Learning theory and knowledge structures in computer-aided instruction

The development of computer-aided instructional (CAI) systems suffers from a lack of a cohesive theory of learning--how do students acquire and store knowledge? From studies of computer systems that learn and tutor, we can infer generic activities that appear to be integral parts of the learning process, such as aggregation, clustering, characterization, and storage for later retrieval. Learning is faster and more efficient if the goal of a task is made explicit. Hints should be given with the correct timing in relation to an objective so that students can advance in their own problem-solving strategies with the prerequisites in mind. The general form of a rule should usually be taught first, followed by exceptions and special instances. We review theories of learning associated with CAI that illustrate the classification of different types of knowledge. Rule-based (if-then) knowledge forms are represented in these theories, as are declarative and causal knowledge structures. Extracting the common themes from different classifications of knowledge may help us create better CAI.     

黑盒测试技术在辅助教学系统中的应用

程序设计是大学生的必修课程,在教学过程中需要快速准确地对程序进行评测,并将结果及时地反馈给学生,对程序进行自动评测是最有效的解决方案。结合软件测试中黑盒测试的特点和在线系统的优点,探讨了黑盒测试技术如何应用在程序设计的辅助教学系统中,并在．NET平台下实现了一个具体的实例。     

Evaluation and assessment of a biomechanics computer-aided instruction

The Biomechanics Tutorial (BT) is a computer-aided instructional (CAI) tool that expedites the transition from lecture to application for students in an introductory biomechanics class. It contains a review of basic concepts of rigid body mechanics and functional anatomy and combines them in a way that the student can become confident and efficient in building biomechanical models. The tutorial was used by juniors and seniors. The Biomechanics Tutorial contains mechanics and yanatomy reviews and quizzes, quiz results, examples of simulations, a study guide, and practical anatomical simulations that are presented as laboratory exercises for students to explore and analyze. We conducted an objective evaluation using statistical analyses and a subjective evaluation using student questionnaires to assess the tutorial as an instructional aid that accompanied the professor's explanations of basic mechanics and functional anatomy concepts. Pre-tutorial mechanics quiz scores indicated that 86% of the students did not have sufficient mastery of mechanics concepts. The BT significantly (p<0.05) improved the performance on the post-tutorial mechanics quiz. A regression model used to test the effect of the tutorial on final grade while controlling for confounding factors (i.e., GPA and prerequisite classes), did not show that the BT significantly improved the final grades between the control and treatment groups. Students felt the BT was successful in helping them to better understand the principles of industrial ergonomics. This evaluation of the Biomechanics Tutorial is a contribution to the limited amount of research that shows a positive effect of CAI on college student achievement. The results of this study are discussed.     

Effects of confidence scores and remedial instruction on prepositions learning in adaptive hypermedia

Although Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) provides EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students a dynamic environment for English learning, many courses in current markets still emphasize the presentation of domain knowledge but neglect how the students truly interact with the lessons. This article describes the development of Hypermedia-based English Learning system for Prepositions (HELP), which provides EFL students learning diagnosis and remedial instruction according to student confidence scores (CR). Details include how the system diagnoses students' error types in English prepositions and provides adaptive remedial instructions. This study also investigated the effects of two design factors: (1) student confidence ratings (CR) for answers, and (2) the provision of adaptive remedial instruction on EFL students' English prepositions learning in adaptive hypermedia. A pretest–posttest control-group experiment involving 88 EFL students was employed. Results of this study revealed significant effects of student confidence ratings (CR) and the provision of adaptive remedial instruction for English prepositions learning in hypermedia-based lessons.     

Performance measures in courses using computer-aided personalized system of instruction

Archived data from four courses taught with computer-aided personalized system of instruction (CAPSI) – an online, self-paced, instructional program – were used to explore the relationship between objectively rescored final exam grades, peer reviewing, and progress rate – i.e., the rate at which students completed unit tests. There was a strong positive correlation (r = .68, p < .01) between rate of progress and the amount of peer reviewing students did. This was predictable because peer reviewers had to be further along in the course than the students whose unit tests they reviewed. Students who completed all the units tended to obtain higher final exam scores than those who did not. For students who completed all the units there was little difference between the final exam performance of those who had a high progress rate and those who had a low progress rate. Considering all students together there was a moderate correlation between progress rate and final exam performance (r = .36, p < .01). In addition, there was a moderate positive correlation (r = .33, p < .01) between the amount of peer reviewing students did and their performance on the final exam. This correlation was substantially reduced (r = .13, p < .20) when rate of progress was partialed out. Thus, overall, students who progressed more rapidly through the course did more peer reviewing and learned more as measured by final exam performance. Interestingly, there were students who showed good learning without much participation in course related behaviors such as completing unit tests and peer reviewing. It is concluded that the CAPSI instructional program provides a good learning environment for students who utilize its components but it also accommodates other learning styles. In addition, there may be a distinction between students who complete all assigned units and those who do not regardless of their tendencies to procrastinate.     

