• Amber Wellock, Ph.D. 2007

  The effects of a girl-friendly extracurricular technology program on female interest in future technology use and career

  The purpose of this 12-week study was to examine the impact of an after-school technology program that was designed to appeal to girls to see if it would affect their attitudes about computers or their willingness to continue to explore technology in the future. The study was also designed to gather information on what some girls like and dislike when working with computers in the hopes that this knowledge might help educators to create more palatable learning environments for women that could inspire increased interest in technology.

  Subjects included a total of 39 female students consisting of 23 fourth-graders and 17 fifth-graders who voluntarily joined an after-school computer club created for the study at a suburban elementary school in the Mid-Hudson Valley region of New York State. Both quantitative and qualitative data were compiled.

  No significant difference was found in girls' general technology attitudes and interests from pre-test to post-test conditions in this study. Significant differences were, however, found in response to six individual questions indicating some change in girls' attitudes by the end of study.

  This study examined and acknowledged the complex interconnected influences on female technology attitudes that make solutions to improving girls' attitudes demanding to find. It concluded with an appeal not to let the difficulty of this task deter researchers from continued investigation.

• Michaele Brown, Ph.D. 2008

  Constructing knowledge in online discussions: Supporting theory to practice in special education teacher education

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  The purpose of this study was to explore instructional design of online discussions effective at fostering critical thinking. The participants were pre-service teachers enrolled in a special education teacher education program. Undergraduate juniors in a practicum participated in online discussions about case studies of children with emotional and behavioral disorders. One case study presented information about a child in an interactive multimedia learning program. The other case study was of a real child in the participants' student teaching field placement.

  Prior research indicated a growing use of online discussion in educational programs blended with face-to-face instruction. Advantages that have been cited for using online discussions include: (a) time to think-through more structured and in-depth responses before posting; (b) exposure to multiple perspectives; and, (c) increasing higher-order thinking by helping students make connections and become better at critiquing, questioning, and analyzing. Online discussions offer opportunities for discourse to help teacher-candidates reflect upon their beliefs, the perspectives of others, and how those beliefs may influence their teaching practices. The effectiveness of online discussions requires careful balancing among the task design, facilitation of the interaction process and scaffolding of participants.

  In this quasi-experimental research design of two course sections, critical thinking evident in online discussions structured around authentic roles involved in working with children with special needs was compared with the critical thinking resulting from open-ended discussion forums. Critical thinking was measured using the Interaction Analysis Model's five phases of knowledge construction wherein phases III to V denotes critical thinking. No statistically significant differences were found. Evidence suggests, however, that the task requirement for group summaries of key discussion points, conclusions, or recommendations advanced critical thinking for both course sections. Evidence also indicates that the treatment may have lead to participants' postings that represented deeper, more critical understanding of the concepts and issues of the course materials.

• Jonathan deHaan, Ph.D. 2008

  Video games and second language acquisition: The effect of interactivity with a rhythm video game on second language vocabulary recall, cognitive load, and telepresence

  Commercial video games can be beneficial to second language acquisition; however, interactivity, a fundamental feature of the media, has been nearly ignored in terms of its effect on noticing and recall. In this study, I investigated the effect of video game interactivity on vocabulary acquisition from two perspectives, either that the interactivity would induce extraneous cognitive load and hinder learning, or that the interactivity would make the players experience telepresence (i.e., feel present in the game world) and help learning. Eighty Japanese university undergraduates were randomly selected and paired based on similar language and game proficiencies; one subject played a commercial English-language rhythm video game for 20 minutes and the other subject watched the game simultaneously on a connected monitor. Following the gameplay, subjects completed identical vocabulary recall tests, cognitive load measures (i.e., mental effort and perceived difficulty), telepresence measures, experience questionnaires, and a 2-week delayed vocabulary recall test. Both the players and the watchers of the video game did recall second language vocabulary; however, the players recalled significantly less vocabulary, which seems to be a result of the cognitive load induced by the interactivity of the game. The players and watchers seem to have invested similar mental effort in the game and its language, but the players perceived both to be more difficult than the watchers did. The interactivity appeared to have prevented the players from noticing and recalling vocabulary. The subjects did not differ significantly in their experiences of telepresence, which may be a result of the type of the interactivity in the game. If the interactivity had been more reflective, planned, or purposeful, the players may have felt more present in the world of the video game, and perhaps noticed the vocabulary in a different manner. The interactivity of this game seems to have hindered attention to its vocabulary; however, other types of interactivities may have different results. Further language learning projects should target other types of game interactivity, and students and teachers should consider interactivity's potential hindrance of learning outcomes.

