Factors that influence the intention of using an app in higher education

The technology incorporation in the academic area results in changes in the way students see the subjects professors teach, as well as interferes with interpersonal relations, contributing to expanding the classroom beyond its physical environment. Therefore, it creates interactive learning environments in which the professor assumes a mediating role. Another consequence of technology insertion in education is the emergence of virtual tools that collaborate with student growth. With the use of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), this research aims to identify which factors influence the intention of using an application that provides tips for students about the subject discussed in class in the Undergraduate Program in Accounting of a Federal University in southern Brazil. This is descriptive research with a quantitative approach through primary data. Version 17.0 of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used, which analyzed the collected data to obtain a descriptive statistical analysis. Then, the database was imported into the Smart PLS statistical program (version 2.0) to empirically validate the hypotheses through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). In view of the results achieved, the conclusion was that the performance expectancy and social influence directly and significantly affected the intention of using the application. In addition, it is expected that this research will contribute to the academic community by supporting the inclusion of mobile technologies for the propagation of education beyond the classroom, thus enabling omnipresent education for society in general.

Factors that influence the intention of using an app in higher education

The technology incorporation in the academic area results in changes in the way students see the subjects professors teach, as well as interferes with interpersonal relations, contributing to expanding the classroom beyond its physical environment. Therefore, it creates interactive learning environments in which the professor assumes a mediating role. Another consequence of technology insertion in education is the emergence of virtual tools that collaborate with student growth. With the use of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), this research aims to identify which factors influence the intention of using an application that provides tips for students about the subject discussed in class in the Undergraduate Program in Accounting of a Federal University in southern Brazil. This is descriptive research with a quantitative approach through primary data. Version 17.0 of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used, which analyzed the collected data to obtain a descriptive statistical analysis. Then, the database was imported into the Smart PLS statistical program (version 2.0) to empirically validate the hypotheses through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). In view of the results achieved, the conclusion was that the performance expectancy and social influence directly and significantly affected the intention of using the application. In addition, it is expected that this research will contribute to the academic community by supporting the inclusion of mobile technologies for the propagation of education beyond the classroom, thus enabling omnipresent education for society in general.

Augmented Reality in STEM Education: Bibliometric Analysis

Augmented reality applications in STEM education have increasing importance in recent years and it draws attention that scientific studies on this subject have gained momentum in the literature. The purpose of this research is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of studies on the use of augmented reality applications in STEM education in the literature. The Web of Science database has been used to collect the data. A total of 741 studies were accessed by going through various screening processes for the research. Content analysis and bibliometric analysis have been used in the analysis of the data. In the research, the distribution of publications by years and countries and the most published authors, journals, and countries were accessed. As a result of the research, in terms of the institutions with which the authors work, "National Taiwan University of Science Technology" ranked near the top for the number of citations and "National Taiwan Normal University" ranked near the top for the number of publications as the most productive institutions. It has been detected that "Wu, H. –K." and "Chang, H. –Y" are the most effective and productive researchers. According to the analysis conducted in the context of journals, "Computers Education" and "Interactive Learning Environments" have been the journals that contributed the most to this subject. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the co-authorship network structure is predominant in England and Spain. Concepts that become apparent in clusters in co-occurrences analysis are "augmented reality", "virtual reality", "mobile learning", "science education" and "mixed reality".

Developing Public Health Emergency Response Leaders in Incident Management: A Scoping Review of Educational Interventions

During emergency responses, public health leaders frequently serve in incident management roles that differ from their routine job functions. Leaders’ familiarity with incident management principles and functions can influence response outcomes. Therefore, training and exercises in incident management are often required for public health leaders. To describe existing methods of incident management training and exercises in the literature, we queried 6 English language databases and found 786 relevant articles. Five themes emerged: (1) experiential learning as an established approach to foster engaging and interactive learning environments and optimize training design; (2) technology-aided decision support tools are increasingly common for crisis decision-making; (3) integration of leadership training in the education continuum is needed for developing public health response leaders; (4) equal emphasis on competency and character is needed for developing capable and adaptable leaders; and (5) consistent evaluation methodologies and metrics are needed to assess the effectiveness of educational interventions. These findings offer important strategic and practical considerations for improving the design and delivery of educational interventions to develop public health emergency response leaders. This review and ongoing real-world events could facilitate further exploration of current practices, emerging trends, and challenges for continuous improvements in developing public health emergency response leaders.

