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This study reviewed the mobile technology-supported music education (MTSME) studies published in several academic databases, namely Scopus, WOS, ERIC, and RILM, from 2008-2019. Based on the technology-based learning model, the application domains, research issues, sample groups, research methods, adopted devices, and learning strategies were examined. In addition, visual categorization analysis was conducted to further analyze the keywords adopted in the studies. The results show that the number of MTSME studies increased in the time period. It was also found that a majority of studies mainly focused on learner perceptions (e.g. learning reception, learning attitude, and learning motivation). Tablet computers were the most frequently adopted mobile devices. In terms of learning strategies, guided learning, project-based learning, and inquiry-based learning were extensively used in the MTSME studies. In addition, the results of the keyword analysis showed three thematic clusters of MTSME studies, namely "mobile technology-supported teaching management and learning design," "developing appropriate music educational resources for different educational levels," and "mobile technology facilitated learning motivation in music education." According to the research results, several suggestions for future research are proposed.

This study explores the roles and research foci of AILEd (Artificial Intelligence in Language Education). The AILEd studies published from 1990 to 2020 in the WOS (Web of Science) database were included in the present study. Based on the well-recognized Technology-based Learning Review model, several dimensions, such as research methods, research sample groups, adopted technology, language skills, the role of AI in language education, and learning outcomes, were taken into account. The review results show that the main application domains of AILEd research were writing, reading, and vocabulary acquisition. In terms of applied technology and algorithms, AI in language education mostly adopted ITS (Intelligent Tutoring System) and NLP (Natural Language Processing). Besides, several commonly used AI algorithms were Statistical Learning, Data Mining, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Parsing. It was also found that some research focused on learning anxiety, willingness to communicate, knowledge acquisition, and classroom interaction. However, higher order thinking, complex problem solving, critical thinking ability, and collaborative learning tendencies were rarely considered in AILEd studies. Accordingly, several suggestions are provided to researchers, teachers, and decision makers for applying or studying AI applications in language education in the future.

For professional development programs, students' professional identity and learning perceptions and earning performances have been recognized as important educational objectives. Scholars have indicated that engaging students in social interactions facilitates their deep and diverse thinking, and hence to promoting their learning outcomes. However, in traditional instruction, students generally learn in an individual learning mode and hesitate to interact with peers and teachers. To address this problem, a mobile team-based competition approach to situate students in social interactions was proposed. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an experiment was conducted in a college curriculum design course. 88 students in a teacher education program participated in the experiment, including 42 in the experimental group learning with the proposed approach, and 46 in the control group learning with the conventional mobile individual competition approach. The results showed that the proposed approach outperformed the mobile individual competition approach in terms of learning attitude, collaborative learning tendency and professional identity. It is found that the students generally perceived the proposed learning approach to be an effective way to encourage knowledge sharing, promote collaboration awareness and improve learning attitudes and motivation.

Writing an English research article for novice English as an additional language (EAL) writers is a challenging task that requires experience and training at both the sentence and meaning levels. One strategy that EAL writers employ when writing a research article is the use of formulaic sequences (FSs). However, available FS corpora are general purpose and are very limited in size. Previous studies have reported the effectiveness of FS usage in writing using a small set of FSs. The present work proposes an assistive environment for academic writing improvement through the use of domain-specific FSs. FSs are extracted from published articles and are classified under rhetoric categories using a machine learning technique. The user can then search for and add new FSs of his/her choice from any research article using proposed prototypes. The effectiveness of the proposed approach was evaluated in a real environment. The results show a positive impact of the proposal in terms of academic writing improvement. Novice writers who worked with the proposed prototype reported a significantly higher degree of perceived usefulness than those who worked with the traditional phrasebank approach.

As one of the core skills of the 21st century, computational thinking has received increasing attention from educators and researchers. Although some research has been conducted on computational thinking, few studies examined the impact of learning activities on students' computation thinking skills from the perspective of cognitive development. Based on the theory of scaffolding instruction, a progressive thinking training approach with flowcharts was proposed to cultivate students' computational thinking skills. A quasi-experiment was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. Forty-nine Chinese tertiary students undertaking a programming course were randomly assigned into two groups -- the experimental and control groups. During the course, the experimental group received progressive training, and the control group received non-progressive training. The results showed that the experimental group gained a significantly higher level of academic achievement than the control group. Meanwhile, the experimental group showed a remarkable improvement in programming self-efficacy. Furthermore, the participants in the experimental group showed a higher level of computational thinking skills, including cooperative learning, critical thinking, and problem solving skills. In summary, the progressive thinking training approach with flowcharts could not only improve the participants' computational thinking skills and programming self-efficacy, but also help them to achieve better academic outcomes.

