The current study explored the effects of using digital flashcards (DFs) and mobile devices on learning academic vocabulary. The participants were 86 university students majoring in Psychology in two ...experimental conditions and one control group. A list of 361 core academic words frequently used in Psychology was taught to the participants using different materials, and the learning outcomes were compared across the three groups. Accordingly, the participants in the experimental group 1 (
N
= 31) used a DF application (i.e., NAWL builder), participants in the experimental group 2 (
N
= 30) used traditional materials (i.e., paper flashcards), and those in the control group were given a list of target words with their definitions. Receptive knowledge of the target words was tested before and after the treatment, and the learning outcomes were compared across the groups using one-way between-groups ANOVA. The findings of the study indicated that using DFs enhanced students’ engagement with learning their discipline-specific academic vocabulary and that experimental group 1 outperformed those participants in other learning conditions. The findings add to the existing literature on mobile-assisted vocabulary learning and provide empirical support for the effectiveness of such platforms for learning academic vocabulary. The implications of the study were discussed in terms of the affordances provided by DFs on mobile devices and corpus-based word lists for informing vocabulary learning components in teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP).
Focus on forms (FonFs) is a pedagogical approach in Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) that emphasizes students' conscious and direct attention to learning target language features in ...isolation and outside their meaningful context. FonFs has been employed extensively in foreign language vocabulary instruction, and earlier studies reported positive results for such interventions. The present study investigated mobile-assisted FonFs in the context of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) to address the vocabulary learning needs of Iranian EFL students and examined developments in receptive and productive knowledge of academic words. In doing so, the participants in the experimental learning condition (
= 22) were exposed to academic vocabulary using digital flashcards on their mobile phones, and those in the control group (
= 15) used word lists. The participants' vocabulary knowledge was tested using different measures before and after the treatments, and the results were compared using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The findings indicated that mobile-assisted FonFs was effective in receptive and productive vocabulary learning, and the experimental group outperformed the control group in the post-tests. The effect size of the observed differences was also large; however, differences in productive aspects of academic vocabulary knowledge were associated with smaller learning effects for mobile-assisted FonFs. The study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on mobile-assisted language learning and highlights some implications for teaching academic vocabulary
mobile-assisted FonFs.
Vocabulary plays an important role in determining the students’ ability for speaking because it is basic before children can produce words. Therefore, the teacher needs media as a tool to introduce ...those words to their students in the classroom. Flashcards is one of the media usually used by teachers at kindergartens in the Sintang Regency for teaching vocabulary for young learners. This research aims to evaluate the effects of using flashcard media for teaching vocabulary and identify the teachers’ responses towards the use of flashcard media for teaching vocabulary at kindergartens in Sintang Regency, West Kalimantan. This descriptive research qualitative research as an evaluation study is designed to explore the effects of the media on the students and teachers’ perspective. The data in this research were gathered through questionnaires with fifty-one participants and a semi-structured interview with five participants in Sintang Regency. The data analysis techniques used scale Likert in order researchers know how the use of flashcards by the teachers. The study’s results revealed that teachers believe that using flashcards is essential for teaching vocabulary to young learners. Thus, the teachers have various flashcards that can be applied for teaching vocabulary to young learners, for using colourful flashcards with different sizes. It is expected that this research gives references and knowledge for the kindergarten teachers who teach young learners so they could use the same media but with different types of flashcards types.
Augmented Reality (AR) flashcards have emerged as an important educational resource for language learning. However, there is limited research on its application in early childhood education. This ...article aims to explore the technology’s value in early childhood education by comparing it with traditional paper flashcards. To that end, a study was conducted in which 98 children, aged between 5 and 6 years, and four teachers, all from a Macau kindergarten, took part. One group of children had animal-related vocabulary using AR flashcards, while another group used traditional flashcards. To measure the effectiveness of the two approaches, the children underwent pre- and posttests on their vocabulary and the teachers were interviewed. For the data analysis, paired-sample t tests and independent-sample t tests were utilized, and the level of effect was measured. The results showed that both AR and traditional flashcards could significantly improve children’s vocabulary learning and that there was no significant difference in effectiveness between the AR and traditional flashcard methods. The teachers indicated that the children enjoyed the AR learning activities, but that there were certain challenges associated with using AR flashcards in a kindergarten setting.
Over the past two decades, digital flashcards - that is, computer programmes, smartphone apps, and online services that mimic, and potentially improve upon, the capabilities of traditional paper ...flashcards - have grown in variety and popularity. Many digital flashcard platforms allow learners to make or use flashcards from a variety of sources and customise the way in which flashcards are used. Yet relatively little is known about why and how students actually use digital flashcards during self-regulated learning, and whether such uses are supported by research from the science of learning. To address these questions, we conducted a large survey of undergraduate students (n = 901) at a major U.S. university. The survey revealed insights into the popularity, acquisition, and usage of digital flashcards, beliefs about how digital flashcards are to be used during self-regulated learning, and differences in uses of paper versus digital flashcards, all of which have implications for the optimisation of student learning. Overall, our results suggest that college students commonly use digital flashcards in a manner that only partially reflects evidence-based learning principles, and as such, the pedagogical potential of digital flashcards remains to be fully realised.
Dental education in India predominantly relies on traditional lecture-based learning (LBL), which may hinder student engagement and learning outcomes. To address these limitations, innovative ...learning methodologies, such as spaced repetition learning (SRL), are imperative. SRL prioritizes active recall and can enhance long-term knowledge retention. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of SRL delivered through a mobile flashcard application, in enhancing knowledge retention among dental undergraduates.
