Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Science, Dept. of Computing, 2009. / Bibliography: p. [265]-280.

Dynamic postural control requires regulating body alignment to achieve postural stability and orientation during functional movements. This ability may be impaired in people with neuromotor disorders, challenging them in performing daily activities. Conventional training strategies, such as muscle strengthening, joint locking, and proprioceptive training, are known to improve posture control. However, providing sufficiently rich intervention and maintaining high training intensity can be labor-intensive and expensive. Therefore, novel technologies are being explored to overcome the challenges. Robot-assisted training is an emerging technology in posture rehabilitation. To maximize motor improvement, the assist-as-needed strategy is widely used in robotic platforms to provide adaptive assistance based on patients' functional ability. A prevailing paradigm employing the assist-as-needed strategy is the boundary-based assist-as-needed (BAAN) controller, which provides assistive forces when the center of mass moves beyond the stability boundary. This dissertation investigates the mechanisms underlying the efficacy of BAAN force fields and explores novel approaches to enhance the therapeutic effectiveness of BAAN robotic posture training protocols. In Chapter 1, we outline the research background and introduce the main content of the following chapters in this dissertation. We also describe two cable-driven robotic platforms with BAAN controllers: the Robotic Upright Stand Trainer (RobUST) for standing posture training and the Trunk Support Trainer (TruST) for sitting posture training. In Chapter 2, we present a study using the RobUST platform to investigate how the BAAN force field impacts muscle synergy in the lower limbs during standing posture training. This pilot study provides insights into understanding the neuromuscular basis of the BAAN robotic rehabilitation strategy and helps explain its effectiveness. In Chapter 3, we present a deep learning-based dynamic boundary design for the BAAN controller. We conducted a controlled experiment with 20 healthy subjects using the TruST platform to test the dynamic boundary's effectiveness. This study highlights the clinical potential of the dynamic boundary design in BAAN robotic training. Extended reality (XR) technology, including Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), is gaining popularity in posture rehabilitation. XR has the potential to be combined with BAAN robotic training protocols to maximize postural control improvement. In Chapter 4, we conducted a randomized control experiment with sixty-three healthy subjects to compare the effectiveness of TruST intervention combined with VR or AR against TruST training alone. This study provides novel insights into the added value of XR to BAAN robot-assisted training and the differences between AR and VR when integrated into robotic training protocols. Motor skills acquired through BAAN robot-assisted training necessitate consistent follow-up practice for long-term maintenance. However, due to portability limitations, BAAN robot-assisted training faces challenges in providing follow-up training after high-intensity in-lab robotic interventions. In Chapter 5, we present a remote XR rehabilitation system with markerless motion tracking for sitting posture training. This remote XR framework holds promise as an adjunctive training approach to complement existing BAAN robot-assisted training methods, maximizing motor improvements.

Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used to acquaint geoscience novices with some of the observation, data gathering, and problem solving done in actual field situations by geoscientists. VR environments in a variety of forms are used to prepare students for doing geologic fieldwork, as well as to provide proxies for such experience when venturing into the field is not possible. However, despite increased use of VR for these purposes, there is little research on how students learn using these environments, how using them impacts student field experience, or what constitutes effective design in light of emerging theories of geocognition. To address these questions, I investigated the design and use of a virtual reality environment in a professional development program for middle school Earth science teachers called Teachers on the Leading Edge (TOTLE). This environment, called a virtual field environment, or VFE, was based largely on the field sites visited by the participants during summer workshops. It was designed as a tool to prepare the participants for workshop field activities and as a vehicle for taking elements of that experience back to their students. I assessed how effectively the VFE accomplished these goals using a quasi-experimental, mixed method study that involved a series of teaching experiments, interviews, participant surveys, and focus groups. The principle conclusions reached in this study are as follows: 1. In a field trip orientation experiment involving 35 middle school teachers, 90.6% of the participants stated a preference for VFE enhanced orientation over an alternative orientation that used photographs and static maps to complete a practice field activity. When asked about how the VFE prepared them for their field experience, the participants ranked it as most helpful for visualize the location and geography of the field sites. They ranked it lower for helping them visualize structural and geomorphic patterns, and ranked it as least helpful in developing conceptual links between the geology at individual field sites and regional geologic structure and processes. 2. According to workshop follow-up surveys, 23% of the first year participants and 40% of the second year participants used the VFE with their own classes. While factors cited for not using the VFE provided some information relevant to the larger question of technology use in classroom, individual reports of how teachers used the VFE in their classes provided limited information about student interaction with the virtual environment. 3. Interviews with 85 community college students (novices), geologists (experts), and middle school Earth science instructors (teachers) revealed no significant difference in the features of interest selected from a virtual field site. Though experts tended to ask slightly more complicated and higher order questions than the other two groups, there was no statistically significant difference in the questions asked about these features in regards to topical characteristics, cognitive outcome, or cognitive type. In addition to some insights into cognitive differences between these groups, the interviews also provided information about visual selection, perception, and processing which are valuable to VFE scene design.

