Engineering students’ judgments on the favorable effect that the class context has on their academic learning

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted human life, including educational settings. In Mexico, teachers and students found it necessary to adopt the online modality at all levels. As a result, both students and teachers face new demands and a re-conceptualization of their everyday academic lives. This study explored the engineering students' perception of the favorable effect level that the class context has on their learning. There were 551 participants took a cognitive algebra study. The experimental task involved reading 12 scenarios that described hypothetical online or face-to-face learning situations; then, each participant judged the degree to which these types of situations favor their learning, using an 11-point scale. The results indicated three cognitive styles when judging the degree to which each class context favors the learning. These styles share a similar cognitive mechanism in terms of information integration; however, the selection process and valuation of the factors differed across the groups. The students' perception on the class context influences their involvement and motivation level for courses on which they are enrolled. The present study's findings suggest that the cognitive algebra approach helps diagnose students' cognitive and emotional approach styles for different class contexts and provides information about the nature of their cognitive processes in terms of how students' judgments and attitudes towards classes are generated

Functional Measurement of Special Education Teachers' and Students' Expectations Toward Job Training for Persons with Intellectual Disability

Persons with intellectual disability (PWID) have fewer opportunities for enrolment in school programs and post-school employment than do their peers with typical development. Evidence suggests that attitude toward PWID is a main factor in either promoting or limiting better life conditions for this population. In this paper, the goal was to determine the cognitive information integration rules underlying the expectations of 174 special education teachers and students with regard to job training for PWID. In order to accomplish this goal, four factors (Gender, Severity of disability, Type of task, and Emotional traits) were orthogonally combined to implement a cognitive algebra study design. We obtained 48 experimental conditions, with each one presented as a scenario describing a PWID in a work training situation. Participants read these scenarios and were asked to judge the probability of the success of PWID with regard to learning the skills needed to complete the required work. Patterns of response allowed us to identify low, moderate, and high viewpoints with regard to participants' judgments of predicted success. Personal factors (Emotional traits and Severity of disability) and the Type of task factor were considered the most important in influencing the participants' judgment. These factors seemed to be integrated in a complex systematic cognitive pattern. Implications from this type of result with regard to PWID and work training are discussed in this paper

New Approaches to E-Cognitive Assessment of E-Learning

Abstrac

Formative E-Assessment of Schema Acquisition in the Human Lexicon as a Tool in Adaptive Online Instruction

This chapter presents a comprehensive method of implementing e-assessment in adaptive e-instruction systems. Specifically, a neural net classifier capable of discerning whether a student has integrated new schema-related concepts from course content into her/his lexicon is used by an expert system with a database containing natural mental representations from course content obtained from students and teachers for adapting e-instruction. Mental representation modeling is used to improve student modeling. Implications for adaptive hypermedia systems and hypertext-based instructions are discussed. Furthermore, it is argued that the current research constitutes a new cognitive science empirical direction to evaluate knowledge acquisition based on meaning information

Cognitive Analysis of Meaning and Acquired Mental Representations as an Alternative Measurement Method Technique to Innovate E-Assessment

Empirical directions to innovate e-assessments and to support the theoretical development of e-learning are discussed by presenting a new learning assessment system based on cognitive technology. Specifically, this system encompassing trained neural nets that can discriminate between students who successfully integrated new knowledge course content from students who did not successfully integrate this new knowledge (either because they tried short-term retention or did not acquire new knowledge). This neural network discrimination capacity is based on the idea that once a student has integrated new knowledge into long-term memory, this knowledge will be detected by computer-implemented semantic priming studies (before and after a course) containing schemata-related words from course content (which are obtained using a natural semantic network technique). The research results demonstrate the possibility of innovating e-assessments by implementing mutually constrained responsive and constructive cognitive techniques to evaluate online knowledge acquisition

Cognitive assessment of motivation to perform classroom or online math tasks amongengineering students

