Education technology - higher education
S. Moslemi Nezhad Arani; A. A. Zarei; A. Sarani
Abstract
Background and Objectives: The essence of Problem-based Learning (PBL) is to find a prêt-à-porter solution to a problem, which is also known as scenario. Several features differentiate this teaching methodology from other typical approaches in language teaching contexts. In order to reinforce ...
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Background and Objectives: The essence of Problem-based Learning (PBL) is to find a prêt-à-porter solution to a problem, which is also known as scenario. Several features differentiate this teaching methodology from other typical approaches in language teaching contexts. In order to reinforce the association between learners’ construction of the required knowledge to solve an ill-structured problem when assessing different possible solutions and attempting to find an acceptable solution, learners need to collect necessary information mostly on their own with the help of a teacher as a facilitator. PBL can also be considered as a potentially useful approach to language teaching and learning, especially with regard to productive skills in which leaners practice more fluently if they experience more involvement in the learning process. The PBL also contributes to learners and learning psychological aspects. Despite the generally acknowledged benefits of PBL, it has not been commonly used, especially in foreign language learning contexts. One reason for this may have been concerns about how the method might affect foreign language learners’ feeling of anxiety, self-efficacy and willingness to communicate. The major objective of this study was to bridge the gap in our understanding of how the implementation of the PBL approach affects English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ psychological factors of willingness to communicate, self-efficacy, and classroom anxiety.Materials and Methods: Ninety pre-intermediate EFL students were selected according to the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and purposeful sampling method. They were randomly assigned into 3 groups of online PBL, face-to-face PBL, and control group with 30 learners in each. Students in both online PBL and face-to-face PBL classes embarked on a 10-session speaking course according to the framework of the PBL approach. Meanwhile, the control group received speaking instruction based on a conventional method other than the PBL. Three questionnaires of Willingness to Communicate (WTC), English self-efficacy, and foreign language classroom anxiety scale were administered before and after the course to all participants. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to analyze the data.Findings: Results showed that EFL learners in the online and face-to-face PBL classes outperformed those in the control group in their WTC and self-efficacy. In addition, learners in the online and face-to-face PBL groups meaningfully experienced a lower level of classroom anxiety compared with the control group.Conclusions: The findings of the present study suggest that the PBL approach efficiently motivates learners to communicate and interact within the classroom context. In addition, learners in the online and conventional PBL groups felt more self-determining and responsible for their learning as a result of feeling more comfortable in the learning environment. Results also shed light on the idea that due to the experiential aspect of PBL, when learners explore the solutions to the problem/scenario and discuss them with others, that forms an environment with a minimized classroom speaking anxiety. Implications are also discussed at the end of the study.
Electronic learning- virtual
S. Azimpour; H. Vahedi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: In recent years, the use of technology and educational media in education has been one of the focus of studies. These media both improve the accuracy of the operation and increase the speed of learning and transfer of concepts. Considering the graphic and spatial nature of ...
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Background and Objectives: In recent years, the use of technology and educational media in education has been one of the focus of studies. These media both improve the accuracy of the operation and increase the speed of learning and transfer of concepts. Considering the graphic and spatial nature of the content of the geometry course and the problems related to accurate and correct drawing and visualization of shapes, it seems necessary to use new methods and tools in education. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of teaching the geometry lesson with electronic educational media methods (teaching with dynamic and static graphic images) and teaching in the traditional way , on the academic progress and geometrical academic self-efficacy of the students.Methods: According to the nature of the work, the research method was quasi-experimental. To conduct the research, a pretest-posttest with a control group design was used. The statistical population of this study included all male students in the tenth grade of mathematics in a District 1 of Tabriz in the academic year 2020-2021. The statistical sample consisted of 79 male students in the tenth grade of mathematics, including 3 classes, which were selected by availability sampling method and were randomly divided into three class groups. There were 26 people in the teaching group using dynamic graphic images electronic media class group, 26 people in the teaching group using static graphic images electronic media class group, and 27 people in the traditional teaching class group. The intervention tool of this research included the software for electronic teaching dynamic graphic images (Geo Gebra) and a set of educational slides designed by the researchers for teaching static graphic images. The study groups were trained for 6 weeks, 1 session per week and 90 minutes per session. In order to collect data related to academic progress, all three groups before and after the intervention, were assessed by using two parallel tests made by the researchers, including 14 questions, in the form of open-ended questions (explanatory) about the concepts of drawing and geometric reasoning from the geometry book of the 10th grade of the mathematics field. The first test was used as a pre-test and the second test was used as a post-test. Also, the participants answered the math self-efficacy questionnaire before and after the training. The data obtained from the pre-test and post-test stages were analyzed using one-way covariance analysis (ANCOVA) after checking the assumptions.Findings: The results showed that the studied teaching methods had different effects on academic progress. With regard to the academic progress, the difference between electronic educational groups (P<0.009), between electronic education group with dynamic graphic images and common education group (P<0.001) and between electronic education group with static graphic images and common education group (P<0.001) was significant. Also, the results showed that the studied teaching methods had different effects on geometry academic self-efficacy. Regarding academic self-efficacy, the difference between electronic educational groups (P<0.02), etween electronic education group with dynamic graphic images and common education group (P<0.05) and between electronic education group with istatic graphic images and common education group (P<0.001) was significant. Among the studied groups of this research, the best results of academic progress and academic self-efficacy were related to electronic education group with dynamic graphic images.Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the use of teaching methods with graphic images by teachers in teaching geometry can have a positive effect on students' academic achievement and academic self-efficacy. The use of these tools can play the role of an educational facilitator in improving the students’ academic performance.
