Parul Khurana

Bio: Parul Khurana is an academic researcher from Lovely Professional University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Scopus & Bibliometrics. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 9 publications receiving 62 citations.

Gamification in education - learn computer programming with fun

Abstract: Today the IT industry provides a stimulating and robust career start to logic developers, but even then majority of the students pursuing higher education in computing field are not coming ahead with full competence and capabilities to meet the industry expectations. It has been observed that such students are not much focused on computer programming during regular study.Here the main point of concern is how to train, engage and make them learn to build real life applications in a better way by doing extensive programming in a computer language especially when there are big opportunities available in the market from the employment perspective in the form of software development, web development and most importantly mobile application development. The main reason of disinterest in programming is identified as the lack of motivation and engagement of students in learning the programming concepts. This paper proposes a solution that is the induction of gamification in teaching practices; since games can be used to create a motivating classroom environment where students are engaged in learning. This would improve the teaching/learning process in totality. In support of this fact, student engagement and motivation to learn programming was measured using a survey based on a questionnaire in which 207 students of post graduate programme participated. The result of the survey and questionnaire indicated a strong preference for the use of gamificationin imparting the programming knowledge.

Growth and dynamics of Econophysics: A bibliometric and network analysis.

Abstract: Digitization of publications, advancement in communication technology, and the availability of bibliographic data have made it easier for the researchers to study the growth and dynamics of any discipline. We present a study on "Econophysics" metadata extracted from the Web of Science managed by the Clarivate Analytics from 2000-2019. The study highlights the growth and dynamics of the discipline by measures of a number of publications, citations on publications, other disciplines contribution, institutions participation, country-wise spread, etc. We investigate the impact of self-citations on citations with every five-year interval. Also, we find the contribution of other disciplines by analyzing the cited references. Results emerged from micro, meso and macro-level analysis of collaborations show that the distributions among authors collaboration and affiliations of authors follow a power law. Thus, very few authors keep producing most of the papers and are from a few institutions. We find that China is leading in the production of a number of authors and a number of papers; however, shares more of national collaboration rather than international, whereas the USA shares more international collaboration. Finally, we demonstrate the evolution of the author's collaborations and affiliations networks from 2000-2019. Overall the analysis reveals the "small-world" property of the network with average path length 5. As a consequence of our analysis, this study can serve as in-depth knowledge to understand the growth and dynamics of the Econophysics network both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Growth and dynamics of Econophysics: a bibliometric and network analysis

Abstract: Digitization of publications, advancement in communication technology, and the availability of bibliographic data have made it easier for the researchers to study the growth and dynamics of any discipline. We present a study on “Econophysics” metadata extracted from Web of Science managed by the Clarivate Analytics from 2000 to 2019. The study highlights the growth and dynamics of the discipline by measuring the number of publications, citations on publications, other disciplines contribution, institutions participation, country-wise spread, etc. We investigate the impact of self-citations on citations with every five-years interval. Also, we find the contribution of other disciplines by analyzing the cited references. Results emerged from micro, meso and macro-level analyses of collaborations show that the distributions among authors collaboration and affiliations of authors follow a power law. Thus, very few authors keep producing most of the papers and are from few institutions. We find that China is leading in the production of a number of authors and a number of papers; however, shares more of national collaboration rather than international, whereas the USA shares more international collaboration. Finally, we demonstrate the evolution of the author’s collaborations and affiliations networks from 2000 to 2019. Overall the analysis reveals the “small-world” property of the network with average path length 5. As a consequence of our analysis, this study can serve as an in-depth knowledge to understand the growth and dynamics of Econophysics network both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Impact of h-index on authors ranking: A comparative analysis of Scopus and WoS.

Abstract: In academia, the research performance of the faculty members is either evaluated by the number of publications or the number of citations. Most of the time h-index is widely used during the hiring process or the faculty performance evaluation. The calculation of the h-index is shown in various databases; however, there is no recent or systematic evidence about the differences between them. In this study, we compare the difference in the h-index compiled with Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) with the aim of analyzing the ranking of the authors within a university. We analyze the publication records of 350 authors from Monash University (Australia). We also investigate the discipline wise variation in the authors ranking. 31% of the author's profiles show no variation in the two datasets whereas 55% of the author's profiles show a higher count in Scopus and 9% in WoS. The maximum difference in h-index count among Scopus and WoS is 3. On average 12.4% of publications per author are unique in Scopus and 4.1% in WoS. 53.5% of publications are common in both Scopus and WoS. Despite larger unique publications in Scopus, there is no difference shown in the Spearman correlation coefficient between WoS and Scopus citation counts and h-index.

