Peer teaching: Academic achievement of teacher-led versus student-led discussion groups

Problem-based small-group discussions are the cornerstone of health sciences education at the University of Limburg (The Netherlands). In each of three courses, fifteen discussion groups of about eight students were randomly assigned a staff-tutor (control condition) or student-tutor (experimental condition).In two of the courses no significant differences in cognitive test achievement between the two conditions were found. In one course students tutored by staff-tutors performed significantly better than students tutored by student-tutors. However, no significant differences in test performance were found between students tutored by high-achieving versus average-achieving student-tutors. These findings contradict the congruence hypothesis from information processing theory. Several other explanations are explored.     

Cognitive load measurements and stimulated recall interviews for studying the effects of information and communications technology

Many researchers use information and communications technology (ICT)-tools to augment learning in a great variety of tasks. Their effects are generally measured in terms of intended outcomes. This article argues for the use of additional, more general measures to obtain a more complete impression of the effects of ICT-tools. The first study presented in this article shows why tools should not only be studied in terms of their specific intended outcomes, but also in terms of their effects on working memory, and the cognitive mechanisms needed to achieve the intended outcomes. The second study uses cognitive load measurements and stimulated recall interviews to obtain a more comprehensive view of the effects of learning tools. Results suggest that traditional outcome measures need to be complemented with quantitative and qualitative measures of cognitive processes to substantiate conclusions about intended effects of ICT-tools.

Performance assessment in serious games: Compensating for the effects of randomness

This paper is about performance assessment in serious games. We conceive serious gaming as a process of player-lead decision taking. Starting from combinatorics and item-response theory we provide an analytical model that makes explicit to what extent observed player performances (decisions) are blurred by chance processes (guessing behaviors). We found large effects both theoretically and practically. In two existing serious games random guess scores were found to explain up to 41 % of total scores. Monte Carlo simulation of random game play confirmed the substantial impact of randomness on performance. For valid performance assessments, be it in-game or post-game, the effects of randomness should be included to produce re-calibrated scores that can reasonably be interpreted as the players’ achievements.     

Design Elements for a CSCL Environment in a Teacher Training Programme

In the design of a Telematic Learning Environment (TLE) in which student teachers learn collaboratively, we consider three clusters of design elements as important: the Telematic Work Environment, the guidance of the instructor and the task instruction. We will have a look at the way group and task behaviour, triggered by these design elements influence the collaborative outcomes. Experiments have revealed that the technical environment is not as important as we had expected beforehand. This research shows that the task instruction (pre-imposed structure, role taking and intrinsic motivation for the task) and the group process itself have far more impact on the online collaborative work of the student teachers.     

Exploring teachers' instructional design practices from a systems design perspective

Curricular changes in higher vocationaleducation have rendered teachers' instructionaldesign activities increasingly important. Usinga repertory grid technique, this paper sets outto analyse current design activities of tenteacher trainers. Their actual approach iscompared with an instructional systems design(ISD) approach and related to innovativeteacher roles. Teachers' activities show animbalance in two ID phases, that is problemanalysis and evaluation. The results suggestthat they attempt to translate curricular goalsdirectly into concrete lessons and they payrelatively little attention to evaluation. Inline with this finding, they underrate the twoinnovative teacher roles of the `diagnostician'and the `evaluator'. It is argued thatimbalanced or incomplete design approaches andperceived roles may hinder innovation ineducation. Implications for the support ofteachers' design activities are discussed.     

Students’ misconceptions of statistical inference: A review of the empirical evidence from research on statistics education

A solid understanding of inferential statistics is of major importance for designing and interpreting empirical results in any scientific discipline. However, students are prone to many misconceptions regarding this topic. This article structurally summarizes and describes these misconceptions by presenting a systematic review of publications that provide empirical evidence of them. This group of publications was found to be dispersed over a wide range of specialized journals and proceedings, and the methodology used in the empirical studies was very diverse. Three research needs rise from this review: (1) further empirical studies that identify the sources and possible solutions for misconceptions in order to complement the abundant theoretical and statistical discussion about them; (2) new insights into effective research designs and methodologies to perform this type of research; and (3) structured and systematic summaries of findings like the one presented here, concerning misconceptions in other areas of statistics, that might be of interest both for educational researchers and teachers of statistics.     

Early childhood mathematical development: the association between patterning and proportional reasoning

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Insight into early precursors of proportional reasoning is necessary to further our theoretical understanding of mathematical development and to guide early...     

Same,Similar, or Something Completely Different? Calibrating Student Surveys and Classroom Observations of Teaching Quality Onto a Common Metric

Using item response theory, this study explores whether student survey and classroom observation items can be calibrated onto a common metric of teaching quality. The data comprises 269 lessons of 141 teachers that were scored on the International Comparative Analysis of Learning and Teaching (ICALT) observation instrument and the My Teacher student survey. Using Rasch model concurrent calibration, items from both instruments were calibrated onto a common one‐dimensional metric of teaching quality. Most items were found to fit the model. Challenges pertain mainly to items measuring teaching students learning strategies and differentiation. Explanations for these difficulties are discussed.     

Measuring teaching quality and student engagement in South Korea and The Netherlands

Six observation scales for measuring the skills of teachers and 1 scale for measuring student engagement, assessed in South Korea and The Netherlands, are sufficiently reliable and offer sufficient predictive value for student engagement. A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis shows that the factor loadings and intercepts of the scales are the same, within acceptable boundaries, in both countries. Therefore, we can compare the average scores of teachers in both countries in a reliable and valid way. The 289 Dutch teachers score significantly better on “creating a safe and stimulating learning climate” and “intensive and activating teaching” and almost significantly on “efficient classroom management”. We find no significant differences in “clear and structured instruction”. The 375 South Korean teachers perform significantly better than the Dutch teachers on “teaching learning strategies” and almost significantly on “differentiating instruction”. Furthermore, we find better student engagement in South Korea.