Relating elementary students' process portfolios to writing self-efficacy and performance

Writing performance is essential for academic success at all levels. To help elementary school students become better and motivated writers, educators need to help them have functional writing self-efficacy beliefs that slightly exceed what a learner can actually accomplish. A suggested way to achieve this is having students create process portfolios to: a) document the writing process and their progress monitoring, b) have access to peers' work and c) receive feedback. This multiple case study explored the development of students' writing performance and writing self-efficacy beliefs through a one-academic-year implementation of process portfolios in three fourth grade elementary school classes (N=63 students) in Cyprus. The students of two fourth grade classes (n2=23, n3=20) created paper-based process portfolios, while in the researcher's class (n1=20) students created digital portfolios. The study explored how process portfolio affordances, such as a process approach in writing, progress monitoring (goal setting, reflection, self-evaluation), access to peers' work and feedback related to students' writing performance and self-efficacy and how this relationship changed over time. It relied on a mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) research methodology comprised of pre- mid-and post- portfolio implementation students' writing performance and self-efficacy tests, teachers' and students' interviews on their perceptions of portfolios and a portfolio artifact analysis. While there is much to understand regarding the impact of portfolios on students' writing performance and writing self-efficacy the results of this study produced several important findings and practical implications related to portfolio use and the added pedagogical benefits of portfolio affordances. The key findings revealed that students' writing performance increased over time. Learning gains were also found in students' ability to provide corrective feedback and constructive comments to their peers' work, to set goals, and to provide accurate self-evaluations of their work. Students' writing self-efficacy increased over time and became more accurate as it reflected students' actual performance by the end of portfolio implementation. Implications for practice and guidelines based on a bottom-up approach that could facilitate a large-scale implementation of digital and paper-based portfolios in Cyprus in the future are offered

Virtual Tours as Emerging Technologies to Engage Children and Youth with their Country’s Historical Conflicts

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Medical Content Searching, Retrieving, and Sharing Over the Internet : Lessons Learned From the mEducator Through a Scenario-Based Evaluation

Background: The mEducator Best Practice Network (BPN) implemented and extended standards and reference models in e-learning to develop innovative frameworks as well as solutions that enable specialized state-of-the-art medical educational content to be discovered, retrieved, shared, and re-purposed across European Institutions, targeting medical students, doctors, educators and health care professionals. Scenario-based evaluation for usability testing, complemented with data from online questionnaires and field notes of users' performance, was designed and utilized for the evaluation of these solutions. Objective: The objective of this work is twofold: (1) to describe one instantiation of the mEducator BPN solutions (mEducator3.0 - "MEdical Education LINnked Arena" MELINA+) with a focus on the metadata schema used, as well as on other aspects of the system that pertain to usability and acceptance, and (2) to present evaluation results on the suitability of the proposed metadata schema for searching, retrieving, and sharing of medical content and with respect to the overall usability and acceptance of the system from the target users. Methods: A comprehensive evaluation methodology framework was developed and applied to four case studies, which were conducted in four different countries (ie, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania), with a total of 126 participants. In these case studies, scenarios referring to creating, sharing, and retrieving medical educational content using mEducator3.0 were used. The data were collected through two online questionnaires, consisting of 36 closed-ended questions and two open-ended questions that referred to mEducator 3.0 and through the use of field notes during scenario-based evaluations. Results: The main findings of the study showed that even though the informational needs of the mEducator target groups were addressed to a satisfactory extent and the metadata schema supported content creation, sharing, and retrieval from an end-user perspective, users faced difficulties in achieving a shared understanding of the meaning of some metadata fields and in correctly managing the intellectual property rights of repurposed content. Conclusions: The results of this evaluation impact researchers, medical professionals, and designers interested in using similar systems for educational content sharing in medical and other domains. Recommendations on how to improve the search, retrieval, identification, and obtaining of medical resources are provided, by addressing issues of content description metadata, content description procedures, and intellectual property rights for re-purposed content.Peer reviewe

Benefits and obstacles of e-portfolios in elementary education: Documentingthe students’ perspective

Η συγκεκριμένη δημοσίευση συνεδρίου βρίσκεται στο βιβλίο με τίτλο: INTED2012 ProceedingsThis paper is a documentation of the students’ perspective on the integration of an innovative e-portfolio tool into the Cyprus Language Arts primary education curriculum for the first time. The participants were twenty fourth-grade students who systematically used a weblog based e-portfolio tool (WordPress) designed, repurposed and localized into Greek, over one academic year. Data sources included a student-questionnaire on students’ perceptions of e-portfolios, the researcher’s field notes and nine videotaped student interviews. The data analysis, which followed an inductive grounded theory approach, revealed benefits and limitations of both the e-portfolio implementation process and the tool itself. Based on students’ perceptions, both instructional design modifications and suggestions on improving the pedagogy behind the use of e-portfolios are suggested. These will help to overcome identified limitations and make the Wordpress e-portfolio tool a useful tool for primary education in different languages