Researchers have pointed out the important role of self-regulation in learning. The self-regulated learning (SRL) process consists of three stages (i.e. forethought, performance, and self-reflection), each of which could involve different strategies for achieving the aim of SRL. To enable researchers and teachers to have a whole picture of how each strategy could be applied, this study analyzed the 2010-2020 publications in seven SSCI journals of e-learning. In addition, the correlation between each SRL strategy and students' learning performances was analyzed. It was found that, in 58% of the studies, the potential strategies for individual SRL stages were generally ignored. In addition, 40% of the studies did not clearly state how SRL could be applied to practical applications. By referring to those SRL studies reporting the use of the strategies in each stage in specific application domains, it was found that goal setting and planning, which highly related to students' learning achievement, has been frequently discussed. Nevertheless, some strategies that highly correlated to students' cognitive performances and affect perceptions, such as environmental structuring, seeking information and rehearsing and memorizing, are often ignored. According to the findings, some suggestions are provided as a reference for researchers to conduct related research.

The flipped classroom approach has become one of the renowned instructional approaches in recent years. However, without proper educational tools to support students when they participate in classroom learning, their learning performances may not be as good as expected. In this study, a collective problem-solving promotion mechanism is proposed to enhance students' interaction and learning engagement in flipped classrooms using an interactive response system (IRS). A quasi-experimental design was adopted, and university students were recruited as the participants. The students in the experimental group applied the proposed approach, while those in the control group used the conventional flipped learning approach. The results show that the students in the collective problem-solving promotion-based flipped classroom not only had better learning performances and collective efficacy but also had higher level of knowledge construction and deeper interactions. The findings can be a reference for future teaching and research.

In the past decades, collaborative game-based learning has been used to facilitate students' learning in authentic learning contexts. Although several previous studies have reported the potential of this approach for students' learning performance and motivation, unequal participation could negatively influence the learning effectiveness of collaborative learning. To this end, this study developed a mandatory contribution-based collaborative gaming approach (MCCG) to enhance the competencies for conducting practical solutions related to environmental issues during a cross-field learning activity between a school and a museum. MCCG and a conventional collaborative gaming approach (CCG) were implemented to investigate the effects of individual contributions on collaborative learning. Both individual learning achievements and collaborative learning outcomes were assessed. The results showed that game-based collaboration supports can support competency-based education to enhance students' competencies, such as problem-solving and critical thinking competencies. Those students who learned with the mandatory contribution approach had better collaborative learning outcomes.

One main objective of art education is to foster students' art evaluation as well as their creative thinking ability. Engaging students in artwork sharing and peer feedback is a frequently adopted approach in school settings. However, most students have difficulties providing constructive comments during the peer-feedback process. To address this issue, a mobile-based progressive peer feedback approach was proposed to facilitate primary school students' creative thinking performance, metacognitive awareness, and learning attitude. A quasi-experiment was implemented with two intact classes in a primary school in northern Taiwan to investigate the effect of the proposed approach. One class was assigned to be the experimental group (n = 20) which learned with the proposed progressive peer-feedback scaffolding approach, and the other was the control group (n = 20) which learned with the conventional feedback approach. The findings indicated that the proposed progressive peer feedback approach had a positive effect on the primary school students' creative art thinking. The experimental group students' metacognitive awareness was also significantly enhanced. Besides, the students from the experimental group considered that the proposed progressive peer feedback approach was beneficial to helping them critically reflect on their drawings, and facilitated their understanding of how to improve the integrity of their drawings.

The use of touchscreen mobile devices in early childhood education has gained considerable attention. Several studies have been conducted to investigate the impacts of touchscreen mobile devices on children's cognitive and affective development. Researchers have further indicated the need to probe in which contexts children can learn effectively with touchscreen mobile devices. Therefore, this paper reviewed the studies related to the use of touchscreen mobile devices for children published in the Web of Science database from 2010 to 2019. A total of 45 studies were selected and analyzed based on the technology-based learning model. Accordingly, several dimensions, such as application domain, research method and research issues, and the attitudes of teachers, parents and young children, were taken into account. The results showed that: (1) 35% studies applied touchscreen mobile devices for young children's language skills development; (2) the quantitative research method is the most commonly adopted; (3) children's cognitive development received the most attention among all the research issues; and (4) young children generally like to use touchscreen mobile devices to learn. Moreover, teachers' and parents' concerns about young children's use of touchscreen mobile devices are analyzed, and future trends in integrating ICT in early childhood education are discussed.

In this study, a peer assessment-based mobile learning approach was implemented and evaluated in a vocational design certification course. A quasi-experiment was conducted to explore the impact of the proposed approach on the learning achievements and motivations of the students with active and reflective styles. It was found that the students using the peer assessment-based mobile learning approach generally learned better than those using the conventional mobile learning approach. It was also found that there were interactive effects between learning approaches and learning styles on intrinsic motivation. The students with an active learning style outperformed those with a reflective style in intrinsic motivation when conducting the peer assessment-based mobile learning. Active learning style students also had higher extrinsic motivation than those with a reflective learning style when conducting mobile learning.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been widely explored across the world over the past decades. A particularly emerging topic is the application of AI in e-learning (AIeL) to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning in precision education. This study aims to systematically review publication patterns for AIeL research with a focus on leading journals, countries, disciplines, and applications. In addition, a co-citation network analysis was conducted to explore the invisible relationships among the core papers of AIeL to reveal directions for future research. The analysis is based on a total of 86 core AIeL papers accompanied by 1149 citations in follow-up studies obtained from the Web of Science. It was found that a majority of AIeL studies focused on the development and applications of intelligent tutoring systems, followed by using AI to facilitate assessment and evaluation in e-learning contexts. For field researchers, the visualized network diagram serves as a map to explore the invisible relationships among the core AIeL research, providing a structural understanding of AI-supported research in e-learning contexts. A further investigation of the follow-up studies behind the highly co-cited links revealed the extended research directions from the AIeL mainstreams, such as adaptive learning-based evaluation environments. Implications are discussed.

