Scratch, a visual programming language, was used in many studies in computer science education. Most of them reported positive results by integrating Scratch into K-12 computer courses. However, the object-oriented concept, one of the important computational thinking skills, is not represented well in Scratch. Alice, another visual programming…

The teaching system in Taiwan is currently based on large classes where teachers cannot control student situations totally. In E-Learning System, a teacher who reviews a student's learning situation must examine the students' learning records according to different items, and further organize and define the students' current learning situations,…

This study assessed whether and how self-explanation reading training, provided by iSTART (Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking), improves the effectiveness of comprehension processes. iSTART teaches students how to self-explain and which strategies will most effectively aid comprehension from moment-to-moment. We used…

The purpose of the two experiments was to investigate the potential effects of different types of visualizations and self-explanation prompts on learning human cardiovascular system in a multimedia environment. In Experiments 1 and 2, 70 and 44 college students were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions in a 2 × 2 factorial design with…

This experiment examines the causal effect an electronic classroom response system (ECRS) has on students. Previous studies using an ECRS in the classroom indicate improved performance; however, many have confounds typical of classroom studies. To complement these studies, we conducted a laboratory study to minimize these confounds and concentrate…

University education often suffers from a lack of an explicit and adaptable didactic design. Students complain about the insufficient adaptability to the learners' needs. Learning content and services need to reach their audience according to their different prerequisites, needs, and different learning styles and conditions. A way to overcome such…

The present study investigated (1) the impact of cognitive styles on learner performance in well-structured and ill-structured learning, and (2) scaffolding as a cognitive tool to improve learners' cognitive abilities, especially field dependent (FD) learners' ability to thrive in an ill-structured learning environment. Two experiments were…

In two experiments, students overheard two computer-controlled virtual agents discussing four computer literacy topics in dialog discourse and four in monologue discourse. In Experiment 1, the virtual tutee asked a series of deep questions in the dialog condition, but only one per topic in the monologue condition in both studies. In the dialog…