2016 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Assessing the Validity of a Ubiquitous Learning Environment through a Holistic Assessment Approach
| Project/Area Number |
16K02895
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| Research Institution | Tokai University |
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Principal Investigator |
田中エリス 伸枝 東海大学, 国際教育センター, 講師 (70593698)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
関口 幸代 明治学院大学, 文学部, 准教授 (20524466)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
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| Keywords | Ubiquitous Learning / CLIL / Leadership Skills / Blended Learning / Flipped Learning |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The purposes of this study are three fold: First, we attempt to capture a BL/UL environment by determining what actors are involved in the learning environment under study and how each actor influence learners’ learning behaviours. Second, we attempt to measure learners’ learning outcomes more accurately in a few different ways. New analytical tool is to be introduced to see if it can measure L2 oral outputs produced by low-proficient learners more accurately than the traditional CAF measures. Third, online learning materials are critically analysed for their efficacy and efficiency by determining what materials should be included online, and what tasks are more efficient than the other.
We have been collecting data from a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) course teaching leadership skills at Meiji Gakuin University. Since it was the first year, we were using this period as a trial period to determine the quantity of data we collect and test technical aspects of collecting in-class video and audio data and the log data collected from the course website. We have also conducted interviews with the students to see how they perceived this course, level of understanding of the content delivered only in English, and how their speaking and cognitive abilities changed over the course of 15 weeks. The data so far suggested that students language skills are important for understanding the course, however, their cognitive skills may be as important.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
We have been able to collect necessary data so far, although it too a while to get an approval from the ethics committee at Tokai University as the data has been collected from Meiji Gakuin University and needed to get a letter from them to submit it to Tokai University. Because of that we lost a few weeks in the last semester. The collected data was transcribed by a teaching assistant at Meiji Gakuin University. We were able to obtain some good set of preliminary findings, which allowed us to present two academic papers at an educational conference at the end of last academic year. We have been briefing every week and constantly improving how we conduct the course under study as well as methods for efficient data collection and analyses.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
As it was mentioned in the application form, we are going to stick to the plan: in the first semester of 2017, we are providing more improved version of the course and will try more efficient way(s) of data collection. The course activities have been reformulated in a way for the students to complete their in-class and homework tasks less confusing so that all the participating students learn the content.
In the second semester of 2017, we will further improve the course materials and the course delivery. One of the challenges that we had last year was that although a language learning components were not explicitly delineated in the syllabus (and it should be content-based class), students perceived the course as an English course rather than a leadership course.
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| Causes of Carryover |
A research assistant was going to employed for decoding the data, however, the research collaborator was able to provide an assistant with a different funding source (provided by the collaborator's university) so that it was not necessary to employ an assistant for this year.
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| Expenditure Plan for Carryover Budget |
We are going to use the remaining amount for employing a research assistant as we started to get more data and there would not be enough manpower to decode everything we have in the time frame we have for this research.
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