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The Ubiquitous-Physics (U-Physics) app was upgraded to help students in learning inclined plane concepts. The new version of U-Physics allows students to see the experimental data not only in a graphical representation but also in a tabular representation. U-Physics provides a whiteboard function to support data explanations. The study investigated the differences between experimental students who use U-Physics (EG) and control students who do not use the app (CG) in terms of learning achievements. Additionally, we studied the free body diagram ability of students by giving them a test and analyzed its relationship to inquiry behaviors (interpreting graphs, applying formulas, and drawing conclusions) and learning achievements. Two 11th-grade classes (EG = 15 and CG = 32) participated in this quasi-experimental design. Our findings showed that the students who use U-Physics performed better than those who do not use the app in terms of learning achievements. Inquiry behaviors have a significant correlation with students’ learning achievements, and drawing conclusions is a predictor to affect students’ learning achievements. Additionally, most students agreed that U-Physics is beneficial for their physics learning. Thus, we strongly suggest teachers to use U-Physics and involve inquiry behaviors in physics laboratories to enhance students’ inquiry thinking and learning achievements while conducting physics experiments.

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate an authentic contextual learning framework with six constructs to model the relationships among essential factors of authentic contextual learni...

This paper aimed to investigate the effect of a mobile app on mathematics learning in authentic contexts. Authentic contexts contain rich resources wherein students can use authentic objects as aid in advanced educational technology-assisted mathematics learning. We designed Ubiquitous-Fraction (U-Fraction), a mobile application that helps students to learn fraction in authentic contexts and that integrates fraction concepts into daily contexts. This mixed study involved 80 fifth-grade Taiwanese students. We compared the learning achievements of students who used U-Fraction (experimental group) with those of students who used web-based tool and the traditional learning mode (control groups). We studied the students’ behaviors toward the use of U-Fraction in their learning activities and analyzed the relationship of students’ learning behavior with their learning achievements. Furthermore, we collected students’ perception of U-Fraction. Results demonstrated that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control groups in terms of learning achievements. In terms of learning behaviors, fraction concept/comparison learning with authentic photo taking and fraction addition/subtraction learning with authentic photo taking were most significantly correlated with learning achievement. It indicated that fraction can be learned better in an authentic environment. Furthermore, regression analysis showed that the assignment scores could significantly predict learning achievements. We found that most participants had positive perception toward U-Fraction and that they enjoyed using the photo-taking feature to solve fraction problems in their surroundings. Therefore, we suggest that fraction learning activities should be designed in a way that students are encouraged to apply through photo taking in authentic environments and the knowledge they have learned.

English as Foreign Language (EFL) writing is challenging for students due to the lack of related lexical resources to inspire them for meaningful writing besides grammar feedback. Moreover, it is crucial to design personalized feedback based on students’ original writings in helping to improve their writing abilities. Therefore, we developed Smart RoamLingo app to help writing meaningful content in authentic contexts with sample sentences based on texts generated by recognition technologies named as AI-Sample Sentences (AI-SS) and writing qualities with revision suggestions based on personal original writings named as AI-Writing Feedback (AI-WF). 104 undergraduate students were assigned into an experimental group (EG) and two control groups. EG significantly outperformed the other groups in the post-test. In EG, AI-SS can help the contextualization to produce comprehensive content actively while AI-WF can help the personalization to improve the writing quality through several revisions. Hence, the cohesion and consistency of their writing can be enhanced. Further, the total number of revisions in practices and the assignment score can significantly predict the post-test. Moreover, EG students revealed that Smart RoamLingo was useful for EFL writing. Therefore, it is strongly suggested to use Smart RoamLingo with AI-SS and AI-WF for EFL writing in authentic contexts.

Geometry students have few opportunities to apply geometric concepts and solve geometry problems in authentic contexts. We developed a Ubiquitous Geometry (UG) system to teach geometry to elementary students by using it to measure common objects in authentic contexts. The instant study investigates the effects of UG on student geometry estimation ability, geometry learning achievement, spatial ability, and learning geometric concepts and explores the correlations. Participants were 82 fifth grade students divided into the experiment group (EG), the ruler measurement group (RG), and the control group (CG). The results revealed that the EG students performed significantly better than the others in geometry estimation ability, geometry learning achievement, spatial ability, and understanding geometric concepts. We found that geometry estimation ability is significantly related to spatial ability and geometry learning achievement, which means fostering estimation ability through measuring authentic objects could help students to learn geometry. Finally, students perceived that UG engaged them more in geometry and improved their interest in learning because the activity designs related more to their daily life, thereby enhancing their sense of confidence and satisfaction. Conclusions include that UG effectively enhances student geometry estimation ability, geometry learning achievement, spatial ability, and understanding of geometric concepts.

