Awarding Digital Badges to Certify Accomplishment and Enhance Learner Autonomy

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K02718
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Foreign language education
• Research Institution: Shimane University
• Principal Investigator: IWATA JUN 島根大学, 医学部, 教授 (00280438)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 汪 曙東 島根大学, 外国語教育センター, 准教授 (50435046)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 医学英語教育 / eラーニング / バッジ認証 / ESP / CALL

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Digital portfolios can provide a space where learners’ evidence of their competencies are stored and digital badges can be used as valid indicators of accomplishment, skill or knowledge on the portfolios. We implemented the idea of issuing ‘badges’ to our students who have successfully completed the Medical English Terminology course we have developed on Moodle. The badges students earn on the course were designed to functions as a validated indicator of students’ achievements. Through the reflective questionnaire about the use of the badge function, 95.0% of the students found the use of badges helpful in confirming their achievements they had had on the courses and 68.7% of them found the earning badges helped motivate them toward further autonomous study on the course. These findings indicate that digital badges can provide students with opportunities to celebrate their achievements and enhance their learner autonomy for online self-study courses.

Free Research Field

英語教育