ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Exploring Information Seeking Behavior of Farmers in Information Related to Climate Change Adaptation through ICT (CHAI)
Author: Tumbo, Siza D.
Date: 2018-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Agricultural Occupations,Climate,Environment,Agricultural Production,Innovation,Technology,Information Technology,Educational Technology,Access to Education,Telecommunications,Handheld Devices,Access to Information,Content Analysis,Qualitative Research

In Tanzania, agriculture sector is known for employing more than 70% of the total population. Agriculture sector faces many challenges including climate change. Climate change causes low productivity in agriculture; low productivity is caused due to poor implementation of agricultural policies and strategies. This poor implementation of policies has also caused many farmers to be not competent in climate change adaptation. Over the years, provisions of agricultural advice and extension were provided by various approaches, including training and visit extension, participatory approaches, and farmers' field schools. However, provision of agricultural advisory and extension service is inefficient. Also, in most cases the usage of most agricultural innovations and technologies developed is limited. A literature review indicates that the main reasons given by Tanzanian farmers for not using improved technology are not lack of knowledge or skill, but rather that the technologies do not contribute towards improvements (e.g., the technologies are not profitable or they imply to high risk). Thus, agricultural extension service needs to be geared towards teaching farmers how to develop innovative and cost effective technologies that are contextualized. Limited numbers of agricultural extension staff and less interactivity of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), such as radio and television, have been mentioned to be among the factors limiting the provision of agricultural advisory and extension services to the majority of farmers in Tanzania. The advancements in ICTs have brought new opportunities for enhancing access to agricultural advisory and extension service for climate change adaptation. In Tanzania, farmers and other actors access agricultural information from various sources such as agricultural extension workers and use of various databases from Internet Services Providers. Also there are different web- and mobile-based farmers' advisory information systems to support conventional agricultural extension service. These systems are producing bulk amounts of data which makes it difficult for different stakeholders to make an informed decision after data analysis. This calls for the need to develop a tool for data visualization in order to understand hidden patterns from massive data. In this study, a semi-automated text classification was developed to determine the frequently asked keywords from a web and mobile based farmers' advisory system called &quot;UshauriKilimo&quot; after being in use for more than 2 years by more than 700 farmers.
Grit and Intention: Why Do Learners Complete MOOCs?
Author: Wang, Yuan
Date: 2018-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Online Courses,Large Group Instruction,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Intention,Persistence,Goal Orientation,Self Efficacy,Correlation,Student Characteristics,Student Surveys,College Students,Surveys,Statistical Analysis,Regression (Statistics)

In recent years there has been considerable interest in how many learners complete MOOCs, and what factors during usage can predict completion. Others, however, have argued that many learners never intend to complete MOOCs, and take MOOCs for other reasons. There has been qualitative research into why learners take MOOCs, but the link between learner goals and completion has not been fully established. In this paper, we study the relationship between learner intention to complete a MOOC and their actual completion status. We compare that relationship to the degree to which MOOC completion is predicted by other domain-general motivational factors such as &quot;grit,&quot; &quot;goal orientation,&quot; &quot;academic efficacy,&quot; and the &quot;need for cognition.&quot; We find that grit and goal orientation are associated with course completion, with grit predicting course completion independently from intention to complete, and with comparable strength.
Open Educational Practices in Australia: A First-Phase National Audit of Higher Education
Author: Stagg, Adrian
Date: 2018-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Open Education,Educational Practices,Audits (Verification),Educational Assessment,Higher Education,Universities,Shared Resources and Services,Educational Policy,Partnerships in Education,Educational Finance,Evaluation Criteria,Resource Allocation,Professional Development,Educational Strategies,Data Collection,Program Implementation,Online Courses,Literature Reviews

