand of male mosquitoes. CONCLUSION: It was possible to "fix" the isotopic label in adult An. arabiensis and to detect the label at an appropriate concentration up to 21 days post-emergence. The optimum labeling treatment would cost around 250 US$ per million mosquitoes. Stable isotope marking may thus aid research on the fate of released insects besides other population-based ecological studies

A stable isotope dual-labelling approach to detect multiple insemination in un-irradiated and irradiated Anopheles arabiensis mosquitoes

Male mating competitiveness is a crucial parameter in many genetic control programs including the sterile insect technique (SIT). We evaluated competitiveness of male Anopheles arabiensis Patton as a function of three experimental variables: (1) small or large cages for mating, (2) the effects of either a partially sterilizing (70 Gy) or fully sterilizing (120 Gy) dose, and (3) pupal or adult irradiation. Irradiated males competed for females with an equal number of unirradiated males. Competitiveness was determined by measuring hatch rates of individually laid egg batches. In small cages, pupal irradiation with the high dose resulted in the lowest competitiveness, whereas adult irradiation with the low dose gave the highest, with the latter males being equal in competitiveness to unirradiated males. In the large cage, reduced competitiveness of males irradiated in the pupal stage was more pronounced compared with the small cage; the males irradiated as adults at both doses performed similarly to unirradiated males. Unexpectedly, males irradiated with the high dose performed better in a large cage than in a small one. A high proportion of intermediate hatch rates was observed for eggs collected in the large cage experiments with males irradiated at the pupal stage. It is concluded that irradiation of adult An. arabiensis with the partially sterilizing dose results in the highest competitiveness for both cage designs. Cage size affected competitiveness for some treatments; therefore, competitiveness determined in laboratory experiments must be confirmed by releases into simulated field conditions. The protocols described are readily transferable to evaluate male competitiveness for other genetic control techniques

Using continuous-time spatial capture–recapture models to make inference about animal activity patterns

This work was part‐funded by EPSRC Grant EP/I000917/1, by the research fellowship RF‐2018‐213/9, and the fieldwork was funded by the Summerlee Foundation and Panthera.1. Quantifying the distribution of daily activity is an important component of behavioral ecology. Historically, it has been difficult to obtain data on activity patterns, especially for elusive species. However, the development of affordable camera traps and their widespread usage has led to an explosion of available data from which activity patterns can be estimated. 2. Continuous-time spatial capture?recapture (CT SCR) models drop the occasion structure seen in traditional spatial and nonspatial capture?recapture (CR) models and use the actual times of capture. In addition to estimating density, CT SCR models estimate expected encounters through time. Cyclic splines can be used to allow flexible shapes for modeling cyclic activity patterns, and the fact that SCR models also incorporate distance means that space-time interactions can be explored. This method is applied to a jaguar dataset. 3. Jaguars in Belize are most active and range furthest in the evening and early morning and when they are located closer to the network of trails. There is some evidence that females have a less variable pattern than males. The comparison between sexes demonstrates how CT SCR can be used to explore hypotheses about animal behavior within a formal modeling framework. 4. SCR models were developed primarily to estimate and model density, but the models can be used to explore processes that interact across space and time, especially when using the CT SCR framework that models the temporal dimension at a finer resolution.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe