Exploring the effects of integrating self-explanation into a multi-user game on the acquisition of scientific concepts

The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of embedding collaboration into a game with a self-explanation design for supporting the acquisition of light and shadow concepts. The participants were 184 fourth graders who were randomly assigned to three conditions: a solitary mode of the game with self-explanation, a collaborative mode with self-explanation, or the control condition of a single-user game without integrating self-explanation. Students' conceptual understanding was measured through an immediate posttest and a retention test with a three-week delay. Further, students' engagement in answering the prompts was also investigated. The findings showed that having students collaboratively play science-based games with a self-explanation design embedded was not sufficient to help them learn the science concepts. Rather, it was the level of engagement in responding to the self-explanation prompts that mattered.     

High-School Students’ Epistemic Knowledge of Science and Its Relation to Learner Factors in Science Learning

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an online contextualized test for assessing students’ understanding of epistemic knowledge of science. In addition, how students’ understanding of epistemic knowledge of science interacts with learner factors, including time spent on science learning, interest, self-efficacy, and gender, was also explored. The participants were 489 senior high school students (244 males and 245 females) from eight different schools in Taiwan. Based on the result of an extensive literature review, we first identified six factors of epistemic knowledge of science, such as status of scientific knowledge, the nature of scientific enterprise, measurement in science, and so on. An online test was then created for assessing students’ understanding of the epistemic knowledge of science. Also, a learner-factor survey was developed by adopting previous PISA survey items to measure the abovementioned learner factors. The results of this study show that; (1) by factor analysis, the six factors of epistemic knowledge of science could be grouped into two dimensions which reflect the nature of scientific knowledge and knowing in science, respectively; (2) there was a gender difference in the participants’ understanding of the epistemic knowledge of science; and (3) students’ interest in science learning and the time spent on science learning were positively correlated to their understanding of the epistemic knowledge of science.     

废除高年级的时机到来了吗?

If it's fifth period, it must be time for Hacky Sack for high school senior Jess Rojas. Second period the Boulder, Colo., student spends staring into space at the library, and the rest of his day isn't much more challenging: The 17-year-old claims he can get A' or B's with little or no ef-     

Retrieval of images by spatial and object similarities

In the last several decades it has become an important basis to retrieve images from image databases (IDBs) by the semantic information held in the image objects and the spatial patterns formed by these objects. In this paper, we propose a new method for similarity retrieval of symbolic images by both the attributes and the spatial relationships of the contained objects. The proposed method CPM (common pattern method) retains the common spatial patterns of two images in new data structures CP_DAG (common pattern directed acyclic graph) and performs the similarity calculation efficiently in practice. The conducted experiments use both a synthetic dataset and an existing image database. The experimental results show that CPM outperforms LCS_Clique, SIM_R, SIM_DTC, and 2D Be-string for average efficiency and effectiveness. CPM also has steady efficiency while the number of image objects and the object symbol duplication rates increase.     

The Role of Computer Simulation in an Inquiry-Based Learning Environment: Reconstructing Geological Events as Geologists

Several researchers have investigated the effects of computer simulations on students’ learning. However, few have focused on how simulations with authentic contexts influences students’ inquiry skills. Therefore, for the purposes of this study, we developed a computer simulation (FossilSim) embedded in an authentic inquiry lesson. FossilSim integrated data from real field investigations with geological laws for identifying the sequence of geological events. Data were collected from two experiments to examine ninth graders’ abilities for reconstructing a sequence of geological events with the aid of FossilSim. The sample groups in Experiments 1 and 2 were 58 and 11 ninth graders, respectively. The results indicated that the authentic inquiry lesson promoted the development of students’ inquiry skills. In addition, FossilSim played a key role in engaging students to apply geological laws, make multi-scale observations, and clarify their ideas about geological time.     

Undergraduates’ intentions to take examinations for professional certification: examinations of four competing models

Previous research on professional certification has primarily focused on graduate certificates in intensive care nursing, writing certificates for practitioners, maintenance of certification in radiation oncology, and the certification of teachers and surgeons. Research on certification in the domain of business and management from an attitudinal?Cbehavioral approach has been lacking. Social psychological theories provide potentially useful tools for explaining how attitudes, intentions, and behaviors are changed. The current study compared four intention-based models??the theory of planned behavior, the theory of self-regulation (TSR), the revised TSR (in which desire is a partial mediator), and the other revised TSR (in which desire is a full mediator)??in terms of their ability to predict the intentions of business and management students to obtain certification in their fields. Participants were drawn from the southern, middle, and northern areas of Taiwan. A structural equation model applied to a sample of 273 undergraduates demonstrated that attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral controls, desires, intentions, and behaviors were associated with certification in business and management domains. The explanatory power of the revised TSR in which desire was a full mediator was superior to that of the competing models. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

An Example Implementation of Schank’s Goal-Based Scenarios

The Goal-based Scenario method is a design model for applying simulations to instruction. This portfolio item describes an implementation of Goal-based Scenarios for the teaching of statistics. The application demonstrates how simulations can be contextualized and how they can allow learners to engage in legitimate inquiry in the pursuit of their instructional goals.