Interesting references

Time factor in e-learning references

eLC Research Programme about Time factor

In this section a summary of the original eLC research programme is presented

La evaluación escrita en el área matemática: contenido y tendencias

Since tests based on written assessment are widely used in schools, and given the influence of the assessment method on learning and teaching processes, this study aims to analyze written tests set by primary school mathematics teachers. The analysis focuses on the study of the quality of cognitive skills and learning procedures that teachers aim to promote in learners; it points to the need for making teachers' conceptions of written assessment more explicit, so as to recover the potential of this form of testing, and to broaden the limits in which appears to develop at present.Partiendo de la utilización generalizada de la evaluación escrita en la promoción escolar y de la incidencia que la manera de evaluar ejerce sobre el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje, el presente estudio pretende analizar las propuestas que los profesores de educación primaria de matemáticas diseñan para evaluar a sus alumnos. Este análisis se centra en el estudio de la calidad de las habilidades cognitivas y los procedimientos de aprendizaje que los profesores potencian en los aprendices, y muestra la necesidad de explicitar las concepciones y los hábitos evaluativos de los docentes con la finalidad de recuperar la potencialidad de los procesos de evaluación escrita ampliando el estrecho margen en el que parecen desarrollarse

Time patterns and perceptions of online learning success factors

Online learning provides the opportunity to work on academic tasks at any time at the same time as doing other activities, such as using in web 2.0 tools. This study identifies factors that contribute to success in online learning from the students¿ perspective and their relationship with time patterns. A survey of learning outputs was used to find relationships between students¿ satisfaction, knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer with time for working on academic tasks. In this study, 199 students from a university in Mexico completed the survey. Findings suggest that knowledge transfer has a significant association with the number of hours online per day, hours spent on social networks and the use made of e-learning during working hours. Learner satisfaction has a strong relationship with the time in years a learner has been using the Internet and the number of hours devoted to the course per week. The findings of this research will be helpful for faculty and instructional designers for implementing learning strategies

La evaluación escrita en el área matemática: contenido y tendencias

Since tests based on written assessment are widely used in schools, and given the influence of the assessment method on learning and teaching processes, this study aims to analyze written tests set by primary school mathematics teachers. The analysis focuses on the study of the quality of cognitive skills and learning procedures that teachers aim to promote in learners; it points to the need for making teachers' conceptions of written assessment more explicit, so as to recover the potential of this form of testing, and to broaden the limits in which appears to develop at present.Partiendo de la utilización generalizada de la evaluación escrita en la promoción escolar y de la incidencia que la manera de evaluar ejerce sobre el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje, el presente estudio pretende analizar las propuestas que los profesores de educación primaria de matemáticas diseñan para evaluar a sus alumnos. Este análisis se centra en el estudio de la calidad de las habilidades cognitivas y los procedimientos de aprendizaje que los profesores potencian en los aprendices, y muestra la necesidad de explicitar las concepciones y los hábitos evaluativos de los docentes con la finalidad de recuperar la potencialidad de los procesos de evaluación escrita ampliando el estrecho margen en el que parecen desarrollarse

Online readiness in universities from disabled students’ perspective

The aim of online universities is to increase learning accessibility for all students. After some years of existence, online higher education should be analysed in terms of its preparedness to meet the learning needs of people with disabilities. This paper presents a study that sheds light on the level of readiness of online higher education institutions by examining students’ views of a well-established online university, using a research-based questionnaire. The research involves all students with disabilities studying at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), with an effective participation of 421 students. The conclusion of the paper is generally highly positive concerning the extent to which the university has overcome barriers and provided satisfactory academic accommodations. However, the results do indicate a need for a more comprehensive and specific solutions for dealing with unmet needs, especially for those students with mental disabilities

Time factor in e-learning: impact literature review

Some exploratory research.  With the aim of looking at how the topic of time in e-learning is addressed in relevant research a tentative study is being conducted based on a literature review.This research is now in a second phase and includes a wider specialized journals, data base gathering and also some readjustments on the technological resources area analysis. Below are the results from phase one. Accepted as an important issue in e-learning, this phase has been crucial into pursuing the new stage that has to lead to a broader knowledge about not only the importance of the time factor in e-learning but the real role it has in research in e-learning. 

Designing online interaction to address disciplinary competencies: A cross-country comparison of faculty perspectives

This study was conducted at colleges in three countries (United States, Venezuela, and Spain) and across three academic disciplines (engineering, education, and business), to examine how experienced faculty define competencies for their discipline, and design instructional interaction for online courses. A qualitative research design employing in-depth interviews was selected. Results show that disciplinary knowledge takes precedence when faculty members select competencies to be developed in online courses for their respective professions. In all three disciplines, the design of interaction to correspond with disciplinary competencies was often influenced by contextual factors that modify faculty intention. Therefore, instructional design will vary across countries in the same discipline to address the local context, such as the needs and expectations of the learners, faculty perspectives, beliefs and values, and the needs of the institution, the community, and country. The three disciplines from the three countries agreed on the importance of the following competencies: knowledge of the field, higher order cognitive processes such as critical thinking, analysis, problem solving, transfer of knowledge, oral and written communication skills, team work, decision making, leadership and management skills, indicating far more similarities in competencies than differences between the three different applied disciplines. We found a lack of correspondence between faculty¿s intent to develop collaborative learning skills and the actual development of them. Contextual factors such as faculty prior experience in design, student reluctance to engage in collaborative learning, and institutional assessment systems that focus on individual performance were some of these reasons

Factors influencing student satisfaction and perceived learning in online courses

Online education, with its genuine characteristics, has changed the way students experience learning processes. This fact led research to study the aspects of online learning settings that influence the way students experience their learning, and several aspects were identified from this effort. However, usually each study focuses on only one or a few of these aspects, and some results are contradictory. In this study the authors consider together, in an integrated model, most of the aspects identified by the literature in order to determine which aspects are more influence for students' satisfaction and perceived learning. With this aim, they conducted a correlation and ANOVA analysis on the responses to a questionnaire answered by 499 students of higher education social sciences online courses in the USA, China and Spain. They found that the most influential aspects of the online courses in social sciences on students' satisfaction and perceived learning were learning content and course design

Technology educational affordance: Bridging the gap between patterns of interaction and technology usage

This paper reports on an empirical and descriptive investigation into how teachers and learners use technology in three prototypical learning activities in a higher educational online learning environment. Additionally, the relationship between the educational uses of technology and the overall educational patterns of interaction between teachers and learners, and among learners themselves was analysed. Detailed teacher and learner self-reports about their teaching and learning activity; the asynchronous written messages teachers and learners sent as educational interaction in the online llearning environment; and documents produced by students were all obtained. The results from the three learning activities indicated six overall educational uses of technology in an online learning environment. Moreover, the results also indicated differences in technology usage in some different patterns of educational interaction in each learning activity. In conclusion, we argue that the notion of technology educational affordance is useful as an effective bridge between the real use of technology and instructional aims. Therefore the distribution of educational uses of technology is not only related to some attributes of both technology and instruction but also to its interaction