ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Attitudes toward Technology among Distance Education Students: Validation of an Explanatory Model
Author: Romero Martínez, Sonia J.
Date: 2020-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Distance Education,Computer Attitudes,Attitude Measures,Computer Use,Technological Literacy,Open Universities,Foreign Countries,College Students,Self Efficacy,Models,Test Validity,Test Reliability,Positive Attitudes,Integrated Learning Systems,Handheld Devices,Web 2.0 Technologies

Attitudes toward technology are preconceived notions that affect the teaching-learning process and the academic-professional performance of students, in particular those who use technology. This investigation has two objectives: to test the measuring properties (reliability, factorial structure) of an instrument that measures attitudes and to propose and validate a model that hypothesizes digital competence and frequency of use of technologies have a positive impact on attitudes. The sample included 1,251 students of the Madrid Open University in a nonexperimental, explanatory study using structural equation methodology. The results indicated adequate psychometric properties for the test and good adjustment of the proposed model (X[superscript 2] = 163.91, df = 37, p &lt; 0.001) allowing for further exploration of the relationship between use, skill, and attitudes in the distance education context and improving the properties of measuring instruments proposed in Spanish.
Crisis Planning for Online Students: Lessons Learned from a Major Disruption
Author: Holzweiss, Peggy C.
Date: 2020-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Crisis Management,Online Courses,Weather,College Students,Scheduling,Information Management,Information Dissemination,Planning

While institutions have crisis management plans, they are often focused on face-to-face students and the physical campus. In this case study, researchers investigated the crisis response for online students at one institution after Hurricane Harvey hit the Houston, Texas area in the fall of 2017. While face-to-face students were not severely impacted, more than a thousand online students were in the impact zone and in danger of dropping out. With financial resources and student retention at risk, campus leaders approved a strategy to delay online courses for several weeks. This study examines the experiences of the frontline staff who implemented the plan. Findings suggest that institutions need a proactive crisis plan for online students that includes understanding where this population resides, how different campus units can provide support in a crisis, who should lead the crisis response, and what kind of care can be offered to the frontline responders during the crisis period.
Student Performance in Online and Face-to-Face Second Language Courses: Dutch L2 in Adult Education
Author: de Paepe, Liesbeth
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Synchronous Communication,Online Courses,Second Language Instruction,Second Language Learning,Adult Education,Adult Students,Indo European Languages,Instructional Effectiveness,Foreign Countries,Immigrants,Electronic Learning

Due to immigration, globalization and a changing labor market, there is a recognized need for flexible learning. In Europe, second language (L2) acquisition specifically has become of vital importance. Research on less commonly taught languages (LCTL), however, is scarce and focuses mainly on foreign language acquisition, compulsory education and on face-to-face (F2F) and blended learning. However, the effectiveness of learning a LCTL -- such as Dutch -- as a second language fully online in adult education has yet to be uncovered. The principal objective of this paper was to investigate whether learning Dutch L2 fully online can be as effective as learning it fully F2F. A quantitative methodological approach was adopted. Independent samples t-tests were carried out to compare online and F2F adult learners' performance in a Waystage-level Dutch L2 course in Flanders, Belgium. The key variables 'previous knowledge', 'course level', 'content', 'teacher', 'assessment' and 'learning outcomes' are controlled. Main findings indicated that online Dutch L2 learning in adult education can be at least as effective as F2F learning. This study should, therefore, be of value to language course providers wishing to implement flexible L2 learning, and to LCTL and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) researchers.
The Penitentiary School: Between Didactic and Education of the Individual. Theatrical Methods and Artistic Languages as a Tool of Didactic Innovation in Adult&apos;s Penitentiary Reality
Author: Mancaniello, Maria Rita
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Correctional Education,Correctional Institutions,Institutionalized Persons,Adult Education,Access to Education,Civil Rights,Teacher Role,Teaching Methods,Creative Activities,Drama

In the Italian prison reality, the school activities of every order and degree have been guaranteed by law since the end of the 70s of the last century. The present contribution intends to stimulate a critical reflection on the dimensions of educational action in complex social situations such as that of prison. He wants to offer an opportunity to rethink paths and tools of educational planning in relation to the use of new training methodologies, such as the theatrical methodology in its different modalities and its specific styles. It is difficult to satisfy the needs of treatment, orientation, social integration and re-education and at the same time develop formal knowledge. The active and participatory methodologies of the theater can be useful for the change of the context of life.
Examining Student Perception of Readiness for Online Learning: Importance and Confidence
Author: Martin, Florence
Date: 2020-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Student Attitudes,Electronic Learning,Online Courses,Learning Readiness,Self Esteem,Technological Literacy,Racial Differences,Synchronous Communication,Asynchronous Communication,Blended Learning,College Students,Competence,Time Management,Communication Skills

