The purpose of this article is to overview various challenges that prospective authors of quality systematic reviews should be prepared to address. These challenges pertain to all phases of the ...review process: from posing a critical question worthy of pursuit and executing a search procedure that is appropriately framed and transparently recorded, to discerning patterns and trends within the resulting data that speak directly to the critical question framing the review. For each of these challenges, suggestions are offered as to how authors might respond so as to enhance the quality of the review process and increase the value of findings for educational research, practice, and policymaking.
Despite the buzz around gamification as an exciting new method to engage students, evidence of its ability to enhance learning is mixed. In fact, gamification has attracted considerable controversy ...(“gamification is bullshit”) and some derogatory labels such as “exploitationware.” Therefore, in order to make the case for or against gamification in education, it is important to examine the effects (if any) of gamification on student learning achievements. This study is a meta-analysis of 30 independent interventions (3,202 participants) drawn from 24 quantitative studies that have examined the effects of gamification on student academic performance in various educational settings. The results show an overall significant medium effect size in favor of gamification over learning without gamification (Hedges' g = 0.504, 95% CI 0.284–0.723, p < 0.001). No publication bias is detected. An analysis of 32 qualitative studies reveals four reasons for learners' enjoyment of gamification: (a) gamification can foster enthusiasm; (b) gamification can provide feedback on performance; (c) gamification can fulfill learners’ needs for recognition; and (d) gamification can promote goal setting, and two reasons for their dislike of gamification: (a) gamification does not bring additional utility and (b) gamification can cause anxiety or jealousy. We conclude by highlighting two unresolved questions, and suggesting several future research directions concerning gamification in educational contexts.
•Gamification can increase student learning performance (effect size of 0.504).•Shorter gamified interventions have greater average effect sizes.•Participants report four main reasons why they enjoy gamification.•Participants report two main reasons why they dislike gamification.•Two main unresolved questions in gamification research are highlighted.
•The study examined trace data to identify learning strategies in a flipped classroom.•Clustering of students' learning sequences revealed 4 learning strategies.•Clustering of students based on the ...adopted strategies led to 5 student profiles.•The identified strategy-based student profiles differed in their exam scores.•Students tend to change the adopted strategies and move towards less effective ones.
The global increase in recreational escape rooms has inspired teachers around the world to implement escape rooms in educational settings. As escape rooms are increasingly popular in education, there ...is a need to evaluate their use, and a need for guidelines to develop and implement escape rooms in the classroom. This systematic review synthesizes current practices and experiences, focussing on important educational and game design aspects. Subsequently, relations between the game design aspects and the educational aspects are studied. Finally, student outcomes are related to the intended goals. Educators in different disciplines appear to have different motives for using the game’s time constraints and teamwork. These educators make different choices for related game aspects such as the structuring of the puzzles. Unlike recreational escape rooms, in educational escape rooms players need to reach the game goal by achieving the educational goals. More alignment in game mechanics and pedagogical approaches is recommended. There is a discrepancy in perceived and actual learning of content knowledge in recreational escape rooms. Recommendations in the article for developing and implementing escape rooms in education will help educators in creating these new learning environments, and eventually help students to foster knowledge and skills more effectively.
Usually, educational escape rooms are based on recreational escape roomsThere is a discrepancy in perceived and actual learning in educational escape roomsEducators use the game's time constraints and teamwork for different reasonsIn educational escape rooms more alignment in game and educational aspects is neededDebriefings with reflection on learning might improve educational escape rooms
We analyzed relations between teachers’ perception of the school goal structure, workload, self-efficacy, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and motivation to leave the teaching profession. ...Participants were 760 Norwegian teachers from grade 1 to 10. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. We found two main routes to motivation to leave, one from the perception of a learning goal structure via teacher self-efficacy and job satisfaction, leading to lower motivation to leave, and another from the perception of a performance goal structure via increased workload and emotional exhaustion, leading to higher motivation to leave.
•We measured teacher perception of the school goal structure.•A learning structure predicted lower motivation to leave the teaching profession.•This association was mediated through higher self-efficacy and job satisfaction.•A performance structure predicted higher motivation to leave the profession.•This association was mediated through higher workload and emotional exhaustion.
This study reports on a systematic review of what, how, and why teacher educators learn. For this purpose, seventy-five research articles were analyzed. Results show that research on teacher ...educators' professional learning appears to be a growing field of interest but fragmented in focus. Our review indicates: (a) there is no clear knowledge base essential for teacher educators' work, (b) teacher educators undertake different activities from which to learn, and (c) they generally experience the need to learn to do their work as teacher educators. Our study may contribute to understanding and supporting teacher educators' professional learning during their career.
•Research on teacher educators' professional learning remains fragmented in focus.•A clear knowledge base essential for the work of teacher educators is lacking.•Teacher educators learn from different kinds of learning activities.•Teacher educators feel both intrinsic and extrinsic needs to learn.•Our study contributes to developing a professional development program for teacher educators.
Cronbach’s alpha is a statistic commonly quoted by authors to demonstrate that tests and scales that have been constructed or adopted for research projects are fit for purpose. Cronbach’s alpha is ...regularly adopted in studies in science education: it was referred to in 69 different papers published in 4 leading science education journals in a single year (2015)—usually as a measure of reliability. This article explores how this statistic is used in reporting science education research and what it represents. Authors often cite alpha values with little commentary to explain why they feel this statistic is relevant and seldom interpret the result for readers beyond citing an arbitrary threshold for an
acceptable
value. Those authors who do offer readers qualitative descriptors interpreting alpha values adopt a diverse and seemingly arbitrary terminology. More seriously, illustrative examples from the science education literature demonstrate that alpha may be
acceptable
even when there are recognised problems with the scales concerned. Alpha is also sometimes inappropriately used to claim an instrument is unidimensional. It is argued that a high value of alpha offers limited evidence of the
reliability
of a research instrument, and that indeed a very high value may actually be undesirable when developing a test of scientific knowledge or understanding. Guidance is offered to authors reporting, and readers evaluating, studies that present Cronbach’s alpha statistic as evidence of instrument quality.
Researchers commonly interpret effect sizes by applying benchmarks proposed by Jacob Cohen over a half century ago. However, effects that are small by Cohen’s standards are large relative to the ...impacts of most field-based interventions. These benchmarks also fail to consider important differences in study features, program costs, and scalability. In this article, I present five broad guidelines for interpreting effect sizes that are applicable across the social sciences. I then propose a more structured schema with new empirical benchmarks for interpreting a specific class of studies: causal research on education interventions with standardized achievement outcomes. Together, these tools provide a practical approach for incorporating study features, costs, and scalability into the process of interpreting the policy importance of effect sizes.
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