No description available.

Global maritime education and training (MET) is currently subject to great change brought about by new international legislation, a dynamic shipping environment, the growing impact of technology, and the challenges maritime institutions face to survive in an uncertain market place.The aim of the research is to determine to what extent global MET institutions can enhance and enrich traditional practices through access to new technology and the use of innovative teaching and assessment methods' within a sustainable and achievable framework.The first Chapters of the study investigate the impact of change on the global MET scene by examining how international maritime legislation influences activities of maritime institutions. Ninety institutions from fifty-three countries responded to a survey that examines their intentions regarding the use of satellite communications, Information Technology, computing, multimedia, simulation and distance learning delivery methods. Shipboard operations that impact upon future training needs are also put under the spotlight.The study analyses the potential use of the Internet, e-mail, simulation and distance education services to determine how these elements can be used to advantage for the education and training of seafarers. An evaluation is made of the use of computers and marine simulators as assessment tools, in the light of international concerns about standards of competence.The study concludes that maritime institutions can benefit from the use of new technology, but only through rational planning and sustainable staged growth. A series of continua of technical development are provided to assist institutions, from to the largest, to plan for technical development and growth in a rational way.

No description available.

A challenge for both researchers and practising teachers is to develop, disseminate and implement methods to help all students acquire good reading skills. One way to do this is to conduct intervention studies. Within the framework of this dissertation two such studies are carried out with the purpose of promoting the reading development of children whose reading ability has not yet reached the adequate age level. The empirical material consists of two studies containing different interventions. These studies form the basis of the four articles included in the dissertation. The overall aim was to analyse the effects of the interventions with regard to both quantitative aspects of pupils’ reading abilities as well as the qualitative aspects of interpreting intervention as a method for promoting reading development. The interventions contain training programmes aiming at promoting pupils’ reading development. The participants of the first study attended grades 1-4, while in the other study only pupils from grade 2 participated. The first study comprises two different training programmes, one of which was computer-based. In the other study both training programmes were computer-based. One programme focused on phonology, whereas the other was more oriented towards reading comprehension. Results showed that pupils who received a combination of phonological and comprehension training made greater progress on tests measuring word decoding, phonological ability and reading comprehension than the comparison groups. These results are valid in the short term, i.e. immediately after the end of the intervention, but also in the long term, one year after the intervention was concluded. The results also demonstrate that computer-based intervention in reading training with a strict framework, combined with individually adapted contents may be both effective and motivating and also have a substantial effect on the success of the interventions. The results from one of the studies also showed that it is possible to achieve positive results on pupils’ reading skills with interventions that do not contain any homework. The main contribution of this thesis is important for further research and measures for children with reading disabilities.

Looks at the findings of a survey of 115 Saudi Arabian managers who had completed their undergraduate education in the United States in relation to the informational and computing resources and their applications in Saudi organisations. Considers the role of computers in business and highlights the lack of specialists able to train within the country. Concludes that whilst the skills to use information technology exist, they are limited by cultural resistance to change, traditional viewpoints, authoritarian leadership and bureaucracy. Advocates government encouragement and ties with developed nations to help change such attitudes.

An investigation is conducted into the cognitive effects of using different computer based instructions media in acquisition of specific novel human skills. With recent rapid advances in computing and multimedia instructional delivery, several contemporary research have focussed on the best practices for training and learning delivered via computer based multimedia simulations. More often than not, the aim has been cost minimisation through an optimisation of the instructional delivery process for efficient knowledge acquisition. The outcome of such research effort in general have been largely divergent and inconclusive. The work reported in this thesis utilises a dual prong methodology to provide a novel perspective on the moderating effects of computer based instructional visualisations with a focus on the interaction of interface dynamism with target knowledge domains and trainee cognitive characteristics. The first part of the methodology involves a series of empirical experiments that incrementally measures/compares the cognitive benefits of different levels of instructional interface dynamism for efficient task representation and post-acquisition skilled performance. The first of these experiments utilised a mechanical disassembly task to investigate novel acquisition of procedural motor skills by comparing task comprehension and performance. The other experiments expanded the initial findings to other knowledge domains as well as controlled for potential confounding variables. The integral outcome of these experiments helped to define a novel framework for describing multimodal perception of different computer based instruction types and its moderating effect on post-learning task performance. A parallel computational cognitive modelling effort provided the complementary methodology to investigate cognitive processing associated with different instructional interfaces at a lower level of detail than possible through empirical observations. Novel circumventions of some existing limitations of the selected ACT-R 6.0 cognitive modelling architecture were proposed to achieve the precision required. The ACT-R modifications afforded the representation of human motor movements at an atomic level of detail and with a constant velocity profile as opposed to what is possible with the default manual module. Additional extensions to ACT-R 6.0 also allowed accurate representation of the noise inherent in the recall of spatial locations from declarative memory. The method used for this representation is potentially extendable for application to 3-D spatial representation in ACT-R. These novel propositions are piloted in a proof-of-concept effort followed by application to a more complete, naturally occurring task sequence. The modelling methodology is validated with established human data of skilled task performances. The combination of empirical observations and detailed cognitive modelling afforded novel insights to the hitherto controversial findings on the cognitive benefits of different multimodal instructional presentations. The outcome has implications for training research and development involving computer based simulations.

