Evaluating the Effectiveness of Physlet-Based Materials in Supporting Conceptual Learning About Electricity

To provide a good understanding of many abstract concepts in the field of electricity above that of their students is often a major challenge for secondary school teachers. Many educational researchers promote conceptual learning as a teaching approach that can help teachers to achieve this goal. In this paper, we present Physlet-based materials for supporting conceptual learning about electricity. To conduct research into the effectiveness of these materials, we designed two different physics courses: one group of students, the experimental group, was taught using Physlet-based materials and the second group of students, the control group, was taught using expository instruction without using Physlets. After completion of the teaching, we assessed students’ thinking skills and analysed the materials with an independent t test, multiple regression analyses and one-way analysis of covariance. The test scores were significantly higher in the experimental group than in the control group (p < 0.05). The results of this study confirmed the effectiveness of conceptual learning about electricity with the help of Physlet-based materials.     

How does open government data driven co-creation occur? Six factors and a ‘perfect storm’; insights from Chicago's food inspection forecasting model

It is becoming increasingly clear that the concepts of open government data (OGD) and co-creation are related; however, there is currently only limited empirical material available exploring the link between the two. This paper aims to help clarify the relationship between these two concepts by exploring a recently coined phenomenon: OGD-driven co-created public services. These services 1) utilize or are driven by OGD; 2) are co-created by stakeholders from different groups; and 3) produce public value for society. Due to the relative newness of the phenomenon an inductive exploratory case study is undertaken on Chicago's use of OGD in the co-creation of their food safety inspection forecasting model. This model forecasts critical food safety violations at food serving establishments and sends inspectors to the highest risk establishments first. The results of this exploratory work led to the discovery of a ‘perfect storm’ of six factors that seem to play a key role in allowing OGD-driven public service co-creation to take place. These factors are motivated stakeholders, innovative leaders, proper communication, an existing OGD portal, external funding, and agile development.     

Designing and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Physlet-Based Learning Materials in Supporting Conceptual Learning in Secondary School Physics

Many educational researchers have investigated how best to support conceptual learning in science education. In this study, the aim was to design learning materials using Physlets, small computer simulations, and to evaluate the effectiveness of these materials in supporting conceptual learning in secondary school physics. Students were taught in two different physics courses (conditions): one group of students (n = 40) was taught using Physlet-based learning materials, and the other (n = 40) was taught using expository instruction. To evaluate the designed materials, we assessed students’ thinking skills in relation to physics after the course and analyzed the results using an independent t test, multiple regression analyses, and one-way analysis of covariance. The results showed better thinking skills among students in the experimental group and supported a clear relationship between the physics course using Physlet-based materials and this improvement (p < 0.05). These results indicate that properly designed Physlet-based materials can effectively support conceptual learning.     

Beyond contact-tracing: The public value of eHealth application in a pandemic

This study adopts a public value perspective to examine the eHealth services deployed by national and regional governments to contain the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, including symptoms checkers, information portals and contact-tracing applications. We analyse 50 cases of eHealth applications adopted in 25 European Economic Area (EEA) and outline how these systems and technologies map against four dimensions of public value: user orientation, participation, legality and equity. Our findings reveal that the public value of the eHealth applications adopted in the context of the current pandemic is affected by both endogenous and exogenous factors that undermine their ability to improve the quality of healthcare services and social wellbeing. We conclude by suggesting areas for further research to address such factors and the trade-offs emerging between different dimensions of public value.