Computer games are considered as powerful tools to learning and they have a potential for educational use. However, the lack of available comprehensive design paradigms and well-designed research studies about the question of &ldquo / how to&rdquo / incorporate games into learning environments is still a question, despite more than 30 years&rsquo / existence of computer games and simulations in the instructional design movement. Setting off from these issues, a formative research study is designed to propose an instructional design/development model, which may be used for creation of game-like learning environments. Eighteen undergraduate students from Computer Education and Instructional Technology Department in METU participated to the study. Data collection lasted for three months and data were collected through interviews, observations and the artifacts that the participants produced. After the data analysis, it was found that the phases of the instructional design/development process should not be separate, strictly bounded, and processing a linear manner. Depending on these results and with the inspiration from fuzzy logic, an instructional design/development model for creating game-like environments, which is called as &ldquo / FID&lt / sup&gt / 2&lt / /sup&gt / GE model&rdquo / is proposed.

abstract: This study investigated the effects of concurrent audio and equivalent onscreen text on the ability of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) to form associations between textual and aural forms of target vocabulary words. The study also looked at the effects of learner control over an audio sequence on the association of textual and aural forms of target words. Attitudes towards experimental treatments and reported level of cognitive load were also examined in the context of a computer-based multimedia instructional program. A total of 200 college students took part in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions in a 2 x 3 factorial design with level of learner control (learner-controlled vs. not-learner-controlled) and format of presentation of information (audio + no text vs. audio + full text vs. audio + keyword text) as factors. The subjects completed a pretest, a posttest, cognitive load questions, and an attitude questionnaire. The results revealed the following findings: (a) groups in the audio + keyword text conditions outperformed those in the audio + no text and audio + full text conditions on text-sound association, (b) within the audio + keyword text conditions, the learner-controlled group outperformed the not-learner-controlled group on text-sound association, (c) within the learner-controlled conditions, the audio + keyword group outperformed the audio + no text and audio + full text groups on text-sound association, (d) a redundancy effect was not found for any treatment condition, and (e) overall, participants had positive attitudes towards the treatments. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed within the frameworks of cognitive load theory and cognitive theory of multimedia learning. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Technology 2014