Cornelia Connolly

Programming Anxiety Amongst Computing Students—A Key in the Retention Debate?

Low retention rates in third-level computing courses, despite continuing research into new and improved computer teaching methods, present a worrying concern. For some computing students learning programming is intimidating, giving rise to lack of confidence and anxiety. The noncognitive domain of anxiety with regard to learning computer programming is investigated in this paper and programming anxiety, a constituent component of computer anxiety, is defined. The paper describes a longitudinal research study that has been conducted, which investigates the variance of anxiety amongst undergraduate computing students, with specific emphasis upon their learning programming during their first year in higher education.

Non-Cognitive Influences on Trainee Learning within the Manufacturing Industry

This paper describes the non-cognitive factors influencing trainee proficiency with a focus within the manufacturing industry. Training development and assessments generally linked in the cognitive domain, with the focus on the mental constructs of the trainee or learner. However employees who perform well in training are not necessarily going to be better in their professional capacity. Non-cognitive influences will affect the employee proficiency. Non-cognitive, affective (feeling) and psychomotor (doing), issues affect cognitive performance significantly and are worthwhile domains to explore in investigating in how trainees learn. The efficiency of the trainee and employee will depend, not only on the training received, but also his/her personality traits. Motivation, attitude, anxiety, culture and gender are all factors, which have been examined in this paper in relation to training and achievement. The paper introduces these concepts within the training environment of the manufacturing industry. In conclusion we affirm the belief that non-cognitive factors are as important to the sustainability of training and trainee proficiency.

The transatlantic cable-an Irish perspective

One of the papers presented at the IEEE History of Telecommunications Conference in Newfoundland last July looked at the first transatlantic cables from an Irish perspective. The author has studied the local impact of the cable as a relatively poor and isolated community suddenly found itself at a hub in the worldwide telecommunications network. The paper describes the Valentia community, the cable station staff, and the cable stations at Valentia, Waterville, and Ballinskelligs.

The Pedagogical Application of Alternate Reality Games: Using Game-Based Learning to Revisit History

The advent of the Internet has been instrumental in producing new Game Based Learning GBL tools where education and games converge. Alternate Reality Games ARGs are one such GBL tool. Interactive narrative games that use the Internet as a central communications platform, ARGs challenge players to collaboratively collate a fragmented story. When used for educational purposes, Serious ARGs provide a novel form of GBL that encourages critical thinking, develops problem-solving skills and fosters collaborative learning. However, the pedagogical application of ARGs is still relatively new. This article presents a background to ARGs and Serious ARGs. It also outlines the lessons drawn from Plunketts Pages, a Serious ARG that focuses on actual historical events. A selection of evaluation criteria, extracted from the reflections of those who played Plunketts Pages are presented. These criteria are intended to enable novice ARG designers or educators to formatively evaluate an emerging ARG design.