This survey study examined student readiness for online learning in 2018 through the dimensions of importance placed by the student in online learning and the student's confidence in their ability as measures of readiness. An instrument with four subscales of competencies (online student attributes, time management, communication, and technical) that measure student readiness for online learning (SROL) was developed. Reliability of student responses on the online readiness instrument and factors related to student perception of readiness were examined. Descriptive statistics and item level means for the competencies are provided. Repeated measures analyses of variance were conducted to examine differences between participants' ratings of importance and confidence. Online student attributes, time management, and technical competencies were rated high for importance compared to communication competencies. Students were confident in online student attributes and technical competencies compared to time management and communication. Data were also analyzed based on demographic differences. MANOVA showed significant differences based on the race (white and nonwhite) of the students and course format (asynchronous, synchronous, and blended) on their perceptions of online learning competencies.
A Review of Ten-Year Research through Co-Citation Analysis: Online Learning, Distance Learning, and Blended Learning
Author: Park, Hyejin
Date: 2020-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Research,Educational Trends,Electronic Learning,Distance Education,Blended Learning,Citation Analysis,Literature Reviews,Meta Analysis,Computer Mediated Communication,Asynchronous Communication,Informal Education,Online Courses,Communities of Practice,Periodicals

This study reviewed evolving research trends in online, distance, and blended learning over the past ten years through co-citation analysis. Related peer-reviewed research articles in the Web of Science were obtained and the references in the articles were analyzed. The result showed that literature review and meta-analysis studies on distance education and studies on learners' discourse in asynchronous discussion were most cited in the first half of the ten year period. In the second period, the focus moved to online learners' satisfaction and self-regulation, informal learning, and learning through MOOCs. The Community of Inquiry framework was continually researched throughout the entire ten year period. Overall, this study identified features and changes in research trends in online, distance, and blended learning, providing a unique contribution to our understanding of publications and research themes in these fields. Direction for further research, which was derived from the findings, is discussed.
The Needs of Play in Children with Disabilities. An Italian Research
Author: Zappaterra, Tamara
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Play,Foreign Countries,Childhood Needs,Parent Attitudes,Childrens Rights,Disabilities,Peer Relationship,Toys,Assistive Technology,Physical Environment,Attitudes toward Disabilities,Time Management,Social Development,Adults

The article presents a research developed collaterally within the framework of the European research project &quot;LUDI. Play for Children with Disabilities&quot; (http://ludinetwork.eu/, 2014-2018). One goal of the project is to provide guidelines on play for children with disabilities. To reach this goal, first of all the needs of users have been investigated through an empirical research conducted by two semi-structured questionnaire addressed to representatives of disability associations and parents of children with disabilities. The article reports briefly the theoretical framework of the research, the results of the survey at European level, and more in- depth the results of a research conducted by the Special Education group of research at University of Florence with the same methodology at disability associations of Livorno, in Tuscany (Italy). The results are similar to those of European research: it emerges that the needs on play of children with disabilities are the same regardless of the type of disability and the context in which the children live.
Reaching Millennials: A Brief Proposal for Promoting University Programs to Young Millennials
Author: Sîrb, Corina
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Undergraduate Students,Age Groups,College Programs,Marketing,Social Media,Student Characteristics,College Choice,Universities,Web Sites

Millennials are &quot;digital natives.&quot; They were born in a connected, perpetually communicating environment and thus they are accustomed to finding all the information they need by a simple web query. This feature, corroborated with the increasing competition between universities in their attempt to attract students, stresses the need to find an answer to the following questions: how should academic representatives reach millennials, in order to promote their educational offers? What communication strategy should they follow? What tone of voice and media channels should they use? In order to find an answer to any of the above questions, I think the first step is to analyze the public and their decision-making process. And that is what I will try to do in the first part of the present paper, based on which I later make a clear proposal of a communications strategy.
Educational Dropout in Israel -- General Progress in the Last Decade
Author: Heib, Usama
Date: 2020-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Dropout Prevention,Dropouts,At Risk Students,Educational Trends,Middle School Students,High School Students,Semitic Languages,Jews,Arabs,Dropout Rate,Age Differences

