Nergiz Ercil Cagiltay

The effect of uncertainty on learning in game-like environments

Considering the role of games for educational purposes, there has an increase in interest among educators in applying strategies used in popular games to create more engaging learning environments. Learning is more fun and appealing in digital educational games and, as a result, it may become more effective. However, few research studies have been conducted to establish principles based on empirical research for designing engaging and entertaining games so as to improve learning. One of the essential characteristics of games that has been unexplored in the literature is the concept of uncertainty. This study examines the effect of uncertainty on learning outcomes. In order to better understand this effect on learning, a game-like learning tool was developed to teach a database concept in higher education programs of software engineering. The tool is designed in two versions: one including uncertainty and the other including no uncertainty. The experimental results of this study reveal that uncertainty enhances learning. Uncertainty is found to be positively associated with motivation. As motivation increases, participants tend to spend more time on answering the questions and to have higher accuracy in these questions. Highlights? We examine the effect of uncertainty on learning outcomes in game-like environments. ? Uncertainty enhances learning. ? Uncertainty is positively associated with motivation. ? As motivation increases, participants spend more time on answering the questions. ? As motivation increases, participants have higher accuracy in the questions.

Requirements for Remote RF Laboratory Applications: An Educators' Perspective

This paper discusses the results of a study of the requirements for developing a remote RF laboratory. This study draws on the perspectives of educators in university electrical engineering departments and in technical colleges, on the teaching of the radio frequency (RF) domain. The study investigates how these educators would like the technical content of a state of the art RF laboratory to be designed. As far as the authors know, no publication exists in the literature that investigates the requirements and needs of remote laboratories in that particular field. The outcomes of this work are expected to guide remote laboratory platform developers towards the most effective design of their platforms. The analysis of the results showed that educators would like the technical content of the laboratory to cover basic communication techniques, microwave circuits and devices, antennas and propagation, RF technology, and radio system design aspects of modern telecommunication systems. They would therefore like the laboratory instrumentation to be designed to that end. The educators also reported the need for advanced experimental setups which require expensive RF measurement devices. The discrepancy between university and technical college views was also considered in this paper.

Using learning styles theory in engineering education

Studies have shown that, while learning different concepts, people sometimes take different approaches (learning styles). Accordingly, their performance reflected differently in their academic studies. With the effect of globalisation to the educational environments, the influence of individual learning styles on educational performance is getting more significant. In this study, a learning style assessment tool was used to examine the relationship between students’ learning styles and their performance in engineering education programmes. At the beginning of the programme, 285 students’ learning styles were measured using a learning style assessment tool. Four years after the engineering education, their performance in the programme was compared with their individual learning styles. This study shows that most of the students are assimilators. Divergers and convergers follow the assimilators. The number of accommodators is very limited. The relationship between engineering students’ learning styles and their performance is found: assimilators and convergers performed better than the divergers and accommodators. The performance difference between assimilators and divergers is statistically significant. The results of this study show that the learning style theory is a potential tool for guiding the design and improvement of courses and helping students to improve their individual performance.

Design and development of a remote and virtual environment for experimental training in Electrical and Electronics Engineering

European Remote Radio Laboratory (ERRL) has been developed by the support of European Commission. It intends to provide remote access to high cost devices remotely, and perform experiments in radio frequency (RF), communications and microwave domains of Electrical ad Electronics Engineering. The system has been operational for two years, and been integrated into curriculum of some courses. In this work, the hardware and software structures of the system are presented. Then, experimental content and the motivations in the design of the system are discussed.

Software engineering education: some important dimensions

Software engineering education has been emerging as an independent and mature discipline. Accordingly, various studies are being done to provide guidelines for curriculum design. The main focus of these guidelines is around core and foundation courses. This paper summarizes the current problems of software engineering education programs. It also proposes some important dimensions as integral parts of software engineering education: interdisciplinary skills, practice experience, communication, skills on continuing education and professionalism. In the current guidelines and studies these dimensions are not addressed specifically. Although there could be other dimensions to be considered in software engineering education, we believe that the proposed ones are very crucial as software engineering is evolving more rapidly than any other engineering discipline. This study also provides a survey of some major universities’ undergraduate software engineering programs to evaluate these dimensions.

A Remote Laboratory for Training in Radio Communications: ERRL

This paper presents, first, a short survey of remote laboratory initiatives in electrical and computer engineering, and then discusses design and development phases of remote laboratory environment on radio communications, the ERRL (European Remote Radio Laboratory). As being the first attempt in establishing of such a large scale remote laboratory on radio communications, ERRL enables access to high technology RF equipments and setups through the Internet. The software structure, target groups and experimental set ups of ERRL are shortly discussed. First attempts on implementation of pilot experiments are discussed.

A serious game for speech disorder children therapy

Today meaning of games is much more serious than just considering them as an entertainment and free-time activity. Games have begun to be used in many different areas such as education, healthcare, military, corporate management and public policy for different purposes. Several benefits of serious games have been reported in the literature. Studies also show that with a combination of entertainment and education (edutainment) several benefits could be achieved in the rehabilitation process of the disordered individuals. This study reports the advantages of 3D game environments for speech and language therapy of children and benefits of making the treatment process accessible from anywhere and anytime are demonstrated.

An indoor navigation aid designed for visually impaired people

This work introduces the hardware architecture and general principles of a portable indoor navigation system for guiding visually impaired people. It operates through wireless communication between a compact hardware interface unit carried by the user, a central processing unit and an active RFID unit. The RFID unit collects signals as regard to the position of the user, the central system processes those signals to estimate the position of the user and proposes a route and direction for the user to follow, whereas hardware interface unit provides interaction. The orienteering of the user is obtained by a tactile compass.

A New RF and Microwave Engineering Course Enriched With Advanced Technologies

In this study, a curriculum model including recent developments and technologies in the Radio Frequency (RF) and Microwave Engineering field by using a blended approach is proposed. This study covers the description of the content of theoretical and hands on applications, the integration model of the technological tools into the proposed curriculum, and the instructional approaches used in the new course design. The main goal of the course is to prepare students for future professional careers in RF and Microwave Engineering by supporting them with new instructional technologies. The secondary goal of the course is to better prepare the students for the sequence of senior courses in the Electrical and Electronics Engineering program of Atilim University. The course is structured with a balance between theory and laboratory, including remote and in lab measurement experiments as well as modeling and designing microwave components by means of computer tools and design fabrication. The newly designed course is implemented at the Atilim University. The study also reports the first semester implementation.

Distance laboratory applications ERRL: A study on radio communication in electronic field

In the last decade, the effect of Internet usage in education is gradually increased. When we look from academic perspective, the new technologies provided alternatives for students learning. As distance education becomes important everyday, the indispensable elements of teaching and education, laboratories must be reachable via remote connection. Consequently, the education that is going to be given to the students will be more flexible with respect to place and time constraints and students can reach laboratory facilities at any time and anywhere not only in lectures and practical hours. In this study, European remote radio laboratory (ERRL) which is a distance remote radio frequency (RF) laboratory designed for electrical-electronics students, is described generally. The software architecture, infrastructure and experiment that can be done with a remote connection have been described.