Over the last years there has been a growing interest in the use of educational games as learning tools. Educational games have proven to contribute in enhancing student motivation, increasing their engagement and providing them with personalized and adaptive learning. Learner modeling is a prerequisite when it comes to adaptive learning; it is…

Assessing scientific argumentation is one of main challenges in science education. Constructed-response (CR) items can be used to measure the coherence of student ideas and inform science instruction on argumentation. Published research on automated scoring of CR items has been conducted mostly in English writing, rarely in other languages. The…

Controlling complexity through the use of abstractions is a critical part of problem solving in programming. Thus, becoming proficient with procedural and data abstraction through the use of user-defined functions is important. Properly using functions for abstraction involves a number of other core concepts, such as parameter passing, scope and…

The changing landscape of science and science education has provided an impetus to re-imagine how science can be taught in schools. The dawn of the Big Data era, especially in astronomy, and the notion of "Science as Practice" are some of the developments driving this need for a re-imagination of science education. This current work…

Evidence suggests that the quality of teachers' instructional practices can be improved when these are informed by relevant assessment data. Drawing on a sample of 1,300 primary school teachers in Ireland, this study examined the extent to which teachers use standardized test results for instructional purposes as well as the role of several…

In the era of digitalization of learning and teaching processes, Educational Data Literacy (EDL) is highly valued and is becoming essential. EDL is conceptualized as the ability to collect, manage, analyse, comprehend, interpret, and act upon educational data in an ethical, meaningful, and critical manner. The professionals in the field of…

This article explores innovative and novel research methods and adaptive approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine visitor learning and proenvironmental behavior. We present a mixed methods study that used a methodological bricolage approach to field-based data collection. The pandemic limited our ability to carry out the original study…

Thanks to the development and deployment of federally funded satellite-, buoy-, and aircraft-based remote sensing instruments, continuous streams of Earth and space data are publicly available via online databases. This accessibility provides flexibility to explore geoscience data that are interesting and relevant to students--keystone components…

Making evidence-based decisions in schools seems like an impossible task when hundreds of activities are available, the evidence base fails to address most of them, and budget deadlines are immovable. In addition, different stakeholders hold different views on what it means for a program, strategy, or intervention to "work." Fiona…

The mobile food record™ (mFR™) is a novel app that allows for the tracking of individual food waste and addresses the limitations of current methods to accurately quantify food waste. Extension educators may use data from the mFR™ to create educational initiatives for food waste prevention and education that may be implemented in settings such as…

Virtual reality (VR) places individuals within a simulated experience using an array of visual, auditory, and tactile interfaces. Research suggests VR, which facilitates the rehearsal of actual job duties and performance assessment during training, may improve professional development across a range of disciplines. Although studies incorporating…

For food research, control, and production, valid and trustworthy analytical data are important. Our practical chemical food safety course for engineers therefore uses real-life studies for the ease of understanding the concept and the needed requirements for high analytical quality in relation to enabling correct evaluation of chemical food…

The discipline of data science is gaining attention due to a significant increase in the amount of data generated on a real-time basis. Despite the efforts from the institutions and national agencies, it has been witnessed that there have been substantial challenges in retaining and attracting students in the discipline of data science. Learning…

In wealthy countries such as Australia, learning and teaching practices in schools have become increasingly digitised as educational technology (EdTech) initiatives gather momentum. This digitisation inevitably involves rendering many dimensions of students' bodies, activities and practices into digital data formats across learning areas:…

Learnersourcing is emerging as a viable approach for mobilizing the learner community and harnessing the intelligence of learners as creators of learning resources. Previous works have demonstrated that the quality of resources developed by students is quite diverse with some resources meeting rigorous judgmental criteria, whereas other resources…