Applications of speech-to-text recognition and computer-aided translation for facilitating cross-cultural learning through a learning activity: issues and their solutions

In this study, 21 university students, who represented thirteen nationalities, participated in an online cross-cultural learning activity. The participants were engaged in interactions and exchanges carried out on Facebook^® and Skype^® platforms, and their multilingual communications were supported by speech-to-text recognition (STR) and computer-aided translation (CAT) systems. The participants spoke in their native languages, and the STR system generated texts from their voice input. The CAT system then simultaneously translated the STR-texts into English. The aim of this study was to examine the accuracy rates of STR and CAT processes for different languages during intercultural communication. We also explored issues associated with these processes and how they were addressed in the study context. In addition, an attempt was made to determine whether or not our learning activity as supported by STR and CAT technologies facilitated cross-cultural learning. Our results showed that the lowest STR accuracy rate was for Belizean English whereas the highest STR accuracy rate was for French and Hindi. The lowest CAT accuracy rate was for Mongolian and Filipino, and the highest was for Spanish, Russian, and French. Seven issues associated with the STR process and ten issues associated with the CAT process were identified. The participants employed ten workarounds to address the STR-related issues and thirteen workarounds to address the CAT-related issues. We refer to a workaround as a method used by the participants to overcome a limitation related to either STR or CAT. Finally, our results demonstrated that cross-cultural learning took place; the participants understood and could explain foreign traditions to others and could also compare foreign traditions with their own. Based on our results, we made several suggestions and provided implications for the teaching and research community.     

Re-authoring research conversations: beyond epistemological differences and toward transformative experience for researchers and educators

Common sense and published literature both assert that education research is often dismissed by practitioners on the grounds that it is irrelevant to their work. Some have argued that this is due primarily to a mismatch of professional epistemologies. While agreeing in principle, this work draws on work in sociology (Erving Goffman) and literary theory (Mikhail Bakhtin) to argue that practitioner mistrust of research may be primarily related to differences in the presentation of self in the teaching (and research) profession and a history of research used as a tool of transgression in the authorship of the practitioner professional self. Goffman’s account of frontstage and backstage settings in the everyday presentation of self is combined with Bakhtin’s account of the ways research erases the voice of practitioners by reducing their fundamentally dialogic experiences to monologic narratives dominated by the voice of the researcher. As an alternative, I draw on the work of the research psychologist Jerome Bruner and the practicing clinical psychologist Michael White to explore ways in which practitioners might be more meaningfully engaged in the research enterprise through a process of re-narrativizing their own experiences captured as part of research. Narrative techniques that help share responsibility for authoring accounts of practice among researchers and practitioners as research participants are described leading to conclusions about the potential transformative nature of such work for both researchers and practitioners.     

Graduate study and research

Speech Correction on the Contract Plan. By Ruth B. Manser. New York: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1935; pp. xix + 333.

Leadership in a Changing World. Ed. by M. David Hoffman and Ruth Wanger. New York: Harper and Bros., 1935 ; pp. xv + 418.

Your Telltale English. By Sophie C. Hadida. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1935 ; pp. 419. $2.00.

Propaganda; Its Psychology and Technique. By Leonard W. Doob. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1935; pp. x + 424. $3.00.

The 1932 Campaign: An Analysis. By Roy V. Peel and Thomas C. Donnelly. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1935; pp. viii + 242. $1.50.

A B C of Reading. By Ezra Pound. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934; pp. xii + 197.

Lotteries. Compiled by Helen M. Muller. New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1935 ; pp. 128. $0.90.

Old Age Pensions. Compiled by Julia E. Johnsen. New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1935 ; pp. 295. $0.90.

Socialized Medicine. A debate reprinted from the University Debaters’ Annual for 1933–1934. New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1935 ; pp. 31: $.35.

Road To War: America 1914–1917. By Walter Millis. Boston and New York: Houghton Miffiin Company, 1935 ; pp. ix + 466. Index. $3.00.

Speech Therapy. By Emil Fröschels. Translated from the German by Joseph Noyes Haskell. Boston: The Expression Company, 1933 ; pp. 252.

Speech in Childhood: Its Development and Disorders. By George Seth and Douglas Guthrie. New York: Oxford University Press, 1935 ; pp. x + 224. $3.50.

A Study of Illiteracy in C.C.C. Camps. Washington: Bulletin 110068 of the United States Office of Education, Department of the Interior, 1935.