This study utilized an app called Ubiquitous-Physics (U-Physics) to help students to explore inclined plane phenomena in authentic contexts. The study analyzed the inquiry behaviors of students such as interpreting graphs, applying formulas, drawing conclusions, authentic posts, and comments during the learning activities. Furthermore, the correlation between the inquiry behaviors and learning achievement were studied. A total of 35 second-grade students from vocational high school participated in this study. Two experimental activities in a laboratory and authentic contexts were given to students. The results indicated that students who used U-Physics are significantly perform better than students who used traditional tools such as a stopwatch for the inclined plane experiment. Pearson correlations demonstrated that the quantity of posts in authentic contexts had the biggest influence on the learning achievement of students, proving the importance of applying physics concepts in authentic contexts. Additionally, the interview responses showed that most students liked U-Physics and intended to use it in the future to explore physics phenomena and to conduct experiments. The findings indicate that using U-Physics in authentic contexts is very meaningful and can contribute to physics learning.

In this study, we designed and developed an app called Ubiquitous-Physics (U-Physics) for mobile devices like tablet PC or smart phones to help students learn the principles behind a simple pendulum in Physics. The unique characteristic of U-Physics is the use of sensors on mobile devices to collect acceleration and velocity data during pendulum swings. The data collected are transformed to facilitate students’ understanding of the pendulum time period. U-Physics helped students understand the effects of pendulum mass, length, and angle in relation to its time period. In addition, U-Physics was equipped with an annotation function such as textual annotation to help students interpret and understand the concepts and phenomena of the simple pendulum. U-Physics also generated graphs automatically to demonstrate the time period during which the pendulum was swinging. Results showed a significant positive correlation between interpreting graphs and applying formula. This finding indicated that the ability to interpret graphs has an important role in scientific learning. Therefore, we strongly recommend that physics teachers use graphs to enrich students’ information content and understanding and negative correlation between pair coherence and interpreting graphs. It may be that most of the participants (vocational high school students) have limited skill or confidence in physics problem solving; so, they often seek help from teachers or their high-achieving peers. In addition, the findings also indicated that U-Physics can enhance students’ achievement during a 3-week time period. We hope that this app can be globally used to learn physics in the future.

In this study, Ubiquitous-Physics was designed and proposed for facilitating students to learn simple pendulum concepts. U-Physics can facilitate collecting experimental data and drawing the corresponding graphs during the experiment, whereby students can focus on how to interpret graphs and solve problems through applying formulas. The participants were second grade female vocational high school students who are fewer interests in physics, while hopefully using U-Physics in the physical experiment can motivate their interests and help their learning in physics. The findings showed that significant correlations existed among hypothesis-making, interpreting graphs, applying formulas, conclusion-making, conceptual understanding, and post-test. After an in-depth investigation, we found that interpreting graphs and conceptual understanding were the two most important factors to affect learning achievement. Additionally, students perceived that U-Physics was beneficial to their physics learning.

We designed and developed a Ubiquitous Geometry (UG) app for elementary school students to learn geometry in authentic contexts. Real geometry object could facilitate and consolidate students' geometry learning if students were given opportunities to apply and practice geometric concepts in authentic contexts. Geometry is one of the important subject, however, students have less opportunities to apply geometric concepts and solve geometry problems in authentic contexts. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the effect of UG app on students' geometry estimation ability, geometry learning achievement, spatial ability and geometric concepts and explore correlations among them. Participants were 82 fifth grade students divided into experiment group (EG), ruler measurement group (RG) and control group (CG). The results revealed that EG performed significantly better than RG and CG in geometry estimation ability, geometry learning achievement, spatial ability and geometric concepts. Beside the significant correlations between geometry learning achievement and spatial ability, we also found geometry estimation ability significantly related to spatial ability and geometry learning achievement which means fostering estimation ability through measuring authentic objects could help students' geometry learning. It indicated that UG app was able to enhance student's geometry estimation ability, geometry learning achievement, spatial ability and geometric concepts effectively.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between learning behaviors (hypothesis-making, interpreting graphs, applying formula, conclusion-making and conceptual understanding) and learning achievement on vocational students who use our developed Ubiquitous-Physics (U-Physics) to learn simple pendulum in the experiment. Thus, this study conducted an experiment with participating second grade female vocational high school students who are less interests in physics, while hopefully using U-Physics in the physical experiment can motivate their interests and help their learning in physics. Yet, this study explored participants' perceptions towards the U-Physics. The results showed that there were significant correlation among hypothesis-making, interpreting graphs, applying formula, conclusion-making, conceptual understanding, and post-test. We also found that interpreting graphs and conceptual understanding were the two most important factors to affect learning achievement. In addition, students perceived that U-Physics was easy to use and useful for learning physics. Therefore, this study is strongly suggested experimental procedure should ask learners to interpret physics phenomena by graphs. Besides that, Teachers and researchers also should design physics learning activities to improve students' multiple representation skills supported by U-Physics system and utilize advanced features of mobile devices such as acceleration sensors, gyroscope, light sensors and GPS for learning physics.