Search

English business writing is an important and challenging course for English as Foreign Language (EFL) students since it is not only related to English writing skills, but also to business knowledge. Context-game based learning seems to be a good approach to situating students in a meaningful and interesting practicing environment, which could improve their learning motivation and interest. However, without interacting with the teacher and peers, the effectiveness of game-based learning could be limited. In this study, a flipped contextual game-based learning approach was proposed to cope with this problem; moreover, a mixed methods research approach was used to analyze the writing performance, writing errors, and reflective content of the students who learned with the proposed approach and those learning with conventional contextual game-based learning. The experimental results revealed that the flipped contextual game-based instruction was able to enhance the students' English writing performance. It was also found that those students with the flipped learning approach had fewer writing errors than those learning with the conventional approach. Moreover, by analyzing the students' reflective content, the benefits and challenges of flipping the classroom are reported. These findings could be valuable references for those who intend to conduct effective flipped contextual game-based learning with learning management systems to motivate students' game-based learning and to improve their language learning performance.

Flipped classrooms have been widely adopted and discussed by school teachers and researchers in the past decade. However, few studies have been conducted to formally evaluate the effectiveness of flipped classrooms in terms of improving EFL students' English oral presentation, not to mention investigating factors affecting their flipped learning outcomes. In this study, an online community-based flipped learning approach was proposed for an EFL oral presentation course; moreover, a learning analytics approach was used to analyze factors affecting the students' oral presentation outcomes. An 18-week research design was implemented with the online community-based flipped classroom using Facebook as the platform for facilitating and recording peer-to-peer interactions during the flipped learning process. In addition, the students' learning performance and perceptions were collected in 3 learning stages during the 18 weeks. The experimental results reveal positive effects of the online community-based flipped instruction over the conventional video-based instruction. That is, first, the online community-based flipped instruction using mobile devices can enhance students' English oral performance. Moreover, it was found that the high improvers had a significantly higher frequency of online participation, as well as more interactive behaviors and greater satisfaction with the flipped classroom than the low improvers. These results imply that the online community flipped classroom could not only provide learning materials and out-of-class learning for students, but could also help them become more responsible and autonomous in their learning and communication. These findings could be valuable references for those who intend to conduct effective flipped classrooms with an online community to facilitate students' before-class learning participation and to improve their in-class learning performance.

Facilitating students' deep-strategy behaviors and positive learning performances of science inquiry is an important and challenging educational issue. In this study, a contextual science inquiry approach is proposed for developing a 3D experiential game to cope with this problem. To evaluate the impacts of the game on students' science learning approaches, learning achievements and problem-solving awareness as well as the learning behavioral patterns of the students with different learning achievements, a quasi-experiment was conducted in an elementary school geoscience course. The participants were two classes of sixth graders. One class was the experimental group who learned with the 3D experiential game, and the other was the control group who learned with the conventional technology-enhanced learning approach. The experimental results showed that the students learning with the 3D experiential gaming system showed better learning achievements, problem-solving tendency, deep learning strategies, and deep learning motive than those who learned with the conventional technology-enhanced learning approach. Moreover, the higher-achievement students showed more behavioral patterns of deep learning strategies than the lower-achievement students. The findings of this study provide a good reference for helping lower-achievement students improve their learning performance.

Researchers have recognized the potential of educational computer games in improving students' learning engagement and outcomes; however, facilitating effective learning behaviors during the gaming process remains an important and challenging issue. In this paper, a collaborative knowledge construction strategy was incorporated into an educational computer game to facilitate students' knowledge sharing and organizing during the game-based learning process. An experiment was conducted to examine the students' learning behavioral patterns, group efficacy, and problem-solving awareness. The experimental results revealed that the proposed approach improved the students' learning achievements and awareness of problem-solving. Moreover, from the analysis of the students' behavior sequences, it was found that, with the collaborative knowledge construction mechanism, the students revealed significantly more aggressive learning behavioral patterns, such as "comparing and observing the learning targets" and "seeking clues and answers" during the gaming process. This implies that integrating the collaborative knowledge construction mechanism into the gaming process has great potential for helping students effectively learn and organize knowledge as well as fostering their awareness of applying the acquired knowledge to dealing with problems.

