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Posts Tagged ‘Instructional Systems’

An Experimental Study of Corrective Feedback During Video-Conferencing

This study investigated the effectiveness of oral metalinguistic feedback and recasts as well as the effect of focused tasks (FT) in the development of implicit and explicit knowledge during video-conference interactions. This was accomplished by partial replication of a study performed in a classroom setting. Three groups of Brazilian EFL learners (n = 42) participated in […]

Sticking With Spanish: Reasons for Study and Motivation Maintenance in Adult Beginner Distance Language Learners

This paper examines the reasons for study of adult beginner distance learners of Spanish and the relationships between those reasons and motivation maintenance. A survey of 563 Open University UK students found motivational orientations distinct from those of young people in earlier studies. Adult learners who maintained their motivation also demonstrated a greater number of […]

The Effects of Social Networking Sites in Distance Learning on Learners’ Academic Achievements

The general aim of this study is to determine the effects of learning management systems supported by social networking sites on learners’ academic achievements in distance education. The study group consisted of 75 undergraduate students from a state university in eastern Turkey. The data for the study, in which an experimental research design was used, […]

Exploring the Dimensions of Self-Efficacy in Virtual World Learning: Environment, Task, and Content

 This study explores the dimensionality of college students’ self-efficacy related to their academic activities in the open-ended virtual world of Second Life (SL). To do this, relevant dimensions of self-efficacy were theoretically derived, and items to measure these dimensions were developed and then assessed using a survey methodology. Using data from 486 students enrolled in […]

Does the Online Environment Promote Plagiarism? A Comparative Study of Dissertations from Brick-and-Mortar versus Online Institutions

In recent years, there has been a concern that the Internet has been contributing to a growth in student plagiarism. This paper reports on a study aimed at investigating if there were differences between plagiarism levels in doctoral dissertations submitted by students enrolled at traditional, brick-and-mortar institutions and those by students attending online counterparts. A […]

What Does the Eye See? Reading Online Primary Source Photographs in History

This exploratory study looks at how a sample of preservice teachers and historians read visuals in the context of school history. The participants used eye tracking technology and think-aloud protocol, as they examined a series of online primary source photographs from a virtual exhibit. Voluntary participants (6 students and 2 professional historians) were recruited at […]

An Exploration of Metacognition in Asynchronous Student-Led Discussions: A Qualitative Inquiry

Research is limited on how metacognition is facilitated and manifested in socially situated online learning environments such as online discussion forums. We approached metacognition as the phenomenon of interest with a methodological objective to evaluate the relevance of a metacognition construct. We also had a content objective to study student-led facilitation of discussions as a […]

ePortfolios and Audience: Teaching a Critical Twenty-First Century Skill

This article reports on a three-year investigation into how and to what extent ePortfolios sponsor teacher and student learning about audience in first-year writing classes at a mid-sized research university. Through interviews with students and instructors and detailed analysis of students’ ePortfolios, we found that, more often than not, the audience for ePortfolios is multiple. […]

To See or Not to See: Effects of Online Access to Peer-Generated Questions on Performance

This study examined the effects on performance of online access to peer-generated questions during question-generation activities. Two eighth grade classes (N = 63) participated in six weekly question-generation sessions to support English learning. An online student question-generation learning system was adopted. In contrast to expectations based on the literature on observational learning and scaffolding, no […]

Designing for Learning Engagement in Remote Communities: Narratives from North of Sixty

There are multiple challenges to designing learning experiences for schools in remote communities, including technology and infrastructure limitations, high teacher and administrator turnover, and conflicting interests between local culture and school curricula. In this paper, we offer a brief history of educational initiatives in remote Arctic communities, focusing on: 1) the importance of traditional knowledge, […]