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Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

Student satisfaction with a web-based dissertation course: Findings from an international distance learning master’s programme in public health

Online distance learning (e-learning) is now an established method for providing higher education, in the UK and across the world. The focus has largely been on developing the technology, and less attention has been given to developing evidence-informed course provision. Thus the effectiveness of this teaching approach, and its acceptability to students, is, at times, […]

Initial trends in enrolment and completion of massive open online courses

The past two years have seen rapid development of massive open online courses (MOOCs) with the rise of a number of MOOC platforms. The scale of enrolment and participation in the earliest mainstream MOOC courses has garnered a good deal of media attention. However, data about how the enrolment and completion figures have changed since […]

Learning When Serious: Psychophysiological Evaluation of a Technology-Enhanced Learning Game

We report an evaluation study for a novel learning platform, motivated by the growing need for methods to do assessment of serious game efficacy. The study was a laboratory experiment combining evaluation methods from the fields of learning assessment and psychophysiology. 15 participants used the TARGET game platform for 25 minutes, while the bio-signals electrocardiography, […]

Guest Editorial: Game Based Learning for 21st Century Transferable Skills: Challenges and Opportunities

Digital serious games (SGs) (Gee, 2003; Prensky, 2003) offer a high potential to foster and support learning in educational and training settings. SGs aim at improving learning processes by providing attractive, motivating and effective tools. So far, effectiveness of SGs has been shown by recent studies (e.g., Connolly et al., 2012; Wouters et al., 2013), […]

Peer Learning in Virtual Schools

This article is about peer-to-peer learning amongst students within K–12 virtual schools. This issue is examined through a case study of experiences of three students with disabilities enrolled in one virtual school and that of their parents, teachers, and school administrators. The article is framed around variability in learners’ aptitudes for peer-to-peer learning, in the […]

Multi-country experience in delivering a joint course on software engineering – numerical results

A joint course, created as a result of a project under the auspices of the ‘Stability Pact of South-Eastern Europe’ and DAAD, has been conducted in several Balkan countries: in Novi Sad, Serbia, for the last six years in several different forms, in Skopje, FYR of Macedonia, for two years, for several types of students, […]

Benchmarking the habits and behaviours of successful students: A case study of academic-business collaboration

Student success and retention is a primary goal of higher education institutions across the world. The cost of student failure and dropout in higher education is multifaceted including, amongst other things, the loss of revenue, prestige, and stakeholder trust for both institutions and students. Interventions to address this are complex and varied. While the dominant […]

Introduction to Distance Education: Theorists and Theories: Otto Peters

By Dr. Farhad (Fred) Saba Founder, Distance-Educator.com Born in Berlin in 1926, Dr. Otto Peters, is Professor emeritus of the FernUniversität (Distance Teaching University) in Germany. For 10 years he had been its Founding Rector, and for 17 years he held a chair in a discipline called, Methodology of DistanceTeaching in the same institution. In […]

Using a Video Game as an Advance Organizer: Effects on Development of Procedural and Conceptual Knowledge, Cognitive Load, and Casual Adoption

This paper reports on a study aimed at investigating whether a video game can act as an advance organizer for teaching a military call for fire task in order to improve learning efficiency. Participants were 23 males and 45 females, randomly assigned to one of four conditions. Conditions were developed by a 2 x 2 […]

Review of Educational Research Methods in Desktop Virtual World Environments: Framing the Past to Provide Future Direction

This article describes educational research methodologies being used in the investigation and evaluation of desktop virtual world environments (DVWEs) as used to teach a variety of subjects in higher education. Ellis’ research framework on innovations (2005) and Reeves and Hedberg’s research goals (2003) were used as lenses to examine the state of educational research methods […]