• Chaoyan Dong, Ph.D. 2008

  Positive emotions and learning: What makes a difference in multimedia design?

  Does the design of the user interface affect learners' emotions in educational environments? For example, does an aesthetically pleasing design enhance multimedia learning? Research indicates that interacting with any multimedia design inevitably induces emotions in learners, and that the induced emotions are important environmental input that may affect multimedia learning. This dissertation investigates how aesthetically pleasing design affects multimedia learning. Two studies were conducted in which the participants watched a multimedia module with a scientific explanation about the formation of lightning that either contained an aesthetically pleasing interface design or a neutral interface design.

  Study 1 answered the question whether an aesthetically pleasing design can induce positive emotions in the learners. Interview results indicated that viewing the aesthetically pleasing design did induce much stronger positive emotions than viewing the neutral design. Quantitative data from the Positive Emotions Inventory (PEI) did not reveal a similar effect of the interface design on learners' emotions. Study 2 examined whether an aesthetically pleasing design enhanced multimedia learning. The results showed that the interface design did not affect lower-level learning as measured by recall performance. However, learners receiving the aesthetically pleasing interface design had increased higher-level learning as measured by a problem-solving test than learners receiving the neutral design.

  Combining the results from both studies, findings indicate that learners' emotions were effected by interface manipulations such as the aesthetically pleasing interface, and that these interface manipulations improved higher-level learning, but not lower-level learning. This suggests that aesthetically pleasing design enhanced mental model construction but not rote learning. The results of this dissertation offer encouraging evidence that aesthetically pleasing design can result in deeper learning if the design induces positive emotions in the learners. Therefore, instructional designers should consider the effects that the design of educational materials can have on learners' emotions, and, in turn, on learning outcomes.

• Reneta Lansiquot, Ph.D. 2008

  Artifacts, social studies, and language arts: How interactive iconography can improve children’s writing

  Reneta Lansiquot, Ph.D. 2008

  Artifacts, social studies, and language arts: How interactive iconography can improve children’s writing

  A three-month study examined how interactive iconography (interactive: non-sequential and user-controlled interfacing; iconography: a set of pictures or symbols connected with people or themes) impacts social studies and promotes critical writing skills. Groups of three middle-school immigrant students constructed museum labels (paragraphs, textual descriptions of an artifact) using Scope Out, an experimental online revision tool that makes iconography interactive. This study included three comparison groups and one control group. All students provided paper-based writing samples before and after the study. Analyses of student writing revealed multiple revisions and statistically significant improvement over the control group. Overall, student-reported writing apprehension and computer anxiety decreased. Results indicate a positive relationship between the reading of iconography and writing skills.

  Richard Panzer, Ph.D. 2008

  The effects of fear versus norm appeals and directive versus cognitively flexible designs in abstinence-centered multimedia education on teen sexual attitudes, intentions and behaviors

  A national survey found that a majority of adults and teens agree that schools should give teens a strong message that they should abstain from sex until they are at least out of high school (National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2003), yet there is no consensus in our country as to whether programs that have a strong abstinence message are effective in delaying teen sexual involvement (Hymowitz, 2003).

  The present study compares the effect of an abstinence-centered sexual health education multimedia program based on cognitive flexibility theory on the attitudes and intentions of ninth-grade students at a New Jersey high school with the effects of a multimedia program that utilizes a traditional instructive, directive approach. In addition, the study compares the effect of a presentation based on the Health Beliefs model emphasizing consequences of teen sexual behavior on teens' attitudes and intentions with the impact of a presentation based on a Character Education model that asserts norms of healthy sexual behaviors.

  Both the traditional instructional design and the Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT)-based design for abstinence-centered teen sexuality education were significantly more effective than no sex education in impacting the sexual attitudes and intentions of this racially diverse cohort of ninth-grade students, including the several racial/ethnic groups represented in the study and both genders. The traditional instructional design was significantly more effective than the CFT design, suggesting that a directive, instructional approach in abstinence-centered sexual health education can strengthen the impact on teens' attitudes and intentions to abstain from sex. Both the threat-appeal presentation and the norms/ideals presentation were significantly effective in impacting both male and female students' sexual attitudes and intentions. The norms/ideals presentation was significantly more effective than the threat-appeal presentation in impacting many attitudinal scales and questions, suggesting that discussions of norms and ideals should not be omitted in sex education that seeks to increase teen abstinence.

History of Dissertations, Educational Communication and Technology