Clustering Students Based on Motivation to Learn

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-39
Author(s):  
Maria Alexandra Rentroia-Bonito ◽  
Daniel Gonçalves ◽  
Joaquim A Jorge

Technological advances during the last decade have provided huge possibilities to support e-learning. However, there are still concerns regarding Return-on-Investment (ROI) of e-learning, its sustainability within organizational bound-aries and effectiveness across potential learner groups. Much previous research has concentrated on learners' motivation, satisfaction, and retention. This leaves room for further research to identify alternative and innovative ways to center design on students' concerns when learning online. The authors' work focuses on designing workable courseware usability evaluation methods to differentiate students to improve learning-support frameworks from both pedagogical and system perspectives. The authors' results suggest that students can be grouped in three clusters based on their motivation to e-Learn. Instructors could predict which cluster a new student belongs to, making it possible to anticipate usability issues that most affect results. This also facilitates pedagogical interventions that could help at-risk learners, contributing to the retention rate.

Author(s):  
Panagiotis Zaharias

The issue of e-learning quality remains prominent on end users’ (the learners’) agenda. It is no surprise that many non-motivated adult learners abandon prematurely their e-learning experiences. This is attributed in a great extent to the poor design and usability of e-learning applications. This paper proposes a usability framework that addresses the user as a learner and extends the current e-learning usability practice by focusing on the affective dimension of learning, a frequently neglected issue in e-learning developments. Motivation to learn, a dominant affective factor related with learning effectiveness, has been similarly neglected. Usability and instructional design constructs as well as Keller’s ARCS Model are being employed within the framework proposed in this work upon which new usability evaluation methods can be based. This framework integrates web usability and instructional design parameters and proposes motivation to learn as a new type of usability dimension in designing and evaluating e-learning applications.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 37-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panagiotis Zaharias

The issue of e-learning quality remains prominent on end users’ (the learners’) agenda. It is no surprise that many non-motivated adult learners abandon prematurely their e-learning experiences. This is attributed in a great extent to the poor design and usability of e-learning applications. This paper proposes a usability framework that addresses the user as a learner and extends the current e-learning usability practice by focusing on the affective dimension of learning, a frequently neglected issue in e-learning developments. Motivation to learn, a dominant affective factor related with learning effectiveness, has been similarly neglected. Usability and instructional design constructs as well as Keller’s ARCS Model are being employed within the framework proposed in this work upon which new usability evaluation methods can be based. This framework integrates web usability and instructional design parameters and proposes motivation to learn as a new type of usability dimension in designing and evaluating e-learning applications.


2010 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Ssemugabi ◽  
Ruth De Villiers

The Internet, World Wide Web (WWW) and e-learning are contributing to new forms of teaching and learning. Such environments should be designed and evaluated in effective ways, considering both usability- and pedagogical issues. The selection of usability evaluation methods (UEMs) is influenced by the cost of a methods and its effectiveness in addressing users’ issues. The issue of usability is vital in e-learning, where students cannot begin to learn unless they can first use the application. Heuristic evaluation (HE) remains the most widely-used usability evaluation method. This paper describes meta-evaluation research that investigated an HE of a web-based learning (WBL) application. The evaluations were based on a synthesised framework of criteria, related to usability and learning within WBL environments. HE was found to be effective in terms of the number and nature of problems identified in the target application by a complementary team of experienced experts. The findings correspond closely with those of a survey among learners.


Author(s):  
Shirish C. Srivastava ◽  
Shalini Chandra ◽  
Hwee Ming Lam

Usability evaluation which refers to a series of activities that are designed to measure the effectiveness of a system as a whole, is an important step for determining the acceptance of system by the users. Usability evaluation is becoming important since both user groups, as well as tasks, are increasing in size and diversity. Users are increasingly becoming more informed and, consequently, have higher expectations from the systems. Moreover “system interface” has become a commodity and, hence, user acceptance plays a major role in the success of the system. Currently, there are various usability evaluation methods in vogue, like cognitive walkthrough, think aloud, claims analysis, heuristic evaluation, and so forth. However, for this study we have chosen heuristic evaluation because it is relatively inexpensive, logistically uncomplicated, and is often used as a discount usability-engineering tool (Nielsen, 1994). Heuristic evaluation is a method for finding usability problems in a user interface design by having a small set of evaluators examine an interface and judge its compliance with recognized usability principles. The rest of the chapter is organized as follows: we first look at the definition of e-learning, followed by concepts of usability, LCD, and heuristics. Subsequently, we introduce a methodology for heuristic usability evaluation (Reeves, Benson, Elliot, Grant, Holschuh, Kim, Kim, Lauber, & Loh, 2002), and then use these heuristics for evaluating an existing e-learning system, GETn2. We offer our recommendations for the system and end with a discussion on the contributions of our chapter.


Author(s):  
Christofer Ramos ◽  
Flávio Anthero Nunes Vianna dos Santos ◽  
Monique Vandresen

Heuristic evaluation stands out among the usability evaluation methods regarding its benefits related to time and costs. Nevertheless, generic heuristic sets require improvements when it comes to specific interfaces as seen on m-learning applications that have acquired considerable evidence within the current technologic context. Regarding the lack of studies aimed at interfaces of this sort, the authors propose, through a systematic methodology, the comparative study between a heuristic set specific to the assessment on e-learning interfaces and other, on mobile. The identified usability problems were matched with the aspects of coverage, distribution, redundancy, context and severity, in a way that it was possible to understand the efficiency of each set in covering m-learning issues. Among the findings, e-learning's heuristic set could detect a larger number of usability problems not found by mobile's.


Work ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 1038-1044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana Lopes Freire ◽  
Pedro Miguel Arezes ◽  
José Creissac Campos

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-132
Author(s):  
Maria Ulfah Syarif

One of the obstacles in the implementation of online learning during Covid-19 pandemic is the lack of lecturers and students’s readiness in mastering e-learning support applications. In addition, the large amount of assignments precisely can trigger students’ psychosocial stresses that may diminsih the online learning effectiveness. The lecturers, therefore, are required to be more creative to make an interesting learning, including in Arabic learning.  Karrona, an innovative learning strategy, is a song media-based method focusing on strengthening the understanding of qawāid substance that is applied to overcome the ineffectiveness of online learning Arabic. This study then aims to investigate how the effectiveness of Karrona strategy to increase qawāid understanding and to improve vocabulary mastery in online Arabic learning during pandemic covid-19. This research employed a mixed method design, involving the mixing of both quantitative and qualitative approach. This study involved 176 students of IAIN Bone as well as used observation and questionnaires techniques to collect the data. The major findings of this study show that the Karrona strategy is briefly effective in increasing student interest and motivation to learn Arabic. Moreever, this strategy can improve students’ qawāid understanding and mufradāt mastery.


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