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Science education should teach students to critically evaluate new information. Students have difficulties making connections among graphs of variables, physical concepts and the real world and often perceive graphs as a picture. Calculator Based Laboratories (CBL) provide immediately available calculator drawn graphics of objects in motion. Up to date effectiveness of microcomputers are evaluated but there are few studies on the use of CBL, which are feasible, easy to use, portable and cheap with respect to microcomputers. In this study we want to find out the effectiveness of CBL method on the graphical interpretation of kinematical concepts in physics at METU teacher candidates. Data will be analyzed with SPSS for Windows program. The study carried out 2002 &ndash / 2003 Spring Semester at Education Faculty in METU. 32 students from two classes were involved in the study. All students administered TUG-K (Test of Understanding Graphs &ndash / Kinematics) before and after the CBL activities. The data obtained from the administration of the pretests and the posttest were analyzed statistical technique of Paired Samples T Test. The statistical analysis failed to show any significant difference in the students&rsquo / understandings of kinematics graphs.

The results of a questionnaire that should reveal students’ knowledge about the use of computers in mathematics and the relevance of applications of mathematics in our society clearly show that current math teaching does not provide adequate ideas about the importance of computers. We describe the results and give examples of mathematical activities that are suitable to both foster mathematical concepts and widen the mathematical view. Possible changes in the curriculum are discussed.

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

O cenário contábil brasileiro reflete as diversas transformações tecnológicas que a sociedade vem passando, como o aumento expressivo do comércio e dos serviços eletrônicos e o surgimento de moedas totalmente digitais, o bitcoin. Essa sociedade demanda um novo profissional contábil, na vanguarda da tecnologia, focado no negócio da empresa, participando da gestão e provendo informações úteis para a tomada de decisão. Preparar esse Contador é tarefa que certamente recai sobre as instituições de ensino. Essas instituições precisam adaptar seu currículo para uma realidade diferente daquela que existia quando os programas de contabilidade, do Brasil, foram criados. Nesse cenário foi realizada uma pesquisa visando a inserção de tecnologia baseada em inteligência artificial, o sistema ALEKS, no ensino de Contabilidade. A questão de pesquisa foi avaliar em que medida a tecnologia da educação, baseada em Inteligência Artificial, pode auxiliar na aquisição de habilidades técnicas necessárias ao estudante de Ciências Contábeis. Para tanto foi realizado um quase-experimento com os estudantes da disciplina de Contabilidade Introdutória do curso de Bacharelado em Ciências Contábeis da Universidade de São Paulo, introduzindo o sistema ALEKS como ferramenta de suporte no ensino de Contabilidade básica. Apesar da adesão à pesquisa de 122 estudantes, somente 71 fizeram algum acesso ao sistema e apenas 16 estudantes utilizaram o sistema de forma satisfatória para que se pudesse captar algum benefício do uso do sistema. A hipótese nula foi mantida para os estudantes da turma T01 (p = 0,398, n = 8) do período diurno e para a turma T22 (p = 0,014, n = 5) do período noturno, tendo sido rejeitada para a turma T21 (p = 0,001, n = 3) do período noturno, significando que o sistema produz pequeno ou nenhum efeito sobre o desempenho dos estudantes na disciplina presencial. Grande destaque deve ser dado a baixa adesão dos estudantes ao uso do sistema. Uma pesquisa de adequação buscou capturar esse aspecto. Os estudantes elencaram a dificuldade com o idioma e com os termos técnicos, o não alinhamento do sistema com a disciplina presencial e a falta de tempo para realização de tarefas extraclasse como fatores impeditivos ou desmotivadores de acesso e uso do sistema ALEKS. Entende-se que a inserção de tecnologia baseada em inteligência artificial no ambiente educacional é positiva, devido a motivação incial e aos relatos dos estudantes com apoio a iniciativa. Essa inserção pode fomentar o processo educacional para estudantes, docentes e instituições. Um alinhamento do ALEKS à disciplina presencial certamente produziria resultados diferentes dos encontrados na presente pesquisa, permitindo maior confiabilidade aos achados. Mais pesquisas precisam ser produzidas no ambiente brasileiro, considerando não apenas os estudantes, mas considerando docentes, instituições e empresas. / The Brazilian accounting scenario reflects the many technological changes that society is facing, as a significant increase in trade and electronic services, and the emergence of fully digital currencies, such as bitcoin. This society demands a new accountant at the forefront of technology, focused on the company\'s business by participating in management and providing useful information for decision making. Helping to prepare this accountant is a task that surely lies with educational institutions. These institutions need to adapt syllabi to a different reality if compared to what existed when most accounting programs in Brazil were created. In this scenario, this research relies on a survey aimed at adoption of educational technology based on artificial intelligence (ALEKS), in an Accounting. The research question is to assess the extent to which technology education based on Artificial Intelligence can assist students to acquire the necessary Accounting technical skills. A quasi-experiment with students of Introduction to Accounting course at the undergraduate level at the University of São Paulo was developed, introducing ALEKS as a support tool in teaching basic accounting. Despite the large number of participants of the survey, 122 students, only 71 actually accessed the system and only 16 students used the system in a satisfactory manner, so to allow capturing some benefit of its use. The null hypothesis was sustained for students of cohort T01 (p = 0.398, n = 8) day period and the cohort T22 (p = 0.014, n = 5) of the evening. The hypothesis was rejected for cohort T21 (p = 0.001, n = 3) of the evening period, meaning that the system produces little or no effect on student performance. Attention should be given to poor adherence of students to use the system and an additional survey of adequacy sought to capture this aspect. Students list the difficulty with language and technical terms, the non-alignment of the system with the classroom discipline and lack of time to perform tasks such as extracurricular, or demotivating factors all impeding access and use of the ALEKS system. It is clear that the adoption of artificial intelligence-based technology in the educational environment is positive, because the initial motivation of students and feedbacks supporting the initiative. It can foster the educational process for students, teachers and institutions. An alignment of ALEKS with other classroom activities certainly would find different results from those found in the present research, increasing reliability of the findings. More research in this area needs to be conducted in the Brazilian environment, considering not only students, but also teachers, institutions and companies.

