While collaborative learning is universally recognised as a process of considerable pedagogical value, and the enhancement of standard application interfaces to promote collaboration has formed the subject of previous studies, the literature addressing the degree to which Multi-touch technology is used remains limited. Multi-touch, multi-mouse tools are a novel category of groupware, which can enhance learning through collaborative use of those tools. The research aim is to develop a framework and a software tool known as the Learning to Program through a Computer-Aided Collaboration (LPCAC) tool. The LPCAC is a Multi-touch software tool that enhances the learning of computer programming in university through collaborative use of this tool. Subsidary objectives are pursued in the form of research questions, with most comparatively investigating and evaluating the use of the Multi-touch tool compared to the standalone PC-based approach. University students were selected to take part in a study to measure their performance improvements using the Multi-touch tools in a collaborative environment. A two-part process was followed to analyse the difference between student collaborations using Multi-touch with multi-mouse devices cmpared to standalone PC-based system with a single mouse device. Data collection involved video recording and a questionnaire analysis. Data analysis followed an eight-step process to evaluate the process of collaborative programming, which includes an analysis of collaboration patterns, time on task, equity of participation and design quality. While the Multi-touch tool is limited in a number of ways, its multiple points of contact and the collaborative activity promote a more favourable software design process when compared to the standalone PC-based condition. Although further research is needed, this study has found that Multi-touch technology represents a promising prospect for application in teaching computer programming in educational establishments, as well as improving the software development process in the wider collaborative software development.

Social inequalities in educational attainment are widely reported despite educational reforms aimed at providing equal educational opportunities for all. Variation in attainment between different socio-economic groups is apparent in the early stages of . education, at primary level, and continues through compulsory into further and higher education. Many research studies have investigated the effects of social factors at different points in the education system but there is less research into how such influences develop throughout the school career and into adult life. Much education research now focuses on investigating educational progress and the factors that have an impact on attainment and progression throughout the education system. The research presented here has two related and equally important aims. The first is to investigate appropriate statistical modelling techniques for the analysis of education data, in particular for examining educational attainment and progress. However, progress is a dynamic concept and can only be examined using longitudinal data. The increasing availability of large scale longitudinal data, on a national basis, provides new opportunities to explore the effects of social and other factors on educational progress. Hence the second main aim of this research is to investigate the scope of national longitudinabstudies for examining the changing and developing effects of influential factors, such'as social background and school, on educational attainment and progress. The statistical modelling techniques are applied to data from one such study, the British Cohort Study of 1970, and the analyses provide a case study to illustrate how education data from longitudinal studies can be investigated. The fmdings from the analyses are compared against current and existing research in order to evaluate the potential of data from national birth cohort studies for the investigation and monitoring of socio-economic trends in educational attainment and progression.

Understanding how to develop instructional materials for distance education students is a challenging problem, but it is exacerbated when a domain is complex to teach, such as computer science. Visual representations have a history of use in computing as a means to alleviate the difficulties of learning abstract concepts. However, it is not clear whether improvements observed are as a result of improvements in the visual representations used in instructional materials or due to individual differences in students. This research examines the two themes of individual differences and visual representation in order to investigate how they collectively impact on improving instructional materials for distance education students studying computer science. It investigates the impact of different representations on learning while additionally investigating the relationship between individual differences and student learning. The research in this thesis shows that visual representations are important in designing instructional materials. In particular, texts with visual representations have the power to cue students to perceive instructional materials as easier to process and more engaging. Investigation into the impact of concrete high-imagery versus abstract low-imagery visual representations illustrated that concrete visual representations incurred fewer cognitive overheads for computer science students and were able to ameliorate the challenges of learning computing. The research in this thesis into individual differences demonstrated that Imagers did benefit more from studying instructional materials containing text with visual components. However the research indicates that appropriate selection of individual difference tests is dependent upon the application, i.e., whether the results are to be used to assess generalised tendencies or episodes in learning and whether the tests examine underlying approaches to cognition or practices in education. An underlying question was whether students studying instructional materials containing low-imagery visual representations would cope as well as those studying high-imagery ones. Accomplished learners demonstrated that they could perform as well as with those receiving high-imagery visual representations. However, studying and recalling these materials did incur more cognitive processing. This thesis argues that improving instructional materials by including appropriate visual representations is a useful basis for improving learning for distance education computer science students.