This study aims to identify the bibliometric outcomes of articles and research trends in specific areas. This study revealed research on the use of e-books for EFL education published in selected journals of the Web of Science from 2011 to 2020, and discusses the trends of the top-cited countries, journals, the most used keywords, and the popular subjects, learning strategies, target skills, and the research outcomes. A total of 53 selected articles were manually and systematically analyzed. The results revealed that the most productive country was Taiwan, and the most cited journal was Computers & Education. The most used keywords were "engagement." The bibliometric analysis can be reflected in the content analysis as preschoolers and elementary school students were the most common participants, guided learning were the most frequently used strategy, and the main target skill was reading. This review study provides an overview of the research agenda for the last 10 years, and highlights the trends in the field by analyzing relevant past research. When the use of e-books in EFL education studies was examined, reading comprehension, teaching/learning strategies, and learning engagement were found to be crucial in the studies. Therefore, there is a need to develop more useful features of e-books to support EFL teaching practices. It is therefore suggested that future research focus more on pedagogical aspects and e-book feature development.

Speaking is a challenge for most English learners owing to the lack of practicing environments and partners. The virtual reality (VR) technology has changed this situation by providing learners with rich opportunities for practice. In VR-based practicing environments, peer tutoring is a common strategy for promoting peer assistance. However, in conventional VR-based learning, students may merely follow the guidelines and content provided by the teacher without thinking about the meaning and reasons for the practice in the situated contexts, which generally leads to poor learning outcomes. To solve this problem, a progressive question prompt-based peer-tutoring approach in VR contexts (PQP-PTVR) is proposed to assist students' English-speaking development. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The experimental group used the proposed approach, while the control group learned with the conventional question prompt-based peer-tutoring approach in VR contexts (C-PTVR). The results showed that the experimental group achieved significantly greater improvement in speaking and self-efficacy than the control group. Concerning the participants' learning behaviors, the experimental group had more interactions and made more attempts to improve their speaking. This study contributes to the existing literature by proposing the PQP-PTVR approach to enhancing learners' speaking development, improving their interactions and self-efficacy.

Pottery making in technology education aims to foster students' practical and creative ability. In a typical pottery making class, students receive the teacher's instruction on the fundamental techniques used in pottery making and have opportunities to practice. It is meaningful to construct an observation-doing-reflection process for students in a pottery making class to promote their learning experience and performance. Therefore, in this study, a Virtual Reality (VR)-based pottery making approach was applied to technology education in a junior high school to examine its effects on students' creativity and learning engagement. A total of 97 seventh graders from three classes participated in pottery making in class. One class of 34 students was assigned to be the experimental group learning with the VR-based approach, while the other two classes were assigned to be the control groups, with 30 students learning with the paper-and-pencil approach and 33 students with the clay-based approach. The results showed that the students learning with the VR-based approach were not only more creative in terms of their products, but also had higher cognitive engagement than those in the control groups. Moreover, the VR-based approach improved the students' behavioral, emotional and social engagement compared to the paper-and-pencil approach.

Training nursing students to make correct decisions when facing various nursing cases is an important and challenging objective. In the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) program for nursing students, the educational aim is not only nursing skills, but also critical thinking for making correct decisions and treatments. In this study, a contextual game-based flipped learning approach (GBFL) is implemented to improve nursing students' learning performances and promoting their positive perceptions in an intravenous injection course. Moreover, a quasi-experiment was implemented to assess the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The subjects were 56 students from two classes of a nursing school. One class was assigned to the experimental group learning with the GBFL approach, while the other class was the control group learning with conventional flipped learning. From the experimental results, it was found that the students learning with the proposed approach showed better intravenous injection comprehension as well as higher learning achievement, learning motivation, learning attitudes, flow experience and critical thinking tendency than those learning with conventional flipped learning.

This study explores the trends of chatbots in education studies by conducting a literature review to analyze relevant papers published in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) journals by searching the Web of Science (WoS) database. From the analysis results, it was found that the United States, Taiwan and Hong Kong are the top three contributing countries or regions. In addition, most studies adopted quantitative methods in their research design, such as ANOVA (Analysis of variance), descriptive statistics, t test, and correlation analysis. ANCOVA (Analysis of covariance) was the most frequently adopted approach for comparing the performances or perceptions of different groups of students. From the analysis results, the greatest proportion of studies adopted guided learning, followed by no learning activities. It was determined that the studies related to chatbots in education are still in an early stage since there are few empirical studies investigating the use of effective learning designs or learning strategies with chatbots. This implies much room for conducting relevant research to drive innovative teaching in terms of improving the learning process and learning outcomes. Finally, we highlight the research gaps and suggest several directions for future research based on the findings in the present study.