This study explored the cognitive algebra mechanism underlying mathematical motivation in 672 engineering students. The experimental design included the combination of four factors (task modality versustask difficulty versustask structure versustask relevance) to compose 36 written experimental scenarios. Each one described a hypothetical situation about assigned activities in math class. The participant's task was to read each scenario and estimate how much motivation they would experience if performing the assigned math activity. The results indicated five cognitive motivational patterns among the participants. All the clusters considered the task's relevance as an essential factor in judging their mathematical motivation. Besides this, Clusters 1, 2, 3, and 5 considered the assigned task's difficulty and structure in judging their degree of motivation, but they evaluated the factors differently. The low math motivation cluster integrated the factors according to a summative cognitive rule. Clusters 2, 3, and 5 used amultiplicative rule to integrate the information, and Cluster 4 did not show an information integration systematic mechanism. These findings pointed to the diversity of motivational cognitive profiles among students. This type of cognitive characterization can help design programs that encourage students to learn and enjoy science subjects that will impact their professional development and daily life.2022-2

Engineering Student’s Self-Efficacy Judgment to Solve Mathematical Problems in the Classroom or Online

This study explored in a sample of 560 high level education students their judgment formation to perceived self-efficacy to solve mathematical tasks. Students had to read 36 experimental vignettes describing educative scenarios to learn mathematics. Each scenario presented four manipulated pieces of information (learning modality, task difficulty, task relevance, and structure). After reading each scenario students were required to provide judgments regarding their believed self-efficacy to solve mathematical tasks described in the vignette by using a scale. Results showed that in regard to how students perceived their self-efficacy they could be grouped in two clusters (high and moderate). Most relevant factors to their judgment formation were task difficulty, task relevance and structure. Here, both groups used the same cognitive algebra mechanism to integrate factor information. Here, students valuated academic performance and feedback (e.g. difficulty and relevance) as most relevant even when they are conscious that learning is a primordial target. These and other results are discussed in the paper

Information Integration Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Face-to-Face or Online Statistics Test Anxiety Judgments of Engineering Students

This study examined information integration cognitive mechanisms underlying the test anxiety judgments of 474 engineering students. The experimental design considered the orthogonal combination of three factors (teaching style, exam type, andtest mode), resulting in 12 experimental scenarios. During the experiments, participants were provided one scenario at a timeand were asked to rate their anticipated anxiety level in the described situation. Subsequent analyses failed to reveal statistically significant differences in the anxiety levels reported by females and males. However, the factor selection and valuation female students adopted to make their anxiety judgments differed from those employed by their male peers. Cluster analysis identified three groups based on the anxiety level (low, medium, and high). The most relevant factor for all clusters was test mode, andonly the medium anxiety group considered a second factor (exam type) to make their anxiety judgments, which was integrated through an additive cognitive rule. These findings suggest that participants place a higher weight on the examination context than its type when making their test anxiety judgments. Identifying these cognitive mechanisms underlying test anxiety could help regulate conditions that undermine the students' ability to cope with test anxiety.2020-2

Regular and Special Education Mexican Teachers’ Attitudes toward School Inclusion and Disability

The aim of the present study was to elucidate Mexicans teachers’ attitudes toward school inclusion and disability.  To achieve this goal, 119 regular education and 88 special education teachers answered The Opinions Relative to Integration of Students with Disabilities scale.  Subsequent analyses revealed that attitudes to both groups were similar in terms of direction but dissimilar in magnitude factor. In addition, while the attitude structure in both samples involved three factors, these were unique to each group: Regular education teachers (Perceived Benefits and Negative Effects inside the Inclusive Classroom/Performance inside the Inclusive Classroom, Teaching Ability/Education System, Performance inside the Inclusive Classroom/Education System) and the special education teachers group (Perceived Benefits inside the Inclusive Classroom/Education System, Teaching Ability/Performance inside the Inclusive Classroom, Perceived Benefits and Negative Effects inside the Inclusive Classroom/Performance inside the Inclusive Classroom). Theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed in this paper