In Israel, the awareness on the youth dropout from school problem has increased in the last decade. There is no doubt that dealing with this phenomenon poses a challenge to the Israeli society and to the authorities responsible for educational services. It turns out that certain groups among the Israeli population are at a higher risk of dropping out from school than others. As a result of it, many teenagers from these groups do not complete their high school studies and are unable to integrate in a qualitative and significant manner in the army and the labour market. Moreover, dropping out of the education system may have a significant impact on the mental and economic well-being of young generations of citizens. Therefore, preventing the problem of dropout and helping the youths to get back into the loop is a tremendous challenge to the Israeli education system. Even if in the last decade Israel registered lower rates of educational dropout then before, middle, and high-school students are still struggling with the issue. Therefore, the article underlines theoretical aspects regarding educational dropout as general framework and presents the specifics of the phenomenon in the Israelian educational system. The last part of the paper follows, based on secondary data analysis extracted from national official data, the differences between the two main state educational systems in Israel (Hebrew and Arabic) in terms of tendencies on educational dropout in the last ten school years. The data reveals that, even if there is progress in preventing educational dropout in both systems, the Arabic system registers significantly higher rates that the Hebrew educational system.
Detection of Online Contract Cheating through Stylometry: A Pilot Study
Author: Ison, David C.
Date: 2020-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Cheating,Contracts,Language Styles,Computational Linguistics,Computer Software,Integrity,Plagiarism,Authors,Identification,Simulation,Academic Language,Accuracy,Incidence,Trend Analysis,Writing Assignments,Evaluators,Best Practices

&quot;Contract cheating,&quot; instances in which a student enlists someone other than themselves to produce coursework, has been identified as a growing problem within academic integrity literature and in news headlines. The percentage of students who have used this type of cheating has been reported to range between 6% and 15.7%. Generational sentiments about cheating and the prevalent accessibility of contract cheating providers online seems to only have exacerbated the issue. The problem is that no simple means have been identified and verified to detect contract cheating because available plagiarism detection software is ineffective in these cases. One method commonly used for authorship authentication in nonacademic settings, &quot;stylometry,&quot; has been suggested as a potential means for detection. Stylometry uses various attributes of documents to determine if they were written by the same individual. This pilot assessed the utility of three easy-to-use and readily available stylometry software systems to detect simulated cases of contract cheating academic documents. Average accuracy ranged from 33% to 88.9%. While more research is necessary, stylometry software appears to show significant promise for the potential detection of contract cheating.
Irrelevant, Overlooked, or Lost? Trends in 20 Years of Uncited and Low-Cited K-12 Online Learning Articles
Author: Arnesen, Karen
Date: 2020-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Trends,Citation Analysis,Elementary Secondary Education,Online Courses,Distance Education,Electronic Learning,Blended Learning,Foreign Countries,Rural Education

In this study, we analyzed a subset of uncited or low-cited articles from the data reported in Arnesen, Hveem, Short, West, and Barbour (2019), who examined the trends in K-12 online learning articles from 1994 to 2016. We identified 62 articles that had 5 or fewer citations, and analyzed them for trends in authorship, publication outlets, dates of publication, and topics that could help explain their low citation numbers. We also analyzed topics to see what contribution they might have made and can still make to the field of K-12 online learning. We found that the majority of these articles had been published in many different, less well-known journals. We also found that these articles may have attracted fewer readers because they addressed topics that seemed to have a narrow focus, often outside of the U.S. The articles were also authored by both well-known researchers in the field, as well as a number of one-time authors. What we did not find were articles that were uninteresting, poorly researched, or irrelevant. Many of the articles described and discussed programs that grappled with and overcame some of the same challenges online learning still faces today: issues of interaction, community, technology, management, etc. Some of the early articles gave interesting insights into the history of K-12 online learning, especially as it involved rural learners and programs. Others addressed less mainstream but still interesting topics such as librarians in online learning, cross-border AP history classes, policies that helped or hindered the growth of online learning, and practical considerations of cost and access.
Flipping e-Learning for Teaching Medical Terminology: A Study of Learners&apos; Online Experiences and Perceptions
Author: Senel Tekin, Perihan
Date: 2020-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Teaching Methods,Online Courses,Electronic Learning,Medicine,Vocabulary,Student Experience,Student Attitudes,Allied Health Occupations Education,Multimedia Materials,Learning Processes,Academic Achievement,Student Participation,Two Year College Students,Asynchronous Communication,Learning Activities