Using a phenomenographic approach in evaluating hypermedia stories

This paper builds on research into using multimedia and hypermedia as creative writing tools and reports on a study in using a hypermedia authoring program with middle-years students at an Australian secondary school. The study explored a classroom where collaborative work built on the technical facilities and expertise of young people.     

Application of teaching and learning principles to computer-aided instruction

Many authors of software providing computer-aided instruction (CAI) have no background in educational theories. This paper reviews teaching theories and ways in which instructional principles can be applied to CAI. While the lecture form of teaching has often been maligned, there are techniques for enhancing lectures that can also apply to CAI. Effective communication methods, both verbal and audiovisual, are as important in computer modules as they are in face-to-face teaching. The quality of interactive questioning and the nature and timing of feedback are critical to the success of instruction by computer. Appropriate feedback can improve retention, as can the use of proper distractors in multiple-choice questions. We present steps for developing a CAI learning module based on established principles of teaching and learning, as well as proper identification of educational goals.     

The use of problem solving skills in computer-aided instruction: an evaluation

Abstract When computer programs are designed to elicit problem solving skills by the user, this basic premise should be tested in an objective manner. The Health and Fitness Assessment program was evaluated as an interactive program with a substantial emphasis on the problem solving process. A method of analysis known as protocol analysis was used to demonstrate that 72% of the interpretive statements made by users verified the use of higher level mental functions to interact with the computer. Other evaluative data aided in improving the design of the program.     

The design and testing of computer-aided instruction in the field of architecture

The College of Architecture at the University of Arizona uses the Plato computer to teach freshman basic drawing skills. The purpose of this paper is to describe how computer-aided instruction was designed and used in the Graphics Communications class and to relate the students' reaction to this experience.     

Representation and synthesis of optimal logical structure of instruction materials in computer-aided training systems

Translated from Kibernetika i Sistemnyi Analiz, No. 1, pp. 183–186, January–February, 1993.     

Physical hypermedia: Augmenting physical material with hypermedia structures

This paper introduces the notion of physical hypermedia, addressing the problem of organizing material in mixed digital and physical environments. Based on empirical studies, we propose concepts for collectional actions and meta-data actions, and present prototypes combining principles from augmented reality and hypermedia to support organization of mixtures of digital and physical materials. Our prototype of a physical hypermedia system is running on an augmented architect's desk and digital walls utilizing Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID) tags as well as visual tags tracked by cameras. It allows users to tag physical materials, and have these tracked by readers (antennas) that may become pervasive in our work environments. In the physical hypermedia system, we work with three categories of RFID tags: simple object tags, collectional tags, and tooltags invoking operations such as grouping and linking of physical material. In addition, we utilize visual ARToolKit tags for linking and navigating 3D models on a physical desk. Our primary application domain is architecture and design, and so we discuss the use of augmented collectional artifacts primarily for this domain.     

MUSiCAL: An object-oriented hypermedia data model for the reuse of museum information for computer-aided learning and the World-Wide Web

As museum databases are computerized, a rich and extensive resource that could be reused to create World Wide Web pages and computer-aided learning materials is being created. This reuse can be facilitated using a complex set of views of museum data for many different contexts and applications. This paper presents MUSiCAL, a data model and methodology for the structuring and encoding of all types of museum information to do this. This model supports all museum uses of the information, and the retrieval and manipulation of this material by computer aided learning and World Wide Web authors.In this model, museum information is stored as distinct units called entity-objects, which capture all information relating to an object, person, place or company. Novel hypermedia techniques (called layers and wrappers) are used to create varied abstractions of the entity-objects for different users and uses. Material is stored in a context independent manner, but context sensitive views can be created, allowing units of information to be connected together in more than one contextual view. These structures facilitate the organisation and retrieval of objects and create a varied range of abstractions to help support reuse.     

Using mixed-type reasoning in computer-aided process planning for feature interactions

This paper describes a process-planning model using mixed-type reasoning designed for processing prismatic parts on CNC machine tools in a batch manufacturing environment. This mixed-type reasoning handles feature interactions by combining forward chaining for feature sequencing and backward chaining for the construction of a process plan. In such a model, the human problem-solving strategies are decoupled from the tools for analysis and sorting algorithms. Two databases are used to contain the results from forward and backward chaining. The process-planning algorithm combines the processes of modeling the given information in four stages: (1) defining the important information for features and feature-related concerns; (2) interpreting and rearranging the given feature according to the given constraints and sorting guideline; (3) sequencing the features; (4) attaching the needed operations to the features in machine/process/feature/set-up/tool/time/cost format.     

