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.     

What If I Woke up as the Other Sex? Batswana Youth Perspectives on Gender

The article focuses on 50 essays written by young people, aged 14-20, in Botswana, Africa, about how life would change if they were to wake up one day and find themselves a member of the other sex. The youth are peer counselors in a Young Women's Christian Association's program, 'Peer Approach to Counseling by Teens' (PACT), which is used in schools. Twenty-five of the essays were written by males and 25 by females. Conventional qualitative analyses are employed to (a) determine the extent to which the essays present positive, negative or mixed responses to life as the other sex; and (b) identify gender themes embedded in the essays. A departure from the conventional is provided through poetic representation. Two data poems were constructed from the essays. A poetic response to the data poems is also included.     

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.