Pablo Garaizar
Universidad de Deusto, DeustoTech, Faculty Member
Until recently, most of the digital literacy frameworks have been based on assessment frameworks used by commercial entities. The release of the DigComp framework has allowed the development of tailored implementations for the evaluation... more
Until recently, most of the digital literacy frameworks have been based on assessment frameworks used by commercial entities. The release of the DigComp framework has allowed the development of tailored implementations for the evaluation of digital competence. However, the majority of these digital literacy frameworks are based on self-assessments, measuring only low-order cognitive skills. This paper reports on a study to develop and validate an assessment instrument, including interactive simulations to assess citizens’ digital competence. These formats are particularly important for the evaluation of complex cognitive constructs such as digital competence. Additionally, we selected two different approaches for designing the tests based on their scope, at the competence or competence area level. Their overall and dimensional validity and reliability were analysed. We summarise the issues addressed in each phase and key points to consider in new implementations. For both approaches...
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ABSTRACT Background and Context: Despite many initiatives to develop Computational Thinking (CT), not much is known about how early programmers develop CT and how we can assess their learning. Objective: Determine if the analysis of... more
ABSTRACT Background and Context: Despite many initiatives to develop Computational Thinking (CT), not much is known about how early programmers develop CT and how we can assess their learning. Objective: Determine if the analysis of students’ interactions with an online platform allows understanding the development of CT, how we can convert data collected into valuable insights, and the aspects that should be considered in platforms design. Method: We developed an online platform with a fine-grained log–recording system. We analysed the data collected from 1004 students (ages 8-14) to understand the difficulties they face. We explain our platform and the tools to process and filter the interaction logs. We calculate additional indicators that provide useful information about student’s behaviour. Findings: Age and gender have shown to influence on CT learning. Generating additional indicators from basic interaction data provide valuable insights. We provide a list of recommendations for developing more effective programming learning platforms.
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Technical noise can compromise the precision and accuracy of the reaction times collected in psychological experiments, especially in the case of Internet-based studies. Although this noise seems to have only a small impact on traditional... more
Technical noise can compromise the precision and accuracy of the reaction times collected in psychological experiments, especially in the case of Internet-based studies. Although this noise seems to have only a small impact on traditional statistical analyses, its effects on model fit to reaction-time distributions remains unexplored. Across four simulations we study the impact of technical noise on parameter recovery from data generated from an ex-Gaussian distribution and from a Ratcliff Diffusion Model. Our results suggest that the impact of noise-induced variance tends to be limited to specific parameters and conditions. Although we encourage researchers to adopt all measures to reduce the impact of noise on reaction-time experiments, we conclude that the typical amount of noise-induced variance found in these experiments does not pose substantial problems for statistical analyses based on model fitting.
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This paper reports on an exploratory study with the aim to validate item response processes in digital competence assessment through eye-tracking techniques. When measuring complex cognitive constructs, it is crucial to correctly design... more
This paper reports on an exploratory study with the aim to validate item response processes in digital competence assessment through eye-tracking techniques. When measuring complex cognitive constructs, it is crucial to correctly design the evaluation items to trigger the intended knowledge and skills. Furthermore, to assess the validity of a test requires considering not only the content of the evaluation tasks involved in the test, but also whether examinees respond to the tasks by engaging construct-relevant response processes. The eye tracking observations helped to fill an ‘explanatory gap’ by providing data on variation in item response processes that are not captured by other sources of process data such as think aloud protocols or computer-generated log files. We proposed a set of metrics that could help test designers to validate the different item formats used in the evaluation of digital competence. The gaze data provided detailed information on test item response strategies, enabling profiling of examinee engagement and response processes associated with successful performance. There were notable differences between the participants who correctly solved the tasks and those who failed, in terms of the time spent on solving them, as well as the data on their gazes. Moreover, this included insights into response processes which contributed to the validation of the assessment criteria of each item.
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Abstract In this work, we present two studies about changes in the creative thinking of people in prison when using Scratch (a programming language designed to be fun, educational, and easy to learn). Fifteen inmates from the prison of... more
Abstract In this work, we present two studies about changes in the creative thinking of people in prison when using Scratch (a programming language designed to be fun, educational, and easy to learn). Fifteen inmates from the prison of Alava (Spain) voluntarily participated in the first study. Thirteen inmates from the same prison voluntarily participated in the second study. Each of these workshops comprised 50 h, spread over 25 days at a rate of 2 h per day. We registered their improvements during their learning process using several instruments; we also evaluated the evolution in their creative intelligence quantitatively using the CREA test (Corbalan et al., 2014), and noticed a significant score increase among participants of both studies. In light of these results, we believe that the use of Scratch can enhance the creative abilities of people in difficult situations, including prisoners.
