Digital Learning Objects (DLOs) as pedagogical complete structures of learning content contribute... more Digital Learning Objects (DLOs) as pedagogical complete structures of learning content contribute to science education. DLOs especially in the form of interactive simulations seem to be promising tools in physics teaching and learning for students with intellectual disabilities (ID). This study used an AB single subject design to evaluate the effects of four DLOs on students’ learning of transverse waves and simple pendulum motion in a special education high school setting. A functional relationship was found between students’ correct responses concerning both scientific terminology and physical phenomena understanding during probe sessions and the DLOs intervention. In addition, a social validity assessment that evaluated students’ attitudes on learning, quality, and engagement, showed that the DLOs helped students with ID to acquire physics content. The students also reported satisfaction from using the DLOs. Suggestions for future research include the design of DLOs especially fo...
2021 International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT)
The number of students with Intellectual Disability (ID) enrolled in general classes increases. T... more The number of students with Intellectual Disability (ID) enrolled in general classes increases. They appear to meet difficulties in acquiring basic science literacy skills and addressing grade-aligned curriculum. Digital technology seems to contribute to this challenge by engaging students in augmented and virtual environments, especially by enabling 3D representations of abstract and difficult to visualize physical magnitudes and phenomena. This work investigates design issues regarding the development of digital learning environments that contribute to Science Education for students with ID. In this phase, the study explores the perceptions of different groups of professionals and a student with ID regarding the structure of matter. They interacted with different versions of both an augmented and a virtual environment simulating the water vapor in microscopic view. A focus group discussion revealed important data concerning presence, simulator sickness, acceptance and satisfaction for the two environments. The results show that professionals prefer engaging, rather than scientifically aligned representations. The choice between augmented and virtual reality seems to depend on the instructional objectives and strategies based on the specific academic profile of each student with ID.
Although virtual environments (VE) with various levels of immersion have been used and evaluated ... more Although virtual environments (VE) with various levels of immersion have been used and evaluated in vocational and adult training with positive results, no such environments exist for culinary education. The aim of this study was to design a VE for culinary education and evaluate it in terms of user experience with two different levels of immersion: low (desktop) and high (head-mounted display—HMD). Twenty-four students and graduates of an Institute of Vocational Training specializing in either ICT or culinary arts participated in this study. Results showed no significant differences in terms of spatial presence, usability, and workload between the two groups. Nevertheless, participants using the HMD interface needed more time to complete a recipe and experienced much higher simulator sickness. It seems that the lower immersion interface is more appropriate for this specific VE.
Digital Technologies: Sustainable Innovations for Improving Teaching and Learning, 2018
This study is a systematic review of empirical research on digital learning technologies and thei... more This study is a systematic review of empirical research on digital learning technologies and their educational applications in primary and secondary Chemistry Education, during the period 2002–2016. Despite the importance of digital learning technologies in Chemistry Education, this review comes to light because of the current lack of similar works, in that it outlines and organizes the existing literature highlighting the technologies and pedagogical approaches adopted. Forty-three related studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals were identified and reviewed. Results show that most researchers are interested in chemistry topics related to the particulate nature of matter and use digital learning technologies, to mainly create and present visualizations of simulations and models of structural elements of matter and their phenomena. Researchers are interested overall in assessing digital technologies’ contribution to learning and the main technologies used include multimedia and simulations. Most studies are designed as quasi-experiments, and the assessment of learning outcomes is mostly done through questionnaires. The review emphasizes the pedagogical value of digital learning technologies in Chemistry Education. Meta-analyses of the empirical studies could contribute to further understand the pedagogical added value digital learning technologies offer in Chemistry Education.
The biggest challenge for the Digital Educational Games Design refers to how to integrate game me... more The biggest challenge for the Digital Educational Games Design refers to how to integrate game mechanics and learning mechanics into the gameplay in order to enhance motivation and engagement and improve learning outcomes. This study is the pilot phase of a Delphi method that proposes guidelines for the design of Digital Educational Games. The participants of the Delphi study were academic experts from the scientific field of Digital Educational Game Design. In the first round of the study, a questionnaire of six open-ended questions was sent. The second round questionnaire consisted of 46 closed-ended questions in order to estimate agreement between the participants. The third round questionnaire consisted of one open-ended question. According to the results of the study, the learning and game mechanics elements that have been suggested by the participants as the most important elements are those that promote constructivism, authentic learning environments, personalized learning, and fun. The experts mentioned as very important and challenging element, the way learning mechanics should be integrated into the context of the gameplay. What is proposed to achieve the learning objectives and bring the maximum extent of engagement into the game, is that the learning objectives should be included in activities that do not clearly reveal the learning objectives themselves but incorporate them into symbolic representations of everyday life experiences and examples, that are fun for the users and motivate them for high interaction during the gameplay.