This single-blind randomized controlled trial (CTRI/2023/10/059347), conducted in Belagavi, India, involved 90 dental students who were equally distributed into control (LBL) and test (lecture followed by SRL demonstration) groups after randomization. Rigorous expert review ensured the quality of PowerPoint presentation and mobile flashcard contents. Knowledge assessments were conducted at baseline, first, and third months using a validated and reliable questionnaire. A perception survey on learning techniques was administered after the first month. Analysis methods included descriptive analysis, Pearson's chi-square test, independent t-test, and repeated measures ANOVA with Bonferroni's post hoc test.
The pre- and post-intervention knowledge showed no significant differences, but the SRL group exhibited significantly higher retention at both first month (p ≤ 0.001) and third months (p ≤ 0.001) than the LBL group. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed significant pairwise differences in mean knowledge scores in SRL group. Students had significantly favorable perception toward SRL than LBL group.
SRL delivered through mobile flashcards significantly enhances knowledge retention compared to LBL among dental students. Positive student perceptions support SRL's integration into dental curricula, with implications for improving knowledge retention among them.
The concept and existence of learning styles has been fraught with controversy, and recent studies have thrown their existence into doubt. Yet, many students still hold to the conventional wisdom ...that learning styles are legitimate, and may adapt their outside of class study strategies to match these learning styles. Thus, this study aims to assess if undergraduate anatomy students are more likely to utilize study strategies that align with their hypothetical learning styles (using the VARK analysis from Fleming and Mills, Fleming ND, 1992, Improve Acad. 11:137-155) and, if so, does this alignment correlate with their outcome in an anatomy course. Relatedly, this study examines whether students' VARK learning styles are correlated with course outcomes regardless of the students' study strategies, and whether any study strategies are correlated with course outcomes, regardless of student-specific VARK results. A total of 426 anatomy students from the 2015 and 2016 Fall semesters completed a study strategies survey and an online VARK questionnaire. Results demonstrated that most students did not report study strategies that correlated with their VARK assessment, and that student performance in anatomy was not correlated with their score in any VARK categories. Rather, some specific study strategies (irrespective of VARK results), such as use of the virtual microscope, were found to be positively correlated with final class grade. However, the alignment of these study strategies with VARK results had no correlation with anatomy course outcomes. Thus, this research provides further evidence that the conventional wisdom about learning styles should be rejected by educators and students alike.
The present study investigated the impacts of mobile assisted vocabulary learning
via
digital flashcards (DFs). The data were collected from 44 adult English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners in ...three intact classes in a private language teaching institute in Iran, randomly assigned to experimental (
N
= 27) and control (
N
= 17) learning conditions. The experimental group used a freely available DF application (i.e., NGSL builder) to learn items from a recently developed corpus-based word list for high-frequency vocabulary in English (NGSL). The treatment was implemented as out-of-the-classroom learning activities where the EFL learners used DFs to augment their vocabulary knowledge, and their learning gains were compared to the control group that received regular English language education. The participants’ vocabulary knowledge was tested in pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests, and the findings indicated that using DFs for outside the classroom vocabulary learning contributed significantly to short- and long-term improvements in the knowledge of high-frequency words. The study provided empirical evidence for the affordances of mobile assisted vocabulary learning for learning a considerable proportion of core vocabulary and has some implications for addressing the vocabulary learning needs of EFL learners.
Digital flashcards are widely used and studied for vocabulary, but no previous research has examined this tool for grammar learning. This paper addresses this gap by asking whether full-sentence ...flashcard training could cause learners to notice and accurately use grammatical patterns. The participants (N = 31), school-aged independent English learners in rural Cambodia, underwent 8 sessions of typing translations from their first language, Khmer, to English using the smartphone app Cram.com Flashcards, with items disappearing only when answered without errors. Their performance on trained and untrained items was assessed before treatment, immediately after treatment, and 2 and 18 weeks after treatment. Before the final delayed post-test, one group (N = 14) underwent a single refresher session in order to observe its effects on retention. Results showed high gains for all participants (M = 82%) and minimal losses at the second delayed post-test. Equal gains between trained and untrained items demonstrated that participants had indeed inferred grammar rules from the training, and the refresher fully mitigated losses. Further research into digital flashcards for grammar is recommended, to ascertain which factors determine success.
•Digital flashcards can be used to significantly improve grammatical accuracy.•Repeated retrieval attempts with feedback on incorrect responses ensures noticing.•Ensuring noticing of forms with output leads to high gains and long term retention.•Mobile apps promote independent language learning, also in low-resource settings.
Digital flashcards are an increasingly popular study method for medical students today. The purpose of this study is to assess students' opinions on digital flashcards and to evaluate the need for ...radiology-focused digital flashcards. We created the first official Radiology-Pathology (Rad-Path) Correlation course digital flashcard deck sponsored by the Alliance of Medical Student Educators in Radiology (AMSER), and evaluated its effectiveness in increasing medical students' confidence levels of understanding Rad-Path concepts.
A 16-question survey was developed and publicly shared with medical students to assess the need for a high-quality radiology deck. In addition, students who trialed the AMSER Rad-Path Anki deck were assessed on their confidence of radiology pathology concepts prior to and after using these digital flashcards.
185 survey responses were received for the first survey about digital flashcard use. Overall, 87.6% of medical student respondents had used digital flashcards during medical school, and 33.5% had used digital flashcards to study radiology topics specifically. 67.6% of respondents stated they would use a digital flashcard deck if sponsored by an academic radiology society. Regarding the survey of the students who used the AMSER Rad-Path flashcards, 31 responses were received in the pre- and follow-up survey. Mean confidence in understanding the radiology pathology learning objectives increased when the Rad-Path Anki deck was utilized, and students rated the flashcards favorably.
Students reported a high use of digital flashcards for studying topics in medical school. We identified a perceived need in students for a series of high-quality digital flashcards covering radiology topics. We created the first deck of AMSER Rad-Path flashcards which was well received by the medical students.
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