Koen Veermans

Motivation to Transfer Training: An Integrative Literature Review.

Motivation to transfer is essential for the transfer of training. Without motivation, newly acquired knowledge and skills will not be applied at work. The purpose of this integrative literature review is to summarize, critique, and synthesize past transfer motivation research and to offer directions for future investigations. First, seven contributions of past research are presented in an attempt to understand antecedents, correlates, and consequences of motivation to transfer. Second, an alternative view that complements and extends current approaches is discussed, and its implications for future studies investigating employees’ motivation for training application on the job are outlined.

Self-directed learning in simulation-based discovery environments

SIMQUEST is an authoring system for designing and creating simulation-based learning environments. The special character of SIMQUEST learning environments is that they include cognitive support for learners which means that they provide learners with support in the discovery process. In SIMQUEST learning environments, a balance is sought between direct guidance of the learning process and sufficient freedom for learners to regulate the learning process themselves. This paper describes the basic mechanisms of the SIMQUEST learning and authoring environments. The functionality authors have in providing the learner with guidance and some of the experiences on how authors use these opportunities and learners employ the cognitive support are reported.

Use of Heuristics to Facilitate Scientific Discovery Learning in a Simulation Learning Environment in a Physics Domain

This article describes a study into the role of heuristic support in facilitating discovery learning through simulation‐based learning. The study compares the use of two such learning environments in the physics domain of collisions. In one learning environment (implicit heuristics) heuristics are only used to provide the learner with guidance derived from heuristics, without presenting the heuristics themselves; in the other (explicit heuristics) the heuristics themselves are also made explicit to the learner. The two learning environments are tested with 46 students from two schools. The results show that learners in both conditions gain domain knowledge from pre‐test to post‐test. Regression analyses show that pre‐test results can predict post‐test results in the implicit heuristics condition but not in the explicit heuristic condition. Process analyses suggest that presenting the heuristics explicitly facilitate more self‐regulation in students.

Promoting self directed learning in simulation based discovery learning environments through intelligent support

Providing learners with computer-generated feedback on their learning process in simulation-based discovery environments cannot be based on a detailed model of the learning process due to the “open” character of discovery learning. This paper describes a method for generating adaptive feedback for discovery learning based on an “opportunistic” learning model that takes the current hypothesis of the learner and the experiments performed to test this hypothesis as input. The method was applied in a simulation–based learning environment in the physics domain of collisions. Additionally, the method was compared to an environment in which subjects received predefined feedback on their hypotheses, not taking the experimentation behavior into account. Results showed that overall both groups did not differ on knowledge acquired. A further analysis indicated that, in their learning processes, the learners in the experimental condition built upon their intuitive knowledge base, whereas the learners in the control condition built upon their conceptual knowledge base. In addition, measures of the learning process showed that the subjects in the experimental condition adopted a more inquiry-based learning strategy compared to the subjects in the control condition. We concluded, therefore, that providing learners with adaptive feedback had a different and beneficial effect on the learning process compared to more traditional predefined feedback.

Using Induction to Generate Feedback in Simulation Based Discovery Learning Environments

This paper describes a method for learner modelling for use within simulation-based learning environments. The goal of the learner modelling system is to provide the learner with advice on discovery learning. The system analyzes the evidence that a learner has generated for a specific hypothesis, assesses whether the learner needs support on the discovery process, and the nature of that support. The kind of advice described in this paper is general in the sense that it does not rely on specific domain knowledge, and specific in the sense that it is directly related to the learners interaction with the system. The learner modelling mechanism is part of the SimQuest authoring system for simulation-based discovery learning environments.

Combining Heuristics and Formal Methods in a Tool for Supporting Simulation-Based Discovery Learning

This paper describes the design of a tool to support learners in simulation-based discovery learning environments. The design redesigns and extents a previous tool to overcome issues that came up in a classroom learning setting. The tool focuses on supporting learners with experimentation to identify or test hypotheses. The aim is not only to support learning domain knowledge, but also learning discovery learning skills. For this purpose the tool uses heuristics and formal methods to assess the learners experimenting behavior, and translates this assessment into feedback directed at improving the quality of the learners discovery learning behavior. The tool is designed to be part of an authoring environment for designing simulation-based learning environments, which put some constraints on the design, but also ensures that the tool can be reused in different learning environments. After describing the design, a learning scenario is used to serve as an illustration of the tool, and finally some concluding remarks, evaluation results, and potential extensions for the tool are presented.

Understanding Emerging Knowledge Spillovers in Small-Group Learning Settings: A Networked Learning Perspective

There has been a rapid growth in the use of small groups in teaching and technology-supported networked learning environments to engage students in active learning. Recent research highlights that students learn not only from their group members but also from network connections outside their group, which we refer to as knowledge spillovers. We combined three perspectives of collaborative learning, computer-supported collaborative learning and networked learning in order to understand how these knowledge spillovers emerge in small-group learning settings, thereby providing an integrated theory, practice and pedagogy.

Number Navigation Game (NNG): Design Principles and Game Description

This chapter describes the Number Navigation Game (NNG), a game-based learning environment aimed at the promotion of flexibility and adaptivity with arithmetical problem solving in 10- to 13-year-old students. The game design is based on an integrated approach in which the different elements of the game are directly related to the mathematical content, i.e., the use of rich networks of numerical connections in solving arithmetic problems. The interface of the game is a hundred square superimposed on various maps of land and sea, where players have to strategically navigate a ship by using different combinations of numbers and arithmetic operations. The game has two different modes encouraging the use of different arithmetic operations and number combinations. The openness of the gameplay allows players the opportunities to explore different numerical connections in an environment where there are no right or wrong answers. Future directions of the game development include additional game features and extensions to larger numbers and rational numbers.

Developing Adaptive Number Knowledge with the Number Navigation Game-Based Learning Environment

Research suggests that adaptivity with arithmetic problem solving can be developed by placing more focus on developing students’ understanding of the underlying numerical characteristics and connections during problem solving. For this reason, the present study aimed to explore how primary school students’ game performance using the “Number Navigation Game” (NNG) game-based learning environment was related to their development of adaptive number knowledge. NNG provides extensive opportunities for working strategically with various number patterns and number–operation combinations. Sixth grade students (N = 23) played NNG in pairs, once a week, for 7 weeks during math class. Students completed measures of adaptive number knowledge and arithmetic fluency during pre- and post-testing. Results show that students’ game performance had a unique contribution to explaining students’ adaptive number knowledge during post-test. This suggests that NNG is a promising game-based learning environment for developing adaptivity with arithmetic problem solving by enhancing students’ adaptive number knowledge.

Conversation and research

Gordon Pask’s conversation theory was created in the 1970s. The theory encompasses a high‐level framework for studying interactions between actors in artificial situations where people co‐operate, have conflicts, follow rules, negotiate outcomes, invent new rules together, etc. Sadly, the theory is not well known. The authors claim that this is due to idiosyncratic use of terminology and radical departure from widespread research practices and accepted experimental procedures. It is argued that conversation theory furnishes a methodology for the creation and maintenance of social rule‐systems. The argument is illustrated with examples from the public (car) traffic system in The Netherlands.