Search

The growing interest in applying gamified designs in higher education is challenged by mixed results in terms of student acceptance. Different players are attracted to games for different reasons and game design elements, and a better understanding of how each learner will connect to different game mechanics provides valuable input for game design and evaluation. In this paper, we present and validate a scale to measure the affinity of each player with different game elements. First, a theoretical review was carried out on three profile classifications and six motivational theoretical models, proposing a taxonomy for twelve player profiles based on three axes: relational, competence and motivational. Then, a pilot test was carried out with 54 subjects, analysing content and comprehension validity through the judgment of six experts and construct validity through an exploratory factorial analysis. Subsequently, with a sample of 1010 subjects, a confirmatory factor analysis was performed. The scale was made up of 30 items, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.822; three main components were obtained: dominators, interactors and trackers. The results show the validity of the scale, with high levels of confidence. It provides an understanding of the player's profile in a playful context, their motivational orientation and their affinity with the specific game design. This can be used to improve the design of gamified experiences in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

but with greater attention to students’ computer literacy than teachers. At the same time, previous studies on digital literacy of teachers are unsustainable and mainly skewed on pre-service teachers than in-service teachers. These realities point to the need to investigate and implement effective and sustainable initiatives for improving digital literacy and online life-long learning for in-service teachers in Africa. This paper therefore presents a specialised MOOC platform known as TEP (Teachers’ E-learning Portal) for digital literacy and online life-long learning for in-service teachers in Uganda. TEP is built for environments with inadequate access to computers, internet and technical assistance. As such, TEP is accessible online or offline, managed by accredited local universities in collaboration with beneficiary secondary schools, and runs on existing resources in schools (technical personnel, computers and internet). Results from initial implementation of a computer literacy MOOC through TEP indicate that irrespective of age, when teachers are adequately supported internally by their schools and externally by a university, can improve their digital literacy and subsequently engage in online life-long learning. In addition, the results both in terms of high percentage of teacher participants’ completions (89%) and high volume of educational e-content generated, confirm TEP as an effective, attractive, and self-sustainable MOOC platform for in-service teachers’ in resource constraint environments. The paper finishes with an analysis of the relevance of TEP to Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have undoubtedly changed our world and the ways we live in it. Nowadays, we are more and better informed as well as having multiple channels for making immediate contact with others. However, this ability to be informed and communicate means there are constant demands on our attention to the extent it becomes distracted or overloaded. By using a document analysis methodology based on critical analysis of texts, this paper aims to provide pedagogical solutions for a capacity for attention at risk of being overwhelmed. To do so, we first describe the current context of interconnection, showing the extent to which it has some advantages, but also drawbacks that point directly at the concept of attention. Secondly, we analyse this concept from a pedagogical perspective. This, on the one hand, leads to psychology and, on the other hand, to philosophy. We show that pedagogy has focused only on the psychological perspective event though the philosophical standpoint is equally vital for education. Finally, we come to the need for a pedagogy of attention for the twenty-first century that reclaims the philosophical conception, which should have never been forgotten. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the start of the PISA evaluations there have been numerous studies that have metaphorically tried «to separate the gold from the sand», in other words, to derive useful knowledge to guide educational practice and policy from the vast amount of data collected. However, research that uses data mining techniques to extract knowledge from the databases provided by the OECD has been less common. This paper analyses the context questionnaires from a metric perspective using a methodology based on data mining with «regression trees». Its main goal is to discover how much value (how much «gold») is in the items that compose these questionnaires, considering their use as predictors of the performance of Spanish students. The results provide a list of the items selected in the six questionnaires and their predictive value. It also provides a methodological approach to help improve the productivity of educational research derived from PISA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we intend to identify a professional speciality of Pedagogy that responds to a socio-labour demand, which is based on a little known research tradition, but well-founded. However, this field of interest has not an explicit implementation in the current university study plans. With this aim, we try to find out, through a descriptive-exploratory analysis, the origins of Labour Pedagogy. We also want to know how we can conceptualize Labour Pedagogy, why we consider it so important discipline, both from an academic and a professional perspective, where it is possible to fit it inside the current study plans of pedagogy, mainly in Spain, but also in the European countries close to us, and how we can guide our students academically so that they can develop a professional career inside this area. After the analysis, we have discovered the need to make Labour Pedagogy visible by increasing subjects in the curricula and research in this line, as well as more national and international meetings which may favour the exchange of experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the