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2019
The present study reviews the literature in the field of educational robotics with the aim to ide... more The present study reviews the literature in the field of educational robotics with the aim to identify its potential effects in students’ academic performance. After a systematic search in various databases, we ended up with a total of 12 studies satisfying the eligibility criteria. The majority of studies were observational and only 4 of them were quasi-experimental. For each study we extracted data for the type of robot used, the research method used, the sample characteristics (sample size, age range of students and level of education) and the results observed in terms of scores. We synthesized results from these 12 studies using random-effects meta-analysis and found that robotic interventions have an overall positive effect in students’ academic performance (0.7, 95% CI 0.283 to 1.112). We used the Cochrane Collaboration ‘Risk of bias’ tool to assess the quality of the 12 included studies. Most studies are at high risk of bias and this undermines the validity of results. Large,...
This study investigated the social presence, satisfaction and learning outcomes of undergraduate ... more This study investigated the social presence, satisfaction and learning outcomes of undergraduate students based on their participation in an emergency remote online course entitled “Educational Programming Environments” during the COVID-19 pandemic Instruction was delivered using a student-centered design and discovery learning to teach computer programming problem solving Data were collected from 39 students who did not undertake prior preparation for engaging in distance education Social presence, learning outcomes and satisfaction towards the course were measured by previous well-established scales, respectively The students’ learning outcomes were evaluated through their code development At the end of the course, the students filled out an online questionnaire which measured these three variables The results of this study showed that all three variables were evaluated as satisfactory by the students The results also indicated that social presence and code development were positi...
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2019
The current learning environments focus on the development of skills which are related to problem... more The current learning environments focus on the development of skills which are related to problem solving, creativity and critical thinking addressing the needs of learners in today’s society. Computer programming includes this kind of skills and it is placed at the center of attention of the educational policy. Approaching programming is a difficult task because of its complex concepts, thus educators are seeking effective methods for teaching it. This paper presents the design of digital learning objects for teaching programming concepts and the results of a pilot empirical study with special users. The results reveal that the proposed learning objects seem to be a useful tool for teachers, aligned with the learning goals and can be employed in authentic scenarios.
Numerous studies suggest that digital technology has an important role to play in physical and me... more Numerous studies suggest that digital technology has an important role to play in physical and mental functioning and generally in the quality of life of elderly people. Many digital serious games have been developed to enhance cognitive functions. These games incorporate a multitude of multimedia elements that are perceived as sensory stimuli. To implement an effective digital environment, all sensory representations have to be investigated in order to be compatible with the visual, acoustic and tactile perception of the user. An effective way to examine those stimuli is to study the users’ brain functioning and especially the electric activity by using electroencephalographic recording systems. In recent years, there has been a growth of low-cost EEG systems. These are used in various fields such as educational research, serious games, mental and physical health, entertainment, etc. This study investigates whether a wireless low-cost EEG system (EPOC EMOTIV) can deliver qualitativ...
Studies showed that two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) educational content contribut... more Studies showed that two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) educational content contributes to learning. Although there were many studies with 3D stereoscopic learning environments, only a few studies reported on the differences between real, 2D, and 3D scenes, as far as cognitive load and attentional demands were concerned. We used electroencephalographic measurements to study and compare the theta (θ), alpha (α), beta (β) and gamma (γ) frequency bands of 36 adult female participants. The participants observed three environments with the same content, a real, a 3D and a 2D environment. Brain activity was recorded for each environment and their two versions, i.e., a before version and an after version, where the position of specific objects changed. Our study’s findings indicated that all participants perceived the three environments, their depicted objects, and the change of the objects’ position. The participants’ cognitive load and attentional demands were higher in all e...
Educational data mining is an emerging research field concerned with developing methods for explo... more Educational data mining is an emerging research field concerned with developing methods for exploring the unique types of data that come from educational context. These data allow the educational stakeholders to discover new, interesting and valuable knowledge about students. In this paper, we present a new user-friendly decision support tool for predicting students’ performance concerning the final examinations of a school year. Our proposed tool is based on a hybrid predicting system incorporating a number of possible machine learning methods and achieves better performance than any examined single learning algorithm. Furthermore, significant advantages of the presented tool are that it has a simple interface and it can be deployed in any platform under any operating system. Our objective is that this work may be used to support student admission procedures and strengthen the service system in educational institutions.
