Students’ behaviour in peer assessment: a multi-criteria clustering approach

Peer assessment (PA), as formative procedure, enhances learning by providing students with the opportunity to peer assess each other's work. However, since students exhibit different value systems (abilities, experiences, attitudes, cognitive styles, etc.) we propose a diagnostic procedure, which can be applied at the beginning of a course, in order to infer the most prevailing attitude among students. For this purpose, the proposed methodological framework, based on a multi-criteria clustering approach, identifies different assessment behaviours, in order to adopt the most common student assessment policy. To demonstrate the proposed method, an example is presented where two different PA data-sets are examined. The results clearly indicate that students exhibit different PA policies, nevertheless, a densely populated group is formed, the value system of which can be adopted thereafter.     

Operational and Financial Aspects for Delivering a Consortium Shared LMS - The MITOS Project

The Shared Library Management System (LMS) model is not a new concept. Lately, many libraries consortia have migrated to a shared LMS to reduce their services' total costs. The Hellenic Academic Libraries consortium has implemented a shared LMS service, hosted in a private owned cloud infrastructure for its members during the past years (known as the MITOS project). Recognizing the complexity and significance that joining a shared LMS represents, it is important for librarians and other decision makers to have access to the MITOS experience for operational, technical and financial aspects, during and after the transition.     

Towards the real-time evaluation of collaborative activities: Integration of an automatic rater of collaboration quality in the classroom from the teacher’s perspective

This paper presents the integration of a real time evaluation method of collaboration quality in a monitoring application that supports teachers in class orchestration. The method is implemented as an automatic rater of collaboration quality and studied in a real time scenario of use. We argue that automatic and semi-automatic methods which provide assessments of collaboration quality or detect disorders and anomalies in collaborative activities should be further used to assist class monitoring. To that end, we study the routine of teachers when they monitor computer-supported collaborative activities with respect to the size of the classroom and the support of an automatic rater. We focus on the way the rater affects their task and how it can be further used to empower the practice of teachers.     

The Short-lived Bi-communal Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation

The bi-communal Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CYBC) casts its shadow to an important period of Cyprus’s modern history. Almost immediately after the establishment of the new republic, the two communities (the Greek and the Turkish-Cypriot) focused their attention towards media services and particularly the CYBC on which both sides tried to impose their own agendas. As expected, the two conflicting agendas and approaches disrupted, in practise, the smooth cooperation between the two communities in CYBC. Almost 50 years since the failure of this bi-communal endeavour, CYBC’s case study offers us a fundamental lesson. Firstly, it is clear that for such an endeavour, a constructive and focused dialog amongst all parts involved in the process is required. Additionally, CYBC’s short history demonstrates that in a multicultural environment the establishment of a public broadcasting corporation is not a purely technical or political matter, but one with broader social and cultural dimensions.     

The effect of simulation games on learning computer programming: A comparative study on high school students’ learning performance by assessing computational problem-solving strategies

Computer games are quickly gaining momentum by enabling new approaches to teaching and learning experience for programming courses in K-12 curriculum. However, it remains unclear if the game interface and elements created by using three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds combined with visual programming languages or a visual programming environment can affect students’ learning performance. This quasi-experimental study presents evidence about how a game can assist boys and girls to gain a greater understanding on skills related to CT for developing, implementing and transforming their solution plans into code based on their computational problem-solving strategies. A total of fifty (n?=?50) high school students who volunteered to participate in this study divided into a control group (n?=?25) and an experimental (n?=?25) group that used Scratch and OpenSim with the Scratch4SL palette, respectively to propose their solutions for the same problem-solving tasks via a simulation game. The study findings indicate substantial differences and important points of view about students’ learning performance by assessing their computational problem-solving strategies. Students from the experimental group performed significantly better both in measures of problem-solving and algorithmic thinking. Mean scores on post-questionnaires from the experimental group revealed improvements higher than their control group counterparts in two aspects. First, students of the former group created more complete computational instructions with rules to be specified and delivered the learning goals. Second, students of the same group proposed and applied more correct computational concepts and practices in code. Finally, this study discusses the implications for designing learning experiences using OpenSim with Scratch4SL.     

A systematic mapping review of augmented reality applications to support STEM learning in higher education

Education and Information Technologies - While there is an increasing interest in Augmented Reality (AR) technologies in Primary and Secondary (K-12) Education, its application in Higher Education...     

Influences on the intention to enter higher education: the importance of expected returns

Research points to several determinants of the private demand for higher education, which include individual, social, economic, and institutional variables. Of these variables, economic factors are considered to be highly relevant, especially in the current financial crisis. The paper investigates the link between expected rates of return to higher education and the intention of secondary education graduates to pursue university studies. The effect of additional variables influencing the choice of higher education (ability, gender, socioeconomic status [SES], type of secondary school, area of residence) is also examined. The findings show a significant link between the perceived rates of return and the intention of secondary school graduates to enter tertiary education. With the exception of residence, all independent variables are strong determinants of the intention to enter higher education. The paper also points to the considerable effect of the financial crisis on students’ expectations in that respondents reported lower perceived rates of return compared to previous estimates in the same country. The implications of the findings for higher education policy are discussed.     

Measuring Teacher–Child Relationships in the Greek Kindergarten Setting: A Validity Study of the Student–Teacher Relationship Scale–Short Form

Research Findings: The present study was designed to examine the factorial validity of the Student–Teacher Relationship Scale–Short Form (STRS-SF; R. C. Pianta, 2001 Hamre, B. K. and Pianta, R. C. 2001. Early teacher-child relationships and the trajectory of children's school outcomes through eighth grade.. Child Development, 72: 625–638. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and its invariance across gender in the Greek educational context. The STRS-SF comprises 15 items that measure 2 dimensions of teacher–child relationships: Closeness and Conflict. Fifty-six kindergarten teachers completed the STRS-SF about their students (n = 336). A 2-factor model with correlated latent factors was postulated and tested. Confirmatory factor analysis procedures showed marginal fit to the data (comparative fit index [CFI] = .902, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = .066). The fit of the model was further improved by adding 2 error covariances (CFI = .931, RMSEA = .056). Cronbach's alpha coefficient showed adequate internal consistency for Closeness (α = .72) and Conflict (α = .82). In addition, there was a moderate negative association between the 2 subscales (r = ?.38). Examination of STRS-SF invariance showed that it was manifested in the same way across gender. Practice or Policy: The findings of the present study, which was conducted in a cultural context different from the one in which the STRS-SF was developed, seem to support the instrument's factorial validity and equivalence across gender.     

Evaluating an induction training program for Greek teachers using an adjusted level model approach

This study is about the evaluation of an induction training program for Greek teachers. The program was evaluated by adopting an adjusted level model approach. Qualitative and quantitative data collection procedures were applied in order to assess the value of the training. The induction training was provided to Greek teachers who are appointed as permanent public employees at the beginning of each academic year. The results were encouraging for the applicability of the level model based evaluation in educational settings. The sequential hierarchy of the model was also tested and supported for the levels that were assessed quantitatively. Further evidence is needed in order to support the integration of methods and the sequential order of the level model approach.