Aim/Purpose: This study of affordances in educational technology focuses on how the self-perceptions of teachers influence the creation of educational opportunities and how these are received by learners. Background: It is important to explore the affordances offered by teachers, when using educational technology, from the perspective of their…

Information seeking and acquisition is fundamental to learning from hypermedia, but student teachers often fail to regulate their own learning. A total of 68 students learned with either a static or a dynamic version of nBrowser, a network-based tutor that adapted recommendations of online resources to support information seeking and acquisition.…

Background and Context: In spite of the decades spent developing software visualization (SV), doubts still remain regarding their effectiveness. Furthermore, student engagement plays an important role in improving SV effectiveness as it is correlated with many positive academic outcomes. It has been shown that the existing SV has failed to engage…

Instructional design for psychology courses is ever changing. Recently, there has been an explosion of scholarly literature related to flipped classroom pedagogy in higher education. This essentially entails inverting a course so that lectures are viewed outside of class, and class time is devoted to active learning through activities such as…

The present study aims to show if a skill-challenge balancing (SCB) instruction strategy can assist learners to motivationally engage in computer-based learning. Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory (self-control, curiosity, focus of attention, and intrinsic interest) was applied to an account of the optimal learning experience in SCB-based learning…

Especially in the context of technology-enhanced informal learning, it is crucial to understand how to design information sources in such a way that learners are not overwhelmed by the demands of the learning process, but at the same time are engaged in higher order thinking processes. Guidance aids learners in dealing with the demands of a…

Computer based simulations and games can be useful tools in teaching aspects of construction project management that are not easily transmitted through traditional lecture based approaches. However, it can be difficult to quantify their utility and it is essential to ensure that students are achieving the learning outcomes required rather than…

Self-regulated learners are expected to plan their own learning. Because planning is a complex task, it is not self-evident that all learners can perform this task successfully. In this study, we examined the effects of two planning support tools on the quality of created plans, planning behavior, task load, and acquired knowledge. Sixty-five…

Participants in the present study were 87 college students who learned about botany using an agent-based instructional program with three different learning approaches: individual, jigsaw, or cooperative learning. Results showed no differences among learning approaches on retention. Students in jigsaw groups reported higher cognitive load during…

Within only a few years, the use of e-learning has increased rapidly in Austria. In certain subjects, up to 60% of university students report using e-learning platforms at least "sometimes" or "frequently" (Unger & Wroblewski, 2006). Yet, which aspects of e-learning do students consider important for their learning…

Traditional teaching styles practiced at universities do not generally suit all students' learning styles. For a variety of reasons, students do not always engage in learning in the courses in which they are enrolled. New methods to create and deliver educational material are available, but these do not always improve learning outcomes.…

"Present text accompanying pictures aurally to promote learning" is a well established principle of instructional design. But recently, it was shown that under certain conditions visual texts can be preferable. Instructional pacing seems to be one of these conditions that mediate effects. Especially, enabling learners to pace an…

Video-based e-lectures offer interactive learning and more vivid and personalized forms of self-regulated learning. Participants (N = 28) learned from either a video-based e-lecture with synchronized written transcript of oral presentation (multimodal) or an e-lecture without the transcript (unimodal presentation). Learners could be classified as…

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a multidimensional instrument for college students' readiness for online learning. Through a confirmatory factor analysis, the Online Learning Readiness Scale (OLRS) was validated in five dimensions: self-directed learning, motivation for learning, computer/Internet self-efficacy, learner…

Instructional elements remain the foundation of current instructional design practice. Practice is the instructional element provided after learners have been given information required to master an objective and Navigation is the non-instructional element guides the learner on the sequence of instruction. Linear Navigation can be referred to as…