With the rapid progress of technology, the popularity of tablet computers and the development of e-book applications have brought the use of e-books as a learning tool under the spotlight. In the meantime, the aim of school education lies not only in providing students with knowledge but also in encouraging them to construct knowledge actively. Consequently, in this study, an approach of integrating the guided peerfeedback strategy into e-book design was proposed. An experiment was conducted on an elementary school natural science course to explore its effectiveness in comparison with the conventional e-book development activity. It was expected that the guided peer-feedback approach could engage students in knowledge organizing and in-depth thinking while stimulating more innovative ideas. To assess the impacts of this approach, a quasi-experimental design method was adopted. The students were divided into two groups: the experimental group, in which the students learned with the guided peer-feedback strategy together with the e-book development approach, and the control group, in which the students learned with the conventional ebook development approach. The experimental results indicated that the integrated guided peer-feedback and e-book development strategy had significant impacts on the students' learning achievements and ebook project outcomes while reducing their cognitive load and increasing their innovative thinking tendency in the design process.

Computer programming is a subject that requires problem-solving strategies and involves a great number of programming logic activities which pose challenges for learners. Therefore, providing learning support and guidance is important. Collaborative learning is widely believed to be an effective teaching approach; it can enhance learners' social interaction and offer a learning environment which provides rich learning experiences. However, the social interaction in collaborative learning does not occur automatically. Without proper guidance strategies or supporting tools for collaborative learning, the learning effects can be disappointing. To solve such a problem, a problem posing-based practicing strategy was proposed to support the development of a collaborative learning activity in a computer programming practice course. The students were guided to raise computer programming problems to boost the discussion among team members. The problems raised in each team were then exchanged and solved by another team to examine the coding and to provide feedback. To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an experiment was conducted in a C# programming course. Two classes of students from a university participated in the experiment. One class with 25 students was randomly assigned as the experimental group, and learned with a collaborative learning activity using the problem posing-based practicing strategy; the other class with 28 students was the control group, which learned with a conventional collaborative learning activity. The results show that the proposed strategy benefited the students in terms of improving their learning achievement, in particular, their programming skills. Moreover, it was found that the students who learned with the proposed approach had higher self-efficacy and lower cognitive load than those who learned with the conventional collaborative learning approach.

