Entertainment Video Games for Academic Learning: A Systematic Review

Entertainment video games are very popular among young audiences. Nevertheless, despite their potential to improve cognitive functioning, they are still studied rarely as a tool for digital game-based learning. To better understand video gaming practices’ value in the classroom, this article provides a systematic review of literature on the effect of entertainment video games on academic learning. Our literature search yielded 49 relevant intervention studies published between 2005 and 2019 that integrated entertainment video games into academic curricula from preschool to college. Our review revealed that entertainment video games can be an effective educational tool and are beneficial in almost all academic disciplines, particularly in foreign language and science. However, research on entertainment video gaming’s effects on academic learning is still not extensive enough and remains mostly qualitative. Future studies need to provide a quantitative approach to complete and confirm already-existing literature, particularly in the environmental and social sciences, physical education, and programming. Given entertainment video games’ popularity and benefits on cognition and learning, it seems essential to investigate their practical value further in the education sector and to determine the mechanisms that mediate their effects on academic learning.

Exploring Functional Brain Network Modularity in Educational Contexts

The brain's modular functional organization facilitates adaptability. Modularity has been linked with a wide range of cognitive abilities such as intelligence, memory, and learning. However, much of this work has (1) considered modularity while a participant is at rest rather than during tasks conditions and/or (2) relied primarily on lab-based cognitive assessments. Thus, the extent to which modularity can provide information about real-word behavior remains largely unknown. Here, we investigated whether functional modularity during resting-state and task-based fMRI was associated with academic learning (measured by GPA) and ability (measured by PSAT) in a large sample of high school students. Additional questions concerned the extent to which modularity differs between rest and task conditions, and across spatial scales. Results indicated that whole-brain modularity during task conditions was significantly associated with academic learning. In contrast to prior work, no such associations were observed for resting-state modularity. We further showed that differences in modularity between task conditions and resting-state varied across spatial scales. Taken together, the present findings inform how functional brain network modularity - during task conditions and while at rest - relate to a range of cognitive abilities.

Who wants to learn harder? The relationship between conservatism and liberalism, desirable difficulties, and academic learning

Previous work has shown that challenging learning strategies like desirable difficulties improve long-term learning. Nonetheless, because they might be regarded as strict and demanding learning strategies, they should not be perceived as positive by everyone. They should, however, fit conservative political attitudes since those are, among others, positively correlated with individuals’ need for order and structure as well as with challenging learning environments. Hence, we hypothesized conservative political attitudes to be correlated with more positive attitudes towards desirable difficulties, towards the use of desirable difficulties at school, towards the preferred difficulty of the learning process, and towards deeper learning strategies. We conducted three online studies assessing US American students’ political attitudes and their attitudes towards such difficult and challenging learning strategies: Study 1 found correlations among more conservative political attitudes and more positive attitudes towards difficult and challenging learning strategies, whereas Study 2 found no significant linkages among these variables. Study 3 then showed that a more conservative political attitude and favorable ratings of Republican politicians, but also more favorable ratings of Democratic politicians were linked to more positive attitudes towards our dependent variables. Self-reported interest in and importance of politics were also positively correlated with positive attitudes towards difficult learning. Our results indicate that students’ political attitudes are generally linked to positive attitudes towards difficult and challenging learning strategies and are therefore important individual characteristics regarding applications and perceptions of these learning strategies. Future work focusing on these relationships, on causal effects, and on further related variables is valuable.

The Role of Higher Education Institutions in Development of Social Entrepreneurship: The Case of Tallinn University Social Entrepreneurship Study Program, Estonia

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce a higher education social enterprise program and explore how it is shaping the field of social entrepreneurship. Social enterprise related university programs are an emerging trend. Entrepreneurial university theory and ecosystem framework are used to illustrate how the university social enterprise program, in turn, develops the field of social entrepreneurship. An example of an existing social enterprise program is discussed to highlight how it can be designed. Cases of social enterprises emerged as the result of the program are used to outline the different impacts that such support to social entrepreneurship might have. The research chapter reveals the multi-dimensional nature of the social enterprise program and its impact on students establishing their own social enterprises. It suggests that the incubation and other support activities should expand beyond the university program including a variety of network partners. The chapter provides empirical evidence of social enterprise development in a higher education institution and contributes to the global body of knowledge about fostering social enterprise development. As the provision of social entrepreneurship education is new in Estonia and the discussions on social enterprises are premature, the number of social entrepreneurship development partners is limited and hence the empirical data is currently scarce. The journey towards an entrepreneurial university is limited due to the lack of legal support and suitable infrastructure which would enhance project-based learning, support ‘spin-offs’ and patenting and rather engenders a more traditional academic learning environment.

Stimulating Creativity and Innovation Through Apt Educational Policy

The gap between expected and actual skillsets to drive workforce creativity and developing innovative products and services in recent times suggests the need for a thorough review of educational policy. The required level of creativity and innovation could be stimulated through educational policy review and effective implementation of action plans to meet expectations in the fourth industrial revolution. A literature review approach was adopted to examine the issues in current education system, as well as the emerging trends within the system to promote creative learning. The findings show that discipline-specific instructional strategies propelled by technological innovations (educational virtual reality games) are essential in stimulating creativity and innovation. Gamification in learning pedagogies not only promotes important academic learning but also builds the skills required for success in the 21st century.