With reference to the Technology-based Learning model for flipped classrooms, a literature review on Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) papers published in the Web of Science (WOS) database was conducted, with the application of flipped learning in science education as the research topic. The study analyzed the existing research on author nationalities, application domains, research methods, participants, learning strategies, and research issues. Based on the analysis data, starting from 2015, there have been a large number of flipped classroom studies in science education. The studies were mainly from the United States; the application domains were mostly chemistry, physics, biology, and natural science and ecology. Over half of the studies adopted quantitative methods, and participants were mainly college students. In the before-class stage, the flipped classroom studies in science education mainly adopted instructional videos as the learning materials and used online learning systems as the medium for materials and online discussion. In the in-class stage, the major learning strategy was problem-based learning, while over half of the studies did not employ educational technology. In the after-class stage, most studies administered examinations to explore the learning outcomes. Accordingly, Potential research issues are proposed as a reference for future studies.

This review study investigates the appropriation of sensing technology in context-aware ubiquitous learning (CAUL) in the fields of sciences, engineering, and humanities. 40 empirical studies with concrete learning outcomes across mandatory and higher education have been systematically reviewed and thematically analyzed with an outcomes-based teaching and learning approach. Four derived themes have been found to describe the design and implementation of CAUL, including learner-centeredness, technological facilitation, learning ecology, and research evaluation. The learning processes enabled by context-aware sensing technology have been explicated, revealing specific ways to apply new technologies in formal and informal environments. The analysis based on intended learning outcomes suggest that more efforts should be directed to fostering competence in analyzing and creating in mandatory education, and to creating in tertiary settings. Finally, unequal distribution of CAUL implementation across world regions calls for more technological appropriation in Southeast Asia and Africa. Specific suggestions on how to improve CAUL are also provided to better prepare learners in the twenty-first century.

Based on the Technology-Based Learning Model, the present study reviewed open online language learning research published in the Scopus database from 2009 to 2018, with a focus on research design, sample size, learning devices, target languages, language skills, the learners' education level, the learners' language proficiency level, learning methods, and the foci of investigation. In terms of research design, quantitative empirical studies accounted for the most, followed by mixed method studies. As for the target languages, English was investigated the most, with few studies focused on other languages. In terms of language skills, the number of studies related to vocabulary and speaking was less than those concerning reading and writing. With regard to learning methods, self-directed learning, blended learning, and peer review were the most commonly adopted. There was little research on collaborative learning, flipped classrooms, adaptive learning, or thematic-oriented learning. As for the foci of investigation, motivation, interest, and satisfaction were the focus of the majority of the studies. On the other hand, little research was found to examine self-efficacy or confidence. A discussion based on the analytic results is presented along with proposed suggestions for future research directions.

The present study investigates the effect of online learning vs. blended learning (BL) in developing English language skills by nursing student. The participants of the study included sixty students of Asadabad Nursing Faculty. They were randomly divided into three groups. The control group received general English instruction through the communicative approach and did exercises based on the tasks for developing general English skills. The online group received general English instruction through LMS instructional model. The BL experimental group received general English instruction through blended learning instructional model. Students then took a posttest of standard general English (TOFEL). The results showed that the blended learning group performed better than the other groups in developing general English skills. These results have pedagogical implications for curriculum designers, developers of training programs for future nurses, material producers, and all who are involved in nursing education.

English speaking is a challenging learning objective for EFL (English as Foreign Language) learners owing to the lack of practicing environments. In this study, Interactive Spherical Video-based Virtual Reality (ISVVR) was adopted as the learning mode to provide realistic sociocultural contexts for English speaking. In addition, an experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of the SVVR approach on the English speaking performances and anxiety of the EFL students with different cognitive styles. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was conducted to investigate the effects of the interaction between cognitive style and multimedia learning mode on students' learning motivation, speaking anxiety, oral presentation, and move analysis. The student sample consisted of two classes of 93 students. All of the students took the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) to identify whether their cognitive style was field dependent or independent. The results showed a significant effect for the interaction between the cognitive styles and the learning modes on the students' oral presentation and speaking anxiety. Their structural moves in oral presentations with the ISVVR learning mode showed more similar spoken genre patterns to those of TED speakers. Findings further support the benefit of incorporating cognitive styles into the ISVVR learning mode for EFL learners.

Despite seamless vocabulary learning studies having been implemented for about 10 years, little is known about what seamless vocabulary learning studies are, how they were conducted, what the learning outcomes were, or the issues and trends of seamless vocabulary learning. This literature review aimed at addressing these questions. Adopting Webster and Watson's (2002. Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: Writing a literature review. MIS Quarterly, xiii-xxiii) method of keyword searching and examination of refereed journals, 26 eligible articles were selected and analyzed under the framework of analyzing seamless vocabulary learning studies. The research findings show that the majority of reviewed studies focused more on the seamless features of "ubiquity and continuity" of artifact creation, situated and personalized learning, less on instructional designs on the features of "knowledge synthesis, activities that that apply multiple language skills in different combinations, and co-construction of linguistic knowledge" premised on vocabulary learning theories. In addition, more studies focused on vocabulary learning performance and perceptions of learners' learning experience in a short term in primary or higher education for prescribed learning tasks. Future research is encouraged to focus on innovative seamless vocabulary instructional designs premised on sound theoretical underpinnings to improve underexplored seamless features from varied perspectives in a longitudinal study, especially at a secondary level.

