Educational Technology
S. A. Faregh; Y. Saffari; M. Jafari Sisis
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Education is an integral part of human life. At present, the educational books and the one-dimensional media which they contain, such as images, diagrams, tables, and the like play an important/significant role in this domain. Gamification, as a new and potential phenomenon, ...
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Background and Objectives: Education is an integral part of human life. At present, the educational books and the one-dimensional media which they contain, such as images, diagrams, tables, and the like play an important/significant role in this domain. Gamification, as a new and potential phenomenon, adds a new era into the area of educational technologies in which educational concepts are taught to the users through a gamified scenario. Today, the integration of new technologies with existing teaching and learning methods in order to improve the learning process is one of the most important issues that require a comprehensive study. Conflict, meanwhile, is an issue that arises in the individual and group life of any society, and its proper management requires proper teaching and learning. In line with using digital games as a means of gamfication, the present study aimes at examining the effect of this method on the teaching and learning of conflict management and comparing it with the existing (traditional) method.Methods: After studying the findings and the research methods of former studies, an experimental study was conducted in a quasi-pre-and-post-experimental framework on the conflict management of two digital games. For this purpose, 60 female participants were randomly selected varying from 18-to-55-year-old women's community in Tehran and Tabriz. Participants were randomly divided into three equal groups of 20 people among which two groups were experimental and one group was the control and each group was tested with a separate game. The measuring instrument in this study was the Thomas-Kilmann normative questionnaire. The testing process consisted of two standard web games called "The raise" and "The costumer service" which were used as test intervention. The control group was trained by means of traditional education (based on written documents) and the experimental group was trained by means of computer games.Findings: The analysis of covariance of results in SPSS software with the Alpha of 0.05 indicates that computer games have a significant relationship with improving the level of conflict management in individuals. On the other hand, examining the growth charts of individuals’ conflict management level that have been extracted based on the results of the pre-test and post-test questionnaire of Thomas-Kilman shows that in conflict management training, computer games are more effective than academic and traditional education.Conclusions: The findings of the analyses conducted on the results of the experiments in this study showed that the interactive nature of multimedia digital games increases the attractiveness of the educational topics.Therefore, conflict management training, as compared to traditional training, has been able to influence the level of "cooperation", "competition", "adaptability" and "avoidance" of the individuals, both through "The Raise" and "The Customer Service" games, , and it has also been more effective in teaching the conflict management styles. Exploring these issues in a heuristic manner among participants also suggests that educational materials based on traditional and text-based education have not been attractive enough to engage test-takers and have imposed a high cognitive load of comprehension on them. However, the computer games in the experimental groups could attract more attention toward learning and could provide the test-takers with better comprehension of the issues. Finally, it can be concluded that gamification has a positive effect on the process of teaching and learning conflict management.
Emerging Technologies
S.A. FAREGH; M. Jafari Sisi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Education plays a key role in human life. While the teaching of experimental sciences is one of the most important topics that should be accompanied by student's direct experience, in many cases, due to spatial, temporal, or cost-related constraints, it is based solely on traditional ...
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Background and Objectives: Education plays a key role in human life. While the teaching of experimental sciences is one of the most important topics that should be accompanied by student's direct experience, in many cases, due to spatial, temporal, or cost-related constraints, it is based solely on traditional books and their one-dimensional media. With the spread of new technologies, there are new opportunities for existing teaching and learning methods that can transform the educational structure. Augmented Reality (AR) technology, as a novel paradigm, potentially adds a new feature to the range of traditional student books that not only adds multimedia elements, but also allows interactive engagement with the content of them. Augmented reality, as one of the ways of distance learning, by simulating the real world in the form of animation, virtual objects, three-dimensional images, sound and similar elements makes it possible for the user to interact with the with the experiments of a lesson virtually. This study aims to evaluate the effect of interactive augmented reality based education on the learning and remembering of the content of textbooks. Methods: An experimental study in the pre-test and post-test quasi-experimental framework was performed on two groups of 18 sixth grade elementary school students. For this purpose, two scenarios have been selected from student science book and implemented in an interactive augmented reality application. The control group was trained through traditional teaching method. On the other hand, in addition to the traditional teaching method, the experiment group’s training was reinforced with the AR application. Students' learning and remembering evaluation was carried out through two tests. The validity of tests confirmed by the teachers of science in Education District 2 of Tabriz and their reliability has been calculated through Kuder – Richardson Formula. Findings: The results of analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed a significant statistical difference between the control and experimental groups. Also, the learning and remembering in students who were trained in interactive augmented reality were more effective than the other group. Conclusion: According to the results of the experiments, and the comparative review of the theoretical subjects, the use of augmented reality technology has been reported as a useful and effective supplemental tool for textbooks that can, beyond the spatial and temporal constraints, facilitate the training process. Also, the interaction in AR encourages learners to replace the active role with the passive one and to learn the topics with more mental participation. On the other hand, the possibility of repeating augmented reality scenarios in educational topics, regardless of spatial, temporal, and cost-realted constraints, allows users to fix bugs and ambiguities, which are other advantages of using this technology. Finally, by examining these capabilities and the ubiquity of mobile phones in today's world, we can predict the presence of virtual laboratories in mobile smartphones in the near future; which can be useful in deprived areas of the country as a replacement of the lack of minimum facilities.
