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- All Subjects: Evaluation
Description
Academia is not what it used to be. In today’s fast-paced world, requirements
are constantly changing, and adapting to these changes in an academic curriculum
can be challenging. Given a specific aspect of a domain, there can be various levels of
proficiency that can be achieved by the students. Considering the wide array of needs,
diverse groups need customized course curriculum. The need for having an archetype
to design a course focusing on the outcomes paved the way for Outcome-based
Education (OBE). OBE focuses on the outcomes as opposed to the traditional way of
following a process [23]. According to D. Clark, the major reason for the creation of
Bloom’s taxonomy was not only to stimulate and inspire a higher quality of thinking
in academia – incorporating not just the basic fact-learning and application, but also
to evaluate and analyze on the facts and its applications [7]. Instructional Module
Development System (IMODS) is the culmination of both these models – Bloom’s
Taxonomy and OBE. It is an open-source web-based software that has been
developed on the principles of OBE and Bloom’s Taxonomy. It guides an instructor,
step-by-step, through an outcomes-based process as they define the learning
objectives, the content to be covered and develop an instruction and assessment plan.
The tool also provides the user with a repository of techniques based on the choices
made by them regarding the level of learning while defining the objectives. This helps
in maintaining alignment among all the components of the course design. The tool
also generates documentation to support the course design and provide feedback
when the course is lacking in certain aspects.
It is not just enough to come up with a model that theoretically facilitates
effective result-oriented course design. There should be facts, experiments and proof
that any model succeeds in achieving what it aims to achieve. And thus, there are two
research objectives of this thesis: (i) design a feature for course design feedback and
evaluate its effectiveness; (ii) evaluate the usefulness of a tool like IMODS on various
aspects – (a) the effectiveness of the tool in educating instructors on OBE; (b) the
effectiveness of the tool in providing appropriate and efficient pedagogy and
assessment techniques; (c) the effectiveness of the tool in building the learning
objectives; (d) effectiveness of the tool in document generation; (e) Usability of the
tool; (f) the effectiveness of OBE on course design and expected student outcomes.
The thesis presents a detailed algorithm for course design feedback, its pseudocode, a
description and proof of the correctness of the feature, methods used for evaluation
of the tool, experiments for evaluation and analysis of the obtained results.
are constantly changing, and adapting to these changes in an academic curriculum
can be challenging. Given a specific aspect of a domain, there can be various levels of
proficiency that can be achieved by the students. Considering the wide array of needs,
diverse groups need customized course curriculum. The need for having an archetype
to design a course focusing on the outcomes paved the way for Outcome-based
Education (OBE). OBE focuses on the outcomes as opposed to the traditional way of
following a process [23]. According to D. Clark, the major reason for the creation of
Bloom’s taxonomy was not only to stimulate and inspire a higher quality of thinking
in academia – incorporating not just the basic fact-learning and application, but also
to evaluate and analyze on the facts and its applications [7]. Instructional Module
Development System (IMODS) is the culmination of both these models – Bloom’s
Taxonomy and OBE. It is an open-source web-based software that has been
developed on the principles of OBE and Bloom’s Taxonomy. It guides an instructor,
step-by-step, through an outcomes-based process as they define the learning
objectives, the content to be covered and develop an instruction and assessment plan.
The tool also provides the user with a repository of techniques based on the choices
made by them regarding the level of learning while defining the objectives. This helps
in maintaining alignment among all the components of the course design. The tool
also generates documentation to support the course design and provide feedback
when the course is lacking in certain aspects.
It is not just enough to come up with a model that theoretically facilitates
effective result-oriented course design. There should be facts, experiments and proof
that any model succeeds in achieving what it aims to achieve. And thus, there are two
research objectives of this thesis: (i) design a feature for course design feedback and
evaluate its effectiveness; (ii) evaluate the usefulness of a tool like IMODS on various
aspects – (a) the effectiveness of the tool in educating instructors on OBE; (b) the
effectiveness of the tool in providing appropriate and efficient pedagogy and
assessment techniques; (c) the effectiveness of the tool in building the learning
objectives; (d) effectiveness of the tool in document generation; (e) Usability of the
tool; (f) the effectiveness of OBE on course design and expected student outcomes.