Since e-learning has become popular in recent years, research studies have been conducted about which instructional methods are the most effective in online learning environments. The purpose of this study is to investigate one promising method by applying the flipped classroom model to a Medical Terminology Course. This course was provided fully online as part of a Medical Documentation and Secretarial associate degree program in a vocational college. We analyze learners' experiences associated with this application. Based on this flipped classroom method, learners were required to study interactive multimedia content and applications asynchronously. For synchronous activities, mainly learner-centered approaches--collaborative learning, problem solving, and discussion--were used. In the context of this study, learners' usage of the system, submissions to the study process questionnaire, and academic achievement were collected as quantitative data. Learners' opinions towards the flipped classroom model were obtained as qualitative data. We found that learners' academic achievement was significantly related to their perceptions of deep learning and their time spent on learning activities. Problematic aspects to the flipped classroom were time expectancies, insufficiency of instructional materials, and lack of advice received from the instructor.
Tertiary Education Dropout--General Tendencies for the Last Generations of Students
Author: Voaide?-Cojan, Elena-Alina
Date: 2020-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Dropouts,Foreign Countries,Dropout Rate,Undergraduate Students,Social Sciences,Public Colleges,At Risk Students,Dropout Characteristics,Generational Differences,Departments

Higher education dropout, or abandonment, represents a contemporary worldwide socioeconomic problem that may be one of the main barriers in the future efforts of the younger generations to bring the world economy forward. Why do students leave higher education prematurely? What can be done to help solve this problem? Does our Higher Education System have a coherent support system to prevent dropout? are the core questions on this important issue. The role of education in the young generation's development and the different factors that support or impede this process represent frequently researched topics in the field of applied socio-human sciences, especially during the last decades that are also characterised by important changes in the educational services delivery. The current article constitutes the preliminary work for a future doctoral thesis that aims to investigate the issue of contemporary educational dropout in Romanian universities following data from the last decade. Firstly, some theoretical elements on educational dropout in general will be explored, starting by defining the concept, continuing with the exploration of the main theories and finalising by detailing the main factors that influence university dropout. The last part of the present work follows as a study case the dropout rates of the last three generations of bachelor level students from a social sciences faculty of a state university from Romania. Based on secondary data analysis, the dropout rates are calculated in four steps in order to reveal the dynamics of the process during a bachelor study cycle, being presented the specificities of all four departments of the faculty.
Making Instant Adjustments in Online Journalism Education: Responding to Continuous Needs Assessments in Asynchronous Courses
Author: Bright, Amanda C.
Date: 2020-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Online Courses,Journalism Education,Needs Assessment,Asynchronous Communication,Graduate Students,Instructional Design,Adult Students,Summative Evaluation

The creation of an effective learning environment is always a challenge, but when the environment is online and the learners are a diverse group of adults in a specialized content area, the challenges become more complex. This best practices study used the intersection of the importance of the learner, Knowles's andragogy concepts, and the Dick and Carey instructional design model to make continuous needs assessment the cornerstone of three, graduate-level online courses during a single summer session. Through the use of recursive needs assessment, the instructor was able to provide a personal and practical level of instruction in the asynchronous courses that ultimately benefited the students.
Presenting a Validated Mid-Semester Evaluation of College Teaching to Improve Online Teaching
Author: Byrne, Virginia L.
Date: 2020-06-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Course Evaluation,Student Evaluation of Teacher Performance,Instructional Improvement,Electronic Learning,College Faculty,Undergraduate Students,Feedback (Response),Formative Evaluation,Test Validity

Mid-semester formative evaluations of college teaching are a promising, low-cost solution to providing online instructors with in-the-moment feedback to improve their online teaching practices. However, existing instruments suffer from issues of validity and bias, and fail to align with evidence-based strategies. This paper presented and psychometrically validated a research-based Mid-Semester Evaluation of College Teaching for Online Instructors (MSECT-O) among 170 undergraduate students in seven online courses. Pilot study results demonstrated that the MSECT-O is a valid and reliable tool for online educators seeking to improve their online teaching and classroom climate.