In the course of a teaching and learning process, different cognitive skills are required for a student. Attention is an important variable to be measured, since it plays a fundamental role in the accumulation of information with the stimulus of the learner's memory in the course of the assimilation of knowledge. The purpose of this article is to…

Item response theory (IRT) is a statistical paradigm for developing educational tests and assessing students. IRT, however, currently lacks an established graphical method for examining model fit for the three-parameter logistic model, the most flexible and popular IRT model in educational testing. A method is presented here to do this. The graph,…

The reemergence of virtual reality (VR) in the past few years has led to affordable, high-quality commodity hardware that can offer new ways to teach, communicate, and engage with complex concepts. In a higher-education context, these immersive technologies make it possible to teach complex molecular topics in a way that may aid or even supersede…

Gravitational lensing is an interesting phenomenon in astronomy and is most typically given rise to by galaxies. The majority of the matter in a galaxy is thought to be dark matter, and the galactic gravitational lensing effect is mainly caused by dark matter halos. In gravitational lensing-related demonstrations in physics education, the feet of…

Nowadays, in many Italian and European universities, teachers' training includes one or more examinations related to new didactic methodologies and practices. The topic of this paper is how it is possible to realize a new video analysis laboratory as a didactic and research "tool" for teachers' training at the University of Salerno that…

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has received great recognition through the various research conducted on determining users' acceptance of relevant technology innovation. Past researches have focused on technology innovation in education such as e-learning, Learning Management Systems and online applications. The 21st century teaching and…

This paper describes environmental systems games developed for energy and water resource use designed to be adaptable from high school to undergraduate use. Two of the games are computer simulations with adjustable levels of difficulty that can be done in a computer lab or as a homework assignment. The third is a peer-to-peer roleplayer game…

A series of laboratory themed simulations developed by Learning Science Ltd. were integrated into a first year laboratory module at the University of Leicester. These simulations allow students to attempt the experiments they will do in the laboratory in a risk-free way that provides the opportunity to make mistakes and learn how to correct them…

Interactive science simulations (sims) have become popular tools for science educators, and research confirms that sims can improve student learning (Rutten, van Joolingen, and van der Veen 2012). Over the past 15 years, the PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder has created a collection of 150 open (free)…

The idea that plants do photosynthesis but do not do cellular respiration is a common misconception among middle and high school students that often stems from an over-simplification of these processes in diagrams and formal science instruction. The activity presented here uses a conceptual change approach (Nussbaum & Novick, 1982) and an…

Although human patient simulation (HPS) began more than a decade ago, substantial evidence argues for increased use of simulation in teaching basic science courses, such as physiology and the full integration of simulation into medical school curricula so as to benefit both educators and learners. The introduction and application of simulation in…

Since the advent of Second Life in 2004, immersive virtual-reality (VR) environments have been readily available to educators; more recent open-source environments have reduced costs significantly. This study reports on data gathered from an avatar-based immersive experience where teacher-education students gathered in VR spaces for synchronous…

We develop a single-class period learning game for the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) improvement cycle. The experiential activity walks teams through the PDSA problem-solving process as they create paper American footballs and improve their performance using each step of the cycle. The game is one of the first to focus on PDSA. Key benefits include…

Contribution: A systematic approach to MATLAB problem design and automated assessment is described, based on the experience working with the MATLAB server provided by MathWorks and integrated with the edX massive online open class (MOOC) platform. Background: New technologies, such as MOOCs, provide innovative methods to tackle new challenges in…

We present the results of an experimental project, made at the University of Calabria, which uses computer simulations and scientific computational systems in teaching and learning the fundamentals of analytic mechanics, in particular the classical Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulation of the matter. Starting with examples of classical dynamical…