Highly cited articles have been revealed as being informative for research fields, topics, and trends. Through reading highly cited articles, researchers can gain fruitful results from previous studies and can identify essential clues and potential future research directions for their own research. Aiming at exploring the possibility of the application of and innovations in flipped learning, this study reviewed 100 highly cited articles related to flipped learning. By performing a literature review of the highly cited studies on flipped learning, we have discovered the proposed new learning strategies and flipped learning applied to the research topics that seldom draw attention, and the research fields that are less-frequently examined, including those research issues that are rarely discussed. We have also noticed that many studies have focused on comparing different flipped learning modes and identifying more effective flipped learning approaches. Only a minority of studies have compared the influences of flipped learning and traditional learning. Moreover, we found that researchers have tended to focus more on students' learning achievements and learning behaviors. Lastly, based on the reviews of the past flipped learning articles, this study provides suggestions from different perspectives. We hope to provide a reference for researchers and teachers to conduct flipped learning studies and design flipped learning activities in the future.

Flipped learning has received significant emphasis in recent years. Through this approach, students' self-learning ability can be cultivated and the time for in-class practice and teachers' and students' interaction are increased. In the past, there has been much research confirming its benefits in learning performance. Meanwhile, some studies have also pointed out that with proper educational strategies, students can be guided to have better learning engagement and higher-order thinking, which could improve their learning performance. In this study, a WSQ (Watch-Summary-Question)-based flipped learning approach was implemented in a dance course. Moreover, an experiment was conducted to investigate the impacts of the proposed approach. The participants were 173 college students from 2 classes, which were assigned to learn with the WSQ-based flipped learning approach and the conventional flipped learning approach, respectively. From the 12-week experiment, it was found that the WSQ-based flipped learning approach effectively promoted the students' dance performance and guided them to make more reflections. Furthermore, the proposed approach also engaged the students in making more efforts to think and to perfect their dance techniques.

The Analects of Confucius has been identified as an important and influential philosophy around the globe. However, in traditional instruction, it is difficult to express the spirit of this philosophy. Therefore, many students consider it as a big challenge to study the Analects of Confucius. To cope with this problem, in this study, an interactive e-book system has been developed based on the contextual learning model to interpret the Analects of Confucius in an interactive way. A quasi-experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. The participants were 38 fifth graders from 2 classes in an elementary school located in northern Taiwan, who were divided into an experimental and a control group. The experimental group used an interactive e-book learning mode to learn the Analects of Confucius course while the control group used a conventional technology enhanced teaching mode. The results showed that adopting the interactive e-book teaching mode to study the Analects of Confucius in the elementary school course can promote students' learning achievement and motive. It was also found that the interactive e-book learning mode can trigger learners' deep motive, and hence promote their learning achievement.

The present study reviewed the papers in the Scopus database relevant to flipped classrooms in all mathematics subject areas published up until 2018 from various dimensions. It was found that there has been a considerable number of studies on flipped classrooms in mathematics education in these years. The majority were conducted in university courses, such as applied mathematics, discrete mathematics/algebra, and analysis. Most of the researchers adopted quantitative methods. In the before-class stage of the mathematics flipped classroom, a number of studies employed online learning systems or social media to provide instructional videos and to carry out online discussion. As for the in-class stage, the most frequently adopted learning strategies were issue discussion, exercise, and problem-based learning, while only a few studies used technologies in this stage. The majority of studies investigated students' learning achievement, motivation, satisfaction, and collaboration and communication awareness. Most studies administered examinations to evaluate the students' learning achievement. It is worth noting that little or no research was found to explore students' cognitive load. Accordingly, several suggestions for applying flipped classrooms to mathematics education as well as potential issues for future research are proposed in this study.

This study reviewed the published papers on the flipped classroom in nursing education from 2010 to 2017, and tabulated the collected data from various aspects: "before-class stage/ in-class stage/ after-class stage learning strategies," "application domains," "research issues," "participants," "research methods," and "nationalities" based on a theoretical framework. It was found that basic level of flipped classroom mode was frequently used in nurse education; that is, guiding students to watch instructional videos before class, and conducted discussion or practicing in the class. On the other hand, several effective strategies, such as Mindtools and game-based learning, were seldom adopted; in addition, several important educational issues, such as learning behavior, were not investigated in flipped nursing education research. It was also found that most of the studies did not design after-class activities to engage students in organizing and applying what they had learned from multiple units in a project-based task. Accordingly, several suggestions for future studies are proposed.

