Media Research Center

About: Media Research Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Collaborative learning & Educational technology. The organization has 491 authors who have published 950 publications receiving 28581 citations. The organization is also known as: MRC.

Knowledge acquisition by hypervideo design: An instructional program for university courses.

Abstract: This article presents an instructional program for collaborative construction of hypervideos. The instructional program integrates (a) hypervideo technology development, (b) assumptions on learning with hypervideo systems, and (c) the application of research on knowledge acquisition by writing texts or hypertexts to hypervideos. The aim of the program is to support knowledge transforming processes (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Stahl & Bromme, 2004) by collaborative construction of hypervideos. In the fi rst part of the article a hypervideo system that enables collaborative design activities by users is described. Afterwards the instructional program is presented in detail. Results of evaluation are consistent with the assumptions. The courses showed to be successful and well appreciated by the students.

How students deal with inconsistencies in health knowledge.

Abstract: Objectives In their work, health care professionals have to deal daily with inconsistent health information and are confronted with differing therapeutic health concepts. Medical education should prepare students to handle these challenges adequately. The aim of this study was to contribute to a better understanding of how students deal with inconsistencies in health knowledge when they are presented with either a therapeutic concept they accept or one they reject. Methods Seventy-six students of physiotherapy participated in this 2 × 2 experiment with health information (consistent versus inconsistent information) and therapeutic concept (congruent versus contradictory therapeutic concept) as between-group factors. The participants' task was to improve the quality of a text about the effectiveness of stretching; participants were randomly assigned to one of four texts. Knowledge acquisition and text modification were measured as dependent variables. Results Students acquired more knowledge when they worked with a text containing inconsistent information. Medical information that was presented in agreement with a student's therapeutic concept was also more readily acquired than the same information presented posing a contradictory therapeutic concept. Participants modified the contradictory text in order to adapt it to their own point of view. Disagreement resulted in a disregard or devaluation of the information itself, which in turn was detrimental to learning. Conclusions It is a problem when prospective health care professionals turn a blind eye to discrepancies that do not fit their view of the world. It may be useful for educational purposes to include a knowledge conflict caused by a combination of conviction and inconsistent information to facilitate learning processes.

Development of aroma-Card based soundless Olfactory Display

Abstract: Previously, mechanical devices have been used for the controlled release of aroma molecules. Therefore, noise associated with the operation of the device could not be avoided, prior to every transmission of aroma information. Moreover, as the aroma source was located inside or in the bottom of the device, it had a problem of odor components adhering to the device structure. In this research, we focus on a chemical container of temperature responsive hydrogel, which can have reversible phase transition between sol and gel, and controlled release of aroma by using a peltier module to control the temperature. With this approach, a soundless olfactory display was achieved. In addition, we tried to solve the problem of odor component adhesion by arranging a card-based aroma source on the top of the olfactory display. Having evaluated the usability of the card-based olfactory display, we were able to confirm its effectiveness and efficiency.

Decimal fraction representations are not distinct from natural number representations – evidence from a combined eye-tracking and computational modeling approach

Abstract: Decimal fractions comply with the base-10 notational system of natural Arabic numbers. Nevertheless, recent research suggested that decimal fractions may be represented differently than natural numbers because two number processing effects (i.e., semantic interference and compatibility effects) differed in their size between decimal fractions and natural numbers. In the present study, we examined whether these differences indeed indicate that decimal fractions are represented differently from natural numbers. Therefore, we provided an alternative explanation for the semantic congruity effect, namely a string length congruity effect. Moreover, we suggest that the smaller compatibility effect for decimal fractions compared to natural numbers was driven by differences in processing strategy (sequential vs. parallel). To evaluate this claim, we manipulated the tenth and hundredth digits in a magnitude comparison task with participants’ eye movements recorded, while the unit digits remained identical. In addition, we evaluated whether our empirical findings could be simulated by an extended version of our computational model originally developed to simulate magnitude comparisons of two-digit natural numbers. In the eye-tracking study, we found evidence that participants processed decimal fractions more sequentially than natural numbers because of the identical leading digit. Importantly, our model was able to account for the smaller compatibility effect found for decimal fractions. Moreover, string length congruity was an alternative account for the prolonged reaction times for incongruent decimal pairs. Consequently, we suggest that representations of natural numbers and decimal fractions do not differ.