After years at the periphery of the social sciences, simulation is now emerging as an important and widely used tool for understanding social phenomena. Through simulation, researchers can identify causal effects, specify critical parameter estimates, and clarify the state of the art with respect to what is understood about how processes evolve…

Multi-ball collisions inside the Astroblaster toy are explained from the conservation of momentum point of view. The important role of the coefficient of restitution is demonstrated in ideal and real cases. Real experimental results with the simple toy can be compared with a computer model represented by an interactive Java applet. (Contains 1…

In the present study we call attention to the close connection between languages and globalization, and we also emphasize the importance of the Internet and online websites in foreign language teaching and learning as unavoidable elements of computer assisted language learning (CALL). We prepared a checklist by which we investigated 28 foreign…

Conventional testing systems usually give students a score as their test result, but do not show them how to improve their learning performance. Researchers have indicated that students would benefit more if individual learning guidance could be provided. However, most of the existing learning diagnosis models ignore the fact that one concept…

The Functional Measurement approach, proposed within the theoretical framework of Information Integration Theory (Anderson, 1981, 1982), can be a useful multi-attribute analysis tool. Compared to the majority of statistical models, the averaging model can account for interaction effects without adding complexity. The R-Average method (Vidotto &…

The use of ICT to enhance teaching and learning depends on effective design, which operates at many levels of granularity from the small to the very large. This reflects the range of educational problems from course design down to the design of activities focused on specific learning objectives. For maximum impact these layers of design need to be…

The authors tested the predictions of a game theory model of plagiarism, using a test population of student papers submitted to an online plagiarism detection program, over five semesters in a non-majors biology course with multiple sections and high enrollment. Consistent with the model, as the probability of detection and the penalty if caught…

Teacher feedback and interaction are factors of success and satisfaction in online courses, but courses designed for computer-assisted instruction (CAI) require less communication between a teacher and student. The goal of this research was to examine the impact of teachers' feedback in online self-paced secondary math courses where CAI was…

This paper provides an introduction to mixed-effects models for the analysis of repeated measurement data with subjects and items as crossed random effects. A worked-out example of how to use recent software for mixed-effects modeling is provided. Simulation studies illustrate the advantages offered by mixed-effects analyses compared to…

Simulation is a powerful tool in developing and troubleshooting manufacturing processes, particularly when considering process flows for manufacturing systems that do not yet exist. Simulation can bridge the gap in terms of setting up full-scale manufacturing for nanotechnology products if limited production experience is an issue. An effective…

This dissertation explores the use of geometric and graphical models for a variety of information search and filtering applications. These models serve to provide an intuitive understanding of the problem domains and as well as computational efficiencies to our solution approaches. We begin by considering a search and rescue scenario where both…

The purpose of this study was to develop a framework for analyzing and evaluating student-constructed models of physical phenomena and monitoring the progress of these models. Moreover, we aimed to examine whether this framework could capture differences between models created using different computer-based modeling tools; namely, computer-based…

The trend with organisational adoption of virtual learning environments (VLE) seems to be cyclical. Initially, a decentralised approach was adopted, wherein each department implemented different learning environments or mixtures of technology, often developed in-house. The last five years have seen an increased centralisation of learning…

Topic models like latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) provide a framework for analyzing large datasets where observations are collected into groups. Although topic modeling has been fruitfully applied to problems social science, biology, and computer vision, it has been most widely used to model datasets where documents are modeled as exchangeable…

Modeling of a natural phenomenon is of value in science learning and increasingly emphasized as an important component of science education. However, previous research has shown that secondary school students encounter difficulties when engaging in modeling activities and need substantial support in order to create meaningful scientific models.…