In this study, a synthesis review of the studies published in Elsevier's Scopus database from 1985 to 2017 was conducted to analyze the technology-based learning of newly graduated nurses, including the software and technologies adopted, course content, teaching strategies, research issues, care units, and so on. From the review results, it was found that the training of basic clinical skills without distinguished course content is mainly emphasized in the technology-based course content for newly graduated nurses. It was also found that situated learning and guided learning account for the majority of clinical teaching strategies in technology-based learning, while several strategies were seldom adopted. This also reflects the fact that most of these studies focus on clinical skills training and knowledge comprehension, while few consider learners' higher order thinking competences. Through understanding the application situation around the globe, this study can serve as guidance for training newly graduated nurses. Apart from enhancing the relevant software and technologies, diverse teaching strategies can be applied in different course content and in the discussion of issues, which would be conducive to developing relevant issues in the future.

This research reviews 56 robots in science education (RSE) research articles published in SSCI (Social Sciences Citation Index) journals in the Web of Science (WoS) database. The analysis results showed that there were three clusters of RSE studies: robots in elementary science education, robot-based STEM activities, and robot-facilitated computational thinking. In terms of the research issues, more studies were conducted across-disciplines. Regarding thematic classifications, "general benefits of educational robots" was the most frequently investigated issue, while "diversity and broadening participation," and "creativity and motivation" were less frequently discussed. The most adopted research methods were quantitative and mixed methods, focusing on measuring learners' cognition and affect. Most of the interventions in the empirical studies adopted pedagogical interventions. In terms of the interaction issue, LEGO was adopted the most, followed by self-made robots; moreover, robots frequently played the role of tools in science education. From the perspective of specific robotics content knowledge, "control" (e.g. programming) comprised the majority. The most adopted learning strategy was project-based learning, followed by issue-based discussion. Regarding assessment issues, the most adopted evaluation approaches to evaluating students' performance were questionnaires, observation, verbal interviews, and artifacts to assess the quality of learning activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In science education, chemistry is a discipline that involves macroscopic matter and microscopic particles. It is difficult for the traditional teaching approach to help learners comprehend abstract chemical knowledge. Researchers have attempted to use Virtual Reality (VR) to help learners realize meaningful knowledge via visualizing the learning content. However, merely engaging students in experiencing the scientific contexts is not enough. To fill this gap, the present study adopted Spherical Video-based Virtual Reality (SVVR) to create authentic learning contexts for learners, and proposed an exploration-based SVVR approach which aimed to promote students' understanding of abstract concepts and improve their competence of completing chemistry experiments. A quasi-experimental design was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. A total of 136 junior high school students from three classes were recruited for the experiment. The experimental group adopted the exploration-based SVVR approach, control group I adopted the conventional SVVR approach, and control group II adopted traditional instruction. The results showed that the exploration-based SVVR approach not only improved students' learning achievement, but also increased their learning motivation, learning attitude, and creative thinking tendency. Besides, students adopting this approach had more positive behaviors, including finding problems, making assumptions, investigating and verifying, and discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to incorporate a group leadership promotion approach into collaborative learning tasks in the hope of developing students' creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, we recruited 59 cross-professional students from a university in northern Taiwan, and divided them into an experimental group (6 sub-groups) and a control group (6 sub-groups). The experimental group students learned with the group leadership promotion approach, while the control group learned with conventional blended learning approach. The results show that the students could better develop their creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking, and learning achievement via the group leadership promotion approach. Lastly, sequential analysis of their behaviors indicated that students' interaction with group leadership in online collaborative learning can promote many more creative ideas and comments, enhance reaching a consensus and making conclusions, and finally, facilitate completion of the group learning tasks.

Extensive studies have been conducted to diagnose and predict students' academic performance by analyzing a large amount of data related to their learning behaviors in a blended learning environment. But there is a lack of research examining how individualized learning interventions could improve students' academic performance in such a learning context. In this study, a quasi-experiment was designed to investigate the effect of an individualized intervention approach on students' course performance and learning behaviors in a blended course. Forty-nine Chinese tertiary students undertaking the course were randomly assigned into two groups -- the experimental and control groups. During the course, the experimental group received individualized interventions, while the control group received undifferentiated interventions. The data about these participants' learning behaviors were collected over 15 weeks. The results indicated that, compared with the control group, the experimental group showed significantly better academic performance, a higher level of learning motivation, attitude and self-efficacy, more active learning behaviors, and fewer passive learning behaviors. The control group revealed similar online learning time, but significantly more resource utilization and forum access. It is concluded that personalized learning intervention can effectively improve students' learning behaviors, attitude, motivation, self-efficacy, and academic performance in a blended learning environment.

This research was conducted to determine the effectiveness of blended learning on academic achievements, motivation and learner autonomy. The scope of this research is the teaching of English through short stories. A quasi-experimental study was conducted among 116 upper secondary students and two different teaching pedagogies were utilised; a blended learning classroom for the experimental groups, and meanwhile conventional learning classroom for the control groups. The data for students' academic achievement were collected from a post-test questionnaire, whereas data for motivation and learner autonomy were collected through sets of questionnaires adapted from the previous literature. The differences between the two groups were then analysed using the independent t-test. The findings revealed that there was no significant difference in their academic achievements however, there were positive effects on both learner autonomy and students' motivation constructs in the blended learning compared to the conventional learning. The implication of this study is that blended learning is suitable to be implemented in secondary school English classes as long as there are sufficient monetary, equipment and technical supports.