The thesis presents a detailed algorithm for course design feedback, its pseudocode, a
description and proof of the correctness of the feature, methods used for evaluation
of the tool, experiments for evaluation and analysis of the obtained results.
ContributorsRaj, Vaishnavi (Author) / Bansal, Srividya (Thesis advisor) / Bansal, Ajay (Committee member) / Mehlhase, Alexandra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
There is a serious need for early childhood intervention practices for children who are living at or below the poverty line. Since 1965 Head Start has provided a federally funded, free preschool program for children in this population. The City of Phoenix Head Start program consists of nine delegate agencies, seven of which reside in school districts. These agencies are currently not conducting local longitudinal evaluations of their preschool graduates. The purpose of this study was to recommend initial steps the City of Phoenix grantee and the delegate agencies can take to begin a longitudinal evaluation process of their Head Start programs. Seven City of Phoenix Head Start agency directors were interviewed. These interviews provided information about the attitudes of the directors when considering longitudinal evaluations and how Head Start already evaluates their programs through internal assessments. The researcher also took notes on the Third Grade Follow-Up to the Head Start Executive Summary in order to make recommendations to the City of Phoenix Head Start programs about the best practices for longitudinal student evaluations.
ContributorsArmfield, Jessica Ann (Author) / Duggan, Mary Anne (Thesis director) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Preventing heat-associated morbidity and mortality is a public health priority in Maricopa County, Arizona (United States). The objective of this project was to evaluate Maricopa County cooling centers and gain insight into their capacity to provide relief for the public during extreme heat events. During the summer of 2014, 53 cooling centers were evaluated to assess facility and visitor characteristics. Maricopa County staff collected data by directly observing daily operations and by surveying managers and visitors. The cooling centers in Maricopa County were often housed within community, senior, or religious centers, which offered various services for at least 1500 individuals daily. Many visitors were unemployed and/or homeless. Many learned about a cooling center by word of mouth or by having seen the cooling center’s location. The cooling centers provide a valuable service and reach some of the region’s most vulnerable populations. This project is among the first to systematically evaluate cooling centers from a public health perspective and provides helpful insight to community leaders who are implementing or improving their own network of cooling centers.
ContributorsBerisha, Vjollca (Author) / Hondula, David M. (Author) / Roach, Matthew (Author) / White, Jessica R. (Author) / McKinney, Benita (Author) / Bentz, Darcie (Author) / Mohamed, Ahmed (Author) / Uebelherr, Joshua (Author) / Goodin, Kate (Author)
Created2016-09-23
Description
There exists extensive research on the use of twisty puzzles, such as the Rubik's Cube, in educational contexts to assist in developing critical thinking skills and in teaching abstract concepts, such as group theory. However, the existing research does not consider the use of twisty puzzles in developing language proficiency. Furthermore, there remain methodological issues in integrating standard twisty puzzles into a class curriculum due to the ease with which erroneous cube twists occur, leading to a puzzle scramble that deviates from the intended teaching goal. To address these issues, an extensive examination of the "smart cube" market took place in order to determine whether a device that virtualizes twisty puzzles while maintaining the intuitive tactility of manipulating such puzzles can be employed both to fill the language education void and to mitigate the potential frustration experienced by students who unintentionally scramble a puzzle due to executing the wrong moves. This examination revealed the presence of Bluetooth smart cubes, which are capable of interfacing with a companion web or mobile application that visualizes and reacts to puzzle manipulations. This examination also revealed the presence of a device called the WOWCube, which is a 2x2x2 smart cube entertainment system that has 24 Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screens, one for each face's square, enabling better integration of the application with the puzzle hardware. Developing applications both for the Bluetooth smart cube using React Native and for the WOWCube demonstrated the higher feasibility of developing with the WOWCube due to its streamlined development kit as well as its ability to tie the application to the device hardware, enhancing the tactile immersion of the players with the application itself. Using the WOWCube, a word puzzle game featuring three game modes was implemented to assist in teaching players English vocabulary. Due to its incorporation of features that enable dynamic puzzle generation and resetting, players who participated in a user survey found that the game was compelling and that it exercised their critical thinking skills. This demonstrates the feasibility of smart cube applications in both critical thinking and language skills.