This thesis describes a training scheme to raise awareness of group skills. Drawing on existing research and observations of classroom practice, this scheme requires children to consider group skills before, during and after the group activity. The approach is unique as the task of raising awareness of group skills was designed to influence, and be influenced by, the group task; and feedback on group skill usage is generated from individual self-assessments made during and after the activity. Studies using the scheme with 9 and 10 year olds working in face-to-face groups found the medium (paper or software) and the environment (a classroom or laboratory-style setting) influenced the self-assessments. Despite this, using the scheme did not result in the transfer of group skills to other activities. A relationship was found, however, between the consistency of the self-assessments recorded during and after the activity and the child’s ability at group work. The training scheme positively influenced the task performance. If a software implementation of the scheme was used concurrently with computer tasks, there was a trend towards improved recall in the material studied. If used with an activity that also incorporated communication, reflection and responsibility, a significant improvement in performance was achieved.

Universities are under pressure to justify the time and expense expended by students in obtaining a degree which has stimulated interest in measuring more formally how learning outcomes have been met by students. The 1997 NCHE (Dearing) Report called for improvements in higher education (HE) assessment practice and while assessment is widely regarded as the critical catalyst for student learning it is often in practice relegated to an afterthought. The potential for information and communications technology (ICT) to automate aspects of learning and teaching is widely acknowledged although promised productivity benefits have been slow to appear. Computer-assisted assessment (CAA) is seen by many as one way of meeting these conflicting demands. CAA has considerable potential both to ease the assessment load and to provide innovative and powerful modes of assessment. Moreover, as the use of ICT increases there may be ‘inherent difficulties in teaching and learning online and assessing on paper’. Given the importance of assessment activities in higher education, the level of current interest in CAA and widespread disagreement about how it should be implemented, there is a clear need for rigorous, grounded models of good practice. A national survey of CAA practice was conducted using online tools and interviews with enthusiast and early adopting CAA experts and practitioners throughout the UK which explored the critical factors associated with the uptake and embedding of CAA. A grounded theory analysis of the interview and survey data was carried out and a theory of dual path CAA uptake in universities emerged from which three models of uptake were derived. These were validated against qualitative data obtained from a final set of interviews and by triangulation with survey data from the 2003/4 UK CAA survey. Tutors’ motivations and perceptions of risk influence the way they use CAA and this is significant in credit-bearing applications where non-optimal outcomes have long lasting effects on uptake. Institutions can benefit from using project risk management techniques to manage these risks.

Learning to program is a complex and arduous process undertaken by thousands of undergraduates in the UK each year. This study examined the progress of transforming the pedagogical paradigm of an introductory programming unit from a highly controlled, reductionist 'cipher' orientation to one in which students have more freedom to explore aspects of programming more creatively. To facilitate this, certain programming concepts were introduced much earlier that had previously been the case. This was supported by an analysis of the semiotics and symbology of programming languages that showed that there was no intrinsic support for the traditional sequence of introducing programming concepts. A second dimension to the transformation involved doubling the number of assessments to emphasise the benefits of continual engagement with programming. The pedagogical transformation was to have been phased over four successive cohorts, although the fourth phase had to be delayed due to a revalidation that amalgamated three programmes into a framework. The study was planned during the second phase of the transformation. To ensure that the study did not disrupt the students’ learning experience the main focus of the research was on quantitative analyses of the work submitted by the students as part of the coursework for the unit. This work included programming portfolios and tests. In all, the work of more than 400 students completing more than a thousand portfolios and a thousand tests were analysed, providing a holistic view of waypoints in the learning process. The analyses showed that the second and third cohorts responded positively to the greater level of freedom, creating more sophisticated applications utilising a wider range of programming constructs. In the latter part of the fourth cohort a more traditional, constrained approach was used by another tutor that resulted in a narrowing of the range of programming concepts developed. The quantitative instruments were augmented by questionnaires used to gauge the students' previous experience, and initial views. Analyses of these returns showed that there appeared to be a limited relationship between a student's previous experience and the likelihood that he or she would succeed in the unit and be eligible to continue to the next stage of the undergraduate programme. The original plan was for qualitative instruments to be introduced in the final two cohorts. The re-organisation alluded to earlier restricted qualitative methods to short, semi-structured interviews during the third cohort. Within the study, certain aspects of the pedagogical transformation were considered in more depth: the development and use of a code generator and criterion-referenced assessment. These innovations were part of another dimension of the transformation of the unit, emphasising comprehension and modification equally with construction. This dimension reflects the changing nature of programming, incorporating existing code wherever possible. The analyses showed that comprehension skills developed to a greater extent within the unit compared with modification and construction. The main conclusions of the study were that the pedagogical changes had a beneficial effect on the learning of all students, including those with considerable previous experience, and those who had never written a program before.