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion, 2018
This study examines the electrical brain activity of visually impaired individuals. Its aim is to... more This study examines the electrical brain activity of visually impaired individuals. Its aim is to identify differences in latency and signal amplitude between visually and non-visually impaired individuals in order to improve the school experience of students with visual impairment. The experiment included five visually impaired and five non-visually impaired subjects. Auditory stimuli included words with and without semantic content, i.e. actual words and pseudo-words, and Auditory Evoked Potentials were recorded. Results show that visually impaired individuals process auditory stimuli faster, regardless if the words lack semantic content, in comparison to their non-visually impaired counterparts. The study also showed variations in signal amplitude between the two groups.
2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT), 2020
Augmented Reality (AR) appears to have great potential in education and training. Although this t... more Augmented Reality (AR) appears to have great potential in education and training. Although this technology has become mainstream through the use of handheld mobile devices, consumer-grade AR glasses are beginning to become available. These glasses could unlock the potential of AR by increasing freedom of movement, performance and safety. This preliminary study explores user experience and acceptance of state-of-the-art AR glasses. A simple activity was created to visualize electromagnetic radiation for science literacy purposes and then evaluated by university students (N=154). The results showed moderate spatial presence, low simulator sickness and high levels of acceptance and satisfaction.
Educational data mining constitutes a recent research field which gained popularity over the last... more Educational data mining constitutes a recent research field which gained popularity over the last decade because of its ability to monitor students' academic performance and predict future progression. Numerous machine learning techniques and especially supervised learning algorithms have been applied to develop accurate models to predict student's characteristics which induce their behavior and performance. In this work, we examine and evaluate the effectiveness of two wrapper methods for semisupervised learning algorithms for predicting the students' performance in the final examinations. Our preliminary numerical experiments indicate that the advantage of semisupervised methods is that the classification accuracy can be significantly improved by utilizing a few labeled and many unlabeled data for developing reliable prediction models.
Digital Learning Objects (DLOs) as pedagogical complete structures of learning content contribute... more Digital Learning Objects (DLOs) as pedagogical complete structures of learning content contribute to science education. DLOs especially in the form of interactive simulations seem to be promising tools in physics teaching and learning for students with intellectual disabilities (ID). This study used an AB single subject design to evaluate the effects of four DLOs on students’ learning of transverse waves and simple pendulum motion in a special education high school setting. A functional relationship was found between students’ correct responses concerning both scientific terminology and physical phenomena understanding during probe sessions and the DLOs intervention. In addition, a social validity assessment that evaluated students’ attitudes on learning, quality, and engagement, showed that the DLOs helped students with ID to acquire physics content. The students also reported satisfaction from using the DLOs. Suggestions for future research include the design of DLOs especially fo...
2021 International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT)
The number of students with Intellectual Disability (ID) enrolled in general classes increases. T... more The number of students with Intellectual Disability (ID) enrolled in general classes increases. They appear to meet difficulties in acquiring basic science literacy skills and addressing grade-aligned curriculum. Digital technology seems to contribute to this challenge by engaging students in augmented and virtual environments, especially by enabling 3D representations of abstract and difficult to visualize physical magnitudes and phenomena. This work investigates design issues regarding the development of digital learning environments that contribute to Science Education for students with ID. In this phase, the study explores the perceptions of different groups of professionals and a student with ID regarding the structure of matter. They interacted with different versions of both an augmented and a virtual environment simulating the water vapor in microscopic view. A focus group discussion revealed important data concerning presence, simulator sickness, acceptance and satisfaction for the two environments. The results show that professionals prefer engaging, rather than scientifically aligned representations. The choice between augmented and virtual reality seems to depend on the instructional objectives and strategies based on the specific academic profile of each student with ID.
Although virtual environments (VE) with various levels of immersion have been used and evaluated ... more Although virtual environments (VE) with various levels of immersion have been used and evaluated in vocational and adult training with positive results, no such environments exist for culinary education. The aim of this study was to design a VE for culinary education and evaluate it in terms of user experience with two different levels of immersion: low (desktop) and high (head-mounted display—HMD). Twenty-four students and graduates of an Institute of Vocational Training specializing in either ICT or culinary arts participated in this study. Results showed no significant differences in terms of spatial presence, usability, and workload between the two groups. Nevertheless, participants using the HMD interface needed more time to complete a recipe and experienced much higher simulator sickness. It seems that the lower immersion interface is more appropriate for this specific VE.