This study provides research-based evidence to profile: (1) the roles of artificial intelligence in nursing, (2) its research applications, and (3) the research trends for future study. On the basis of the PRISMA statement, a series of AI and nursing education related keywords from the literature were used to retrieve high-quality journal articles from the Web of Science. A total of 112 AI-supported nursing education research articles were analyzed based on a three-dimensional framework, including interaction (e.g. the roles of AI, types of AI systems), research (e.g. methods and fields), and performance (e.g. research groups and measurement foci). The results revealed that AI played a primary role in profiling and prediction in nursing research (63%), and the most used AI system in nursing was intelligent agents (53%). The quantitative approach (87%) was the dominant research method, and the most relevant studies concerned health and medicine (92%). Regarding sample and measurement matters, patients and medical staff (75%) were the two primary research samples, and the performance evaluation of AI-related tools and systems (90%) was the core measurement focus. Additional content analysis across the three research interests was performed and discussed. Directions for future studies are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cultivating staff's professional English has become an imperative and challenging issue in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) countries. English for medical professionals is also the common language around the world for publishing new medical knowledge or reports. Therefore, Medical English for Health Professionals (MEHP) is a crucial required professional training program in nursing education. Its purpose is to improve nursing students' professional English so that they can directly understand the clinical medical information related to patients, thereby reading the latest international medical knowledge and participating in research themselves. Objective: The MEHP program is commonly conducted in a large‐scale class using the lecturing approach, which is a passive learning mode lacking opportunities for individual students to experience learning contexts and to receive advice and guidance from the teacher. To solve this problem, the present study proposed a motivation model‐based professional English gaming approach. Method: To verify the effects of the proposed approach, a quasi‐experiment was conducted in an MEHP program of a university to explore the effects of the approach on nursing students' learning achievements. In addition, the higher and lower achievers' behavioural patterns, as well as their perceptions of the learning approach, were investigated. Results and Conclusions: The results showed that the motivation model‐based digital gaming approach improved the students' professional English achievements in the "application" dimension as well as their positive perceptions of learning professional English more than the conventional learning approach. Moreover, when learning with the proposed approach, the higher achievers revealed more positive behavioural patterns than the lower achievers. The main contributions of the study are the proposal of a motivation model‐based digital gaming approach, and showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach in helping trainees gain a deeper understanding of professional English and facilitating their positive learning behaviours in a course for medical English. Practitioner notes: What is already known about this topic: Scholars have indicated the importance of situating learners in authentic contexts.Digital games can provide learning contexts for English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners.Digital games have potential to motivate EFL learners to actively learn and practice English. What this paper adds: A motivation model‐based digital gaming approach is proposed for professional English learning.A digital game has been implemented for Medical English for Health Professionals (MEHP) based on the proposed approach.An experiment has been conducted to examine the effectiveness of the approach and to analyse learners' behaviours using the proposed approach. Implications for practice and/or policy: The motivation model‐based digital gaming approach has great potential in improving learners' professional achievements.The motivation model‐based digital gaming approach can promote learners' positive behavioural patterns.It is recommended to apply the approach to other professional English courses for EFL learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augmented reality (AR) can represent a contextualised scientific inquiry environment in which students may explore the real world and develop science process skills via interacting with rich information from virtual systems. However, it remains a challenge for most students to complete scientific inquiry tasks without proper support. Research evidence has suggested the potential of reflective scaffolding when applying scientific inquiry. Accordingly, we designed a contextualised reflective mechanism-based AR learning model to assist students in completing scientific inquiry tasks. Guided by the proposed model, we designed four stages of scientific inquiry learning: conceptual understanding, reflective cognition, in-depth inquiry, and knowledge building. A quasi-experiment and lag sequential analysis were conducted by recruiting 81 sixth-grade students to examine the effects of the proposed model on their scientific inquiry learning performances, higher order thinking, and behavioural patterns. The experimental results reveal that the proposed approach improved students' inquiry learning performances and higher order thinking tendency (problem-solving tendency and metacognitive awareness). Moreover, the evidence from this study also suggests that the students who learned with the proposed approach exhibited more observation, comparison, exploration, and reflection behavioural patterns in the field trip than those who learned without the contextualised reflective mechanism. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is attracting increasing attention, but how to improve students' STEM learning achievement is still a big challenge. In the process of learning, students actively set learning goals, organize learning content, set learning standards, and independently adapt learning strategies and monitoring measures in order to achieve their own learning goals and to help them learn STEM knowledge and skills. Concept mapping is considered to be an effective visualized knowledge organizing tool that helps students to manage and organize their knowledge systematically and visually. This study proposes a concept mapping-based self-regulated learning approach. A quasi-experiment was conducted using a concept mapping-based self-regulated learning system in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach. The experimental results show that the proposed approach significantly improved students' STEM skills, but not their STEM knowledge compared to the conventional self-regulated learning approach. The proposed learning approach helped to improve students' self-regulation compared to the conventional self-regulation learning approach. In short, the concept mapping-based self-regulation learning approach enhances students' self-efficacy and self-regulation, which in turn helps students to learn STEM skills effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biology involves the understanding of life concepts and the exploration of life processes. Due to the complexity of life, the learning content of biology is often microscopic, abstract, and complex. In traditional teaching, The non-visualization of abstract concepts, rote memorization of knowledge and low classroom participation tend to make students feel dull and eventually lead to inefficient and low confidence in learning. Augmented reality (AR) superimposes 3D dynamic virtual information into the real world and visualizes abstract concepts to deepen students' understanding of concepts. In addition, AR supports virtual-real interaction and instant feedback, which helps to stimulate learning interest and reinforce the learning effect. Therefore, the application of AR can solve the problems of traditional biology teaching. This study used a quasi-experimental approach to explore the potential of AR in teaching biology. A total of 81 third grade students were recruited for the study. The experimental group (40 students) was taught with AR, while the control group (41 students) was taught with traditional instruction. The study found that AR instruction significantly increased students' flow experiences and motivation to learn and reduced their cognitive load. However, there were no significant differences in self-efficacy and academic performance between the two groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an inquiry-based ubiquitous gaming approach was proposed. The objective of the study was to enhance students' performances in in-field learning activities. To show the advantages of the approach, an experiment was carried out to assess the effects of it on students' learning achievement, motivation, critical thinking, and problem solving. Furthermore, the students' behavioral patterns were investigated via content and sequential analysis methods. The experimental outcomes show that the approach promoted students' performances of learning achievement and intrinsic motivation; moreover, the students' perceptions of their problem solving and critical thinking were significantly promoted as well. The learning behavior analysis further show that the designated approach stimulated the participants to actively engage in field observation, comparison, and data searching in the context ware in-field learning activity.

