Ενσωμάτωση παιδαγωγικών προσεγγίσεων στην ανάπτυξη λογισμικού για τη δευτεροβάθμια εκπαίδευση

Λιναρδάτος, Γεράσιμος

Integration of pedagogical approaches in software development for secondary education

Doctoral Thesis

Author

Λιναρδάτος, Γεράσιμος

Date

2024-02

Abstract

The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has not left education unaffected. Since students encounter, everywhere, representations of information in a variety of forms, they must be able to understand, evaluate and produce them. Therefore, acquiring a set of skills to interpret and synthesize messages containing these formats is imperative. These cognitive functions include critical thinking, construction of meaning, drawing conclusions, communication, as well as eliciting emotions and general attitudes. These skills can be taught and, it is important to promote them in schools, with students' previous experience playing a central role. The concept of multiliteracies, therefore, brings new challenges, directs teachers’ efforts and stimulates students’ interest. The integration of ICT into teaching practice provides teachers with new opportunities to increase student engagement in learning activities, improve their teaching quality, offer new and more learning opportunities, as well as, find alternative possibilities for implementing modern learning environments and, therefore, achieving better learning outcomes. Among the available ICT, the digital comics creation is particularly interesting. It is an innovative pedagogical approach to motivate and engage students in school activities. It benefits from the effectiveness of the multimodality of comics and offers students the opportunity to assess the knowledge levels of the learning subjects they are asked to deal with, making the appropriate adjustments, where necessary. The current thesis compares the effectiveness of students' digital comics creation in the construction of their knowledge with that of a traditional, lecture-based teaching approach in an authentic classroom setting. The effectiveness of the digital comics creation is examined along with the effect of the students’ gender factor and the learning subject factor. The results of the study are in favor of the students' digital comics creation as they reveal a statistically significant difference between the two teaching approaches. The study also reveals that the effectiveness of students' digital comics creation does not affect boys and girls differently and highlights the role of the learning subject. The creation of digital comics, including active processing of the learning materials, can improve learning for both genders by encouraging its use in authentic classroom settings. The current thesis also investigates the students' acceptance of the digital comics creation in the learning processes in the classroom and aims to identify the factors that influence it. Digital comics creation combines the popular and familiar medium of comics with the computers. The research model used to explain students' preference for digital comics creation is based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The statistical analysis of the data uses the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze data and examine the research model and corresponding hypotheses. The results show that students prefer the digital comics creation in the classroom and confirm the acceptance of the model. They also show that students' preference for digital comics creation is, directly, influenced by the perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use that the digital comics creation offers. Among them, perceived enjoyment is the strongest influencing factor. Digital comic creation self-efficacy was a significant indirect factor of students' preference for digital comic creation through perceived ease of use. It is important that these factors are taken into account in the integration of digital comic creation or similar activities into the school reality, in order to attract students’ interest and participation. Digital comics creation is a promising tool to enable students to construct new knowledge. Comics have already been adopted in several domains, as the combination of text and images has been recognized as a powerful learning tool. All educational activities and tools, however, should not create an overload on the students' cognitive system, which will hinder learning. The current thesis, moreover, investigates, through the multidimensional NASA-TLX, the cognitive load imposed on students. This investigation is carried out in conjunction with the investigation of the effectiveness of the digital comics creation, by comparing students’ performance in a-few-minute written tests before and after the digital comics creation. The results of this comparison are, again, in favor of digital comics creation. The cognitive load fluctuated at normal levels, like most of its dimensions, which is considered as a positive indication for maintaining the students' interest in the specific activity, taking into account the positive result of comparing the students' performance in the written tests before and after the comics creation. The process of weighting each dimension of the cognitive load showed that frustration and temporal demand are the most aggravating dimensions on the students’ efforts. Finally, this thesis presents useful conclusions for teachers and suggests future research directions that are created by the results and the specific research procedure.

Department

Σχολή Τεχνολογιών Πληροφορικής και Επικοινωνιών. Τμήμα Πληροφορικής

Number of pages

245

Language

Greek

URI

https://dione.lib.unipi.gr/xmlui/handle/unipi/16427
http://dx.doi.org/10.26267/unipi_dione/3849

Collections

Τμήμα Πληροφορικής

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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as
Αναφορά Δημιουργού-Μη Εμπορική Χρήση-Όχι Παράγωγα Έργα 3.0 Ελλάδα