ContributorsHreshchyshyn, Jacob (Author) / Bansal, Ajay (Thesis advisor) / Mehlhase, Alexandra (Committee member) / Baron, Tyler (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Feedback represents a vital component of the learning process and is especially important for Computer Science students. With class sizes that are often large, it can be challenging to provide individualized feedback to students. Consistent, constructive, supportive feedback through a tutoring companion can scaffold the learning process for students.
This work contributes to the construction of a tutoring companion designed to provide this feedback to students. It aims to bridge the gap between the messages the compiler delivers, and the support required for a novice student to understand the problem and fix their code. Particularly, it provides support for students learning about recursion in a beginning university Java programming course. Besides also providing affective support, a tutoring companion could be more effective when it is embedded into the environment that the student is already using, instead of an additional tool for the student to learn. The proposed Tutoring Companion is embedded into the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
This thesis focuses on the reasoning model for the Tutoring Companion and is developed using the techniques of a neural network. While a student uses the IDE, the Tutoring Companion collects 16 data points, including the presence of certain key words, cyclomatic complexity, and error messages from the compiler, every time it detects an event, such as a run attempt, debug attempt, or a request for help, in the IDE. This data is used as inputs to the neural network. The neural network produces a correlating single output code for the feedback to be provided to the student, which is displayed in the IDE.
The effectiveness of the approach is examined among 38 Computer Science students who solve a programming assignment while the Tutoring Companion assists them. Data is collected from these interactions, including all inputs and outputs for the neural network, and students are surveyed regarding their experience. Results suggest that students feel supported while working with the Companion and promising potential for using a neural network with an embedded companion in the future. Challenges in developing an embedded companion are discussed, as well as opportunities for future work.
This work contributes to the construction of a tutoring companion designed to provide this feedback to students. It aims to bridge the gap between the messages the compiler delivers, and the support required for a novice student to understand the problem and fix their code. Particularly, it provides support for students learning about recursion in a beginning university Java programming course. Besides also providing affective support, a tutoring companion could be more effective when it is embedded into the environment that the student is already using, instead of an additional tool for the student to learn. The proposed Tutoring Companion is embedded into the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
This thesis focuses on the reasoning model for the Tutoring Companion and is developed using the techniques of a neural network. While a student uses the IDE, the Tutoring Companion collects 16 data points, including the presence of certain key words, cyclomatic complexity, and error messages from the compiler, every time it detects an event, such as a run attempt, debug attempt, or a request for help, in the IDE. This data is used as inputs to the neural network. The neural network produces a correlating single output code for the feedback to be provided to the student, which is displayed in the IDE.
The effectiveness of the approach is examined among 38 Computer Science students who solve a programming assignment while the Tutoring Companion assists them. Data is collected from these interactions, including all inputs and outputs for the neural network, and students are surveyed regarding their experience. Results suggest that students feel supported while working with the Companion and promising potential for using a neural network with an embedded companion in the future. Challenges in developing an embedded companion are discussed, as well as opportunities for future work.
ContributorsDay, Melissa (Author) / Gonzalez-Sanchez, Javier (Thesis advisor) / Bansal, Ajay (Committee member) / Mehlhase, Alexandra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Serious or educational games have been a subject of research for a long time. They usually have game mechanics, game content, and content assessment all tied together to make a specialized game intended to impart learning of the associated content to its players. While this approach is good for developing games for teaching highly specific topics, it consumes a lot of time and money. Being able to re-use the same mechanics and assessment for creating games that teach different contents would lead to a lot of savings in terms of time and money. The Content Agnostic Game Engineering (CAGE) Architecture mitigates the problem by disengaging the content from game mechanics. Moreover, the content assessment in games is often quite explicit in the way that it disturbs the flow of the players and thus hampers the learning process, as it is not integrated into the game flow. Stealth assessment helps to alleviate this problem by keeping the player engagement intact while assessing them at the same time. Integrating stealth assessment into the CAGE framework in a content-agnostic way will increase its usability and further decrease in game and assessment development time and cost. This research presents an evaluation of the learning outcomes in content-agnostic game-based assessment developed using the CAGE framework.
ContributorsVerma, Vipin (Author) / Craig, Scotty D (Thesis advisor) / Bansal, Ajay (Thesis advisor) / Amresh, Ashish (Committee member) / Baron, Tyler (Committee member) / Levy, Roy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021