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ABSTRACT The project “Serious Games for Education–Programming Skills” presents an innovative technology that integrates serious games techniques with remote laboratories and augmented reality. The flexible and scalable technology is... more
ABSTRACT The project “Serious Games for Education–Programming Skills” presents an innovative technology that integrates serious games techniques with remote laboratories and augmented reality. The flexible and scalable technology is designed with a three layer structure: (1) the physical layer - ROBOT (hardware and communications) remotely manipulated; (2) AR and instruction interface middleware; and (3) end-user game application including game interface. This design enables multiple pedagogical objectives and context of use. In the first prototype we have developed a serious game, the third end-user layer, to develop and assess programming skills, algorithmic thinking and debugging.
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ABSTRACT Within the 3rd International Digital Citizenship Conference celebrated in San Sebastian-Spain in May 8th, we took part in a round table debate about the use of Smartphone in education with teenagers. There is an open discussion... more
ABSTRACT Within the 3rd International Digital Citizenship Conference celebrated in San Sebastian-Spain in May 8th, we took part in a round table debate about the use of Smartphone in education with teenagers. There is an open discussion about the benefits or threats of using such an innovative technology. Usually the main trend is to forbid the use of mobile phones in the classroom. We bet for considering the use of any technology if it can benefit somehow our learning/teaching process. Smartphones are very powerful devices that can be used in many innovative ways. We can profit their availability, since many students have one. In this paper we analyze how different authors understand mobile learning, we review previous experiences and their results in educational institutions using mobile learning, and we reflect on the threats and opportunities of using mobile devices in education. Finally we show an approach to a new educational paradigm that is being implemented thanks to the educational revolution derived from the use of mobile devices and we provide simple guidelines for its implementation.
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Enthusiasm for research on the brain and its application in education is growing among teachers. However, a lack of sufficient knowledge, poor communication between educators and scientists, and the effective marketing of dubious... more
Enthusiasm for research on the brain and its application in education is growing among teachers. However, a lack of sufficient knowledge, poor communication between educators and scientists, and the effective marketing of dubious educational products has led to the proliferation of numerous 'neuromyths.' As a first step toward designing effective interventions to correct these misconceptions, previous studies have explored the prevalence of neuromyths in different countries. In the present study we extend this applied research by gathering data from a new sample of Spanish teachers and by meta-analyzing all the evidence available so far. Our results show that some of the most popular neuromyths identified in previous studies are also endorsed by Spanish teachers. The meta-analytic synthesis of these data and previous research confirms that the popularity of some neuromyths is remarkably consistent across countries, although we also note peculiarities and exceptions with impo...
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MissToHit es un proyecto educativo europeo que toma como punto de partida errores de concepto en las areas STEM (siglas en ingles de Ciencia, Tecnologia, Ingenieria y Matematicas), errores que, a traves de actividades didacticas de... more
MissToHit es un proyecto educativo europeo que toma como punto de partida errores de concepto en las areas STEM (siglas en ingles de Ciencia, Tecnologia, Ingenieria y Matematicas), errores que, a traves de actividades didacticas de indagacion y la aplicacion del metodo cientifico, son corregidos, lograndose asi aprendizajes duraderos y significativos. Estas actividades se implementan utilizando materiales reciclados.
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Creativity and Computational Thinking (CT) have been both extensively researched in recent years. However, the associations between them are still not fully understood despite their recognition as essential competencies for the digital... more
Creativity and Computational Thinking (CT) have been both extensively researched in recent years. However, the associations between them are still not fully understood despite their recognition as essential competencies for the digital age. This study looks to bridge this gap by examining the association between CT and two types of creativity, i.e., Creative Thinking and Computational Creativity. The research was conducted among 124 middle school students from Spain, who were divided into control and experimental groups; the intervention included an explicit encouragement to be as creative as possible (i.e., to submit multiple correct solutions) in a given learning task. Data were analyzed from a standardized creativity test (Torrance's TTCT) and cross-referenced with log files that documented the students' activities in the Kodetu game-based learning environment. Our research findings indicate some interesting associations between CT and Creativity. First, we found that cre...
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DMDX is a software package for the experimental control and timing of stimulus display for Microsoft Windows systems. DMDX is reliable, flexible, millisecond accurate, and can be downloaded free of charge; therefore it has become very... more
DMDX is a software package for the experimental control and timing of stimulus display for Microsoft Windows systems. DMDX is reliable, flexible, millisecond accurate, and can be downloaded free of charge; therefore it has become very popular among experimental researchers. However, setting up a DMDX-based experiment is burdensome because of its command-based interface. Further, DMDX relies on RTF files in which parts of the stimuli, design, and procedure of an experiment are defined in a complicated (DMASTR-compatible) syntax. Other experiment software, such as E-Prime, Psychopy, and WEXTOR, became successful as a result of integrated visual authoring tools. Such an intuitive interface was lacking for DMDX. We therefore created and present here Visual DMDX ( http://visualdmdx.com/ ), a HTML5-based web interface to set up experiments and export them to DMDX item files format in RTF. Visual DMDX offers most of the features available from the rich DMDX/DMASTR syntax, and it is a usefu...