Propaganda and Promotional Activities. An Annotated Bibliography. By H. D. Lasswell, R. D. Casey, and B. L. Smith. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1935 ; pp. 450.

World Politics and Personal Insecurity. By H. D. Lasswell. New York: Whittlesey House, 1935 ; pp. 307.

Fox. By Christopher Hobhouse. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1935; pp. 320. $3.50.

Architecture for the New Theatre. Edited by Edith J. R. Isaacs. Published for the National Theatre Conference. New York: Theatre Arts, Inc., 1935 ; pp. 125. $2.50.

Directing for the Amateur Stage. By Leslie Crump. New York: Dodd, Mead &; Co., 1935; pp. xi + 235. $2.50.

Freedom of the Press. By George Seldes. Indianapolis: The Bobbs‐ Merrill Co., 1935 ; pp. 380. $2.75.

Psychology of Acting. By Lorenz Kjerbühl‐Petersen, translated by Sarah T. Barrows. Boston: Expression Company, 1935 ; pp. 255. $3.50.

Congress or the Supreme Court. Edited by Egbert Ray Nichols. New York: Noble &; Noble, Inc., 1935; pp. 476. $2.00.

Aphasia: A Clinical and Psychological Study. By Theodore Weisenburg and Katherine McBride. New York: The Commonwealth Fund, 1935 ; pp. 634. $5.00.

Current English. By Arthur G. Kennedy. Boston: Ginn &; Co., 1935; pp. xiii + 737. $3.50.

The Development of Modern English. By Stuart Robertson. New York: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1934; pp. vii + 559. $2.50.

The Politician: His Habits, Outcries, and Protective Coloring. By James Harold Wallis. New York: The Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1935; pp. x + 333. $3.00.

Play Production. By M. V. C. Jeffreys and R. W. Stopford. London: Methuen &; Co., New York: E. P. Dutton &; Co., 1933; pp. xviii + 199. $2.50.

The Genesis and Growth of English. By J. S. Armour. New York: Oxford University Press, 1935; pp. xi + 182. $1.25.

The Neutrality Policy of the United States. Compiled by Julia E. Johnsen. The Reference Shelf, vol. X, no. 7. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1936; pp. 267. $0.90.

How to Conduct Group Discussion. By A. F. Wileden and H. L. Ewbank. Madison: Extension Service of the College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin, 1935; pp. 64.

Who Should Pay the Doctor Bills. By H. L. Ewbank and Martin P. Anderson. Madison: Extension Service of the College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin, 1936; pp. 38.

Effective Speech: First Course. By Lousene Rousseau and Mary E. Cramer. New York: Harper &; Bros., 1936; pp. xii + 300. $1.20.

The Science and Art of Speech. By Charles Robert Walsh. New York: Benziger Bros., 1935; pp. xvii + 193. $2.60.

Mediaeval Artes Praedicandi: A Supplementary Hand‐List. By Harry Caplan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1936; pp. 36.

Masks and Marionettes. By Joseph Spencer Kennard. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935; pp. ix + 129. $3.50.

The Public Speaker's Scrapbook. By William G. Hoffman. New York: Whittlesey House, 1935; pp. xi + 269. $2.50.

For Stutterers. By Smiley Blanton, M.D., and Margaret Gray Blanton. New York: D. Appleton‐Century Co., 1936; pp. xi + 191. $2.00.

Basic Speech and Voice Science. By L. S. Judson and A. T. Weaver. Madison: The College Typing Company, 1933; pp. iv + 218. $4.25.

Anecdotal History of the Science of Sound, to the Beginning of the 20th Century. By Dayton C. Miller. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1935 ; pp. xi + 114. $2.50.

Lucius Q. C. Lainar. By Wirt Armistead Cate. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1935 ; pp. xiii + 594. $5.00.

Disorders of Speech and Voice, 4th ed. By Robert West. Madison: College Typing Co., 1935; pp. 144. $2.75.

Bibliography of Disorders of Speech and Voice. By Robert West. Madison: College Typing Co., 1934; pp. 21. $0.50.

Signals and Speech in Electrical Communication. By John Mills. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934; pp. 281. $2.75.

Something About Words. By Ernest Weekley. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1936; pp. 233. $1.75.

A History of the Philadelphia Theatre 1835–1855. By Arthur. Herman Wilson. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1935 ; pp. 724. $6.00.