The concept of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) has opened new avenues in the educational spectrum. Despite its popularity as an educational environment tool, the successful implementation of a virtual classroom is heavily reliant on the educator. This research focuses on the perceptions of educators regarding the acceptance of the MUVE as an educational tool. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to identify and evaluate the potential benefits of the MUVE in the domain of education. The qualitative approach was considered to be the suitable approach for this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 educators; these interviews included the demonstration of a virtual class located in the Second Life Island known as Jokaydia. The collected data was transcribed using NVivo software, and analysed using constant comparison analysis. The transcribed interviews were provided to another researcher in order to obtain an independent analysis; this created the basis for triangulation of participants’ perceptions. A summary of this analysis was then sent to all participants to confirm its credibility. The conclusions of the study suggest that the combination of MUVEs’ features and strengths will eventually influence the educators to accept the MUVE as an educational tool, although several areas of concern are identified. Future growth in the educational uses of MUVEs is examined, the implications and limitations of the study are discussed, and ideas for future research are elaborated on. Keywords: MUVE, Second Life, education, TAM, ease of use, subjective norm, enjoyment, facilities, compatibility, security and trust, collaboration, awareness, media richness, discovery learning, situated learning, role playing, controlled environment, immersiveness.

Based on the specificity of educational technology research, "Development Research Method" was adopted as the methodological framework in the whole study. Under this framework, a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods was employed for data collection and analysis, including the knowledge pre- and post-test, generic-skill test, perception survey, in-depth interviews as well as artifacts of students' reflective journals, reports and game-playing records. All of these intensively focused on investigating students' and teachers' perceptions, students' learning motivation, behaviors, effectiveness with respect to the VISOLE approach and researching the design strategies for situated educational games. / Designed to make use of the immense power of World Wide Web (WWW) and facilitate a paradigm shift in education, VISOLE (Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Learning Environment) is a new game-based situated learning paradigm which aims to enable student-centered learning taking place in a game-based interactive virtual environment. Briefly speaking, the VISOLE approach is composed of 3 phases in which students have to (Phase 1) preliminarily acquire some high-level knowledge in specific subject domains through teachers' scaffolding; (Phase 2) actively participate as a game character in a game-based virtual interactive environment to construct knowledge and skills from their near real-life game-play experiences; (Phase 3) reflect and generalize their game-based learning experiences through teachers' debriefing. / In accordance with the philosophy of "Development Research Method", the theoretical context and the research findings, besides developing and further enhancing the VISOLE approach, a framework for designing constructivist situated educational games was also theorized in the present study. / In spite of the research limitation in the present study, I believe that the issues explored, the proposed educational-game design strategies and the research methodological innovation discussed are vital references for the researchers, teachers and educational-policy makers in designing, researching, applying as well as considering and making related educational policies in the area of game-based learning. / In the present research, most of the teachers and students were basically positive towards VISOLE, Farmtasia as well as the respective learning resources. It was empirically found that most of the students were much motivated during the entire learning process, in conducting active learning, collaborative learning and inquiry-based learning. Moreover, it was also found that after the VISOLE process, the students gained their self-constructed subject knowledge, enhanced generic skills for problem solving and improved non-intelligent skills, particularly in terms of attitudes and emotions. / Under the present theoretical context of learning, digital games and game-based learning, this dissertation exploited and reinforced the VISOLE learning paradigm. It also delineated the design and development of the first VISOLE game---"Farmtasia" and presented the empirical research on investigating the educational realization and accomplishment of VISOLE. / 尚俊傑. / Adviser: Fong Lok Lee. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: A, page: 0495. / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 516-536). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Shang Junjie.