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The Basque Government has published two calls to create digital educational objects for the programme called Eskola 2.0. After having provided schools with technological equipment, these calls aim to increase the use of learning... more
The Basque Government has published two calls to create digital educational objects for the programme called Eskola 2.0. After having provided schools with technological equipment, these calls aim to increase the use of learning technology in the classroom. More than 300 didactic sequences have been developed, which vary greatly in visual design, content structure, organization, and pedagogical aspects. Even though accessibility is one of the quality criteria, the reality is that they are hardly accessible and inclusive. DeustoTech Learning research group has carried out a survey of the educational objects approved in these calls up to November 2011. The authors evaluated pedagogical and technological aspects to find out how inclusive they are. In this chapter, they provide the results of the survey and propose a set of guidelines for designing more accessible and inclusive objects in the future.
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WebLabs are novel eLearning applications with a promising future. Once a WebLab reaches the state of stable prototype, there are still many issues that have to be taken care of before the system can be considered a first quality web based... more
WebLabs are novel eLearning applications with a promising future. Once a WebLab reaches the state of stable prototype, there are still many issues that have to be taken care of before the system can be considered a first quality web based application. In the following pages some of these issues are addressed, and pointers are given so as to take the first steps in dealing with WebLab security, accessibility, collaborative development and multilinguality.
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From an early age, girls disregard studies related to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM), and this means that a gender gap begins during secondary education and continues to increase over time. Multiple causes have... more
From an early age, girls disregard studies related to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM), and this means that a gender gap begins during secondary education and continues to increase over time. Multiple causes have been identified for this phenomenon in the literature, and numerous initiatives are being carried out to reverse this situation. In this paper, we analyze the impact that a group mentoring initiative led by a female STEM role model had on the young people who participated and whether the impact was different based on their sex. We analyzed how these mentoring sessions affected their attitudes towards technology, mathematical self-efficacy, gender stereotypes, science and technology references, and career vocations. To this end, 303 students between the ages of 10 and 12 years old from 10 schools in Spain participated in the six sessions comprising the program and completed a series of questionnaires before and after participating. The results show tha...
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Trastea.club (http://www.trastea.club/) is an initiative of the University of Deusto (Spain) aimed to develop STEM-related skills among young students (STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Science). We chose the name... more
Trastea.club (http://www.trastea.club/) is an initiative of the University of Deusto (Spain) aimed to develop STEM-related skills among young students (STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Science). We chose the name "trastea" because it means to tinker in Spanish, a verb that fits with the hands-on approach of this initiative. Since January 2014, we have organized more than 180 workshops attended by more than 3.200 students from 35 different schools. With the aim of supporting the methodological and technical changes needed to integrate these new skills in the classroom, 216 teachers also benefited from our training courses, consultancy and support to adapt Trastea.club's activities to their curricula. Initiatives such as Trastea.club aim to support the constant adaptation process faced by schools and teachers due to the rapidly changing technologies and the evolution of students' profiles. The main goal of this initiative is to help schools in th...
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Automation through IoT brings with it a whole new set of philosophical and ethical implications that we barely began to address. However, it is widely considered by many scholars as the panacea to overcoming the majority of societal... more
Automation through IoT brings with it a whole new set of philosophical and ethical implications that we barely began to address. However, it is widely considered by many scholars as the panacea to overcoming the majority of societal issues. The case of energy efficiency as an action for tackling climate change is not different: demand-response proposals or occupancy-driven energy management systems crowd the current research agenda on energy efficiency. However, there are still very few studies that have reported the effects of automation in the mid or long term beyond energy reduction (e.g. emotional feelings derived to interact with automation, complacency to the devices or perceived value of the automation throughout the time). In this workshop article, we report scientific evidence of a study conducted in ten workplaces during more than one year where we found that automating some electronic devices of common use (i.e. moving away or preventing subjects from the control of these...
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Computational Thinking (CT) and creativity are considered two vital skills for the 21st century that should be incorporated into future curricula around the world. We studied the relationship between these two constructs while focusing on... more
Computational Thinking (CT) and creativity are considered two vital skills for the 21st century that should be incorporated into future curricula around the world. We studied the relationship between these two constructs while focusing on learners’ personal characteristics. Two types of creativity were examined: creative thinking and computational creativity. The research was conducted among 174 middle school students from Spain. Data collected using a standardized creativity test (Torrance's TTCT) were triangulated with data drawn from students' log files that documented their activity in a game-based learning environment for CT (Kodetu). We found some interesting associations between CT and the two constructs of creativity. These associations shed light on positive associations between each of the two creativity constructs and CT acquisition, as well as between the two creativity constructs themselves. Additionally, we highlight differences between boys and girls, as girls...