A educação mediada por computador tem sido amplamente utilizada em vários níveis educacionais em todo o mundo. Os rápidos avanços tecnológicos nas áreas de telecomunicação e computação têm incentivado esta estratégia de ensino. Neste trabalho testou-se a efetividade de um material didático envolvendo conceitos básicos de neurofisiologia, direcionado para alunos do ensino médio, com o objetivo de instruir e divulgar a ciência, através de animações interativas criadas na plataforma Flash (Adobe®) de programação e animação. Alunos de Ensino Médio e Ensino Superior expostos a esse material foram questionados em relação à aceitação e avaliados quanto à efetividade do programa. Além disso, um grupo focal envolvendo professores da rede pública do Ensino Médio participou de um debate para avaliar suas impressões sobre o programa e sua aceitabilidade. Os resultados mostraram que os alunos avaliados tiveram bom desempenho depois de estudarem por meio da utilização do programa, sugerindo que o mesmo foi eficiente na apresentação de conceitos de neurofisiologia. O programa foi utilizado por alunos do Ensino Médio nos anos de 2004 a 2006 e seu desempenho foi comparado ao de alunos de 2003, no qual foram ministradas somente aulas tradicionais. O desempenho dos alunos que utilizaram o programa foi superior em neurofisiologia quando comparado com seu próprio desempenho nos demais conteúdos de biologia. Além disso, as notas dos alunos em neurofisiologia foram superiores em 2004 e 2005 em relação às dos alunos de 2003. Os alunos do Ensino Superior que utilizaram o programa também obtiveram melhor desempenho nas suas avaliações semestrais nos conteúdos abordados no programa em relação aos alunos que tiveram somente aulas tradicionais. As impressões dos professores do Ensino Médio foram positivas quanto à utilização do programa como ferramenta de ensino. Os resultados em conjunto sugerem que o programa tem potencial para ensino de conceitos básicos de neurofisiologia para alunos de Ensino Médio e Superior. / Computer mediated education has been widely used in several educational levels around the world. The fast technological advances in telecommunication and computer science have encouraged this teaching strategy. In this work, the effectiveness of a didactic material involving basic concepts of neurophysiology, directed for college students, with the objective of instructing e disclose science through interactive animations created on Flash (Adobe®) programming platform. College and High School students exposed to this material were questioned in relation to acceptance and evaluated on the effectiveness of the program. Beyond that, a focus group involving teachers from public college schools participated on a debate to evaluate their impressions on the program and its acceptability. Results show that students evaluated had a good performance after studying through the program, suggesting that it was efficient on presenting neurophysiology concepts. The program was used by college students from year 2004 to 2006 and their performance was compared to students of 2003, when only traditional classes were taught. Performance of the students who used the program was superior in neurophysiology when compared to their own performance in other contents of biology. Beyond that, students grades on neurophysiology were superior in 2004 and 2005 in relation to the students grades in 2003. High School students that used the program also had better performance in their biannual evaluation tests on the contents addressed in the program in relation to the students who only had traditional classes. College teachers impressions about the use of the program as a teaching tool were positive. Together, these results suggest that the program has potential use in teaching basic neurophysiology concepts for College and High School students.

