Every Day You Are Improving: How College Students View the Educational Impact of World of Warcraft

The purpose of the study was to explore college students’ experiences with playing World of Warcraft (WoW) and their views on the application of WoW in educational settings. A qualitative case study design was used to interview three participants who were selected purposively from a Midwestern university. Findings revealed that players thought that playing WoW was fun, relaxing, motivating, but sometimes almost to the point of addiction. The findings also support student perceptions of generalization of teamwork, cooperating, socializing, academic skills, and time management skills learned and practiced in playing WoW to academic settings. Playing WoW games can provide an important link between the virtual world and the real world as players develop academic, time management, collaborative, and critical thinking skills

Faculty Members’ Experiences with the Implementation of Flipped Classroom Environments in Higher Education

Active learning is an instructional strategy that focuses on the active learning process by involving students with engaging materials and activities in the class which leads to higher order thinking and increases students’ performance. The flipped classroom is one of the latest models that allows more time in class for applying active learning strategies. This model focuses on providing a media lesson to the students that must be completed outside of the classroom and prior to the class after which the teacher demonstrates different activities related to the media lesson during class time. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe flipped classroom implementation in higher education by three experienced faculty members. A case study was utilized, and data were collected in the form of online observations, in-class observations, individual interviews, and documents and artifacts. Utilization-focused evaluation was the framework for analyzing the collected data. The three faculty participants implemented the flipped classroom model differently, which resulted in dissimilar experiences

Graduate Students\u27 Experiences and Attitudes Toward Using E-Books for College-Level Courses

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences and attitudes of graduate students toward the use of e-books for college-level courses. Seven students who pursued graduate studies at a midsize university in the Western United States volunteered to participate in semi-structured interviews. A theoretical lens comprised of three supporting learning theories (social constructivism, information processing, and self-efficacy theories) related to the constructivist learning approach was utilized to analyze the results and provide insight about students’ learning experiences with e-books. Students’ responses were categorized in four main areas: (a) they valued using e-books for social interactions and anytime/anywhere sharing and learning, (b) they indicated that e-books offer better information processing opportunities, (c) they expressed feelings of high self-efficacy and convenience, and (d) they indicated reasons of their negative perceptions and provided recommendations that could improve e-books to better support learning. Six out of seven students indicated their preference of using e-books over printed books. However, four out of these six students shifted their preference to printed books when asked if they preferred reading e-books for learning activities that required them to fully comprehend the information. Furthermore, this study provided discussion, limitations, and recommendations for future research

The Adaptation of the Horn of Africa Immigrant Students in Higher Education

The purpose of this study was to explore the challenges first generation immigrant students from the Horn of Africa encountered in their college learning in the United States and the strategies they used to succeed. The participants in the study were ten first generation immigrant students from the countries in the Horn of Africa. A case study was used as a qualitative methodological approach and three data sources namely questionnaire, intensive interviews, and observations were used to collect and analyze data. The results revealed that language difficulties, financial problems, lack of culture awareness, time constraints, and inadequate guidance are challenges the first generation immigrant students encountered. The participants used socializing with classmates, socializing with people from their own counties, ignoring or denying anything that causes them discomfort, and attending college events as coping mechanisms to overcome the challenges in the colleges they are attending in the United States

Gender Differences in Socio-Emotional and Socio-Cultural Perspectives of Middle School Students in STEM Learning

This study investigated the socio-emotional and socio-cultural perspectives of 137 middle school students toward STEM learning in the U.S. Through a 27-item 5-point Likert scale, students’ responses were gathered to complete factor analysis, compute descriptive analysis, and calculate statistical differences found between genders. In socio-emotional learning, female participants scored higher than male participants in the grit and social-awareness factors, while both genders scored similarly in the self-efficacy factor. In socio-cultural learning, male participants scored higher than female participants in the socio-cultural influences factor while both genders scored similarly in the personal focus in STEM factor. However, a statistically significant difference was only found between male and female participants in the social-awareness factor, and female participants scored significantly higher than male participants in this factor. Both male and female participants expressed that teachers were the most influential regarding their STEM learning

A Case Study of Western Teachers\u27 Perceptions of Myanmar High School Student College Readiness in Western Society

The purpose of this case study was to explore eight Western teacher perceptions of Myanmar-based high school student college readiness to transition to a postsecondary educational setting in a Western country. The research question was answered using findings from individual teacher participant interviews. The five themes that emerged through the analysis of the interviews are (a) concerns over language barriers, (b) dependence on others, (c) mixed feelings over students’ ability to make friends, (d) adapting to a new culture, including mixed feelings over student immersion into Western culture and concerns over entitlement, and (e) preparedness for college-level academics, including mixed feelings over student preparedness for the academic transition, lack of specific academic skills, and concerns over academic integrity. Interpretation of the research findings, research limitations, and future research are discussed

A Case Study of Classroom Blogging in Three Elementary Schools

The purpose of this study was to explore how three 3rd – 5th grade teachers used classroom blogging as an instructional activity to support students’ literacy and technology skills. A qualitative case study was used as the methodological approach and four data sources were analyzed. Results of the study suggested teacher-participants implemented classroom blogging as a way to enhance student literacy skills while introducing and practicing a number of essential technology skills. Teachers described classroom blogging as a collaborative activity that could be easily embedded into existing literacy instruction. In addition, student-participants were positive about how blogging directly supported acquisition of their literacy and technology skills. Finally, teacher-participants and student-participants offered eight key recommendations to others in the learning community

Collaboration Factors, Teamwork Satisfaction, and Student Attitudes toward Online Collaborative Learning

This study examined online courses with collaborative learning components from 197 graduate students across three consecutive academic years. A student attitude survey containing 20 items and a student teamwork satisfaction scale containing 10 items on a 5-point Likert-type scale with three open-ended questions regarding their online collaborating experiences were collected during the final week of each semester. Results revealed that the three extracted online collaboration factors (Team Dynamics, Team Acquaintance, and Instructor Support) from the student attitude survey had moderate to high degrees of correlation with teamwork satisfaction. Results also revealed that the three collaboration factors accounted for 53% of the variance in online teamwork satisfaction. In addition, results from both surveys and open-ended questions revealed students favored working collaboratively in an online environment