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Video gaming has become a major pastime in modern life, and it continues to accelerate in popularity. A recent wave of psychological research has demonstrated that core perceptual changes coincide with video game play. Video games incorporate highly complex and immersive experiences which invoke a range of psychological mechanisms. This complexity has led to intractability which precludes determining which specific attributes of video gaming lead to cognitive change. The current work represents a research initiative which uses real-time strategy (RTS) games to boost executive functioning. In order to establish a link between video game features, video game behavior, and cognitive changes, an attention-switching tests two different forms of the same RTS game. Additionally, a difficulty titration paradigm attenuates individual differences in gaming skill. Thus, this project represents a critical advancement over prior research in that aspects of the video game itself were controlled and used to experimentally examine resulting cognitive change. Participants completed a psychological task battery before and after video game training, as well as at a mid-test. The battery covered a range of cognitive abilities including long-term memory, working memory, several attention-related constructs, risk taking, visual search, task switching and multitasking. These tasks were divided into two groups depending on the level of executive functioning components associated with the task performance. This resulted in a group of executive tasks and a group of other tasks. Because the high-switching gaming condition involves control and maintenance over a larger spread of gaming situations, performance on the executive task cluster was expected to improve more for this condition relative to the low-switching gaming condition. To reduce the impact of practice effects and the peripheral aspects of video gaming in interpreting the results, the Sims group was used a control baseline. A meta-analytical Bayes factor technique was used to determine the strength of performance changes from pre-test to mid-test, post-test, and follow up. By post-test, there was evidence that RTS training in the high attention-switching condition had improved on executive functioning tasks but not on other tasks. These results provide further evidence that video game training leads to psychological benefits over time. / text

Thesis--University of Florida. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Bibliography: leaves 67-70.

In an attempt to promote the transfer of technology integration knowledge and skills in preservice teachers, studies have attempted to identify effective instructional technology integration practices on the part of the teacher education program, as well as exemplary programs themselves (Hofer, 2005; Mergendoller et al., 1994; Strudler & Wetzler, 1999). A significant number of studies focus on examining various components of technology integration plans within teacher education programs, but few have extended this examination to determine if transfer is evidenced in the practices of graduates. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to identify instructional technology integration strategies and practices in preservice teacher education that contribute to the transfer of technology integration knowledge and skills to the instructional practices of early career teachers. This study employed a two-phase, sequential explanatory strategy, where quantitative data were collected via an online survey during the first phase and then interview data were collected during the second phase. The targeted sample population for this research study consisted of male and female early career teachers who had completed a graduate level teacher education program through the School of Education (SOE) at a large, research university located in the Southeast. Overall, these early career teachers assessed themselves as being proficient users of instructional technologies and feeling comfortable with their level of technology integration in the classroom. Out of nine qualities demonstrated in literature to promote learning transfer of technology integration knowledge and skills, the early career teachers reported the top three factors found in the study institution to be: the modeling of effective uses of technology integration by faculty in content-specific areas; opportunities to reflect upon technology integration practices in the classroom; and opportunities to practice and experiment with instructional technologies. The early career teachers reported the three top barriers inhibiting technology integration in their classrooms as being: too much content to cover; lack of time to design and implement technology-enhanced lessons; and a lack of software resources. Although a majority of the early career teachers reported that the teacher education program overall prepared them to integrate technology into the classroom, they also reported that opportunities to practice technology integration and having access to expert guidance during their field experiences were lacking. Several suggestions were made by study respondents and these included: providing more opportunities to experiment and play with instructional technologies like SmartBoards; faculty support with regards to implementing and practicing with technology integration in field experiences; and technology courses that focus on up-to-date instructional technology tools within each of the content areas. Findings from this study might be useful to teacher educators and researchers because it provides naturalistic recommendations (Stake, 1995) on how to improve their programs that are corroborated by the literature, and it offers an adapted survey that can be utilized to investigate technology integration transfer from the teacher education period to the early classroom practice period of new teachers. / Ph. D.

To impact student learning, educators’ implementation, or transfer, of new knowledge, skills, dispositions, and practices to daily work is the primary purpose of professional learning. The purpose of this study was to assess the multivariate relationship between individual and work environment characteristics as measured by the Collective Efficacy Scale and Dimensions of Learning Organization Questionnaire, respectively, and learning transfer factors as measured by the Learning Transfer System Inventory. The sample consisted of 249 PK-12 grade school- based instructional staff members of an education association. Canonical correlation and commonality analyses required using the two individual and work environment characteristics of learning culture and collective efficacy as predictor variables of the five learning transfer factors of performance self-efficacy, transfer-effort performance expectations, performance outcome expectations, performance coaching, and resistance to change to evaluate the multivariate between the two variable sets. Learning culture and collective efficacy demonstrated a relationship to resistance to change and performance outcome expectations. Learning culture and collective efficacy were insufficient to transfer-effort performance expectations, attend to performance self-efficacy beliefs, and increase support for transfer (i.e., performance coaching) factors. These findings might guide the decisions and practice of individuals with responsibility to plan, implement, and evaluate professional learning, and provide the conditions necessary for changing educational practice while increasing support for and building educators’ confidence about implementation. Further research may confirm the findings and enhance generalizability.

