Escape Rooms as a Collaborative Problem-Solving Environment

Escape room games are a popular recreative activity that recently started gaining popularity as both a means for conducting research studies and a teaching and learning environment. This paper follows a group of 16- to 17-year-old students in an escape room while they encounter logical challenges in order to escape from the room in a limited amount of time. Their ability to work effectively as a team and complete activities quickly is a key element to success. In this setting, the aim was to examine in what ways this innovative environment might help students benefit in terms of social metacognition. The findings gave evidence that during collaborative problem-solving in an escape room, cognitive demands are distributed among the players. This makes metacognition visible, facilitates shared management thus improving individual cognition, facilitates reciprocal scaffolding, and enhances motivation.

The Analysis of Dielectric Constant, Loss Factor and Q-Factor of Selected Fruits at Microwave Frequency Range

The dielectric constant, dielectric loss factor and Q-Factor of orange, red and green apples were studied at Microwave frequency range. An algorithm was written using the Debye equations and the interactive problem-solving environment of Maple-18 was used to generate results for the dielectric constant, loss factor and quality factor. The variation in the dielectric constant, loss factor and Q-factor as both frequency and temperature changes respectively within and range were shown graphically. The dielectric constant of all the fruits were higher at lower frequencies, it then decreases continuously as frequency increases. On the other hand, the loss factor of this fruits were small at lower frequencies but increased to its peak before decreasing continuously for all temperatures. Interestingly, the fruits’ Q-Factor were higher at lower frequencies and temperatures but decreases rapidly as the frequency increases. The contribution of the space charge, orientation, ionic and electronic polarizations to the dielectric constant, dielectric loss factor and Q-Factor of these fruits at lower frequency and higher frequency were discussed. The effect of the excess sugar and water content on the dielectric constant, loss factor and Q-Factor attributed to the appearance of vibrational peaks was also discussed. This work hereby provides a guidance in developing new microwave processes.