Context-dependent learning systems are now becoming more common in museums, as most students are equipped with mobile devices. As there has been little research into context-aware mobile applications in museums, the present study aims to investigate ubiquitous language learning in socio-cultural contexts, as well as recent trends in using location-based systems. Therefore, the following three issues are reviewed in related articles published between 2009 and 2014: system usefulness, activity usefulness and activity playfulness in museum learning. The researchers used keywords to search for relevant articles from the ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) Web of Science and other databases. The abstracts and content of the searched articles were then analyzed. The results show that the location-aware features (GPS or Google App-based) embedded in mobile phones, adaptive language learning and socio-cultural interaction in museums are intertwined in the literature. The literature also shows that in recent years students have transformed from being passive receivers to active learners. Specifically, students tended to rely on system guidance in 2009-2011, and activities were more focused on individual learning with less real-life social interaction, and this thus reduced the level of playfulness. An important finding in the literature from 2012 to 14 is that many museums adopted ubiquitous location-based systems using mobile devices, which help to strengthen social ties when students work collaboratively to perform language learning activities. This has also allowed museums to evolve from mobile-learning to ubiquitous-learning environments, in various socio-cultural contexts. The results of this review study have implications for language teachers and museum educators, to help them implement appropriate ubiquitous learning systems in various socio-cultural contexts.

The advancement of computer and communication technologies has enabled students to learn across various real-world contexts with supports from the learning system. In the meantime, researchers have emphasized the necessity of providing personalized learning guidance or support by considering individual students' status and needs in order to improve their learning performance. Based on this perspective, this study proposes a formative assessment-based approach for improving the learning performance of students in a personalized learning environment. An integrated learning diagnosis and formative assessment-based personalized web learning system was developed based on this approach. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an experiment was conducted in an elementary school mathematics course in Thailand. The experimental results showed that (1) the students learning with the proposed system revealed significantly better learning achievement and learning perceptions than those learning with the conventional learning system and (2) students' learning perceptions of the system had significant relationships with their learning achievement.

Researchers have pointed out that interactive e-books have rich content and interactive features which can promote students' learning interest. However, researchers have also indicated the need to integrate effective learning supports or tools to help students organize what they have learned so as to increase their learning performance, in particular, for abstract and complex learning content such as that in law courses. In this study, a concept-mapping-based interactive e-book learning mode was proposed. To understand the learning effects, a quasi-experimental design was used to compare the learning achievement and motivation of the students learning with the proposed approach (experimental group) and those learning with conventional interactive e-books (control group) in a junior high school fundamental law course. Meanwhile, the learning achievement and motivation of the students with different learning styles were also explored. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach significantly improved the students' learning achievement, especially for the active-style students; moreover, it was found that the lead-in of concept mapping did not affect the students' learning motivation. Factors that might affect the students' learning achievement and motivation with the concept-mapping-based interactive e-book approach are discussed accordingly.

It has become an important and challenging issue to foster students' concepts and skills of computer programming. Scholars believe that programming training could promote students' higher order thinking performance; however, many school teachers have reported the difficulty of teaching programming courses. Although several previous studies have attempted to develop friendly user interfaces to ease students' loads, teaching programming courses remains a big challenge for most school teachers. In this study, an online peer assessment-based system was developed to cope with this problem. The students could use the peer-assessment function to provide comments to peers, and review the feedback and scores from peers during the learning activity. A quasi experiment was conducted on four classes of 166 ninth graders of a junior high school located in southern Taiwan to examine the impacts of the developed system. Two classes of students were assigned to the experimental group, learning with an online peer assessment-based teaching strategy, while the other two classes were the control group, learning with the conventional teaching strategy. The experimental results showed that the students in the experimental group had better programming knowledge and skills as well as more positive learning attitudes and critical thinking awareness than those in the control group, revealing the benefits of the proposed approach.

Flipped learning is a well-recognized learning mode that reverses the traditional in-class instruction arrangement by delivering learning content outside of the classroom and engaging students in more activities in class. However, it remains a challenge for students to comprehend the learning material by themselves, particularly when learning abstract concepts such as in mathematics. In this study, an interactive e-book approach is proposed to support flipped learning. It facilitates and bridges out-of-class and in-class learning by providing support for interactive learning contents presented on mobile devices. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a quasi-experiment was conducted in an elementary school math course. The experimental group students learned with the interactive e-book approach in the flipped learning activity, while the control group students learned with the conventional video-based flipped learning approach. The experimental results indicated that the proposed approach not only promoted the students' self-efficacy for learning mathematics, but also improved their learning achievement; moreover, it was found that the approach benefited the lower self-efficacy more than the higher self-efficacy students. The learning record analysis further confirmed that the lower self-efficacy students spent more time reading the e-books before and in class than the higher self-efficacy students did.

Previous research has illustrated the importance of acquiring knowledge from authentic contexts; however, without full engagement, students' learning performance might not be as good as expected. In this study, a Team Competition-based Ubiquitous Gaming approach was proposed for improving students' learning effectiveness in authentic learning activities. An experiment on a natural science course was carried out in an elementary school to evaluate the effects of the approach on students' awareness of collaboration, communication and collective efficacy. Moreover, the students' learning behavioral patterns were explored by analyzing their interactive logs in the discussion forum. The experimental results indicated that, in addition to learning achievements, the proposed approach significantly enhanced the students' collective efficacy as well as their awareness of collaboration and communication; moreover, the students who learned with the proposed approach showed more effective behavioral patterns than those who learned with conventional team-based ubiquitous learning.