Entrepreneurship
S. Rezghi; A. Moghaddam; M. Modarresi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Training of entrepreneurship skills is considered as one of the key factors to achieve sustainable economic development. In most countries, in addition to entrepreneurship education in college courses, extensive efforts to teach entrepreneurship to children and primary school ...
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Background and Objectives: Training of entrepreneurship skills is considered as one of the key factors to achieve sustainable economic development. In most countries, in addition to entrepreneurship education in college courses, extensive efforts to teach entrepreneurship to children and primary school students are in progress. However, countries with resource-dependent economy have low levels of entrepreneurship education in schools. Design and development of training programs in the field of entrepreneurship in schools can strengthen the entrepreneurial attitudes or the background needed to enter the field of entrepreneurship; and in fact, consider entrepreneurship as a suitable career choice or entrepreneurial job preference. The evidence suggests that formal training cannot create the required entrepreneurial motivation to start a new business. Skills acquired through playing games can be obtained faster and can last longer than what is learned in the classroom. Today, games and game features are used to create innovations in teaching and learning in entrepreneurship and this is probably the most attractive and challenging application of the games. Using games is a good way to experience life and the complex and unknown world of entrepreneurship, especially beacuse this experience takes place in an environment that protects the student from serious risks such as bankruptcy or emotional damage. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of video games by enhancing adolescents' self-efficacy on their career preferences.Method: In this research, a quasi-experimental method was used. For this purpose, some high-school students in Birjand participated in this research. A purposive cluster sampling method was used to select participants. To this end, considering the homogeneity of gender, family characteristics, and income level of the family, the two boys' schools, namely “Sama” and” Darol - Oulum” were considered as the main clusters. In each school, 24 students were selected randomly from 13- to 14-year-old students and were divided into experimental and control groups. Eventually, 20 people participated as the experimental group and 22 people participated as the control group. Pre-test and post-test were taken from all of the four groups and paired samples t-test and Pearson Correlation were used to test the research hypotheses. The data were analyzed using SPSS 26.Findings: The results of the independent samples t-test confirmed the increase in entrepreneurial self-efficacy of adolescents in the experimental group through video games (and not environmental conditions and external factors). Also, the results of independent samples t-test confirmed the effect of video games on adolescent entrepreneurial job preference. Based on the results of Pearson correlation test, a positive and significant relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and adolescent entrepreneurial job preference was also confirmed. Overall, the results showed that playing video games has a positive and significant effect on enhancing entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial job preferences of the participants.Conclusion: The innovative aspect of our research was the smart choice of video games for entrepreneurship education. During the observations, the effect of the game on the improvement of team skills and teamwork was evident. Also, the increase in entrepreneurial job preferences in the test group can be attributed to increasing self-confidence and improving leadership skills. Another interesting result obtained in the study is the importance of the role of planning and coordination in increasing the effectiveness of games for education. Therefore, in order to increase the effectiveness of games in training, satisfaction and support of school officials and parents, it is recommended that the participation of players and playing as a team, creating a competitive environment and facilitating self-assessment and smart choice of video games and game time planning should be considered.
Electronic learning- virtual
S. M. Jafari; J. Babashahi; N. Eskandary; M. Zandi Nasab
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Today, with the development of mass communication tools and computers, the penetration and expansion of the Internet in various areas of life is undeniable. One of the most pervasive phenomena that has emerged on the Internet in recent years is the emergence of social ...