Learning analytics of humanities course: reader profiles in critical reading activity

This study investigates learner’s reading behaviors in a critical reading task in humanities course using learning analytics techniques. A Critical Analysis of Literature and Cinema course was selected as a context. The course activities evolved over 10 years, and for this instance, some face-to-face classroom critical reading activities were migrated to online mode by using BookRoll, a learning analytics enhanced eBook platform. Students (n=22 out of the 50 registered) accessed Hayavadana, an Indian play uploaded on BookRoll, and attempted to identify performative elements and cultural references in the text and highlight them. In this study, we analyze learner’s reading logs gathered in the learning record store linked to BookRoll during that activity. We extend our previous work where we identify four online reading profiles: effortful, strategic, wanderers, and check-out, based on learner’s clickstream interactions and time spent with the content. We validate the profiles with qualitative interview data collected from the learners and illustrate the quantified learning behaviors of each of those profiles based on an engagement metric. Our work aims to initiate further discussion related to the application of learning analytics in humanities courses both to probe into the learning behaviors of the students and thereby enhance the experiences with the use of interactive learning environments and data-driven services.

Computer simulation in informatics lessons as a factor of the continuity of school education in teaching mathematical modeling

The article actualizes the need to use elements of computer modeling from school to university when teaching mathematics to engineering students, analyzes the role of simulation models of applied mathematics. The experience of organizing classes using data visualization is presented, the use of simulators and games for studying mathematics in the context of mathematical education, in which students interact with interactive learning environments, is discussed, examples of using computer simulations in the classroom are discussed. The study lists and characterizes the types of didactic simulations, examines the process of transition of school education using simulators and games into the didactics of mathematics of technical universities using applied mathematics and mathematical modeling to elements of simulation. A pedagogical experiment of the continuity of school education (section “Information systems and programming” of the Donetsk Republican Small Academy of Sciences for Students) was carried out in teaching applied mathematics, informatics and mathematical modeling (the department “Transport technologies”) students of the engineering and transport direction of Automobile and Road Institute of Donetsk National Technical University.

Design Thinking Methodology for Migration of Escape Room Style Educational Game in an Online Environment (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The Corona pandemic outbreak has led to a sudden change in education, closing schools and shifting the teaching online, which has become an enormous challenge for teachers and students. Implementing adequate online pedagogical approaches and integrating different digital tools in the teaching process has become a priority in educational systems. Finding a way to keep students' interest and persistence for learning is an important issue that online education is facing. One possible way for establishing engaging and interactive learning environments, utilizing students’ energy and enthusiasm for educational purpose, is use of game-based learning activities and gamification of different parts of educational process. OBJECTIVE This paper presents how we have used design thinking methodology to migrate escape room style educational game in an online environment. We investigated whether digital educational escape room can be used to increase student engagement in remote teaching and online learning. We also investigate whether we can we design thinking to create an engaging escape room educational game and provide novel educational value for the escape room educational game. METHODS Using design thinking methodology, we managed to understand which game elements were considered most engaging by the students. Starting from students’ perspective we have created a simple digital escape room where students had an opportunity to self-assess their knowledge in computer science at their own pace. Students tested the prototype game and their opinion about the game was collected through an online survey. The test's main goal was not to measure students' achievement but to evaluate the students' perceptions of the implemented digital educational escape room style game and provide information on whether it could increase students' engagement in learning computer science. RESULTS 117 students from sixth and seventh grades filled the survey regarding the achieved students’ engagement. Despite the differences in students’ answers about game complexity and puzzles' difficulty, most students liked the activity (M = 4.75, SD = 0.67 on scale from 1 to 5). They have enjoyed the game, and they would like to participate in this kind of activity again (M = 4.74, SD = 0.68). All students (100% of them) found the escape room interesting for playing and learning. CONCLUSIONS The results confirmed that digital escape rooms could be used as a tool for increasing students' interest and motivation for achieving learning outcomes and gave us an insight in the elements that could be improved in the game.

Writing for Players

This article describes a technical writing assignment that requires students to use Minecraft to design and document interactive learning environments. In this project, students balance a critical awareness of this game's technical features with a rhetorical understanding of how those features impact the audience’s experiences and actions. This article demonstrates how video game-based writing projects can help students understand the role of an audience's agency in technical communication.