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There were a few reasons that determined my interest in this field of research and justified the reasons why this doctoral study was carried out. One was literature praising the motivational incentives of chance, uncertainty. and competition in learning settings and especially computer games. Another Important factor was research revealing the memory and learning promoting properties of reward uncertainty and, particularly, prediction error (PE: the difference between expected and actual reward). All the previous together with my personal interest on how people learn through gaming, determined my interest in pursuing this PhD study. The current study is based on asking both adults and children to interact individually and collaboratively with competitive and non competitive learning computer games that promoted reward uncertainty and PE. It was conducted within both laboratory and classroom based settings and the data collected was of both quantitative and qualitative nature. Specifically, this research was conducted in two parts; the first part consisted of four studies on uncertainty and the second part that consisted of two phases. Phase _1 was in the laboratory with adults using a non competitive learning game and phase _2 was in the classroom with children interacting with competitive games of learning. For the purposes of this research, a mixed methods approach was employed, including quantitative methods like physiological measurements and statistical explorations of numeric data, as well as qualitative methods such as audio recordings and interviews. The general aim of this study was to investigate the potential link between uncertainty and PE, engagement and learning in laboratory experiments involving adults, and then use this understanding to explore how children engage with learning games involving chance-based uncertainty in more "real world" classroom environments, seeking to interrelate this understanding with the discourse and social constructions associated with such games and to also examine the effect of the artificial opponent (AO) within such contexts. Part! revealed many interesting things with regard to uncertainty. The first part_1 study showed children's preference towards uncertainty involving computer gaming tasks with their justifications revealing that they wanted, liked and enjoyed this option more than the certain one. The second study showed that the inclusion of an element of gaming uncertainty appeared to raise the EDA of the adult participants when answering questions that were intended to support their learning. Part_l-study_3 revealed similar trends in children's EDA responses within the same gaming context, also revealing some very interesting results on children's emotional synchrony when collaborating around computers. Part_1-study _ 4 aimed to explore the emotional arousal of children within this gaming context in more depth, by looking at their facial and bodily expressions. It also aimed to explore the link between the emotional arousal due to gaming uncertainty and learning as revealed by part_1 studies 2 and 3 further, by tracking the appearance of each question in the game in order to look at the different ways in which material was learned. Part_I-study _ 4 found that the game intervention promoted learning as participants scored significantly higher on the post test than on the pre test. In this study it was tr 1 found that the most frequently occurring and intensely emotionally loaded a mressions were associated among others to courses of the game when many points were at. stake. This study also found that a lot of the material in the game was encoded and/or recalled through highly emotionally loaded events as revealed from the video analysis. The general feeling from the video analysis was that students were immersed in the gaming discourse and they enjoyed playmg the computer game. Part 2 showed some very interesting things. Phase_l revealed that at recall, PE for successful learning was significantly higher than PE for unsuccessful learning. This . provided the green light to investigate the potentially positive influence of positive prediction error (PPE) on learning within computer gaming environments of this type. Classroom based studies of phase_2 revealed that the type of the AO, whether matched based on academic ability or gaming strategy, does make a difference on students' discourse and constructs in a learning experience and also provided indications on how children collaborate around computers. This difference in students' constructs was revealed from their drawings of the two AOs, since they appeared to draw each of them in a different way based on the AOs' characteristics that were revealed while competing against them in the game. This was an interesting finding as it provided indications that, when matching the performance of the AO to the players, the source of the uncertainty originating from the AO, whether it is located in its academic ability or gaming strategy, does make a difference. Finally, similarly to Phase _1, in the second study of this phase it was found that on average, PE for successful learning was significantly higher than PE for unsuccessful learning, providing indications for the potentially reinforcing properties of positive PE on learning.

The research reported in this thesis makes a contribution towards a comprehensive understanding of the online distance learning process. This research specifically addresses the effects of learners' trust in relation to particular trust factors in their academic performance when studying at a distance. An initial theoretical framework is outlined, which encompasses investigated areas such as distance education, online distance learning, trust, performance, as-sessment, online communities, co-operation and collaboration. Subsequently, a two stage empirical research process is described. Firstly, a survey is outlined to enable the construction of a set of trust factors characterising learners' beliefs in relation to online distance learning issues as well as to provide the student group profile. Secondly, a study which accounts for both a quantitative and qualitative data collec-tion is presented. Quantitative data was used to test an hypothesis which explored the relation between trust and performance under different conditions. Qualitative data was gathered to better understand and explain the results from the first stage. Results identified the importance of fostering trust in a distance learning community and in providing trustful online distance learning environments and reflects on the understanding of the concept of trust and possible implications for the online distance learning design and it pedagogy. Implications for online distance learners' needs and support are also identified. Results also confirmed the interaction between trust and performance although some results were unexpected. For instance, under certain conditions a negative correlation between trust and academic performance was identified. These results might, somehow, be related to Cape Verde's specific characteristics such as limited broadband access to the Internet and access to ICT facilities, serious water and electricity shortages, limited agricultural possibilities and shortage of higher education opportunities. Within this context, this work's major contributions are at the intersection of areas such as trust, online distance learning and learners' academic performance. Which offers an. increased understanding of the effects of learners' trust beliefs over their academic performance in online distance learning processes. An additional contribution was the development of an Information and Communication Technologies Online distance learning module for every initial year of the Universidade Jean Piaget de Cabo Verde undergraduate programme, thus contributing to reducing the existing gap between developed and developing countries. A complementary contribution is the identification of a number of consequent research questions which pave the way for future research work.