Impact of $h$-index on authors ranking: An improvement to the h-index for lower-ranked author.

Abstract: In academia, the research performance of a faculty is either evaluated by the number of publications or the number of citations. Most of the time h-index is widely used during the hiring process or the faculty performance evaluation. The calculation of the h-index is shown in various databases; however, there is no systematic evidence about the differences between them. Here we analyze the publication records of 385 authors from Monash University (Australia) to investigate (i) the impact of different databases like Scopus and WoS on the ranking of authors within a discipline, and (ii) to complement the $h$-index, named $h_c$, by adding the weight of the highest cited paper to the $h$-index of the authors. The results show the positive impact of $h_c$ on the lower-ranked authors in every discipline. Also, Scopus provides an overall better ranking than WoS; however, the ranking varies among Scopus and WoS for disciplines.

The effect of gamification on motivation and engagement

Abstract: Gamification is the application of game features, mainly video game elements, into non-game context for the purpose of promoting motivation and engagement in learning. The application of gamification in a pedagogical context provides some remedy for many students who find themselves alienated by traditional methods of instruction. The use of gamification could provide a partial solution to the decline in learners’ motivation and engagement the schooling system is facing today. Specifically, the college environment could benefit a lot from gamifying not only their graduate recruitment strategies, but also the college course content and curricula. This critical analysis of literature on gamification is intended to be part of a sequence on the effect of gamification on motivation and engagement. A proposed methodology in the study of gamification effect on motivation and engagement in addition to an empirical study on three college courses are being finalized to complete this trilogy. The paper aims to discuss these issues.,Themes covered in the literature review include: conceptualizing gamification, advantages of gamification over game-based learning, theoretical connections to gamification, motivation and engagement, connecting gamification to motivation and engagement, emotions and fun in gamification, player types and gamification features, gamification in action, and implementation guidelines.,The literature on the effect of gamification on motivation and gamification is still limited on multiple levels. There is a gap between theory and practice in the study of gamification. There is limited literature on the implementation guidelines of the gamified designs.,This critical analysis of literature is followed by connecting it to future research by the same author as part of a sequence on the effect of gamification on motivation and engagement. The second project, will be proposing a methodology for any successful design to provide a holistic understanding of the topic of gamification. Finally, an empirical study on the effect of gamification on students’ motivation and engagement in three college courses will be submitted to complete the trilogy.,This paper is a literature review, so there is a strong connection to literature on this topic. However, the synthesis of the themes and ideas are original. The literature review is extensive and covers the different aspects of the topic of gamification and its relationship to motivation and engagement.

Comparing success and engagement in gamified learning experiences via Kahoot and Quizizz

Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the reflections of gamification activities that are used as a formative assessment tool based on academic achievement and student engagement in learning environments. It was also aimed to investigate whether the utilization of the gamification tool led to a difference in academic achievement and student engagement. Three research groups were determined; two experimental groups where 7E instructional model gamified with Kahoot and Quizizz was implemented and a control group where conventional 7E instruction method was implemented. The groups were determined by random assignment of 97 pre-service teachers who took scientific research methods course in the 2017–2018 academic year spring semester. However, since only 71 of the assigned pre-service teachers voluntarily participated in the study, the study data included 71 pre-service teachers. At the beginning and the end of the six-week-long instruction activities, the academic achievement test and student engagement scale on the content instructed in the six-week-long scientific research methods course were applied. Furthermore, in-depth views of pre-service teachers were obtained with focus group interviews. Therefore, the study was conducted with mixed design principles. The study findings demonstrated that the scientific research methods academic achievement x student engagement × group interaction model (Wilks's lambda = .819, F[2, 66] = 7.301, p

The Shift to Gamification in Education: A Review on Dominant Issues:

Abstract: This article examines gamification literature on education since 2011. Using highlighted themes from Kirriemuir and McFarlane’s review on games and education as a starting point, the study identifi...