Digital Technologies: Sustainable Innovations for Improving Teaching and Learning, 2018
This study is a systematic review of empirical research on digital learning technologies and thei... more This study is a systematic review of empirical research on digital learning technologies and their educational applications in primary and secondary Chemistry Education, during the period 2002–2016. Despite the importance of digital learning technologies in Chemistry Education, this review comes to light because of the current lack of similar works, in that it outlines and organizes the existing literature highlighting the technologies and pedagogical approaches adopted. Forty-three related studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals were identified and reviewed. Results show that most researchers are interested in chemistry topics related to the particulate nature of matter and use digital learning technologies, to mainly create and present visualizations of simulations and models of structural elements of matter and their phenomena. Researchers are interested overall in assessing digital technologies’ contribution to learning and the main technologies used include multimedia and simulations. Most studies are designed as quasi-experiments, and the assessment of learning outcomes is mostly done through questionnaires. The review emphasizes the pedagogical value of digital learning technologies in Chemistry Education. Meta-analyses of the empirical studies could contribute to further understand the pedagogical added value digital learning technologies offer in Chemistry Education.
The biggest challenge for the Digital Educational Games Design refers to how to integrate game me... more The biggest challenge for the Digital Educational Games Design refers to how to integrate game mechanics and learning mechanics into the gameplay in order to enhance motivation and engagement and improve learning outcomes. This study is the pilot phase of a Delphi method that proposes guidelines for the design of Digital Educational Games. The participants of the Delphi study were academic experts from the scientific field of Digital Educational Game Design. In the first round of the study, a questionnaire of six open-ended questions was sent. The second round questionnaire consisted of 46 closed-ended questions in order to estimate agreement between the participants. The third round questionnaire consisted of one open-ended question. According to the results of the study, the learning and game mechanics elements that have been suggested by the participants as the most important elements are those that promote constructivism, authentic learning environments, personalized learning, and fun. The experts mentioned as very important and challenging element, the way learning mechanics should be integrated into the context of the gameplay. What is proposed to achieve the learning objectives and bring the maximum extent of engagement into the game, is that the learning objectives should be included in activities that do not clearly reveal the learning objectives themselves but incorporate them into symbolic representations of everyday life experiences and examples, that are fun for the users and motivate them for high interaction during the gameplay.
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2019
The present study reviews the literature in the field of educational robotics with the aim to ide... more The present study reviews the literature in the field of educational robotics with the aim to identify its potential effects in students’ academic performance. After a systematic search in various databases, we ended up with a total of 12 studies satisfying the eligibility criteria. The majority of studies were observational and only 4 of them were quasi-experimental. For each study we extracted data for the type of robot used, the research method used, the sample characteristics (sample size, age range of students and level of education) and the results observed in terms of scores. We synthesized results from these 12 studies using random-effects meta-analysis and found that robotic interventions have an overall positive effect in students’ academic performance (0.7, 95% CI 0.283 to 1.112). We used the Cochrane Collaboration ‘Risk of bias’ tool to assess the quality of the 12 included studies. Most studies are at high risk of bias and this undermines the validity of results. Large,...
This study investigated the social presence, satisfaction and learning outcomes of undergraduate ... more This study investigated the social presence, satisfaction and learning outcomes of undergraduate students based on their participation in an emergency remote online course entitled “Educational Programming Environments” during the COVID-19 pandemic Instruction was delivered using a student-centered design and discovery learning to teach computer programming problem solving Data were collected from 39 students who did not undertake prior preparation for engaging in distance education Social presence, learning outcomes and satisfaction towards the course were measured by previous well-established scales, respectively The students’ learning outcomes were evaluated through their code development At the end of the course, the students filled out an online questionnaire which measured these three variables The results of this study showed that all three variables were evaluated as satisfactory by the students The results also indicated that social presence and code development were positi...
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2019
The current learning environments focus on the development of skills which are related to problem... more The current learning environments focus on the development of skills which are related to problem solving, creativity and critical thinking addressing the needs of learners in today’s society. Computer programming includes this kind of skills and it is placed at the center of attention of the educational policy. Approaching programming is a difficult task because of its complex concepts, thus educators are seeking effective methods for teaching it. This paper presents the design of digital learning objects for teaching programming concepts and the results of a pilot empirical study with special users. The results reveal that the proposed learning objects seem to be a useful tool for teachers, aligned with the learning goals and can be employed in authentic scenarios.