For fifteen years, Australian Higher Education has engaged with the openness agenda primarily through the lens of open-access research. Open educational practice (OEP), by contrast, has not been explicitly supported by federal government initiatives, funding, or policy. This has led to an environment that is disconnected, with isolated examples of good practice that have not been transferred beyond local contexts. This paper represents first-phase research in identifying the current state of OEP in Australian Higher Education. A structured desktop audit of all Australian universities was conducted, based on a range of indicators and criteria established by a review of the literature. The audit collected evidence of engagement with OEP using publicly accessible information via institutional websites. The criteria investigated were &quot;strategies and policies,&quot; &quot;open educational resources (OER),&quot; &quot;infrastructure tools/platforms,&quot; &quot;professional development and support,&quot; &quot;collaboration/partnerships,&quot; and &quot;funding.&quot; Initial findings suggest that the experience of OEP across the sector is diverse, but the underlying infrastructure to support the creation, (re)use, and dissemination of resources is present. Many Australian universities have experimented with, and continue to refine, massive open online course (MOOC) offerings, and there is increasing evidence that institutions now employ specialist positions to support OEP, and MOOCs. Professional development and staff initiatives require further work to build staff capacity sector-wide. This paper provides a contemporary view of sector-wide OEP engagement in Australia--a macro-view that is not well-represented in open research to date. It identifies core areas of capacity that could be further leveraged by a national OEP initiative or by national policy on OEP.
Open and Distance Learning in French-Speaking Sub-Saharan Africa: A Literature Review
Author: Béché, Emmanuel
Date: 2018-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Distance Education,Open Education,Foreign Countries,Self Concept,Student Motivation,Educational History,Social Change,Teaching Methods,Educational Research,Blended Learning,Higher Education,Open Universities,Computer Simulation,Language of Instruction,Literature Reviews

This article is a literature review on open distance learnings (ODL) in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa (FSSA). The state of research on this question highlights many topics, such as the supporting reasons for the creation of ODL systems and their potentials. Success, difficulties, and issues linked to their implementation also hold a crucial place in this research. Besides, this literature review shows that studies on ODLs in FSSA emphasize the representations, motivations, and identities of students and university managers, including the historical and cooperative aspects of these third-generation learnings. While most of the research in this field are descriptive or exploratory, others are critical. Beyond these results, research must further explore many perspectives, mainly those related to teaching and learning practices, evaluation, social and university transformations, and the hybrid forms of learning.
Differential OER Impacts of Formal and Informal ICTs: Employability of Female Migrant Workers
Author: Chib, Arul
Date: 2018-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Females,Migrant Workers,Resource Units,Shared Resources and Services,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Distance Education,Employment Qualifications,Functional Literacy,Telecommunications,Handheld Devices,Technological Literacy,Foreign Countries,Questionnaires,Surveys,Regression (Statistics),Statistical Analysis

Information and communication technologies aid marginalized groups in seeking social support, building proximate networks, and improving employment opportunities. However, one key factor that is understudied in the literature is the impact of open education resources (OER) on the employability of marginalized groups. This study focuses on open and distance learning in the context of low-income female migrant domestic workers as a marginalized community. Specifically, we assessed the differential effects of two types of communication: informal OER resources (e.g., social media, mobile calling, texting) and formal OER resources (e.g., classroom prescribed learning tools and lectures) on specific development outcomes of functional literacy and perceived employability. A survey was conducted amongst female migrant domestic workers (n = 100) enrolled in the Indonesian Open University in Singapore. Results indicate that access to OER resources via computers in the formal context of institutional learning, when combined with employability awareness, had a significant influence on livelihood outcomes, i.e., perceived employability. However, this did not lead to actual improvements in learning--functional literacy. Instead, actual learning improvement was influenced by digitals skills enabled by mobile phones and computers. The study concludes with a discussion on the policy implications for digital skills training via mobile devices for marginalized populations to bolster the positive effects of OER on livelihood outcomes.
Social Media Adoption by the Academic Community: Theoretical Insights and Empirical Evidence from Developing Countries
Author: Arshad, Mamoona
Date: 2018-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Social Media,Technology Uses in Education,Higher Education,Universities,Adoption (Ideas),Shared Resources and Services,Predictor Variables,Usability,Structural Equation Models,Foreign Countries,Developing Nations,Stimuli,Cooperative Learning,Computer Mediated Communication,Likert Scales,Factor Analysis,Questionnaires,Pretests Posttests,Goodness of Fit,Statistical Analysis

The paper investigates the impact of virtual environmental characteristics such as collaboration, communication, and resource sharing on social media adoption by the academic community at the university level. Building on the social constructivist paradigm and technology acceptance model, we propose a conceptual model to assess social media adoption in academia by incorporating collaboration, communication, and resource sharing as predictors of social media adoption, whereas perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness act as mediators in this relationship. Structural equation modeling serves to estimate the proposed conceptual model on a sample of 661 respondents from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The findings suggest that an individual's propensity toward social media features (i.e., collaboration, communication, and resource sharing) acts as a stimulus to their social media adoption. Moreover, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness mediate the relationship between these stimuli and their outcomes (i.e., social media adoption). The paper concludes with the discussion on the findings and recommendations for the academicians and the practitioners of social media in the higher education institutions.
Social Presence in Massive Open Online Courses
Author: Poquet, Oleksandra
Date: 2018-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Online Courses,Large Group Instruction,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Interpersonal Relationship,Distance Education,Attitude Measures,Questionnaires,Student Surveys,Computer Mediated Communication,Statistical Analysis

