Evaluating Virtual Patient Interaction Fidelity With Advanced Communication Skills Learners

Previous research in educational medical simulation has drawn attention to the interplay between a simulation’s fidelity and its educational effectiveness. As virtual patients (VPs) are increasingly used in medical simulations for education purposes, a focus on the relationship between virtual patients’ fidelity and educational effectiveness should also be investigated. In this paper, we contribute to this investigation by evaluating the use of a virtual patient selection interface (in which learners interact with a virtual patient via a set of pre-defined choices) with advanced medical communication skills learners. To this end, we integrated virtual patient interviews into a graduate-level course for speech-language therapists over the course of 2 years. In the first cohort, students interacted with three VPs using only a chat interface. In the second cohort, students used both a chat interface and a selection interface to interact with the VPs. Our results suggest that these advanced learners view the selection interfaces as more appropriate for novice learners and that their communication behavior was not significantly affected by using the selection interface. Based on these results, we suggest that selection interfaces may be more appropriate for novice communication skills learners, but for applications in which selection interfaces are to be used with advanced learners, additional design research may be needed to best target these interfaces to advanced learners.

Blockchain Ecosystem for Credit Transfer in Education

Data is the key to measuring educational effectiveness promptly. But data and education are trapped and siloed across centralized systems, causing information discrepancies and inaccuracies. This has caused countless delayed opportunities, academic credential disagreements, and never-ending confusion around learning potency. This lack of transparency, despite having its fair share of usefulness, has also been quite burdensome. To alleviate this issue, our team has developed a blockchain protocol that verifies professional certifications that have been earned both locally and through another well-established online educational portal. This system allows accuracy, reliability, and immutability that has never been implemented. This foundation of clear, verified data will then be used further to power blockchain-based applications. The result is that our attempt at a versatile, holistic, and decentralized view of educational performance ensures the best e-learning outcome for students and teachers alike.

Italian parents’ perception about learning practices and educational effectiveness of remote schooling during the first lockdown

The abrupt interruption of face-to-face educational activities imposed by the Italian Government in response to the Covid-19 emergency required a rapid switch to remote schooling to guarantee continuity in education. This paper explores the family’s perception about the organization of remote schooling and its impact on learning. In particular, the authors investigated the technology used and the strategies adopted by the teachers to face the challenges posed by this rapid change in the educational paradigm through an online survey carried out between May and June 2020. More than 19,000 families answered the survey for a total of 32,000 children, highlighting a favorable evaluation from the parents. The analyses confirm that several factors linked to the technology used and instructional learning design signif icantly impacted the parents’ evaluation.

The Influential Factors in Students' Satisfaction with Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Iran (2015 - 2016)

Background: Attention to educational quality is a primary goal of the managers, professors, and policymakers of the community health system. Universities seek to meet students’ needs and expectations and increase their satisfaction since student satisfaction is essential to the growth and improvement of educational organizations. Objectives: The present study aimed to evaluate the influential factors in students' satisfaction with Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (KUMS), Iran in 2015-2016. Methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted on 346 students of KUMS who were selected via stratified random sampling. Data were collected by a questionnaire used in similar studies. The influential factors were assessed in two dimensions of importance and satisfaction. Data analysis was performed using descriptive and inferential statistics at the significance level of 0.05. Results: The mean scores of the important dimension, satisfaction dimension, and the gap were 174.6 ± 25, 138.3 ± 24.3, and 36.3 ± 33.3, respectively. All the factors had a high degree of importance, and the highest level of relative satisfaction belonged to the factors of school atmosphere and educational effectiveness. Meanwhile, the lowest level of satisfaction was assigned to responsiveness to diverse populations. The most significant gap was observed in the factors of school's atmosphere and educational effectiveness, and the lowest value belonged to the factors of health and safety status of the school. In addition, the mean score of the gap in the female students (42 ± 33) was higher compared to the male students (26.9 ± 31.9; P = 0.004). Conclusions: Since the level of student satisfaction with KUMS was not desirable in this study, it is recommended that the university administrators and staff increasingly improve the quality and quantity of the educational services at this institution.

EDUCATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS OF A VIRTUAL DESIGN STUDIO ON ZERO-ENERGY BUILDING DESIGNS: THE CASE OF THE U.S. SOLAR DECATHLON DESIGN CHALLENGE

ABSTRACT Ongoing global architectural agendas span climate change, energy, a carbon-neutral society, human comfort, COVID-19, social justice, and sustainability. An architecture studio allows architecture students to learn how to solve complicated environmental issues through integrated thinking and a design process. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon Design Challenge enables them to broaden their analytic perspectives on numerous subjects and strengthen their integrated thinking of environmental impacts, resilience, sustainability, and well-being. However, the unprecedented impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic transformed the physical studio-based design education system into an online-based learning environment. Mandatory social distancing by the global COVID-19 pandemic restricted interactive discussions and face-to-face collaborations for the integrated zero-energy building design process, which requires features of architecture, engineering, market analysis, durability and resilience, embodied environmental quality, integrated performance, occupant experience, comfort and environmental quality, energy performance, and presentation. This study emphasizes the educational effectiveness of virtual design studios as a part of the discourse on architectural pedagogy of zero-energy building (ZEB) design through integrated designs, technological theories, and analytic skills. The survey results of ten contests show educational achievement with over 90% of the highest positive tendency in the categories of embodied environmental quality and comfort and environmental quality, whereas the positive tendency of educational achievement in the categories of integrated performance, energy performance, and presentation were lower than 70%. The reason for the low percentage of simulation utilization and integrated performance was the lack of a proper understanding of and experience with ZEB simulations and evaluations for undergraduate students. Although VDS is not an ideal pedagogical system for the iterative design critique process, it can support the learning of the value of architectural education, including integrative design thinking, problem-solving skills, numerical simulation techniques, and communicable identities through online discussions and feedback during the COVID-19 pandemic.