Elsevier

Computers & Education

Volume 70, January 2014, Pages 80-91
Computers & Education

A context-aware video prompt approach to improving students' in-field reflection levels

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2013.08.007Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Inquiry learning activities for improving students’ learning achievement.

  • Video-based reflection prompts for plant observation learning activities.

  • Learners' reflection levels improved in the context-aware learning environment.

Abstract

Engaging students in reflection during real-world observation and inquiry activities has been recognized as an important issue for improving students' learning achievement and motivation. Many studies in the literature have adopted text-based reflection prompts as an important strategy to promote learning performance, this study argues that using videos as a reflection prompt would be more effective for improving learners' ubiquitous learning experiences and can provide a more sensible scenario that is better fitting the real-world contexts than the text-based prompts. In this study, a context-aware video-based prompt approach is proposed for improving students' reflection levels and satisfaction by providing timely and personalized guidance using mobile, wireless communication and sensing technologies. An experiment was conducted for evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed video-based prompt strategy with 70 participants in two groups. The results show that learners' reflection levels were significantly improved with the use of the proposed approach and that positive attitudes were observed toward the use of video-based prompts in the context-aware ubiquitous learning environment.

Introduction

The rapid advancement of computer and network technologies has attracted researchers to develop web-based learning environments in which learners can access digital learning materials as well as utilize various learning facilities (Hsu et al., 2012, Ketelhut and Schifter, 2011). Although using such digital learning systems has the advantages of economy and convenience, educators have indicated the necessity of situating students in real-world environments, in which they can learn to deal with real-world issues and identify the problems to be coped with (Lave, 1991, Li and Lim, 2008).

At the same time, the efficiency and popularity of mobile and sensing technologies have provided a good opportunity to personalize learning guidance by conducting learning activities in real-world learning contexts (Chen et al., 2009, Hung et al., 2010). With the help of these new technologies, individual learners, by using mobile devices to access digital content via wireless communications, are able to learn in real-world situations with support or instructions from the computer system (Hwang and Chang, 2011, Shih et al., 2010). Furthermore, the learning systems are able to detect and record students’ learning behaviors in both the real world and the digital world with the help of the sensing technologies. Such a sensing technology-enhanced mobile learning has been called context-aware ubiquitous learning (Hwang, Tsai, & Yang, 2008). It not only provides learners with an alternative to deal with problems in the real world, but also enables the learning system to more actively assist the learners in the right place and at the right time (Chu et al., 2010, Ogata and Yano, 2004).

While context-aware ubiquitous learning is recognized as having high potential for motivating learners and improving their learning performance, researchers have also suggested the importance of providing effective learning support in order to benefit students in real-world learning activities (Hwang & Chang, 2011). Dewey (1933) firstly proposed the idea of reflection, which describes the process in which a learner thinks actively, continually and carefully about the learned knowledge and ultimately arrives at a conclusion. Bain, Ballantyne, Packer, and Mills (1999) further proposed five levels of reflection from low to high by analyzing a learner’s reflective writing, namely reporting, responding, relating, reasoning, and reconstructing. Many studies have confirmed that reflection is crucial for knowledge construction and contributes to learning performance (Chen et al., 2011, Chen et al., 2009, Deng and Yuen, 2012, Gao et al., 2011, Leijen et al., 2009, Quinton and Smallbone, 2010, Tan et al., 2011). Through reflection, learners can link their prior knowledge/experience with new idea/experience to create their own new knowledge. The deep thinking that occurs during the reflection process is the key point and this distinguishes it from memorization of learning materials (Marton and SÄAljÖ, 1976, Marton and SÄAljÖ, 1984); however, learners can hardly achieve deep thinking without guidance.

Without the support of reflection prompts, learners usually do not know how to reflect (Chen et al., 2009, Chen et al., 2009). With appropriate reflection prompts, learners can be guided to think deeply so as to improve their reflection levels. Previous research has tried to use prompts as learning guidance for learners to reflect during a learning process and found that learners’ reflection levels can be promoted by reflection prompts (Braine, 2009, Chen et al., 2009, Chen et al., 2009, King, 1994). Furthermore, empirical studies have found that well-guided reflection can help to improve learning performance (Camburn, 2010, McNamara et al., 2006). Most research has used a combination of pictures and text in designing learning materials for supporting the plant observation learning activity (Chu et al., 2010, Hwang et al., 2008). The text-based reflection prompt, which presents prompt purely in text format, is commonly and widely used in learning activities and is considered effective in promoting the reflection levels of learners in traditional classroom environments (Braine, 2009, Chen et al., 2009, Chen et al., 2009, Hsieh et al., 2011, Quinton and Smallbone, 2010).

In multimedia/computer-mediated learning, videos and animations are widely adopted in learning task orientations for guiding students the best way to learn the learning materials (Bannert et al., 2009, Domagk et al., 2010, Wouters et al., 2009). Although these research considered reflection prompts as an important strategy to promote learning performance, the designs of their reflection prompts were using the text-only format. According to the authentic learning and situated learning theory of Brown, Collins, and Duguid (1989) and the multimedia design principle of Mayer and Moreno (2003), this study argues that using videos as reflection prompts would be more helpful to learners for improving their mobile learning experiences and can provide a more sensible scenario that is better fitting the real-world contexts than the text-based prompts. Hence, this study adopted video-based reflective supports as the form of reflection prompts to increase information delivery affordance for outdoor learning activities.