The capacity to foster interpersonal interactions in massive open online courses (MOOCs) has frequently been contested, particularly when learner interactions are limited to MOOC forums. The establishment of social presence--a perceived sense of somebody being present and &quot;real&quot;--is among the strategies to tackle the challenges of online learning and could be applied in MOOCs. Thus far, social presence in MOOCs has been under-researched. Studies that previously examined social presence in MOOCs did not account for the peculiar nature of open online learning. In contrast to the existing work, this study seeks to understand how learners perceive social presence, and the different nuances of social presence in diverse MOOC populations. In particular, we compare perceptions of social presence across the groups of learners with different patterns of forum participation in three edX MOOCs. The findings reveal substantial differences in how learners with varying forum activity perceive social presence. Perceptions of social presence also differed in courses with the varying volume of forum interaction and duration. Finally, learners with sustained forum activity generally reported higher social presence scores that included low affectivity and strong group cohesion perceptions. With this in mind, this study is significant because of the insights in brings to the current body of knowledge around social presence in MOOCs. The study's findings also raise questions about the effectiveness of transferring existing socio-constructivist constructs into the MOOC contexts.
Open Educational Resources: Challenges and Opportunities in Indian Primary Education
Author: Ganapathi, Janani
Date: 2018-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Shared Resources and Services,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Access to Education,Distance Education,Elementary Education,Developing Nations,Case Studies,Semi Structured Interviews,Teacher Education,Barriers

Education is a fundamental human right, yet one fifth of the world's population lives with poor literacy. India is home to the largest number of illiterate people, with infrastructural, cultural, and socio-economic factors hindering equitable access to quality education. Due to the rapidly growing technology and Internet usage in the country, open educational resources (OER) are increasingly being used as a vital tool to help transcend barriers to child literacy, also aiding in educational attainment. While an array of scholarly works provides evidence of the potential in OER to influence higher education outcomes in developing nations, academic analysis of their impact on primary level education attainment has been minimal. This paper retrieve lessons from three children's content providing organizations to understand the opportunities and challenges of OER in primary-level education in developing nations with similar cultural, infrastructural, and socio-economic issues. While the findings of this study suggest that the use of OER allows for greater distribution and scale across different cultural and linguistic settings, particularly in rural and remote regions, they also warn against the adaptation and pedagogical barriers of OER into societies where traditional modes of education are established and trusted.
Agency-Stakeholder Reflections: Perspectives of State-Wide Adoption of the PBIS Framework in Juvenile Facilities
Author: Kimball, Kathleen A.
Date: 2017-09-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Positive Behavior Supports,Juvenile Justice,Correctional Institutions,State Programs,Stakeholders,State Agencies,Barriers,Influences,Program Implementation

While facility-wide positive behavioral supports and interventions (FW-PBIS) has begun to be implemented within secure juvenile care settings, in a 24/7 model, there is a need to gather the perspectives of agency-stakeholders to better understand the feasibility and sustainability of FW-PBIS within these settings. To date, only two studies have been published that include perspectives of PBIS implementation within secure care. This study extends the current literature, and provides an overview specific to agency-level feedback on FW-PBIS implementation. Surveys were distributed to agency-level decision makers within two states implementing state-wide FW-PBIS for two or more years. Survey themes related to facilitators, barriers, systems, data, and practices, identified using the constant comparative method, are presented. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
Impact of Virtual Laboratory on the Achievement of Secondary School Chemistry Students in Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Collaborative Environments
Author: Gambari, Amosa Isiaka
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Science Instruction,Chemistry,Academic Achievement,Achievement Tests,Secondary School Science,Science Teachers,Secondary School Students,Pretests Posttests,Experimental Groups,Hypothesis Testing,Educational Technology,Heterogeneous Grouping,Cooperative Learning,Science Laboratories,Simulated Environment,Ability Grouping,Gender Differences,Statistical Analysis