Programming concepts are important and challenging to novices who are beginning to study computer programming skills. In addition to the textbook content, students usually learn the concepts of programming from the web; however, it could be difficult for novice learners to effectively derive helpful information from such non-structured open resources. Few studies have addressed this issue by proposing different web issue-quest approaches and investigating the effects of learning with different web resources on students' learning performances in computer programming courses, not to mention the use of statistical methods for analyzing the factors affecting students' learning outcomes. Therefore, in this study, a structured-resource issue-quest approach is proposed to support structured programming learning activities. An issue-quest learning environment was developed, and an experiment was conducted to compare the learning achievement of the students who learned with the proposed approach (experimental group) with that of the students who learned with the conventional open-resource-based issue quest approach (control group). The participants were 418 tenth graders (214 in the experimental group and 204 in the control group) who were 16 years old on average. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to investigate and compare the effects of the Web Issue-Quest approaches (i.e., open resource-based issue quest and structured resource-based issue quest) on the students' learning perceptions based on an extended technology acceptance model (ETAM). The experimental results showed that the structured resource-based issue quest approach benefited the novices more in terms of their learning achievements related to the computer programming concepts. Meanwhile, the SEM analysis showed that the two groups of students had equivalent perceptions of the usefulness, ease-of-use and enjoyment of learning with the two issue quest modes. This implies that the structured resource-based issue quest approach was helpful to the students in terms of improving their learning performance, while the limitation of access to open resources did not affect their learning perceptions.

In this study, a mission synchronization-based peer-assistance approach is proposed to improve students' learning performance in digital game-based learning activities. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an experiment has been conducted in an elementary school natural science course to examine the participants' learning attitudes, collaboration skills, and learning achievements. From the experimental results, it was found that the educational game with the mission synchronization-based peer-assistance mechanism not only benefited the students in terms of promoting their learning achievements and attitudes, but also improved their collaboration skills via encouraging them to actively provide assistance to their peers during the gaming process. Finally, to further investigate the factors that might affect the performance of the mission synchronization-based peer-assistance approach, the students' learning behaviors are summarized and discussed.

Mathematical skills have been recognised as a core competence for engineering and science students. However, learning mathematics has been recognised as a difficult and challenging task for most students, in particular, calculus for first-year students in university. Consequently, the development of effective learning strategies and environments for mathematics courses has become an important issue. To this end, a mathematics learning system based on an instant diagnostic and guiding strategy is proposed to enhance students' calculus learning outcomes. Moreover, an experiment has been conducted in a university calculus course to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed approach not only improved the students' learning performance, but also improved their confidence in learning calculus. Further findings are also discussed.

One of the important and challenging objectives of social studies courses is to promote students' affective domain exhibition, including learning interest, positive attitudes and local culture identity. In this paper, a location-aware mobile learning approach was proposed based on a competition strategy for conducting local cultural activities in the field. During the field trip, the learners were asked to learn in the mobile learning environment by throwing a dice to determine their moves using a tablet computer. Each move was related to a problem-based learning task associated with the corresponding real-world target at the specified location. To assess the effects of the peer competition-based mobile learning approach on students' affective domain exhibition, a quasi-experimental design was employed to conduct a learning activity in the social studies course of an elementary school. From the experimental results, it was found that the proposed approach significantly improved the students' local culture identity, learning interest, and learning attitudes; moreover, it also decreased their cognitive load when guiding them to learn in the field trip.

In this study, an integrated gaming and multistage guiding approach was proposed for conducting in-field mobile learning activities. A mobile learning system was developed based on the proposed approach. To investigate the interaction between the gaming and guiding strategies on students' learning performance and motivation, a 2 × 2 experiment was conducted on an elementary school natural science course. Four groups of students were situated in a field trip to learn with different mobile learning approaches (ie, gaming or nongaming) and guiding mechanisms (ie, multistage or single-stage). The experimental results showed that both the gaming and multistage guiding mechanisms proposed in this study significantly enhanced the students' learning achievements. Moreover, the interaction between the two showed that the lead-in of the gaming strategy could significantly improve the learning motivation of the students who learned with the multistage guiding mechanism; on the contrary, their learning motivation could be significantly decreased without the gaming approach, although the multistage guiding mechanism was effective. The findings imply that "gamification" could be a good approach for helping students accept learning support or tools provided in mobile learning scenarios.