The Internet poses a variety of risks at both the individual and societal levels including scams and the spread of misinformation. Older adults are especially vulnerable to many of these risks. This paper argues that one important strategy for combating such threats is through digital media literacy education. Although a good deal of research on…

Teaching is the process of conveying knowledge and skills to learners. It involves preventing misunderstandings or correcting misconceptions that learners have acquired. Thus, effective teaching relies on solid knowledge of the discipline, but also a good grasp of where learners are likely to trip up or misunderstand. In programming, there is much…

Factor analysis has been frequently exploited in applied research to provide evidence about the underlying factors in various measurement instruments. A close inspection of a large number of studies published in leading applied linguistic journals shows that there is a misconception among applied linguists as to the relative merits of exploratory…

The present paper aims to review two motivations to conduct "what if" analyses using Excel and "R" to understand the statistical significance tests through the sample size context. "What if" analyses can be used to teach students what statistical significance tests really do and in applied research either prospectively to estimate what sample size…

The number right (NR) method, in which students pick one option as the answer, is the conventional method for scoring multiple-choice tests that is heavily criticized for encouraging students to guess and failing to credit partial knowledge. In addition, computer technology is increasingly used in classroom assessment. This paper investigates the…

Active learning has been championed in academic circles as the pedagogical fix to boring lectures typically found in introduction to information systems courses. However, the literature on active learning is mixed. In this paper, we critically examine active learning research and discover a misplaced emphasis leading to paradoxical findings in…

This study reports research findings on the use of animated cartoons in a multimedia application meant to evaluate their effectiveness in supporting teaching and learning in science. The researchers have developed a cartoon-style multimedia application whereas animated cartoons where designed from scratch using appropriate programs. The study was…

Plagiarism has become the new piracy. Just as piracy was a few years ago, plagiarism has become the hot, new crime du jour--an act that suggests immorality and often scandal at once. What's more, plagiarism allegations feed into the society's "Candid Camera" mentality--the seemingly insatiable need to uncover wrongdoing. One of the biggest…

This paper describes a model for computer programming outreach workshops aimed at second-level students (ages 15-16). Participants engage in a series of programming activities based on the Scratch visual programming language, and a very strong group-based pedagogy is followed. Participants are not required to have any prior programming experience.…

With the development of e-learning technology, many specifications of instructional design have been proposed to make learning activity sharable and reusable. With the specifications and sufficient learning resources, the researches further focus on how to provide learners more appropriate learning activities to improve their learning performance.…

To understand evolutionary theory, students must be able to understand and use evolutionary trees and their underlying concepts. Active, hands-on curricula relevant to macroevolution can be challenging to implement across large college-level classes where textbook learning is the norm. We evaluated two approaches to helping students learn…

We report on responses to a series of four questions designed to identify pre-existing abilities related to debugging and troubleshooting experiences of novice students before they begin programming instruction. The focus of these questions include general troubleshooting, bug location, exploring unfamiliar environments, and describing students'…

Most of the emphasis on mining online assessment logs has been to identify content-specific errors. However, the pattern of general "consistency" is domain independent, strongly related to performance, and can itself be a target of educational data mining. We demonstrate that simple consistency indicators are related to student outcomes,…

Strips away advertising hyperbole to explain multimedia CD-ROM technology and its place in today's classrooms. Only the newest computers are adequate for multimedia CD-ROM; only 10% of all computers in schools have CD-ROM drives attached. CD-ROM drives' performance varies, installation hassles abound, and the "edutainment" market directs…

A content analysis of 21 elementary and secondary software programs reveals the nonneutrality of educational software. The software is heavily biased and exposes pupils to dominant explanations, values, beliefs, assumptions, and ideologies that are projected as objective and legitimate. Content-specific software is deeply enmeshed in cultural…