Information Communication Technologies (ICT) are taking pace with rapid development,with the strive to impart education among learners in a way that they become highly satisfied.With a help of different electronic tools in educational technology using media and makingright environments to enhance learning, develop creativity, stimulate communication, createchannels for collaboration, and hence, engaging in the continued development and applicationto knowledge and skills. Usage of technology spans across all academic areas with theincreasing popularity of information technology that is evolving rapidly towards bettermentwith increased capabilities every day. Educationalists are interested in knowing howtechnology would create a variation for the students in the classroom. The purpose of using ELearningis to create a learning platform with combination of the existing knowledge andInformation Communication Technologies (ICT). High growth in Information Technology thatis user friendly, accessible, and reliable at the same time providing improved ways incollaborating in a new approach possible. Students from different units would be able tocollaborate forming cross-unit teams and working on common or multiple assignmentshelping each other in different ways. Internet, video conferencing, and emails are wellestablished collaborative tools for exchange of information. Investigating that why there is aneed of technology in the education and which technologies would help in improving learningprocesses is the main purpose of this research. And also to find that what would be thenecessary infrastructure required to get facilitated by this technology. The research revolvesaround the theory of Computer Based Training (CBT) which refers to particular part of theinstructional development or educational media. / Program: Magisterutbildning i informatik

The Usability Center training course is an instructional resource for BYU faculty, employees, and students to prepare them to effectively use the BYU Usability Center. This document describes the process and results of analyzing, designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating the Usability Center training course. By taking this course, participants learn the basics of planning, piloting, executing, and reporting their usability activities and the skills prerequisite to using BYU's Usability Center.

Using advanced technologies can help increase the availability of educational offerings; however, the steps taken in this direction must be appropriate for the target population and the specific content taught. As such, understanding factors that lead to health educators' intentions and behavior related to computer-mediated instruction for continuing education is an important step in developing and marketing appropriate computer-mediated instruction programs (Hoffman & Novak, 1994). Using the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1988) this study explored the relationships between health educators' perceived behavioral control, attitudes, and subjective norms related to computer-mediated continuing education programs and their intentions to use, and previous experience with, computer-mediated education. Employing a cross sectional survey design, data were collected from 504 members of the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) (40% response rate) using an online survey instrument. Logistic regression was used to investigate the associations between attitudes, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention related to using computer-mediated continuing education programs and a proxy measure representing their computer-mediated continuing education behavior. Perceived behavioral control and attitudes were found to have significant associations with computer-mediated continuing education behavior, with intention partially mediating the association with perceived behavioral control and fully mediating the association with attitudes. When studying a subset of the group composed of respondents with a positive intention toward computer-mediated continuing education programs, respondent characteristics and barriers identified as distinguishing between individuals with positive and negative behaviors included perceived behavioral control, presence of a license or certification, a lack of programs, a lack of relevant topics for programs, and a lack of technical support for programs. These results suggest that for health education and health promotion professionals to engage in computer-mediated continuing education programs, more programs, especially ones that address topics relevant to their current functioning, need to be created and made readily available. Also, ensuring that appropriate technical support is available to assist participants, and informing potential participants of the availability of this technical assistance, may encourage more health educators and health promotion professionals to follow through on their intentions to participate in computer-mediated programs.

This report describes the purpose, analysis, design, development, and evaluation of a web-based tutorial to train student television camera operators for BYU Broadcasting at Brigham Young University. The report includes the results from audience and needs analyses, the rationale for the instructional approach, reviews of existing instructional materials, and reviews of instructional theory and practice literature. It also describes multiple evaluation activities for the tutorial and a critique of the project. The audience and needs analyses found that an interactive, web-based tutorial would be an appropriate delivery method for the instruction. The instructional literature review supports the project's instructional and evaluation methodologies, especially its extensive use of rapid prototyping. The evaluation report describes multiple iterations with paper and electronic prototypes and a field test with 11 target audience members. This report describes how testing and revision iterations led to multiple improvements in the product, and a pre- and posttest administered during the field test demonstrated a significant increase in the intended learning outcomes. The projects exemplified many strengths and pleased the stakeholders, although further improvements in the instruction, assessment, and evaluation could have been implemented with more time and resources.