No abstract

This study focuses on mitigating evaluation apprehension, which is usually unavoidable in identifiable social situations, via the constructive use of prominent features of networked technologies. Specifically, this study investigated learners' attitudes towards different user-identity revelation modes, namely, real-identity, anonymity and created-identity, in an online questionconstruction and peer-assessment context. Forty university freshmen, taking a physics laboratory course, participated for one semester in 2007. A learning system called The Question Authoring and Reasoning Knowledge System which allowed students to contribute and benefit from cyclic process of constructing and reviewing questions, was devised. Analysis of the data gathered found that students reacted statistically differently to the modes of real name, anonymity and nickname. Furthermore, participating students adjusted their preferred mode in different roles and circumstances. The data obtained suggest that program developers should embed flexible and versatile capabilities of computer and communication technologies by allowing individuals the opportunity not to be identified or only be identified via a nickname of their choice, so as to help eliminate feelings of embarrassment and uneasiness, which are not psychologically sound and may hinder the learning process.

No abstract

No abstract

This study investigated the effects of online drill-and-practice activities using studentgenerated questions on academic performance and motivation as compared with online drill-and-practice using teacher-generated questions and no drill-and-practice in a student question-generation (SQG) learning context. A quasi-experimental research method was adopted for the purposes of this study. Six fifth-grade classes (n = 145) participated in a weekly online activity for 5 weeks. Analysis of covariance results showed significant differences among the different treatment groups with regard to both academic performance and motivation. Post hoc comparisons using simultaneous confidence intervals, however, did not demonstrate the use of online SQG combined with answering peer-generated questions to be more conducive to learning with regard to any of the observed variables as compared with the use of online SQG combined with answering teacher-generated questions. Furthermore, answering student-generated questions in addition to online SQG did not lead to added gains in learning as compared with the online SQG-alone group. Some reasons for the unexpected findings are proposed, and the significance of this study, as well as suggestions for instructional implementations and future research, are provided.