FSCN-rapport; R-02-33

Within the field of medical informatics, patient medical records are the sole source of information for dealing with clinical activities concerning the documentation, care, progression, and ongoing interactions between the patient and clinicians. Electronic or computer-based patient records (CPRs) have had a presence within health care in some form and magnitude for the past thirty years yet only recently have been incorporated in health care to a larger extent. Due to the wide variation of professions in health care, there is a problem of CPRs not being able to fulfill all the possibilities and demands the individual professionals need, since many CPRs are designed as a generic system, to be used across multiple professions. The focus of this report is on the utilization of a generic CPR in a specialist clinical setting, i.e., a physical therapy clinic, and to analyze how the therapists utilize the different components and features in a generic CPR. The purpose of the evaluation was to investigate how viable the CPR was as a documentation tool and to which extent it supported the therapists in their clinical, documentation and delivery of care activities. In this study, a total of seven physical therapists participated in a post-usage evaluation of an existing CPR. The evaluation was achieved by interpretative research with open-ended interviews and observations. The results of the study showed that despite some shortcomings, the generic CPR was an effective tool for the clinicians, not only as a documenting aid, but also enabling them to quickly research the patients' prior diagnosis and treatment history, plan for future care, support decision-making and to communicate with other professionals so as to coordinate treatment and planning.

Despite the increasing number of individuals taking computer-based tests, little is known about how examinees perceive computer-based testing environments and the extent to which these testing environments are perceived to affect test performance. The purpose of the present study was to assess the testing environment as perceived by individuals taking the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE), a high-stakes licensure examination. Perceptions of the testing environments were assessed using an examinee self-report questionnaire. The questionnaire included items that measured individuals’ preference and perception of specific characteristics of the environment, along with demographic information and one open-ended item. Questionnaires were distributed by email to the 210 accredited physical therapy programs at the time, encouraging programs to forward the instrument by email to the most recent class of physical therapy graduates. Two hundred and sixteen respondents completed the study, representing 101 testing centers in 31 states. Data from these 216 examinees were used to answer four research questions. The first research question focused on the examinees’ environmental preferences for the NPTE testing environment and the relation between these preferences and examinees’ background characteristics (e.g., sex, program GPA, age, online experience, online testing experience, comfort level with online testing, and preferred testing time). A clear preference toward one end of the scale was observed for preferring a quiet room and a desktop area that had a great deal of adjustability. Examinees’ preferences and their demographic characteristics were not strongly related with the seven demographic variables accounting for < 7% of the variability in examinees’ environmental preferences. The second research question used the data from multiple examinees nested within the same testing center to examine the within- and between-center variability in examinees’ perceptions of the testing environment and their satisfaction with the environment. Results indicated that the majority of the variance in these variables was within testing centers with average between-center variability equal to .032 for the perception ratings and .078 for the satisfaction ratings. Research questions (RQ) three and four explored whether examinees’ background characteristics (RQ 3) and center characteristics (RQ 4) were significantly related to the 12 environmental perception ratings, 12 satisfaction ratings, and two items representing examinees’ perceptions of the effect of the testing environment on their performance and the likelihood they would choose the same center again. In terms of examinee characteristics, age, online testing experience, and comfort with online testing were the most consistent predictors of the various examinee ratings. The most consistent predictors for the satisfaction ratings were examinees’ online test comfort, online test experience, and age. For center characteristics, the newness of the center and the room density of the center were the most consistent predictors of examinee ratings. For satisfaction ratings, the most consistent predictor was the newness of the center. Center newness was significantly related to the outcome variables related to the size, lighting and sound of the center which may reflect changes in building standards and materials. The results of the study suggest the need for further exploration of the environmental and human factors that may impact individuals taking high stakes examinations in testing centers. Although there may not be an effect on all examinees, there may be subsets of individuals who are more sensitive to the effects of the testing environment on performance. Further exploration of the uniformity of testing environments is also needed to minimize error and maximize potential threats to test security.