The current understanding of students' co- and self-regulated learning behaviours during group learning is limited. Research on social cognitive models of self-regulated learning (SRL) focused primarily on understanding the processes that students use to self-regulate their learning and the subsequent benefits of SRL on learning and academic performance. Recently, sociocultural models have begun to argue that SRL is fostered, developed, and maintained within social contexts and as a result of interactions with teachers and peers. This research employs both social cognitive and sociocultural theories to investigate students' co- regulatory behaviours in a computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. The students worked in a computer based science simulation learning environment in which either self-regulatory prompts or co- and self- regulatory prompts were given. A longitudinal design methodology incorporating four studies was adopted. The first study engaged two hundred and fourteen year 7 and 8 (11-13 year oIds) students to pilot the developed co-regulated strategies for learning questionnaire (CRSLQ) in a high school at Bedfordshire County in the United Kingdom. The remaining three studies engaged forty year 7 students (11-12 year olds) from the same school who were randomly assigned to either the experimental or the control group to work collaboratively on various science topics. Both quantitative and qualitative data analyses were used to examine the strategies that students used to co- regulate their learning processes over time. Results from the quantitative analysis revealed a statistically significant difference between the experimental and the control groups in the students' demonstration of co-regulated learning (CRL) behaviours over time. However, the results from the knowledge tests, although they suggested that learning had taken place, did not reach statistical significance. Findings from the qualitative analysis suggested between group and within group differences in the nature of co-regulatory processes that groups used to co-regulate their learning behaviour over the course of the three studies. Theoretically, this research extends individual models of SRL to include social forms of regulation arguing that students acquire, refine, and use different forms of regulatory processes to regulate their learning behaviours during collaborative learning. Finally, given the emphasis on SRL throughout the national curriculum this research supports the use of collaborative tasks in a technology-rich learning environment as an instructional method to increase students' regulatory processes. Some recommendations for future work are then made.

This thesis looks at how digital technologies can create opportunities for online collaboration across schools within the framework of the eTwinning programme, an EU initiative that seeks to promote web-based learning and collaboration between schools across Europe. A socio-technical approach was employed, focusing on the role of social context in shaping the technology use surrounding the eTwinning activities. This 'social shaping of technology' approach allowed exploration of the range of social actors and factors that influence the implementation of digital technologies for school collaboration at micro, meso and macro levels of analysis. Through a comparative, qualitative case study of four different eTwinning projects in the UK and Greece, this thesis investigates how digital technologies such as wikis, blogs and discussion forums were used as online collaborative environments. Data collection took place during the course of the academic year 2009-2010, consisting of semi-structured individual and group interviews alongside classroom observations and online documentary analysis. The findings suggest that students' and teachers' use of digital technologies and, in particular web 2.0 tools, was influenced by a range of social issues relating to the wider school context. As such the tools per se did not lead to noticeable changes in practice - especially regarding collaborative activity. Specifically, all four case study projects were bounded by wider settings and factors such as time, resourcing, assessment regimes and 'fit' with curriculum. This thesis argues that amidst the enthusiasm that surrounds digital technologies in education, there is a pressing need for more critical consideration of the socially and institutionally shaped realities of use. The thesis concludes with a range of suggestions for the future improvement of such web-based collaborative initiatives.

This study uses educational design principles to interrogate an electronic tutorial from the Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology resources. The tutorial is based on Hammerling's historic experiment on the single-celled alga, Acetabularia. This leads to a critique of design principles, some outline revisions to these principles, and to a reconstruction of the tutorial. Data from students using the tutorial was recorded and transcribed, and pre- and post-tutorial test data and written tasks were also used. Cognitive barriers and opportunities were identified through repeated inductive analyses to produce and refine a task model for the tutorial. The initial analysis highlighted multiple phenomena of interest, so the scope of the study was narrowed to focus on how students use background science ideas to develop scientific explanations. The next stage of analysis involved a comparison of the data with an existing set of scaffolding design principles. These principles provided a framework for analysis of the scaffolding present in the tutorial, and suggested where the generic principles needed more detail or exemplification. The outcomes of the study include a methodology which uses design guidelines to analyse and refine the electronic tutorial. Where gaps in the guidelines were revealed in this process, revisions to the framework for analysis are suggested. The final chapters suggest a way of defining and exemplifying the content knowledge of educational design and making this knowledge explicit during the process of design. The study raised broader issues relating to the vocabulary used by science educators to discuss science inquiry and content. It is also suggested that the guidelines in the framework exemplify a flawed model of 'the scientific method' that has commonly been accepted for use in curriculum design for science inquiry learning.

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