How to Develop Your Speaking Voice, By E. H. Baxter Rinquest. Denver: Frank J. Wolf Publishing House, 1935; pp. 228.

An Experience Curriculum in English. A Report of a Commission of the National Council of Teachers of English. W. Wilbur Hatfield, Chairman. New York: D. Appleton‐Century Company, Inc., 1935; pp. x + 323. $1.50. (To members of the N.C.T.E. $1.00.)     

Instrumental escape learning in the rat at 24-hour intertriai interval: Effects of magnitude and schedule of reinforcement

Three experiments investigated the effects of magnitude and schedule of reinforcement and level of training in instrumental escape learning at a 24-h intertriai interval. In Experiment I, two magnitudes of reinforcement were factorially combined with two schedules of reinforcement (CRF and PRF). Under PRF, large reward produced greater resistance to extinction than did small reward, while the reverse was true under CRF. In Experiment II, two levels of acquisition training were factorially combined with three schedules of reinforcement (CRF, single-alternation, and nonalternated PRF). Patterned running was observed late in acquisition in the single-alternation extended-training condition. Resistance to extinction was greater for the nonalternated PRF condition than for the single-alternation condition following extended acquisition, and the reverse was true following limited acquisition. Experiment III confirmed the extinction findings of Experiment II. The results of all three experiments supported an analysis of escape learning at spaced trials in terms of Capaldi’s (1967) sequential theory.     

Analysis of the Meanings of the Antiderivative Used by Students of the First Engineering Courses

In this article, we present the results of the administration of a questionnaire designed to evaluate the understanding that civil engineering students have of the antiderivative. The questionnaire was simultaneously administered to samples of Mexican and Colombian students. For the analysis of the answers, we used some theoretical and methodological notions provided by the theoretical model known as Onto-Semiotic Approach (OSA) to mathematical cognition and instruction. The results revealed the meanings of the antiderivative that are more predominantly used by civil engineering students. Also, the comparison between the mathematical activity of Mexican and Colombian students provides information that allows concluding that the meanings mobilized could be shared among their communities and are not particular of their classroom or university.     

Using a mathematical model of motivation,volition, and performance to examine students’ e-text learning experiences

This empirical study used Keller’s (Technol Instr Cogn Learn 16:79–104, 2008b) motivation, volition, and performance (MVP) theory to develop and statistically evaluate a mathematical MVP model that can serve as a research and policy tool for evaluating students’ learning experiences in digital environments. Specifically, it explored undergraduate biology students’ learning and attitudes toward e-texts using a MVP mathematical model in two different e-text environments. A data set (N = 1334) that included student motivation and e-text information processing, frustration with using e-texts, and student ability variables was used to evaluate e-text satisfaction. A regression analysis of these variables revealed a significant model that explained 77% of the variation in student e-text satisfaction in both e-text learning environments. Student motivation and intrinsic cognitive load were positive predictors of student satisfaction, while extraneous cognitive load and student prior knowledge and background variables were negative predictors. Practical implications for e-text learning and generalizability of a mathematical MVP model are discussed.     

Use of digital game based learning and gamification in secondary school science: The effect on student engagement,learning and gender difference

This study aimed to identify the impact of a game based learning (GBL) application using computer technologies on student engagement in secondary school science classrooms. The literature reveals that conventional Science teaching techniques (teacher-centered lecture and teaching), which foster rote learning among students, are one of the major concerns in Pakistan Education system. This leads to student disengagement in science lessons eventually resulting in student absenteeism and dropouts from the schools. This study consisted of five stages: (1) examining the impact of Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) and gamification on engagement, learning and gender difference, and literature related to using DGBL models for instructional design; (2) planning learning activities and developing a GBL application based on a specific content in Science; (3) conducting an intervention with a sample of 72 participants of 8th grade (aged 12–15) in a low cost private school of Pakistan following quasi-experimental research framework; (4) observing behaviour and emotions of the participants during science lessons; (5) conducting pre and post tests to assess the learning outcomes of participants followed by focus groups discussion. Analysis from Friedman test, Mann-Whitney U test, and Wilcoxon Signed Rank test show that the GBL application has a positive influence on student engagement. However, GBL application was not equally effective for all students since girls outperformed boys in terms of engagement and learning outcomes. This study gives insights into the development of better educational games to promote student learning.