The media richness theory has pointed out that a richer format of media can reduce the equivocality and uncertainty during information transfer (Daft, Lengel, & Trevino, 1987). For a learning task with some equivocality and uncertainty, learners can still manage to comprehend it if a richer format of media is provided (Sun & Cheng, 2007). Previous research has also indicated that more richly formatted learning materials can enhance learning performance when observing plant species (Chu et al., 2010, Chu et al., 2010, Hwang et al., 2008) or performing outdoor learning activities (Liu et al., 2009, Tan et al., 2007) since it enables learns to receive information from dual channels (i.e., visual and audio modes), as indicated by Mayer and Moreno (2003). Such richly formatted learning materials not only reduce learners' cognitive load, but also provide them with information that better meet the authentic scenarios and learning context (Brown et al., 1989).

In a traditional classroom, instructors usually use photos for learners to distinguish plant species when teaching plant recognition in a natural science course. However, it is difficult to learn the differences among a set of plant species with the limited clues provided in the photos. A plant observation learning activity in a real environment is therefore required to enhance the comprehension of learners. Previous research utilized mobile devices with learning support system to assist learners during ecological observation and this learning tool serves well in facilitating nature science learning activities (Huang et al., 2010, Liu et al., 2009, Tan et al., 2007). It is apparent that using multimedia learning materials including text, pictures, voice, and video clips can provide more positive effects on reflection levels (Liu et al., 2009, Tan et al., 2007). This study therefore aimed to design a Context-aware Reflection Prompt System (CRPS) and used it to enhance a plant observation learning activity in a context-aware ubiquitous learning environment. Specifically, a constellation of video-based reflection prompts were embedded in the CRPS to improve learners’ reflection levels. Learners not only review and revise their reflective thinking but also comprehend the learning content throughout the learning process.

Due to the complexity of the learning scenario and the learning topic, using a purely text-based reflection prompt was considered insufficient for achieving the expected learning outcome. Besides, the professional terminologies about the characteristics of the plant species are hard to learn in text forms without actual observations. Therefore, a concise representation of a reflection prompt for such kind of observation activity is also required. That is, using text-based reflection prompts alone may provide limited information to learners due to the small screen size of mobile devices. This study utilized a richer format of media (i.e., video clips) to design a video-based reflection prompt for conveying appropriate information to learners. With timely guidance provided by a video-based reflection prompt, learners were expected to perform better observations of several plant species in a real environment. To this end, this study designed a video-based reflection prompt strategy as part of a plant observation learning activity. To examine the effectiveness of the designed video-based reflection prompts on learners' reflection levels, a quasi-experiment was conducted to compare reflection levels and learning satisfaction of two groups of learners, one group adopting the video-based reflection prompts and the other group adopting the text-based reflection prompts.

Section snippets

Development of a context-aware reflection prompt system (CRPS)

This study implemented the Context-aware Reflection Prompt System (CRPS), which was designed to support learners in an observation and reflection process. In order to construct an outdoor context-aware ubiquitous learning environment, a mobile device was used to read the QR Code attached on the plants. As shown in Fig. 1, the CRPS could then locate every learner’s location and provide the specific video-based reflection prompts corresponding to learning materials for the particular plants being

Methods

This study investigated whether the use of video-based reflection prompts could promote learners' reflection levels while learning plant species in a context-aware ubiquitous learning environment. Text-based reflection prompts have been commonly adopted in previous research as a way to promote reflection levels (Hsieh et al., 2011, Quinton and Smallbone, 2010). However, the text-based reflection prompt strategy might not as effectively as video-based reflection prompt for guiding learners to do

Results

The descriptive statistics (Table 5) shows that 42 out of 65 subjects (64.62%) are male and 64 out of 65 subjects (98.46%) are post-graduate students. In order to understand the participants' prior experience of using a smartphone, this study used an independent samples t-test to assess the significance of the differences between the two groups. The results shown in Table 6 indicated that there was no significant difference in prior experience of using a smartphone (t = −0.310, p = 0.758)

Discussion

When learners are unable to figure out how to present their thoughts, instructors can find ways to provide them with timely prompts so as to promote deeper levels of reflection. However, an appropriate learning environment, which can elicit learners to present their thoughts, is also essential during the reflection process. Compared to a traditional classroom learning environment, an outdoor environment requires more effort from the instructors in helping learners engage in reflection simply

Conclusions

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of video-based reflection prompts on reflection levels in a context-aware ubiquitous learning environment. Although the text-based reflection prompt strategy has been proven effective in a classroom context, little research has been conducted on learning activities in an outdoor environment and on guiding learners with reflection prompts. This study adopted the characteristics of outdoor learning activities and provided video-based

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