This thesis describes work carried out over the three years March 1993 to March 1996 concerning the integration of computer based learning elements into classically taught undergraduate engineering degree courses. The design and implementation of three separate computer applications are discussed, along with evaluation results from each. The first of these applications concerns the metallography of phase transformations and forms part of the first year engineering course in materials at the University of Southampton. The application is intended to teach both knowledge and understanding of the subject. The second application concerned engineering design. The intention of this application was to create an environment where the students could obtain all of the information required in creating the specifications for their design and for drawing up the design itself. This application is intended to allow the students to develop skills in engineering design. The final application was not 'intended for students' use directly. It is a shell from which applications of the style of the Phase Diagrams Application could be created and its intention was to encourage academics to create their own applications and thereby make the production of CBL materials more common. It is shown, within this thesis, that computer based learning/teaching can be used successfully to teach undergraduate engineering students knowledge and understanding of subjects and to improve their skill in using that understanding. Possible solutions to the problems in using CBL applications widely are also discussed, along with recommendations for a new approach to CBL development.

This research investigates the barriers and drivers of eLearning for healthcare professional students in rural Thailand. An initial desk study was undertaken to investigate the factors that had an impact on eLearning within a professional healthcare environment. This was followed by a pilot study in a university in rural areas of Thailand. The results from the investigation led to a model being created to identify the barriers and drivers for implementing eLearning programmes in rural Thailand. This research explores the challenges of eLearning within four domains (IFPC); infrastructure (I), financing eLearning courses (F), university policy (P), and cultural diversity (C). The research utilised mixed research methods to identify the impacts of eLearning; employing both quantitative and qualitative methods. The participants of this research included healthcare professionals associated with the eLearning environment within rural areas in Thailand. The fieldwork data from both quantitative and qualitative methods were analysed assisting by SPSS software and Nvivo software. The results and findings demonstrated that the IFPC domains impact on the uptake of eLearning for healthcare professionals and healthcare professional students. The results of statistical testing corroborated that healthcare professional students with their own computers perceived that eLearning was useful to their professional development. In addition, it showed that universities’ policies on eLearning affected the use of the eLearning infrastructure, the participants’ motivation to undertake eLearning courses and that eLearning course-uptake was affected by both healthcare professionals’ motivation and their ability to use a computer. The subject of the financing of eLearning course was directly correlated to the level of computer skills held by the healthcare professional students and their attitude towards their own use of computers. The results identified how the elements of the IFPC model were related to each other and affected the implementation of eLearning programmes. It is hoped that these findings will make a significant contribution by informing lecturers about online teaching material, course delivery and design. They will also inform policymakers when considering budgets, plans and requirements for supporting healthcare professional students undertaking eLearning in rural Thailand. In particular the results will provide useful lessons for healthcare professionals undertaking similar programmes in other developing countries.

No description available.

This study describes research on an undergraduate part-time blended learning programme within the former Information Systems Institute at the University of Salford. This research is based on the interpretive philosophical paradigm and examines four cycles of action research. The question being addressed in this research is: ‘How can blended learning be used to deliver a programme?’ In answering this question three overlapping perspectives were taken, as outlined below: 1) Concept of blended e-learning: This research suggests that a better term for ‘blended learning’ is ‘blended e-learning’. A Fine Structure of the Blended E-learning Concept comprising learning and learning context is proposed. This concept incorporates three nodes associated with learning: face-to-face facilitated learning, e-facilitated learning and selfstudy; and three nodes associated with the learning context: learner, pedagogic beliefs and the programme related issues. 2) Pedagogy in blended e-learning: This thesis identifies the three Key Issues of Blended Elearning Pedagogy, these are: communication, social interaction and assessment. Drawing on these issues, the thesis extends the Skeleton of Conversation to the Blended E-learning Skeleton of Conversation. 3) Pragmatic implications of blended e-learning: Building on the Fine Structure of the Blended E-learning Concept, three areas of pragmatic concern are identified as the Bermuda Triangle of Blended E-learning. These are the learning related nodes: face-to-face facilitated learning, e-facilitated learning and self-study. Both students and staff on blended e-learning programmes need to be aware of the Bermuda Triangle of Blended E-learning. For students, the awareness can be integrated in the learning to learn element within the Blended Elearning Skeleton of Conversation; for staff, the awareness can be achieved through staff development.