Based on the Technology-based Learning model, the present study reviews the published papers on mobile technologies in Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism (HLST) education in the Scopus database from 2002 to 2017. Various dimensions, including application domains, research issues, research sample groups, research methods, adopted technologies, and learning strategies are taken into account. It was found that, since 2010, the research issues of mobile technology-supported HLST education have become increasingly diverse. Most of the studies investigated learners' affect issues, while there was also a focus on learners' attitudes, motivation and learning experiences. Moreover, wireless Internet locating (e.g. Bluetooth or Zigbee) was adopted more frequently in mobile technology-supported HLST education, while sensing technologies were seldom adopted. As for mobile devices, with the development of technologies, smart phones and tablet computers became the main devices. In addition, such extensively adopted mobile learning strategies as synchronous sharing, issue-based discussion, computers as mindtools, and game-based learning were not adopted in the studies, indicating that most previous studies focused more on learners' learning perceptions, knowledge delivery and skills training, while less effort has been made to cultivate learners' higher order thinking, such as problem solving, critical thinking and collaborative competences. Accordingly, potential research issues and practitioner notes of mobile technology-supported HLST education are proposed as a reference for researchers, teachers and decision-makers.

The present study aims to investigate the trends of mobile learning in physical education by reviewing the journal publications from the Scopus database. Several dimensions, including application domains, adopted mobile devices, research methods, research subjects, adopted teaching strategies, research issues, and learning locations are taken into account. The results show that the number of mobile learning papers in physical education has increased year after year, and that the integration of new mobile technologies into physical education activities is becoming much more common. The adoption of mobile devices in physical education and professional training, especially for the development of smartphones and wearable devices, facilitates the abundance of physical education and the growth of social physical education; however, the overall usage of such high-tech devices as wearable technologies is still limited. Most attention has been paid to communities on university campuses, but more focus should be placed on junior and senior high school and elementary school students. Currently, the types of sports involved in mobile learning are comparatively few; most focus on dynamic physical education. The application of mainstream teaching strategies of mobile learning in physical education is also limited. Accordingly, several research issues for mobile technologies in physical education are recommended.

This study reviewed the mobile technology-assisted language learning studies published from 2007 to 2016 in selected journals. Several critical issues were investigated, such as research methods, research issues, language and learner types, and learning outcomes. It was found that English as a foreign/second language was the most common target language; few studies have been conducted on native language learning. Early studies mainly focused on fostering learners' individual language skills, while in the recent 5 years, researchers started to consider the issue of delivering multiple language skills in authentic learning environments. In addition, an increasing number of studies have involved mixed methods and longer treatment periods. Moreover, the effectiveness of mobile learning in terms of speaking, writing, vocabulary, and pronunciation was generally identified by most of the studies. On the other hand, more evidence is needed to further confirm its impacts on listening, reading, grammar, and integrated/whole language learning. Finally, some suggestions are provided to researchers or practitioners to facilitate their future work.

During early childhood, children start developing their cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioural skills, laying the foundation for life-long learning. Cognitive skills are usually taught in traditional classrooms through the use of textbooks and worksheets. The learning content in these textbooks and worksheets is static pre-authored content that is repeatedly used for teaching and learning. This repetition jeopardises the child's learning of individualised and cognitive skills. Preschool cognitive skills learning content comprises facts of everyday life. Similarly, the Semantic Web attempts to model these facts through ontologies. From this, a relationship appears between preschool cognitive skills learning content and the ontologies. The present work focuses on the stated problem and presents the theoretical and development details of a child-friendly tutoring application that dynamically generates cognitive skills learning content using ontologies as domain knowledge. The proposed application was evaluated in a preschool environment for its learning effectiveness and the correctness of the generated content. Three groups of preschool children participated in the study for preschool cognitive skills learning through the use of the proposed application. The first group learned the cognitive skills through the traditional method with textbooks and the teacher's teaching. The second group learned the skills through the proposed application at school in classroom sessions. The third group experienced the proposed application both at school and at home, along with regular classroom sessions. The results show significant gains by the third group over the other two groups, and hence support the use of the proposed application in practice. However, the enhanced learning by the third group disappears if the additional application usage time is removed. Moreover, the results of the expert evaluation show that a great deal of the learning content was correctly generated, thus justifying the true modelling of the domain ontology.

Owing to the popularity of tablet computers and smart phones, e-books have become an important medium for both formal and informal learning. However, conventional e-books are mainly designed to provide information in the form of multimedia, implying that students spend most of their time memorizing and comprehending what they read from e-books, while seldom engaging in higher order thinking. In this study, a problem-posing framework is proposed for developing an interactive e-book for guiding students to observe and pose questions. An experiment on an elementary school natural science course was conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The participants were 46 fourth-grade students. From the experimental results, it was found that the problem-posing-guiding interactive e-book can significantly improve the students' learning achievements, critical thinking tendency, and deep motive. It was also found that the proposed approach did not increase the students' cognitive load owing to the provision of proper supports during the problem-posing process, which has generally been identified as a challenging task.