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Background and Objectives: Today, with the development of mass communication tools and computers, the penetration and expansion of the Internet in various areas of life is undeniable. One of the most pervasive phenomena that has emerged on the Internet in recent years is the emergence of social media. Social media has affected social and economic life. The spread of social media has attracted the attention of various segments of society, including educational administrators. From the perspective of educational administrators, social media provides unique opportunities for teaching and learning. Social media is a group of Internet-based applications that rely on the basics of Web technology to create and share user-generated content. Social media, in addition to the entertainment aspect, is used to access and disseminate learning information, and their use to achieve educational goals has been studied in detail. One of the applications of social media is learning, in which the learning process takes place through knowledge sharing. With the development of social media, proper and efficient use of it is inevitable. Social media is a good tool for learning. In order to have a better and more advanced society, special attention should be given to the role of learning through social media. One of the issues that promotes the development of learning through social media is the loyalty of users to learning through social media. Therefore, in the present study, the antecedents of learning loyalty through social media have been studied. Methods: The present study is a descriptive study in terms of objective and applied in nature. The data gathering instrument was a questionnaire and the population of this research was the users of the Telegram group of Qom IT Centre. In the current study, convenience sampling was used to collect 364 questionnaires. Data were analyzed using SPSS and LISREL software. Findings: The findings of the study showed that more than 95% of the statistical population were university educated and all the research hypotheses were confirmed. Conclusion: The results of the research show that two indicators for measurement of learning loyalty through social media (behavioral intention to continue using and willingness to recommend to others) are affected by satisfaction, and satisfaction is also affected by self-efficacy of learning and interest to learning through social media. The results also showed that the cognitive disability of the Internet has disadvantages and causes a decrease in self-efficacy and interest in learning through social media. When a person feels the self-efficacy of learning through social media, they find interest and satisfaction in learning through it. Also, the interest in learning through social media leads to the satisfaction of learning through it, and finally, if a person finds satisfaction in learning, they have a behavioral tendency to continue using social media and a tendency to advise others.Through the above, the development of social media as a learning tool is possible, and this brings many benefits, including reducing learning costs, reducing learning time, expanding learning fairly, and improving learning.
E-Lerning
F. Zarrin; Gh. Montazer
Abstract
Background and Objective:One of the features used to personalize the e-learning environment is self-efficacy. This feature refers to people's belief in their ability to do tasks. Experts believe that academic self-efficacy is one of the important factors that has a positive effect on effective learning ...
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Background and Objective:One of the features used to personalize the e-learning environment is self-efficacy. This feature refers to people's belief in their ability to do tasks. Experts believe that academic self-efficacy is one of the important factors that has a positive effect on effective learning and academic achievement of learners. The concept Self-efficacy began with the work of Albert Bandura. According to Bandura, self-efficacy is a person's beliefs or judgments about his or her ability to perform tasks and responsibilities. This concept is not about having a skill or ability, but about believing in the ability to do work in different situations. The purpose of this article is to design an intelligent tutoring system. The learning model of the proposed system includes features of academic self-efficacy and learning style. Methods:Academic self-efficacy has been automatically identified by designing of a fuzzy system based on learners' behavior and learning style through the questionnaire of Felder-Silverman which contains 44 question. After identification of these features, Proportional education strategies are presented and implemented in tutoring system in a real environment. The effectiveness of the proposed tutoring system is evaluated in terms of learners' operation by investigation of their satisfaction from system. Findings: The results show that considering functional characteristics in learning model, presenting some learning objects and proportional recommendations to the characteristics, results in 75% learners' educational progress and their educational satisfaction. Moreover, evaluation of the time passed in the e-Learning environment before and after using Perles does not show a significant difference. Results show that the designed intelligent tutoring system based on the learner model and educational strategies, has led not only to the educational success of the learners but also to increase in their enthusiasm in using the system. Considering other effective and cognitive features in learning is highly recommended in order to provide a personalized environment. Conclusion:The purpose of this study was to personalize the e-learning environment. For this purpose, the characteristics of academic self-efficacy and learning style, which are two effective characteristics in learning, were selected to model learners in a networked environment. Learning style was obtained through a questionnaire and an attempt was made to identify academic self-efficacy indirectly by using learner behaviors in the e-learning environment. To do this, the self-efficacy identification system was designed and evaluated using fuzzy set theory. Comparison of the output results of the identifier system with the academic self-efficacy questionnaire shows that the accuracy of the system is 88.2%. This indicates that the learner's behaviors in the e-learning environment can be an acceptable indicator of his/her academic self-efficacy and these behaviors can be considered as a basis for identifying academic self-efficacy. It is suggested that in future research, other effective features in education such as cognitive style, emotion, and personality be considered in order to provide a personalized environment for learners.
