Erno Lehtinen

Evaluating CSCL log files by social network analysis

In this paper our aim is to present a methodology which can be used in analyzing the interaction processes in a groupware environment. We demonstrate how the social network analysis approach can be used as a method to evaluate the social level structures and processes of a group studying in a CSCL environment. This approach tries to highlight in particular the participatory aspects of collaborative learning processes, but it can also serve as a starting point for more detailed analysis of knowledge building and acquisition processes. The relations between learners and the structure between documents written are the examples studied here.There are some features that make log files especially important in CSCL systems. First, log files can be used automatically, precisely and effectively for data collection. Second, analyzing this information enables evaluative perspective to the collaborative action as a whole. Third, this feedback can be made available immediately for the learning community. As a contribution, we can assume that the network analysis of log files helps us to understand the working processes in CSCL.

Students' skills and practices of using ICT: results of a national assessment in Finland

Abstract The purpose of the study was to investigate Finnish elementary and high school students’ skills and practices of using the new information and communication technologies (ICT). Beliefs about the importance of ICT were also assessed. Five hundred and fifteen students responded to a self-report questionnaire. The students attended 25 schools that used ICT intensively and represented all provinces of Finland. From the analysis, there emerged three factors that represented these students’ relationships to ICT. Characteristic of the first factor was a belief that computer supported learning makes learning more meaningful and encourages one to make more efforts to study. Self-reported competence in using ICT was strongly loaded on the second factor, together with intensive reported use of ICT at home as well as networking with expert cultures and coaching of other people to improve their ICT skills. The third factor represented intensity of using ICT at school and appears to be determined more by the availability of equipment and the extent to which ICT is used in the school than by a student’s expertise in ICT.

Spontaneous Focusing on Numerosity as a Domain-Specific Predictor of Arithmetical Skills.

The aim of this 2 year longitudinal study was to explore whether childrens individual differences in spontaneous focusing on numerosity (SFON) in kindergarten predict arithmetical and reading skills 2 years later in school. Moreover, we investigated whether the positive relationship between SFON and mathematical skills is explained by childrens individual differences in spontaneous focusing on a non-numerical aspect. The participants were 139 Finnish-speaking children. The results show that SFON tendency in kindergarten is a significant domain-specific predictor of arithmetical skills, but not reading skills, assessed at the end of Grade 2. In addition, the relationship between SFON and number sequence skills in kindergarten is not explained by childrens individual differences in their focusing on a non-numerical aspect that is, spatial locations.

Development of Counting Skills: Role of Spontaneous Focusing on Numerosity and Subitizing-Based Enumeration

Children differ in how much they spontaneously pay attention to quantitative aspects of their natural environment. We studied how this spontaneous tendency to focus on numerosity (SFON) is related to subitizing-based enumeration and verbal and object counting skills. In this exploratory study, children were tested individually at the age of 4–5 years on these skills. Results showed 2 primary relationships in childrens number skills development. Performance in a number sequence production task, which is closely related to ordinal number sequence without reference to cardinality, is directly associated with SFON. Second, the association of SFON and object counting skills, which require relating cardinal and ordinal aspects of number, is mediated by subitizing-based enumeration. This suggests that there are multiple pathways to enumeration skills during development.

Predicting Autonomous and Controlled Motivation to Transfer Training

In spite of a broad consensus on the importance of motivation for the transfer of learning from training to the job in work organizations, studies investigating motivation to transfer are limited. This study combines the self-determination theory, the expectancy theory and the theory of planned behaviour to provide a theoretical framework for investigating attitudes towards training content, relatedness and instructional satisfaction as predictors of two dimensions of transfer motivation: autonomous motivation to transfer and controlled motivation to transfer. A total of 444 subjects, trained in 23 occupational health and safety training courses, completed multi-item questionnaires immediately following training. Structural equation modelling procedures indicate that controlled motivation to transfer was affected by attitudes towards training content and that autonomous motivation to transfer was affected by attitudes, relatedness and instructional satisfaction. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications for training effectiveness associated with the interplay of motivation and transfer in professional training.

Abstraction and the acquisition of complex ideas

Abstract The relation between generality and specificity in cognition is poorly understood. The history of science and mathematics shows that generality is not achieved by extracting similarities from particulars. To make a fresh start, we propose that objects and events are seen as similar to the extent that they fit the same abstraction and that abstractions are constructed by assembling available ideas into new structures. The function of abstraction is not to provide generality but to facilitate the assembly process and to provide a different categorization of the world than the one suggested by perceptual similarities. This view is exemplified with respect to central ideas in science, mathematics and other disciplines.

Conceptual change in mathematics: understanding the real numbers

In this chapter some special features of mathematical knowledge are considered in order to better understand the nature of conceptual change in this domain. In learning mathematics, every extension to the number concept demands, not only accepting new concepts, but new logic as well. This new logic more or less contradicts the prior fundamental logic of natural numbers. Therefore, misconceptions and learning difficulties are possible at every enlargement. To understand the problems students have in the conceptual change pertaining to the enlargement of the number concept a test was administered to 564 students (mean age 17.3) from randomly selected Finnish upper secondary schools. The test included identification, classification and construction problems in the domain of rational and real numbers. We found that changes of number conceptions, which was measured through questions in the domain of rational and real numbers, was not adequately carried out by the majority of the students who had just finished their first calculus class. While working on the tasks on the more advanced numbers they spontaneously used the logic and general presumptions of natural numbers or based their answers on their everyday intuition. The number concept of the majority of these students seemed to be based on the spontaneous logic of natural numbers but had also fragmented pieces of more advanced numbers. The students tended to overestimate the certainty of their answers when they used the logic of natural numbers even if it was erroneous.

Preschool Children’s Spontaneous Focusing on Numerosity, Subitizing, and Counting Skills as Predictors of Their Mathematical Performance Seven Years Later at School

This seven-year longitudinal study examined how children’s spontaneous focusing on numerosity (SFON), subitizing based enumeration, and counting skills assessed at five or six years predict their school mathematics achievement at 12 years. The participants were 36 Finnish children without diagnosed neurological disorders. The results, based on partial least squares modeling, demonstrate that SFON and verbal counting skills before school age predict mathematical performance on a standardized test for typical school mathematics in Grade 5. After controlling for nonverbal IQ, only SFON predict school mathematics. Subitizing-based enumeration skills have an indirect effect via number sequence skills and SFON on mathematical performance at 12 years. Early mathematic skills do not predict reading skills at 12 years. Children’s early numerical skills, including SFON, before school age are important contributors to substantially later success in school mathematics.

Developing Tools for Analyzing CSCL Process

The purpose of this paper is to describe methods for analyzing the CSCL process by using logfiles and other quantitative measures. We present methodological approaches that would help CSCL teachers, tutors and researchers to assess the participation activity and system level features of social interaction that take place during CSCL.

Do prior knowledge, personality and visual perceptual ability predict student performance in microscopic pathology?

Medical Education 2010: 44: 621–629