Assignment 4 - Lauer Chapters 5 & 6

Assignment 4, Lauer Chpaters 5 & 6

Locate a quantitative study. Then provide the following:

a) Correct APA style bibliographical reference and URL for the study


Ainsworth, S. (2007). Using a Single Authoring Environment across the Lifespan of Learning. Educational Technology & Society, 10 (3), 22-31.

http://www.ifets.info/journals/10_3/2.pdf

b). List and Explain the research method.

This research is Using a single Authoring Environment across the Lifespan of Learning. This research is to determine whether or not it is possible to achieve effective learning environments from a generic tool and could be used across the whole lifespan of learning.

c). Explain the research method, any instruments and how they were developed or chosen. Be sure to indicate the type of instrument (survey, interview, focus group etc.)

This was 10 year research so many studies were involved. The research use was usability. Each author was timed while experimenting with the tool. Their times were measured from the first time of use to the second time of use. Each author was also interviewed about the usability and their satisfaction.

d). List the research question and the answers the study arrived at for those questions.

Can a single authoring environment be sufficiently general to be applicable to contexts across the whole lifespan of learning, but still be able to create effective learning environments?

Conclusion was that many authors found the system to be easy to use and could create learning environment in a time efficient way.

e). Evaluate the effectiveness of the research design, methods and instrument(s) of this study.

There were many research designs to this study, which creates validity. Some of the study focused on the author’s usability and functionality. The learner focused study used some questionnaires to obtain data – the quasi-experimental studies was also used. The overall effectiveness of the research was that it provided better support for learning than original courseware.


List a qualitative study. Then provide the following:

a). Correct APA style bibliographical reference and URL for the study

Wolpers, M., Najjar, J., Verbert, K., & Duval, E. (2007). Tracking Actual Usage: the Attention Metadata Approach. Educational Technology & Society, 10 (3), 106-121.

http://www.ifets.info/journals/10_3/2.pdf


b). List and Explain the research method.

“Tracking Actual Usage: the Attention Metadata Approach”

The purpose of this qualitative study was to create new methods for teachers and students in dealing with the vast amount of available information and learning materials. The study is to capture behavioral information of users in learning context that can be used to deal with the information overload in user centric ways.

c). Explain the research method and how it was chosen.

The research methods used are observations of the users, while encouraging them is deal with large amounts of information, and the other method is retrieving data from metadata framework a information managing system that collects data, while determining the users actions and behaviors.

This method was chosen because research in the past focused on hypothesis that the attention information supported the correct conclusion.

d). List any research questions and the answers the study arrived at for those questions.

How contextualized attention metadata can use collected from several tools, the merging of the data steams into a repository and finally the correlation of the data.

A simple conceptual attention metadata framework that uses the Attention XML schema to capture attention metadata in learning systems was used. It started with the collection of contextualized attention metadata that describes in detail in which context a user spends her attention on which content.


e). Evaluate the effectiveness of the research design, methods, and instruments(s) of
this study.

They study was effective because they were able to get the appropriate feedback through observation and metadata software. The research shows what areas the users effectively used and what areas the teacher can focus on to condensed the information. However, the research is based on individuality of the user interest and behaviors. Therefore, the study is only based on one context of the user and similar others. Additional research will be needed for finalization.