The management of online learning environments so that they are effective and efficient presents a significant challenge for institutions and lecturers due to the complexity of requirements in the learning and teaching domain. The use of 3D Multi User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) for education introduces a novel set of management challenges. MUVEs were designed to cater for entertainment and commercial needs and as such do not intrinsically support managed learning. When MUVEs are used for educational purposes, forming 3D Multi User Learning Environments (MULEs), user support for learning management becomes an important factor. This thesis highlights the importance of managed learning in MULEs. It proposes a coordinated approach which accommodates the existing education institutional infrastructure. The research has focused on two very widely used and closely compatible MUVEs, Second Life (SL) and OpenSim. The thesis presents system and user studies that have been carried out on these selected MUVEs. The findings reveal the challenges that academics and students can experience if they do not have sufficient knowhow to manage learning activities in SL/OpenSim. User guidance and training tools were then developed for supporting learning management strategies in the context of SL/OpenSim and demonstrated in exemplar use-case scenarios. The user support models and tools which were developed have been extensively evaluated for their usability and educational value using diverse participant groups. The results validate the efficacy of these contributions, defending the research thesis. These contributions can be used in future research on managing MUVE supported education.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Faculty of Science, Dept. of Computing, 2009. / Bibliography: p. [265]-280. / Introduction -- Literature review -- Method -- Experiments -- Conclusion. / Video games are becoming increasingly popular and their level of sophistication comes close to that of professional movie productions. Educational institutions and corporations are beginning to use video games for teaching purposes, however, not much is known about the use and effectiveness of video games for such purposes. One even less explored factor in video games is the music that is played throughout the course of the games. Little is known about the role that this music plays in cognitive processes and what effect background music has on players' memory. It is this question that the present thesis explores by asking which effect background music has on participants' memory for facts that are learned from a virtual environment. -- To answer the research question, a computer-animated history lesson, called VirSchool, was created which used the history of the Macquarie Lighthouse in Sydney as a basis for two experiments. Different musical stimuli accompanied the audio-visual presentation of the history topic. These stimuli were tested for their effectiveness to support participants' memory. The VirSchool history lesson was first presented in a Reality Center (a highly immersive, semi-cylindrical 3 projector display system) and one soundtrack was identified which showed a statistically significant improvement in the number of facts that participants remembered correctly from the VirSchool history lesson. Furthermore, Experiment 1 investigated how variations of tempo and pitch of the musical stimuli affected memory performance. It was found that slow tempo and low pitch were beneficial for remembrance of facts from the VirSchool history lesson. -- The beneficial soundtrack that was identified in Experiment 1 was reduced in tempo and lowered in pitch and was subsequently used as the sole musical stimulus in Experiment 2. Furthermore, because of equipment failure, Experiment 2 offered the opportunity to compare memory performance of participants in the Reality Center and a 3-monitor display system, which was used as a replacement for the defect Reality Center. Results showed that, against expectation, the memory for facts from the VirSchool history lesson was significantly better in the less immersive 3-monitor display system. Moreover, manipulated background music played in the second five and a half minutes of the VirSchool history lesson in the Reality Center resulted in a statistically significant improvement of participants' remembrance of facts from the second five and a half minutes of the VirSchool history lesson. The opposite effect was observed in the 3-monitor display system where participants remembered less information from the second five and a half minutes of the VirSchool history lesson if music was played in the second five and a half minutes of the VirSchool history lesson. -- The results from the present study reveal that in some circumstances music has a significant influence on memory in a virtual environment and in others it does not. These findings contribute towards and encourage further investigation of our understanding of the role that music plays in virtual learning environments so that they may be utilised to advance learning of future generations of students. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / 280 p. ill. (some col.)

This thesis focuses on the use of virtual reality in adult education. The virtual reality is a new technology, which can be used in many areas, including adult education. The concept of the virtual reality is ambiguous, therefore the first part of the thesis defines and characterizes this concept and describes its main effects. The main topic of the theoretical part of this work is existing knowledge about the use of the virtual reality and application of this knowledge to adult education. Virtual reality cannot be considered an absolutely perfect tool in all educational situations. It is therefore important to point out basic advantages and limits of its use in adult education. All these areas have been investigated by quantitative research. Keywords: Virtual reality, ICT in education of adults, using of virtual reality, virtual education, new trends in education

This study seeks to answer the overarching question of how the use of a digitally delivered arts curriculum, including a virtual museum environment, affects teacher's perceptions of curriculum integration and whether they believe it is successful in the classroom. This study is based on the analysis of archival data collected during a pilot study that was conducted in the fall of 2016 and spring of 2017. This pilot study used a qualitative, descriptive approach and included the use of surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observations. The main focus of this study was on the experiences of a selection of educators who took part in the pilot study and summer training sessions to determine the successes and challenges they faced as they sought to the implement the experimental digitally delivered arts curriculum. The results of the study should improve the field's understanding of how virtual environments and technology can influence teacher experiences and perceptions of their potential value for learning as they continue to take hold in public schools worldwide.