Using a cooperative hypermedia editing tool to enhance group communication and productivity

Cooperative hypermedia means producting and manipulating hyperorganized multimedia data by a group of (co-)users. We have been realizing a prototype that enables coauthors to cooperatively produce hypermedia documents. It allows coauthors to communicate their ideas, drafts, guidelines, and constraints within a group in order to exchange information (remotely or face-to-face) and improve the final document.When analyzing the transition from individual work to group work within different human activities, two pitfalls are often detected if computer support is considered. On the one hand are the social and technological communication problems, particularly if members of the group are geographically distant from one another. On the other hand are the productivity falls, which are usually due to communication difficulties and frequent social inadequacies of the group's computer support. We would like to propose the use of this prototype — CoMEdiA — as a way to enhance, or prevent the fall of, intra-group communication and the outcomes of group edit tasks (constrained to the kind of taks for which it has been designed). Most of the techniques used to achieve this can be used in other tools to support other specific type of group activities.     

Using learning styles to evaluate computer-based instruction

This study compared two instruments while evaluating the effects of learning style on performance when using a computer-based instruction (CBI) system to teach introductory probability and statistics. The Gregorc Style Delineator (GSD) and the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI) were used to measure learning style. Results indicated that there was an effect of learning style when using the GSD: students identified as Concrete Sequential learned significantly less than students identified as Concrete Random. There was no effect according to LSI styles. Lack of an ordering preference dimension in the LSI is discussed as a possible explanation. Findings from other studies evaluating CBI and recommendations are also discussed.     

Using Event-B to construct instruction set architectures

The instruction set architecture (ISA) of a computing machine is the definition of the binary instructions, registers, and memory space visible to an executable binary image. ISAs are typically implemented in hardware as microprocessors, but also in software running on a host processor, i.e. virtual machines (VMs). Despite there being many ISAs in existence, all share a set of core properties which have been tailored to their particular applications. An abstract model may capture these generic properties and be subsequently refined to a particular machine, providing a reusable template for development of robust ISAs by the formal construction of all normal and exception conditions for each instruction. This is a task to which the Event-B (Metayer et al. in Rodin deliverable 3.2 Event-B language, , 2005; Schneider in The B-method an introduction, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2001) formal notation is well suited. This paper describes a project to use the Rodin tool-set (Abrial in Formal methods and software engineering, Springer, Berlin, 2006) to perform such a process, ultimately producing two variants of the MIDAS (Microprocessor Instruction and Data Abstraction System) ISA (Wright in Abstract state machines, B and Z, Springer, Berlin, 2007; Wright in MIDAS machine specification, Bristol University, , 2009) as VMs. The abstract model is incrementally refined to variant models capable of automatic translation to C source code, which this is compiled to create useable VMs. These are capable of running binary executables compiled from high-level languages such as C (Kernighan and Ritchie in The C programming language, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1988), and compilers targeted to each variant allow demonstration programs to be executed on them.     

Interactive web-based hypermedia coordination

Multimedia Tools and Applications - This paper discusses the interactive coordination of hypermedia documents’ components in the world wide web environment, proposing a design space based on...     

Educational hypermedia resources facilitator

Within the university the introduction of computers is creating a new criterion of differentiation between those who as a matter of course become integrated in the technocratic trend deriving from the daily use of these machines and those who become isolated by not using them. This difference increases when computer science and communications merge to introduce virtual educational areas, where the conjunction of teacher and pupil in the space–time dimension is no longer an essential requirement, and where the written text is replaced (or rather complemented) by the digital text.In this article, a historical defence is made of the presence of this new standard in the creation of digital educational resources such as the hyperdocument, as well as the barriers and technological problems deriving from its use. Furthermore, HyCo, an authoring tool, is introduced which facilitates the composition of hypertexts, which are stored as semantic learning objects, looking for that through of a simple and extremely intuitive interface and interaction model, any teacher with a minimum knowledge of computer science has the possibility of transforming his or her experience and knowledge into useful and quality hypermedia educational resources.     

Retaining hyperlinks in printed hypermedia document

In this paper, we describe a method that allows a hypermedia document to retain its hyperlinks in the printed copy. The method associates the hyperlinks with cut-out tabs on the edges of the printed pages. A method for modelling the cut-out tabs and optimizing their assignment to the hyperlinks is discussed. We also describe a prototype authoring system that implements the method.