Leadership quality is recognised as a major contributor to organisational performance. With a talent war looming, there is an increasing emphasis on developing an internal leadership talent pipeline. Formal leadership development programmes are a major vehicle for this purpose. Leadership development programmes find themselves competing with other organisational projects for funds and are expected to show a return on investment. Successful learning translation from the programme to the workplace is therefore essential to fulfil this requirement. Yet, the generally accepted transfer rate of 10% is worryingly low. Traditional learning transfer research, with the working environment explored from a hierarchical and single dyad perspective, provides inconsistent results and little advice for the human resource development (HRD) profession on how to improve transfer performance. This research creates a new conversation by considering learning transfer from a network social capital perspective; a perspective, arguably, more aligned to the socially situated nature of leadership. A longitudinal case study of a senior leadership development programme, underpinned by a critical realist philosophy, is used to explore how a leader’s network social capital – defined as the value inherent in the relationships within the leader’s organisational, professional and home networks – may influence leadership learning translation in the workplace. The results show a far wider range of social network actors are perceived as enabling or hindering the translation of leadership programme knowledge into improved practice than currently considered in the literature. Further, the four groups of identified developmental roles enacted by the social network and forming the leader’s network social capital (Opportunity to participate in learning translation, Structure for learning translation, Learning assistance and Access to vicarious leadership practice) can be sourced from many different parts of the leader’s network. The diversity, multiplexity and individuality of network social capital may explain the ambiguity and contradiction within the extant learning transfer results. Mechanisms facilitating the formation and flow of the four social capital groups are also isolated and then discussed within the context of the leader’s personal agency. The research is limited by a single case focus and its outcomes may be influenced by the seniority of the leaders within the case. However, the inference of the study’s findings is that the HRD community needs to think far wider than the leader’s line manager when designing strategies to support leadership learning translation. The emergence of two distinct drivers of social capital flows suggests consideration of two distinct solutions for improving translation – one focussed on the organisation and one directed at the leader.

As an initial qualitative enquiry into the dynamics of learning transfer in the museum sector, this dissertation explores a range of largely positive learning transfer experiences within four museum case settings, and highlights the interdependent roles of museum climates and learners’ agency in supporting prolonged and complex processes of adapting learning to meet situated needs. Key findings from a cross-case thematic analysis include the influential roles that learners’ mastery of content, positional autonomy, perception of affordances, dispositions, values and goals, initiative and professional affiliations play in initiating transfer in museum contexts that tend to be inspiring, rewarding, but benignly un-strategic in their efforts to support the transfer of learning. My focus on learning that continues after participants leave the classroom illuminates how complex, situated, subjective, and meaningful continuing professional education can be in museum settings—and how it continues to involve the learner and the museum long after the educator’s work is done. / Graduate

Thanks to different multimedia authoring tools and specialized software that facilitate the design and development of computer-based simulations, science teachers and instructional media designers have a variety of simulations to support instructional delivery. However, there is a lack of research on how instructional designers and science teachers can select, design, and implement science simulations most effectively based on the simulations' visual attributes. One of the design principles that play an important part in the simulation design process is the visual representation of on-screen objects used to describe science concepts or principles. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of abstract and concrete visual representation of electricity concepts and principles in an instructional simulation on students' declarative knowledge, learning transfer, and perceptions of the simulation. The participants in this study were 39 elementary education pre-service teachers who were randomly assigned to either the concrete or the abstract treatment. The educational intervention was conducted over three 100-minute sessions. Since the sample violated the normality assumption, Mann-Whitney tests were conducted to verify whether the independent variable had significant effects on the three dependent variables. The data analysis found no statistically significant difference on learners' declarative knowledge, learning transfer, and perceptions about the simulation's attributes between those assigned to the concrete treatment and those assigned to the abstract treatment (p>.05). This finding did not favor one type of visual representation over the other.

The goal of learning transfer is to apply knowledge gained from one problem to a separate related problem. Transformation learning is a proposed approach to computational learning transfer that focuses on modeling high-level transformations that are well suited for transfer. By using a high-level representation of transferable data, transformation learning facilitates both shallow transfer (intra-domain) and deep transfer (inter-domain) scenarios. Transformations can be discovered in data using manifold learning to order data instances according to the transformations they represent. For high-dimensional data representable with coordinate systems, such as images and sounds, data instances can be decomposed into small sub-instances based on coordinates. Coordinate-based transformation models trained using these sub-instances can effectively approximate transformations from very small amounts of input data compared to the naive transformation modeling approach. In addition, these models are well suited for deep transfer scenarios.

Since 1990, the Jordanian government extensively focuses on human resource training and development. Civil service reform policies attempt to improve supervisors? performance through training. This study cross-culturally validated the Learning Transfer System Inventory (LTSI) for use in the public sector in Jordan. By doing so, Arab and Jordanian human resource researchers and practitioners can utilize Supervisors? Learning Transfer System Inventory (SLTSI) to diagnosis the training needs and improve the outcomes of training. This study aimed to assess learning transfer in three large public organizations in Jordan. In particular, it attempted to (1) validate the learning transfer questionnaire in the Jordanian organizational cultures. (2) Test the expectancy theory in learning transfer among supervisors. (3) Determine factors that influence learning transfer, and (4) provide empirical support to the expectancy theory, which is a significant requirement for developing a theory for learning transfer. In this study, the LTSI was translated into the Arabic language through a rigorous contextual translation. Six demographical questions were added to the eighty-nine questions in the instrument before it was administered to 500 supervisors. Of this number, 361 questionnaires were returned completed for a 72.2% final response rate. The Cronbach Alpha reliability test showed that all 89 items in the instrument were internally consistent (á= .927). In addition to validating the LTSI, the study found that eleven of the sixteen factors reported by previous studies were reliable (Cronbach Alpha ranged from .723 to .865). Bivariate analysis showed that demographics did not have significant impacts on learning transfer. Perceived utility from transfer was the strongest predictor of learning transfer, followed by supervisors? perceived performance self-efficacy, and supervisors? perceived rewards from transfer. Although path analysis showed no strong evidence to support a probable causal relationship, the expectancy variables (utility, rewards, and efficacy) explained about 23% of the variance in the dependent variable. Finally, recommendations and implications were discussed.