Classroom to Google Room an Incredible Revolution in Teaching-Learning Pedagogy

Education 4.0 made the world of knowledge acquisition and sharing to take a diverse spin, teaching-learning fully loaded with technology. The extensive use of Smartphone and internet paved a way to include technology into teaching-learning. Inclusion of technology or internet has become obligatory and fetched ease in academic as well as non-academic learning tendencies of inclination of understanding. The instructors have the challenges to guide or edify their learners other than faceto-face means of instructions. The teachers have to be proficient in handling technology or smart tools of teaching-learning besides having command over their area of teaching. This paper focuses on the remote online teaching-learning platforms or tools that help the teachers to teach or guide their learners online and the attitudes of the teachers and the students towards the use of the remote online platforms in ELT. Keywords: Education 4.0 – ICA of teaching-learning – remote online platforms – Google Classroom

English - Indonesian Translation Strategies Made By Vocational Students

Translation for the vocational students of the Business English study program could be considered as the fifth language skill that they need to learn in multilingual digital era. Therefore, they have to be able to translate and interpret from English text to the Indonesian text and vice versa in some business applications, such as tourism/ hospitality industry, export import, and customer service. In this paper, the writers used qualitative descriptive research on the case study taken from the Translation classroom. To achieve the purposes of the study, the writer would like to compare the results of the respondents' target translation between translating the source text without and with translation strategies in facilitating their academic learning process. In this survey, the writer found out that most of the participations used Google Translate and translation strategies, such as structural and semantic translation strategies to help them facilitate their translating to produce qualified translation results. Based on the results, the translation strategies were useful for novice translators. The other findings were what factors that influenced their errors in English- Indonesian translation and what translation strategies. The writers also shared some important educational implications of this research

Interactive Narrative Simulation as a Method for Preceptor Development

(1) Background: This proof-of-concept study assessed an interactive web-based tool simulating three challenging non-academic learning situations—student professionalism, cross-cultural interactions, and student well-being—as a means of preceptor development. (2) Methods: Three scripts focused on professionalism, cross-cultural interactions, and student well-being were developed and implemented using a commercial narrative tool with branching dialog. Delivered online, this tool presented each challenge to participants. Participants had up to four response options at each turn of the conversation; the choice of response influenced the subsequent conversation, including coaching provided at the resolution of the situation. Participants were invited to complete pre-activity, immediate post-activity, and one-month follow-up questionnaires to assess satisfaction, self-efficacy, engagement, and knowledge change with the tool. Knowledge was assessed through situational judgment tests (SJTs). (3) Results: Thirty-two pharmacist preceptors participated. The frequency of participants reflecting on challenging learning situations increased significantly one-month post-simulation. Participants affirmatively responded that the tool was time-efficient, represented similar challenges they encountered in precepting, was easily navigable, and resulted in learning. Self-efficacy with skills in managing challenging learning situations increased significantly immediately post-simulation and at a one-month follow-up. Knowledge as measured through SJTs was not significantly changed. (4) Conclusions: Preceptors found an interactive narrative simulation a relevant, time-efficient approach for preceptor development for challenging non-academic learning situations. Post-simulation, preceptors more frequently reflected on challenging learning situations, implying behavior change. Self-efficacy and self-report of knowledge increased. Future research is needed regarding knowledge assessments.

How Students' Perceptions in Narrative Class (The Lord of Flies) Through Online Collaboration Learning.

Mariwan Hasan (2020), suggests that Golding’s novel can be used in a second language classroom to teach democratic values such as the right to free speech using reader-response theory. Curriculum requires that democratic values be taught through each subject, suggests that students can be taught about democratic values through classroom discussions and writing assignments based on the novel (Ghazal Kazim Syed, 2020). In addition to academic learning, researchers believe that students also gain confidence through the collaboration work. When students conform each other’s opinions in activities involving group work, it makes them confident and comfortable with each other. When the teacher is not around to ask a question, they will be less at pressure. against them (Cynthia S, 2020). The practice of collaborative learning in online education is increasing steadily as many curriculum creators and online course teachers are starting to understand its positive effects on the learning of students. This study aimed to analyze students' perceptions in narrative class (The Lord of Flies) through online collaboration learningu used a qualitative research design was followed by this study. As it is a study of perceptions, a qualitative methodology using a phenomenological approach, the participants of this study were twelve the eleventh grade students, data for this article was gathered through semi-structured interviews. The researcher checked part of the coding against each other to ensure trustworthiness of data. Keeping in light the usefulness of online collaboration learning shown in this study, it is recommended that teachers should take effort to include students in literature online discussion group. Furthermore, it is recommended that similar studies should be conducted in schools and colleges. As this study is recommended for future researchers to check the adaptability of the findings in other contexts.

Self-Reported Perceptions of Online Learning and Observed Online Learning Behaviors: To What Extent Are They Consistent?

This study investigates to what extent there is an association between students’ self-reported perceptions of online learning and observed online learning behaviors recorded by the learning analytic data. The participants were 319 undergraduates studying an engineering course in an Australian university. Data analyses were conducted using cluster analyses, Hidden Markov Model, one-way ANOVAs, and a cross-tabulation. The relations between students’ self-reported perceptions and their academic learning outcome show that those with positive perceptions tended to have higher scores. The relations between observational online learning behaviors and their academic learning outcome demonstrate that students with most learning sessions achieved more highly. The cross-tabulation finds a significant association between the cluster membership generated by by the self-reported perceptions and observational online learning behaviors. Amongst students who had most study sessions characterized by high percentages of reading and formative states and low percentage of summative states, the proportion of those with positive perceptions (40.2%) was significantly higher than those with negative perceptions (20.0%). Of students who had the least study sessions represented by moderate reading and summative states, and low formative states, the proportion of students with positive perceptions (3.0%) was significantly lower than the proportion of students having negative perceptions (8.7%).