Numerous studies suggest that digital technology has an important role to play in physical and me... more Numerous studies suggest that digital technology has an important role to play in physical and mental functioning and generally in the quality of life of elderly people. Many digital serious games have been developed to enhance cognitive functions. These games incorporate a multitude of multimedia elements that are perceived as sensory stimuli. To implement an effective digital environment, all sensory representations have to be investigated in order to be compatible with the visual, acoustic and tactile perception of the user. An effective way to examine those stimuli is to study the users’ brain functioning and especially the electric activity by using electroencephalographic recording systems. In recent years, there has been a growth of low-cost EEG systems. These are used in various fields such as educational research, serious games, mental and physical health, entertainment, etc. This study investigates whether a wireless low-cost EEG system (EPOC EMOTIV) can deliver qualitativ...
Studies showed that two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) educational content contribut... more Studies showed that two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) educational content contributes to learning. Although there were many studies with 3D stereoscopic learning environments, only a few studies reported on the differences between real, 2D, and 3D scenes, as far as cognitive load and attentional demands were concerned. We used electroencephalographic measurements to study and compare the theta (θ), alpha (α), beta (β) and gamma (γ) frequency bands of 36 adult female participants. The participants observed three environments with the same content, a real, a 3D and a 2D environment. Brain activity was recorded for each environment and their two versions, i.e., a before version and an after version, where the position of specific objects changed. Our study’s findings indicated that all participants perceived the three environments, their depicted objects, and the change of the objects’ position. The participants’ cognitive load and attentional demands were higher in all e...
Educational data mining is an emerging research field concerned with developing methods for explo... more Educational data mining is an emerging research field concerned with developing methods for exploring the unique types of data that come from educational context. These data allow the educational stakeholders to discover new, interesting and valuable knowledge about students. In this paper, we present a new user-friendly decision support tool for predicting students’ performance concerning the final examinations of a school year. Our proposed tool is based on a hybrid predicting system incorporating a number of possible machine learning methods and achieves better performance than any examined single learning algorithm. Furthermore, significant advantages of the presented tool are that it has a simple interface and it can be deployed in any platform under any operating system. Our objective is that this work may be used to support student admission procedures and strengthen the service system in educational institutions.
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion, 2018
This study examines the electrical brain activity of visually impaired individuals. Its aim is to... more This study examines the electrical brain activity of visually impaired individuals. Its aim is to identify differences in latency and signal amplitude between visually and non-visually impaired individuals in order to improve the school experience of students with visual impairment. The experiment included five visually impaired and five non-visually impaired subjects. Auditory stimuli included words with and without semantic content, i.e. actual words and pseudo-words, and Auditory Evoked Potentials were recorded. Results show that visually impaired individuals process auditory stimuli faster, regardless if the words lack semantic content, in comparison to their non-visually impaired counterparts. The study also showed variations in signal amplitude between the two groups.
2020 IEEE 20th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT), 2020
Augmented Reality (AR) appears to have great potential in education and training. Although this t... more Augmented Reality (AR) appears to have great potential in education and training. Although this technology has become mainstream through the use of handheld mobile devices, consumer-grade AR glasses are beginning to become available. These glasses could unlock the potential of AR by increasing freedom of movement, performance and safety. This preliminary study explores user experience and acceptance of state-of-the-art AR glasses. A simple activity was created to visualize electromagnetic radiation for science literacy purposes and then evaluated by university students (N=154). The results showed moderate spatial presence, low simulator sickness and high levels of acceptance and satisfaction.
Educational data mining constitutes a recent research field which gained popularity over the last... more Educational data mining constitutes a recent research field which gained popularity over the last decade because of its ability to monitor students' academic performance and predict future progression. Numerous machine learning techniques and especially supervised learning algorithms have been applied to develop accurate models to predict student's characteristics which induce their behavior and performance. In this work, we examine and evaluate the effectiveness of two wrapper methods for semisupervised learning algorithms for predicting the students' performance in the final examinations. Our preliminary numerical experiments indicate that the advantage of semisupervised methods is that the classification accuracy can be significantly improved by utilizing a few labeled and many unlabeled data for developing reliable prediction models.
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