The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Second Life (SL) for improving the oral output of overseas Chinese students learning Mandarin Chinese (hereafter referred to as Mandarin). More than 1000 overseas Chinese students attend a university in northern Taiwan every year to learn Mandarin as a heritage language after graduating…

The purpose of this study is to examine participant's perception of the usefulness of the visual elements in 3D Virtual Learning Environments, which represent co-presence, in developing interpersonal emotional connections with their partners in the initial stage of telecollaboration. To fulfill the purpose, two Japanese students and two American…

"Proceedings of International Conference on Social and Education Sciences" includes full papers presented at the International Conference on Social and Education Sciences (IConSES)-www.iconses.net which took place on October 21-24, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The aim of the conference is to offer opportunities to share ideas, to…

Color is a complex and rich perceptual phenomenon that relates physical properties of light to certain perceptual qualia associated with vision. Hering's opponent color theory, widely regarded as capturing the most fundamental aspects of color phenomenology, suggests that certain unique hues are mutually exclusive as components of a single color.…

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects on a student's metacognition, reflection, and learning in a specifically designed educational simulation supported by unique technology. The simulation allows players' actions to be recorded for the purpose of review to identify mistakes. The simulation also allows students to start at and…

Virtual environments, virtual worlds, simulations, 3D models are loaded with potential, promise, and problems. While learning in virtual settings is still being researched, instructional designers are challenged as to which instructional design practices are best suited for virtual environments (VEs). The problem is there is a lack of a conceptual…

This study examined the capability of computer simulation as a tool for assessing the strategic competency of emergency department nurses as they responded to authentically computer simulated biohazard-exposed patient case studies. Thirty registered nurses from a large, urban hospital completed a series of computer-simulated case studies of…

Computer games are advocated as a promising tool bridging the gap between the controllability of a lab experiment and the mundane realism of a field experiment. At the same time, many authors stress the importance of observing real behavior instead of asking participants about possible or intended behaviors. In this article, the authors introduce…

This study evaluated the validity of a role-play procedure that uses virtual reality technology to assess women's responses to sexual threat. Forty-eight female undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either a standard, face-to-face role-play (RP) or a virtual role-play (VRP) of a sexually coercive situation. A multimethod assessment…

Here, we report on a new tool for teaching cardiovascular physiology and pathophysiology that promotes qualitative as well as quantitative thinking about time-dependent physiological phenomena. Quantification of steady and presteady-state (transient) cardiovascular phenomena is traditionally done by differential equations, but this is time…

The "Balance of Nature" metaphor is a pervasive idea in ecology. However, the scientific community acknowledged during the last decades that equilibrium conditions are rare, while disturbance events are not uncommon. We suggest that the exclusive teaching of the "Balance of Nature" metaphor produces cultural, scientific and learning misconceptions…

Sample size determination is an important issue in planning research. In the context of one-way fixed-effect analysis of variance, the conventional sample size formula cannot be applied for the heterogeneous variance cases. This study discusses the sample size requirement for the Welch test in the one-way fixed-effect analysis of variance with…

Virtual world technology is now being incorporated into various higher education programs, often with enthusiastic claims about the improvement of students' abilities to experience learning problems and tasks in computer-mediated virtual reality through the use of computer-generated personal agents or avatars. The interactivity of the avatars with…

This paper argues that design fixation, in part, entails fixation at the level of meta-representation, the representation of the relation between a representation and its reference. In this paper, we present a mathematical model that mimics the idea of how fixation can occur at the meta-representation level. In this model, new abstract concepts…

Purpose: This paper aims to report on the design and implementation of an e-laboratory for enhanced science, technology and engineering education studies. Design/methodology/approach: The paper assesses a computer-based e-laboratory, designed for new entrants to science, technology and engineering programmes of study in further and higher…