Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

to many, however, it constantly appears as an instructional problem. The final two chapters serve as excellent summary statements. Chapter 13 emphasizes the application of previous text material to the classroom situation. Of great significance is the author's discussion of commonly defined independent, dependent, and moderator variables. The final chapter focuses on evaluation in the overall sense, particularly as it relates to programs of study. The principles of measurement and research design are applied to the evaluation process through several ex-

Educational Research: Competencies for Analysis and Application:

From the Publisher: 
A Question of Identity 
Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." 
Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. 
This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

National Science Education Standards

What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy

This article highlights key online teacher professional development (oTPD) areas in need of research based on a review of current oTPD research conducted in conjunction with an oTPD conference held at Harvard University in fall 2005. The literature review of this field documents much work that is anecdotal, describing professional development programs or “lessons learned” without providing full details of the participants, setting, research questions, methods of data collection, or analytic strategies. Until more rigorous oTPD research is conducted, developers are hard pressed to know the best design features to include, educators remain uninformed about which program will help support teacher change and student learning, and funders lack sufficient guidelines for where to direct their support. The authors believe that the recommendations in this article for a research agenda will guide oTPD scholarship toward an evidence-based conceptual framework that provides robust explanatory power for theory and mod...

https://learningcenter.nsta.org/products/symposia_seminars/iste/files/Research_Agenda_for_Online_Teacher_PD_Dede2009.pdf

A Research Agenda for Online Teacher Professional Development.

This exploratory study investigated data-gathering behaviors exhibited by 100 seventh-grade students as they participated in a scientific inquiry-based curriculum project delivered by a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE). This research examined the relationship between students’ self-efficacy on entry into the authentic scientific activity and the longitudinal data-gathering behaviors they employed while engaged in that process. Three waves of student behavior data were gathered from a server-side database that recorded all student activity in the MUVE; these data were analyzed using individual growth modeling. The study found that self-efficacy correlated with the number of data-gathering behaviors in which students initially engaged, with high self-efficacy students engaging in more data gathering than students with low self-efficacy. Also, the impact of student self-efficacy on rate of change in data gathering behavior differed by gender. However, by the end of their time in the MUVE, initial student self-efficacy no longer correlated with data gathering behaviors. In addition, students’ level of self-efficacy did not affect how many different sources from which they chose to gather data. These results suggest that embedding science inquiry curricula in novel platforms like a MUVE might act as a catalyst for change in students’ self-efficacy and learning processes.

/pdf/the-impact-of-student-self-efficacy-on-scientific-inquiry-53i9v5dnda.pdf

The Impact of Student Self-efficacy on Scientific Inquiry Skills: An Exploratory Investigation in River City, a Multi-user Virtual Environment

This National Science Foundation funded project utilizes graphical multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) as a vehicle to study (1) classroom-based situated learning and (2) the ways in which virtual environments may aid the transfer of learning from classroom contexts into real world settings. In the project's River City curriculum, teams of middle school students are asked to collaboratively solve a simulated 19th century city's problems with illness, through interaction with each others' 'avatars', digital artifacts, tacit clues, and computer-based 'agents' acting as mentors and colleagues in a virtual community of practice. This paper describes the design-based research strategy by which we are currently extending an educational MUVE environment and curriculum developed with prior NSF funding. We are implementing a series of studies to determine if such virtual environments can sufficiently replicate authentic contexts and multi-leveled communities of practice to provide students with classroom experiences in situated learning.

Design-based research strategies for studying situated learning in a multi-user virtual environment

This study investigated novel pedagogies for helping teachers infuse inquiry into a standards-based science curriculum. Using a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) as a pedagogical vehicle, teams of middle-school students collaboratively solved problems around disease in a virtual town called River City. The students interacted with ‘avatars’ of other students, digital artefacts and computer-based ‘agents’ acting as mentors and colleagues in a virtual community of practice set during the time period when bacteria were just being discovered. This paper describes the results from three implementations of the River City virtual environment in 2004–05 with approximately 2000 students from geographically diverse urban areas. The results indicated that students were able to conduct inquiry in virtual worlds and were motivated by that process. However, the results from the assessments varied depending on the assessment strategy employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

/pdf/a-multi-user-virtual-environment-for-building-and-assessing-107pw6q7ln.pdf

A multi-user virtual environment for building and assessing higher order inquiry skills in science

Interest in game-based learning for K-12 is growing. Thus, helping teachers understand how to use these new pedagogies is important. This paper presents a cross-case study of the development of teacher professional development for the River City project, a games-based multi-user virtual environment science curriculum project for middle school children, over three years of its development. Successful professional development required attention to multiple factors including teacher efficacy in using the software, pedagogical issues and school culture. A theoretical model for successful technological implementations is discussed.

Diane Jass Ketelhut

Papers

A Research Agenda for Online Teacher Professional Development.

The Impact of Student Self-efficacy on Scientific Inquiry Skills: An Exploratory Investigation in River City, a Multi-user Virtual Environment

Design-based research strategies for studying situated learning in a multi-user virtual environment

A multi-user virtual environment for building and assessing higher order inquiry skills in science

Teachers and game-based learning: Improving understanding of how to increase efficacy of adoption