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Archive for the ‘Higher Education’ Category

Faculty Personality: A Factor of Student Retention

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between student retention and faculty personality as it was hypothesized that faculty personality has an effect on student retention. The methodology adopted for this study was quantitative and in two parts 1) using linear regression models to examine the impact or causality of faculty personality […]

Fostering postgraduate student engagement: online resources supporting self-directed learning in a diverse cohort

The research question for this study was: ‘Can the provision of online resources help to engage and motivate students to become self-directed learners?’ This study presents the results of an action research project to answer this question for a postgraduate module at a research-intensive university in the United Kingdom. The analysis of results from the […]

Skills of U.S. Unemployed, Young, and Older Adults in Sharper Focus

The purpose of this report is to present updated and additional results from the U.S. PIAAC household data collection, based on data collected in 2012 and 2014. PIAAC is an international large-scale study of adult skills and life experience focusing on education and employment that was developed and organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation […]

Investigating University Educators’ Design Thinking and the Implications for Design Support Tools

All university educators perform design work as they prepare and plan learning experiences for their students. How such design work is undertaken, conceptualised, and optimally supported is the focus of ongoing research for the authors. The purpose of this article is to present the results of a research study that sought to gain a richer […]

Measuring User Experience of the Student-Centered e-Learning Environment

The aim of the current study is to develop an adapted version of User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) and evaluate a learning management system. Although there is a growing interest on User Experience, there are still limited resources (i.e. measurement tools or questionnaires) available to measure user experience of any products, especially learning management systems. Two […]

The Ability of Non-Music Majors to Self-Evaluate at the End of a Music Course

The researchers of this study investigated the participants’ (N = 177) use of a self-evaluation tool employed at the end of an online undergraduate music course that fulfilled the Texas general education requirement for the creative arts. Participants’ use of the two aspects of the tool correlated at r = .5548 – interpreted as a […]

Being There: Implications of Neuroscience and Meditation for Self-Presence in Virtual Worlds

New discoveries in neuroscience show that the human brain and body work together to experience and evaluate emotions and thoughts and to create a felt sense of presence in the material (or virtual) world. The brain engenders (creates) bodily feelings that represent emotions and thoughts. By directing attention to present moment bodily sensations we experience […]

Should Instructors Require Discussion in Online Courses? Effects of Online Discussion on Community of Inquiry, Learner Time, Satisfaction, and Achievement

Online discussion is a commonly used means to promote student understanding of a topic and to facilitate social interaction among students or between students and instructor; however, its effects on student learning in online learning environments have rarely been investigated.  The purpose of this study was to examine the role of online discussion in student […]

Dyads Versus Groups: Using Different Social Structures in Peer Review to Enhance Online Collaborative Learning Processes

The Peer Review (PR) is a very popular technique to support socio-constructivist and connectivist learning processes, online or face-to-face, at all educational levels, in both formal and informal contexts. The idea behind this technique is that sharing views and opinions with others by discussing with peers and receiving and providing formative feedback enriches the quality […]

Download Report: Changing the Debate on Quality Assurance in Higher Education

Businesses need a bigger role at the accreditation table, suggests a new report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and USA Funds. The report argues for a different approach to closing the skills gap, one that creates a “voluntary, employer-driven talent supplier recognition and certification system.” Lumina Foundation