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a computational model that implicitly predict the children’s creative quality of solutions by analyzing the query pattern on a problem-solving-based lesson. Design/methodology/approach A... more
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a computational model that implicitly predict the children’s creative quality of solutions by analyzing the query pattern on a problem-solving-based lesson. Design/methodology/approach A search task related to the competencies acquired in the classroom was applied to automatically measure children’ creativity. A blind review process of the creative quality was developed of 255 primary school students’ solutions. Findings While there are many creativity training programs that have proven effective, many of these programs require measuring creativity previously which involves time-consuming tasks conducted by experienced reviewers, i.e. far from primary school classroom dynamics. The authors have developed a model that predicts the creative quality of the given solution using the search queries pattern as input. This model has been used to predict the creative quality of 255 primary school students’ solutions with 80 percent sensitivity....
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Over the last few years, microblogging has gained prominence as a form of personal broadcasting media where information and opinion are mixed together without an established order, usually tightly linked with current reality. Location... more
Over the last few years, microblogging has gained prominence as a form of personal broadcasting media where information and opinion are mixed together without an established order, usually tightly linked with current reality. Location awareness and promptness provide researchers using the Internet with the opportunity to create “psychological landscapes"—that is, to detect differences and changes in voiced (twittered) emotions, cognitions, and behaviors. In our article, we present iScience Maps, a free Web service for researchers, available from
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In a recent report published in PLoS ONE, we found that the performance of PsychoPy degraded with very short timing intervals, suggesting that it might not be perfectly suitable for experiments requiring the presentation of very brief... more
In a recent report published in PLoS ONE, we found that the performance of PsychoPy degraded with very short timing intervals, suggesting that it might not be perfectly suitable for experiments requiring the presentation of very brief stimuli. The present study aims to provide an updated performance assessment for the most recent version of PsychoPy (v1.80) under different hardware/software conditions. Overall, the results show that PsychoPy can achieve high levels of precision and accuracy in the presentation of brief visual stimuli. Although occasional timing errors were found in very demanding benchmarking tests, there is no reason to think that they can pose any problem for standard experiments developed by researchers.
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The popularization of digital educational devices with low barriers to entry has encouraged the development of many training activities orient ed towards the incorporation of technology in schools. In some cases, the introduction of... more
The popularization of digital educational devices
with low barriers to entry has encouraged the development of
many training activities orient
ed towards the incorporation of
technology in schools. In some
cases, the introduction of
technology has led to the development of new educational
practices that support the de
velopment of computational
thinking. However, the supposed benefits of these approaches
have not been properly assessed
. Moreover, having taught over
30 workshops with the Scratch progr
amming tool to teachers at
different educational levels (primary, secondary, university), we
found no evidence of subsequent methodological changes in
schools. This study tries to understand the dissonance between
the alleged success of initiatives around digital literacy and the
lack of continuity in the use of user-friendly programming
environments like Scratch. For this purpose, we analyzed the
evolution of the grades of Scra
tch programming achieved by the
students of the School of Educat
ion of Vitoria-Gasteiz and their
engagement with Scratch. We al
so interviewed teachers from
different schools who have participated in Scratch workshops
with us. After this stud
y, we identified some of the circumstances
that facilitate and hinder the development of computational
thinking. Since we consider Scratch as a resource that allows the
development of new methodologica
l approaches in the classroom
as well as the acquisition of skills related to computational
thinking, we propose a framework
that will help to overcome the
current status.
with low barriers to entry has encouraged the development of
many training activities orient
ed towards the incorporation of
technology in schools. In some
cases, the introduction of
technology has led to the development of new educational
practices that support the de
velopment of computational
thinking. However, the supposed benefits of these approaches
have not been properly assessed
. Moreover, having taught over
30 workshops with the Scratch progr
amming tool to teachers at
different educational levels (primary, secondary, university), we
found no evidence of subsequent methodological changes in
schools. This study tries to understand the dissonance between
the alleged success of initiatives around digital literacy and the
lack of continuity in the use of user-friendly programming
environments like Scratch. For this purpose, we analyzed the
evolution of the grades of Scra
tch programming achieved by the
students of the School of Educat
ion of Vitoria-Gasteiz and their
engagement with Scratch. We al
so interviewed teachers from
different schools who have participated in Scratch workshops
with us. After this stud
y, we identified some of the circumstances
that facilitate and hinder the development of computational
thinking. Since we consider Scratch as a resource that allows the
development of new methodologica
l approaches in the classroom
as well as the acquisition of skills related to computational
thinking, we propose a framework
that will help to overcome the
current status.