The study investigated the impact of virtual laboratory on the achievements of secondary school chemistry students in homogeneous and heterogeneous collaborative settings in Minna, Niger state, Nigeria. Three hypotheses were formulated, analyzed and tested at 0.05 alpha level. Stratified sampling technique was used to select 60 Senior Secondary Class Two (SS II) Chemistry Students. The subjects were stratified along gender and ability levels. Sixty students were randomly selected from two secondary schools in Minna, Nigeria. Thirty students (male, n = 15; female, n = 15) were selected from each school. Pretest, posttest, and experimental group design was employed. Experts validated 20-item multiple-choice Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) was used for data collection. A reliability coefficient of 0.91 was obtained from the pilot testing using Kuder Richardson (KR-20). ANCOVA and Sidak post-hoc statistics were used for testing the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that: (a) students in homogeneous ability grouping taught Chemistry using virtual laboratory instruction in collaborative setting performed better than their counterpart taught Chemistry in heterogeneous grouping composition; (b) female students in homogeneous group performed better than their counterparts in heterogeneous groups; (c) the higher achiever students in homogeneous groups outperformed those in heterogeneous groups. Based on these findings, it was recommended that the use of virtual laboratory instruction in homogeneous gender and ability level grouping in collaborative setting should be encouraged in teaching practical chemistry at senior secondary schools in Nigeria.
Combining Adult Education and Professional Development Best Practice to Improve Financial Education Teacher Training
Author: Hensley, Billy J.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Adult Education,Faculty Development,Best Practices,Teacher Education,Money Management,Knowledge Level,Consumer Education,Pretests Posttests,Teaching Methods,Models,Surveys,Statistical Analysis

Financial education is an important area of study due in part to the need for improved understanding of how to navigate an ever more complex financial decision-making environment, thus the need for effective classroom instruction. The purpose of this study is to examine a &quot;teacher-as-learner&quot; professional development program that is rooted in both professional development and adult education fields of study as means of providing financial education. This program educates teachers on their own personal finance, ultimately better preparing educators to teach financial literacy education. Results showed significant improvements in self-reported financial behaviors between pre- and posttests. Results suggest using contextual learning for teacher professional development because it benefits personal finances and successful teaching practices.
Financial Software Use and Retirement Savings
Author: Bi, Qianwen
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Computer Software,Longitudinal Studies,National Surveys,Human Capital,Retirement,Financial Services,Money Management,Knowledge Level,Consumer Education,Computer Uses in Education,Cognitive Ability,Statistical Analysis,Regression (Statistics)

Financial software offers an appealing substitute for an investment in complex financial knowledge to help individuals make better financial decisions. Little is known, however, about which consumers use financial software and whether the use of financial software results in improved financial outcomes. Using data from the 2008 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY79), we find that respondents with greater human capital and financial resources are more likely to use financial software. The use of a financial software program to calculate retirement needs is a stronger independent predictor of accumulated retirement wealth than calculating retirement needs without a computer aid and is surpassed only by cognitive ability as an independent predictor of retirement savings. Results suggest that financial software is used primarily by those that have greater endowed and attained human capital and may be a complement to (rather than a substitute for) financial literacy.
Analysis of a Project Conducted on Unaccompanied Refugees Children (MERNAs)
Author: Aguaded-Ramírez, Eva
Date: 2018-07-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Refugees,Children,Intervention,Interviews,Questionnaires,Acculturation,Relocation,Information Dissemination,Childrens Rights,Education,Privacy,Nutrition,Clothing,Native Language,Religion,Punishment,Recreational Activities,Program Administration

&quot;An Unaccompanied Refugee children is a person under the age of 18, who is afraid of being persecuted, whose rights are threatened and is forced to leave his / her habitual residence and / or country of origin and is outside it, without the accompaniment of parents, relatives or other adult person, who, by law or custom, is responsible.&quot; (Angelidou &amp; Aguaded, 2016). According to the Human Rights Watch researches (2016), serious crimes against refugees and immigrants children are being committed. The Government of Spain announced that they expect to relocate a total of 586 people before the end of 2017. At present, the number of refugees in Spain is more than 470. Specifically, Andalusia became, in September 2016, the first Spanish community that manages to relocate unaccompanied refugees children. The objective of this research is to analyze the socio-educational intervention, which is being carried out with these children. For this, the method used was in-depth interviews, y cuestionarios, which results offer very diverse information, from which we can conclude that there is a way forward, which is leading to improvements for children.