Medical Students Experience the Mobile Augmented Reality Blended Learning Environment (Marble®): An Attractive Concept for the Net Generation?

This paper describes a research project that explored the use of mobile augmented reality combined with outdoor education in a Swedish primary school. Special attention was paid to mobile augmented reality (AR). Project documentation and communication were reviewed, three iterations of design and usability evaluations of the Minnesmark mobile AR platform was made. Observations and interviews were held with teachers and students. The results describe early experiments, and both the opportunities and challenges that faced the participating teachers. The opportunities included connecting the outdoor learning environment and the indoor learning environment, directing the students' focus, posing questions and affording actions, rendering symbols and timelines visible, providing a point of entry to the context and the narrative, and facilitating conceptualization. Challenges concerned how to make pedagogical use of the landscape, producing or choosing content, structuring processes, setting up student groups, and aligning activities and content with learning objectives. It is concluded that the teachers and the students used the mobile augmented reality to make places in the local environment, outside the classroom, the starting point to increase the authenticity of the teaching.

Download Full-text

The development and validation of a questionnaire to explore medical students’ learning in a blended learning environment

BMC Medical Education ◽

10.1186/s12909-021-03045-4 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Rouba Ballouk ◽

Victoria Mansour ◽

Bronwen Dalziel ◽

Iman Hegazi

Keyword(s):

Medical Education ◽

Medical Students ◽

Learning Environment ◽

Blended Learning ◽

Convergent Validity ◽

Principal Component ◽

Validity And Reliability ◽

Undergraduate Medical Students ◽

Cronbach’S Alpha ◽

Cronbach's Alpha

Abstract Background A blended learning environment is multifaceted and widely used in medical education. However, there is no validated instrument for exploring students’ learning in a blended learning environment in medical programs. This study aimed to develop and validate an instrument for exploring how medical students learn in an undergraduate medical program that employs a blended learning approach. Method Using Artino’s seven step approach, we developed a questionnaire to investigate how medical students learn in a blended learning environment. For pilot testing, 120 students completed this 19-item questionnaire. These 19-items were evaluated for construct and convergent validity across an expert medical education panel. Further item testing was analysed with principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation for item reduction and factor estimation. Hence, validity was thoroughly addressed to ensure the questionnaire was representative of the key focus questions. Cronbach’s Alpha was used for item reliability testing, and Spearman’s Rho was used for the correlation between the questionnaire items and the extensively used MSLQ. Hence, validity and reliability were systematically addressed. Results Exploratory Factor analysis identified four factors F1 and F3: Resources: Accessibility & Guidance (14-items), F2: Learning behaviours: Social and Contextual (5-items), and F4: Motivational factors: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation (4-items). Internal consistency and reliability tests were satisfactory (Cronbach’s Alpha ranged from 0.764 to 0.770). Conclusions The resulting Blended Learning Questionnaire (BLQ) was determined to be a reliable instrument to explore undergraduate medical students’ learning in a blended learning environment.

Download Full-text