Children’s narrative development through computer game authoring

Conclusions The strong motivational influence of computer games on children can be used positively within education. This paper looks beyond the educational benefits which children can gain asconsumers of computer games to explore the additional benefits which could be gleaned from enabling children toproduce their own computer games. In the domain of literacy and narrative development, creating an interactive audio-visual computer game to tell a story has many potential benefits. The Game Maker workshop described in the paper confirms that creating stories within computer games is a task which young people find highly enjoyable, engaging and rewarding. Additionally, the workshop experience suggests that sophisticated game design is well within reach of 12–15 year olds. These motivational advantages indicate that it is well worth exploring how computer game authoring can be used in the classroom to raise both literacy standards and children’s enjoyment of story making activities     

Probabilistic relevance ranking for collaborative filtering

Collaborative filtering is concerned with making recommendations about items to users. Most formulations of the problem are specifically designed for predicting user ratings, assuming past data of explicit user ratings is available. However, in practice we may only have implicit evidence of user preference; and furthermore, a better view of the task is of generating a top-N list of items that the user is most likely to like. In this regard, we argue that collaborative filtering can be directly cast as a relevance ranking problem. We begin with the classic Probability Ranking Principle of information retrieval, proposing a probabilistic item ranking framework. In the framework, we derive two different ranking models, showing that despite their common origin, different factorizations reflect two distinctive ways to approach item ranking. For the model estimations, we limit our discussions to implicit user preference data, and adopt an approximation method introduced in the classic text retrieval model (i.e. the Okapi BM25 formula) to effectively decouple frequency counts and presence/absence counts in the preference data. Furthermore, we extend the basic formula by proposing the Bayesian inference to estimate the probability of relevance (and non-relevance), which largely alleviates the data sparsity problem. Apart from a theoretical contribution, our experiments on real data sets demonstrate that the proposed methods perform significantly better than other strong baselines.

Time for review: supporting the work of an advisory group

This paper raises methodological issues about the challenges and dilemmas of inclusive research practices reflecting on the work of an advisory group carrying out research on using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to enhance community participation. The interests of three parties can be identified – the commissioning agent, the researchers and the researched – and these interplayed throughout the course of the research determining the outcomes. Given the relationship between inclusive research and advocacy, there were particular gains in enabling the voice of the advisory group to shape the way in which the research was conducted and to disseminate the findings both within the organisation and beyond. However, the fragility of these new structures required organisational changes for the research to be truly empowering. The experience of the group suggests the need for their involvement at all stages of the research process.     

Supporting High School Student Accomplishment of Biology Content Using Interactive Computer-Based Curricular Case Studies

Research in Science Education - Research into the efficacy of modules featuring dynamic visualizations, case studies, and interactive learning environments is reported here. This quasi-experimental...     

A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TO MATHEMATICS TESTING FOR UNIVERSITY ADMISSIONS AND COURSE PLACEMENT

Decisions on admissions to university and placement into university courses are usually based on the results of achievement (as in secondary school exams) and/or aptitude (in intelligence-type tests and SAT). This paper argues that in a situation where educational provision at secondary school level is highly unequal, a third approach to testing offers an alternative which is preferable both on grounds of theory of cognitive psychology and because it yields much better discrimination.The Alternative Admissions Research Project at University of Cape Town has developed a mathematics test according to the dynamic testing approach as advocated by Miller (1990) for admission of African students from grossly under-resourced schools, as well as for placing these and other students into a diversifying first year curriculum. This approach aims to assess the ability of a candidate to learn from authentic academic material within the test. This paper focuses on the reasons for the development of the mathematics test and the process by which the test questions were developed and piloted. The reliability of the test and correlations of this test with subsequent mathematical performance data are discussed.Following the encouraging data for the test as an admission mechanism, the value of the dynamic testing approach for furnishing additional information for placement into an increasingly varied curriculum at first year level was investigated. This enabled the piloting of more topics and more comprehensive validation of this type of testing. The paper concerns itself with the reliability and predictive value of each of the topics in this placement test for a range of core courses in various faculties and the extent to which these tests can identify potentially at risk students who should be placed onto an appropriate curriculum.     

Comparison of athletic movement between elite junior and senior Australian football players

This study compared the athletic movement skill between elite Under-18 (U18) Australian football (AF) and senior Australian Football League (AFL) players. The U18 sample (n = 13; 17.7 ± 0.6 years) were representatives of an elite talent development programme. The AFL players were classified accordingly; Group 1 (1–4 AFL seasons; n = 20; 21.2 ± 1.9 years) and Group 2 (>5 AFL seasons; n = 14; 26.3 ± 2.6 years). Participants performed an athletic movement skill assessment, inclusive of five foundational movements. Each movement was scored across three assessment points using a three-point scale. Total score for each movement (maximum of nine) and overall score (maximum of 63) were used as criteria. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to test the effect of developmental group (three levels) on the criteria. Receiver operating curves were built to examine the discriminant capability of the overall score. A significant effect of developmental group was noted, with the U18 sample having a lower mean total score for four of the five movements. Overall scores of 49/63 and 50/63 discriminated the elite U18 sample from Group 1 and Group 2, respectively. U18 players may have less developed athletic movement skills when compared to their senior AFL counterparts.     

Work‐related learning for students with significant learning difficulties: relevance and reality

The 14–19 proposals brought work‐related learning to the forefront of educational policy. We look at how the tenets, which underpin them, can be interpreted and applied for students with significant learning difficulties. We examine the nature of vocational or work‐related learning for students with severe and or profound and multiple learning difficulties as currently reported by schools in England. Its relevance for this group of learners is discussed in the light of the proposals and we consider the reality of current practice in relation to the slippery concept of vocational learning. Finally, we reflect on important recent policy commitments relevant to our research, but published after its completion, outlined in the White Paper 14–19 education and skills. We note and welcome its explicit consideration of the needs of students with significant learning difficulties. At the same time we remain concerned and perturbed about its affirmation of educational aims that are narrowly conceived in relation to an economic imperative.