Virtual and Augmented Reality Enhancements to Medical and Science Student Physiology and Anatomy Test Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Virtual and augmented reality have seen increasing employment for teaching within medical and health sciences programs. For disciplines such as physiology and anatomy, these technologies may disrupt the traditional modes of teaching and content delivery. The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to evaluate the impact of virtual reality or augmented reality on knowledge acquisition for students studying preclinical physiology and anatomy. The protocol was submitted to Prospero and literature search undertaken in PubMed, Embase, ERIC, and other databases. Citations were reviewed and articles published in full assessing learning or knowledge acquisition in preclinical physiology and anatomy from virtual or augmented reality were included. Of the 919 records found, 58 eligible articles were reviewed in full-text, with 8 studies meeting full eligibility requirements. There was no significant difference in knowledge scores from combining the eight studies (626 participants), with the pooled difference being a non-significant increase of 2.9 percentage points (95% CI [−2.9; 8.6]). For the four studies comparing virtual reality to traditional teaching, the pooled treatment effect difference was 5.8 percentage points (95% CI [−4.1; 15.7]). For the five studies comparing augmented reality to traditional teaching, the pooled treatment effect difference was 0.07 (95% CI [−7.0; 7.2]). Upon review of the literature, it is apparent that educators could benefit from adopting assessment processes that evaluate three-dimensional spatial understanding as a priority in physiology and anatomy. The overall evidence suggests that although test performance is not significantly enhanced with either mode, both virtual and augmented reality are viable alternatives to traditional methods of education in health sciences and medical courses.     

How Much Does a Shared Name Make Things Similar? Linguistic Labels, Similarity, and the Development of Inductive Inference

This article examines the development of inductive generalization, and presents a model of young children's induction and two experiments testing the model. The model specifies contribution of linguistic labels and perceptual similarity to young children's induction and predicts a correspondence between similarity judgment and induction of young children. In Experiment 1, 4- to 5-year-olds, 7- to 8-year-olds, and 11- to 12-year-olds were presented with triads of schematic faces (a Target and two Test stimuli), which varied in perceptual similarity, with one of the Test stimuli sharing a linguistic label with the Target, and another having a different label. Participants were taught an unobservable biological property about the Target and asked to generalize the property to one of the Test stimuli. Although 4- to 5-year-olds' proportions of label-based inductive generalizations varied with the degree of perceptual similarity among the compared stimuli, 11- to 12-year-olds relied exclusively on labels, and 7- to 8-year-olds appeared to be a transitional group. In Experiment 2 these findings were replicated using naturalistic stimuli (i.e., photographs of animals), with perceptual similarity manipulated by "morphing" naturalistic pictures into each other in a fixed number of steps. Overall results support predictions of the model and point to a developmental shift from treating linguistic labels as an attribute contributing to similarity to treating them as markers of a common category-a shift that appears to occur between 8 and 11 years of age.     

Pedagogical approaches for e-assessment with authentication and authorship verification in Higher Education

Checking the identity of students and authorship of their online submissions is a major concern in Higher Education due to the increasing amount of plagiarism and cheating using the Internet. The literature on the effects of e-authentication systems for teaching staff is very limited because it is a novel procedure for them. A considerable gap is to understand teaching staff' views regarding the use of e-authentication instruments and how they impact trust in e-assessment. This mixed-method study examines the concerns and practices of 108 teaching staff who used the TeSLA—Adaptive Trust-based e-Assessment System in six countries: the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Finland and Turkey. The findings revealed some technological, organisational and pedagogical issues related to accessibility, security, privacy and e-assessment design and feedback. Recommendations are to provide a FAQ and an audit report with results, to raise awareness about data security and privacy, to develop policies and guidelines about fraud detection and prevention, e-assessment best practices and course team support.     

Education for sustainability in university studies: A model for reorienting the curriculum

A decisive factor for achieving a culture of sustainability is university training for future professionals. The aim of this article is to bring new elements to the process of reorienting university studies towards sustainability. Presented here is the ACES model (Curriculum Greening of Higher Education, acronym in Spanish), which is the result of a project involving a network of 11 European and Latin American universities. The methodology of the project is based on participatory action research. The ACES model is defined by 10 characteristics, detailed in this article, which can orientate a diagnosis of the level of curriculum greening and the design and application of the strategies and actions in order to facilitate incorporating the sustainability dimension in higher education. The potentialities and limitations found are also discussed. The ACES model has started a process for reorienting higher education studies towards sustainability.     

Cognitive load theory,the transient information effect and e-learning

When using modern educational technology, some forms of instruction are inherently transient in that previous information usually disappears to be replaced by current information. Instructional animations and spoken text provide examples. The effects of transience due to the use of animation-based instructions (Experiment 1) and spoken information under audio-visual conditions (Experiment 2) were explored in a cognitive load theory framework. It was hypothesized that for transient information presented in short sections, animations would be superior to static graphics, due to our innate ability to learn by observing. For transient information in long sections, animations should lose their superiority over static graphics, due to working memory overload associated with large amounts of transient information. Similarly, the modality effect under which audio-visual information is superior to visual only information should be obtainable using short segments but disappear or reverse using longer segments due to the working memory consequences of long, transient, auditory information. Results supported the hypotheses. The use of educational technology that results in the transformation of permanent into transitory information needs to be carefully assessed.     

Successful schooling for pupils with intellectual disabilities: the demand for a new paradigm

A comprehensive review of educational interventions for pupils with intellectual disabilities showed that most studies report positive results for a variety of interventions. The aim of this article is to explore how these results can be understood. We draw on similar earlier findings concerning intervention effects in psychotherapy and social work, discussing the so-called Dodo bird conjecture, indicating that established methods for identification of evidence-based practices can provide false, positive results influenced by so-called common factors present in most interventions. In conclusion, we argue for a new paradigm of research on educational interventions for pupils with intellectual disabilities, replacing the present ambition to find evidence-based support for specific interventions in favour of a line of research exploring alternative explanations in terms of, for instance, common positive factors.     

Carrying out research across the arts and humanities and social sciences: developing the methodology for Dementia and Imagination

This paper analyses how the methodological approach for a major Arts and Humanities Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council-funded project entitled Dementia and Imagination ¹1. http://dementiaandimagination.org.uk/View all notes was formulated. This multidisciplinary project brings together the arts and humanities with the social sciences with their different epistemological philosophies and subsequent understandings of research methods. The main objective was to determine how visual arts activities may change, sustain and catalyse community cultures, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours to create dementia-friendly communities. This project involves 6 different UK universities, 14 researchers, 10 formal partners, 7 project artists, 3 research artists and a large number of civil society organisations. The analysis presents a series of themes that have been identified as influencing the approach taken to develop methods which aimed to speak to different audiences in the social sciences, arts and humanities, policy/practice and public domains. It is concluded that a research project of this type needs to embrace a wide variety of epistemological positions if it is to successfully achieve its objectives. This paper contributes to knowledge about how the methodology of large-scale multidisciplinary projects may be constructed which will be of value to those building research consortia across different universities and between universities and community partners.