presence of the character teacher or professor, carrier of pedagogical ideas, in the Spanish novel of the period between realism and the avant-garde. From the review of sixty-six novels and fifteen stories, it inquires about educational concepts and subgenres. The examination of the character leads to the separation of four narrative modes: schoolteachers (male and female) in the realistic novel, the philosopher-educator in the lyric novel, the teacher-cleric in the religious boarding school subject to the scheme of anti-Bildungsroman, and University Professor, with subsidiary role, in novels of universitary life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a historical study of the culturalist contributions of Wilhelm Flitner specific processes for the epistemologization of contemporary pedagogy. From a literature review of the author, content analysis and comparison with literature on the subject, we conclude that Flitner proposed rework the epistemological body of pedagogy, following the neo-Kantian, own rationalist tradition of the first half of the century XX. Education is a spiritual activity and pedagogy is a pragmatic human science, whose object is the hermeneutic understanding of education in its historical and cultural context. Flitner ended up confusing the fields of Theory of Education with the Philosophy of Education. Both fields, but equally legitimate, are different. The Philosophy of Education should not replace theoretical studies on education, which correspond to the Theory of Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author describes the identity of the pedagogy of alterity, based on Levinas's ethics and anthropology. For the author, the pedagogy of alterity is indebted to a circumstance, because there are no education outside time and space, is a response to a singular and particular subject, is reception to the other and resistence to evil, is memory of what our elders have been built, and testimony, more than instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research over the past three decades consistently shows poor outcomes in education and employment for young people leaving care in England. Evidence indicates lower levels of education attainment and post-16 participation for young people in and leaving care in comparison to other young people and suggests a lasting impact, with care experienced adults at greater risk of social exclusion, being overrepresented in marginalised groups such as the long-term unemployed, homeless and prison populations and adults with mental health difficulties. This paper draws on recent research carried out with young people leaving care to explore the challenges they face in finding and sustaining participation in education, employment and training. It shows that support from formal and informal sources to address the practical, emotional and financial challenges is crucial to successful journeys and that young people's own motivation and self-belief are significant factors in increasing and sustaining participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Didactics of Spanish Language and Literature (DLL) in the Master's Degree in Secondary School Teaching is poor due mainly to the lack of preparation of the university teachers in didactics. Often teachers repeat the contents of degree and themes overlap between subjects because of its diffuse boundaries and lack of coordination. The fundamental purpose of this paper is based on an organization of teaching subjects for language and literature contents, necessarily linked to a research specialization of teachers in teaching in Secondary School. Similarly, methodological changes to obtain better results with less effort are needed. A rethinking of the practicum as IP in DLL for students is necessary. The TFM should be didactic research works relating the knowledge acquired in class with experimentation during the practicum. No doubt that the qualification of university teachers and secondary school tutors greatly improve the master's productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this article is to offer a critical reflection on the need of rethinking the teachers' professional skills and their academic pathway, given the changes and current transformations (crisis, in its etymological sense). In fact, a series of changes, transformations, are identified and affect directly the educator's comprehension. Amongst others: the transformation of work bound up with the processes of the economic globalization, and the transformation of the learning environments imbued by the TICs; the population growth, a demographic transformation with geopolitics relevance, and finally, as a result from the previous ones, the raise in the migratory flows. Under this context, this paper tries to reconceptualize teachers' training and their depiction as professionals from the view of Gustav Mahler in his statement Tradition is the spreading o f fire and not the veneration of ashes. Thereupon, some categories that help in the teaching update, are proposed and explained; such as authority (as reputation or moral authority, role model and, hence, less so as bare exercise of power), the personalization of education, the importance of home community (society), and, lastly, the alternation within school-society and work-study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a review of published empirical studies over the last 20 years on consultation in the context of the Spanish education system, its principal results and methodological limitations. A predominance is noted of investigations whose objective is not so much to explain efficacy, but rather to describe and understand consultation activities from the perspective of those conducting them, based on surveys and self-reports of various types. A considerable part of the results of these studies coincide in that they show the perception of importance and special difficulty of teacher consultation. They also show the implicit models and conceptions. Additionally, they highlight a growing interest in case studies which report what consultants think and do, by means of observation techniques and discourse analysis. This line of investigation has permitted the documentation of some of the main difficulties of collaborative consultation, and of strategies used by consultants to overcome them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]