Medical education is a domain with fast-changing knowledge and attention to knowledge application and higher order thinking; therefore, how to implement effective teaching is a crucial issue. Based on the technology-based learning model, this study provides a multi-dimensional analysis of published papers on the flipped classroom in medical education from the SCOPUS database, including the form of the learning materials, learning system or player, learning strategies, educational technology, application domains, research issues, participants, and research methods. Based on the results, the application of flipped classrooms in medical education has grown rapidly over the past decade, with the number growing dramatically from 7 papers in 2014, to 16 papers in 2015, and 22 papers in 2016. It was found that a great number of studies adopted instructional videos uploaded on online learning systems or used existing online videos to conduct before-class teaching in the before-class stage of the flipped classroom; moreover, most studies involved no online discussion in the before-class stage. As for learning strategies in the in-class stage, the most frequently adopted strategies were issue discussion, practicing or doing exercises, and problem-based learning. This implies that most studies mainly emphasized basic knowledge understanding and skills training, while little attention was paid to developing learners' higher order thinking skills. In addition, the majority of studies explored students' learning interest/satisfaction, learning experience, and performance on the cognitive aspect, while little research was found to investigate their preparation degree or cognitive loading. Based on the review results, this study provides the research trends and potential research issues of flipped medical education to serve as a reference for researchers, instructors, and decision makers.

In a conventional art course, it is important for a teacher to provide feedback and guidance to individual students based on their learning status. However, it is challenging for teachers to provide immediate feedback to students without any aid. The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has provided a possible solution to cope with this problem. In this study, a deep learning-based art learning system (DL-ALS) was developed by employing a fine-tuned ResNet50 model for helping students identify and classify artworks. We aimed at cultivating students' accurate appreciation knowledge and artwork creation competence, as well as providing instant feedback and personalized guidance with the help of AI technology. To explore the effects of this system, a quasi-experiment was implemented in an artwork appreciation course at a university. A total of 46 university students from two classes who took the elective art course were recruited in the study. One class was the experimental group adopting DL-ALS learning, while the other was the control group adopting conventional technology-supported art learning (CT-AL). The results showed that in comparison with CT-AL, learning through the DL-ALS could facilitate students' learning achievement, technology acceptance, learning attitude, learning motivation, self-efficacy, satisfaction, and performance in the art course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In second language acquisition (SLA), vocabulary learning can be a great challenge for some English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Virtual Reality (VR) technology has unleashed its potential in language education, but insufficient attention has yet been paid to its impact on EFL learners’ vocabulary learning. To bridge this gap, we conducted a quasi-experiment based on a self-developed VR platform, in order to investigate the effects of VR on EFL learners’ vocabulary learning. A total of 68 college students participated in this study and were assigned to either the experimental (VR players) or the comparison (video watchers) group. The results revealed that the VR players significantly outperformed the video watchers in terms of vocabulary learning. The VR environment contextualized vocabulary learning by providing an authentic language learning experience, a strong sense of presence, and instant interaction and feedback, whereas the VR players’ learning motivation still needed to be strengthened. Analysis of semi-structured interviews further demonstrated that most of the students valued the potential of the VR-assisted learning approach, while some of them still held mixed feelings about it. This study provides some suggestions for both language instructors and technical experts in terms of task design, platform optimization, and material development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Play is crucial to children's development. With the prevalent use of digital technologies, children and young adults are seen playing games more often and longer on digital devices. How should teachers capitalize the advantages of games in class, without inducing more health risks or problems for children? To achieve this goal, teachers need empirical details and conclusive results in the application of game-based learning (GBL) in primary education, so that they can design GBL experiences that cater to the specific needs of pupils. The present paper provides a systematic review for 35 experimental studies that substantially integrated gaming elements in primary school lessons. Our major findings include that (1) most studies were published in technology-assisted learning journals, focusing on higher-grade students' natural science learning, through one GBL lesson conducted within one week; (2) theoretical foundations were absent in the majority of studies, with the rest implicitly or explicitly drawing upon Constructivist premises; (3) adopted GBL technologies were mostly self-designed, and used for formal learning; (4) Gamification was the most frequently used game genre and Intellectual Problem-Solving was the top gaming element to be incorporated and (5) there were more positive outcomes than mixed findings and more cognitive results reported than affective or behavioral dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In traditional teacher-centered mathematics instruction, students might show low learning motivation owing to the lack of applied contexts. Game-based learning has been recognized as a potential approach to addressing this issue; however, without proper alignment between the gaming and math-applied contexts, the benefits of game-based learning could be limited. Therefore, this study aims to develop a microworld-based educational game, which provides simulated contexts encouraging students to explore, discover, and solve practical problems using the mathematics knowledge gained in the class. A quasi-experimental design was implemented in the learning activity of the "Speedy World" unit in an elementary school mathematics course to examine the effectiveness of the proposed approach. A total of 107 sixth graders participated in the experiment. The experimental results showed that the students who learned with the microworld-based gaming approach had better learning achievement and motivation in the mathematics course than those who learned with the conventional technology-enhanced learning approach. In addition, the students also showed that they highly accepted the microworld-based game for learning mathematics. The findings of this study provide good evidence for the importance and necessity of associating authentic applied contexts with gaming contexts in developing computer educational games for mathematics.