Turn your classroom into a gameshow with a game-based student response system

In accordance with game-based learning principles, Game-based Student Response Systems (GSRS) can temporarily turn the classroom into a gameshow by allowing students to use mobile devices to answer multiple-choice questions projected on a big screen. Automatically collected learners’ answers are presented anonymously in the form of a histogram, after each question is answered. Previous studies supported that incorporating GSRS in higher education can positively impact student engagement and learning. However, empirical studies evaluating GSRSs are limited and do not typically use reliable measurement tools nor do they associate game performance with academic performance. This study evaluated a GSRS (kahoot!) to examine: a) students' perceptions for the game’s impact on their engagement and learning (measured with a valid and reliable instrument), b) the association between students’ game performance (captured automatically by the GSRS) and academic performance (measured with course-exams) and c) the relationship between students’ perceptions of the game’s impact on their learning and actual learning (measured with course final grades). Participants were 137 undergraduates (Μ=19.56 years-old, SD=1.2) of a public university, who attended four courses and participated to 32 multiplayer Kahoot! games (418 questions) using smart phones. With respect to the first research question, the study documented students’ positive perceptions for the GSRS. Students reported the game’s positive impact on their engagement (M=4.21, max=5, SD=0.55) and learning (M=4.27, SD=0.38). With respect to the second research question, a statistically significant, strong or moderate positive correlation (ranging from r=0.37 to r=0.79, p<0.05) was found between students’ game performance and academic performance in all four courses, indicating that students who score high in classroom games also perform better in courses. With respect to the third research question, students’ perceptions of the game’s impact on their learning positively correlated with course grades (r=0.18, p=0.047), indicating that the higher the students’ perceptions on the impact of the game on their learning the higher their academic performance. Findings are useful for university professors, who would potentially benefit from having students use their mobile devices as student response-systems in course-related games to increase engagement and academic performance. Future research studies can validate these findings using experimental designs

Can process portfolios affect students' writing self-efficacy?

Can process portfolios that support students in goal setting, reflection, self-evaluation and feedback have a positive impact on students' writing self-efficacy? This article presents the findings of a yearlong study conducted in three 4th grade elementary classes in Cyprus where paper-based and web-based portfolios were implemented to help students document their progress. Using a non-equivalent pre-test post-test design it was found that the self-efficacy of students who used portfolios for their essay writing process over an academic year increased significantly (p< .05), compared to control students who did not. The increase of writing self-efficacy corresponded to an increase of writing performance (p< .05). This study also verified the connection between Bandura's self-efficacy theory and portfolio affordances. Instructional implications for portfolio implementation are offered

Empowering Students to Engage in the Design of COVID-19 Related Gamified Applications

COVID-19 related games have recently been developed to combat misinformation and raise awareness of COVID19 protocols. COVID-19 related games or gamified apps were designed using top-down approaches (from company to players). The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted challenges in their uptake and usage. Strategies such as co-design may be leveraged to address these challenges, particularly for developing new technologies. This in-progress, exploratory mixedmethods study aimed to engage university students in designing gamified applications to address their needs amidst and post-pandemic. Its first step was to empower students to think of design ideas. The study's research questions were: What are students’ goals for designing pandemic-related gamified apps? To what extent do students make use of gamification techniques in their design? A convenience sample of 20 third/fourth-year undergraduates expressed their ideas individually, in an online class, at a time of university closures (May 2021). A second sample of 37 first-year undergraduates engaged in the same activity in a face-to-face class (December 2021). The data were analyzed using a qualitative data analysis software. Thematic analysis was used, data were coded, and themes and sub-themes emerged. Qualitative analysis of all 57 students’ responses revealed two main themes expressed by students as a goal for their app: a) increasing pandemic awareness and following hygiene protocols (24/57, 42.1%) and b) building resilience through different ways to cope with the pandemic, including physical exercise, social interaction, entertainment and education (31/57, 54.4%). Students maintained similar design goals for proposed apps despite increasingly less strict public-health measures from May to December 2021. The majority of students (52.6%, 30/57) used one to three gamification techniques, while 38.6% of them (22/57) did not use any. Third/fourth-year students used significantly more (t55=4.65, p=0.000) gamification techniques (M=2.35, SD=1.31) compared to first-year students (M=0.81, SD=1.13). The first stage of this study showed value in involving students in the design of interventions that targeted themselves and revealed the need for training students who lack a design background in identifying relevant gamification techniques. Future research will aim to materialize students’ suggested design ideas into design prototypes by involving them in the process through interdisciplinary collaborations