No abstract

This study is concerned with online learners' 'flow' experiences. On the basis of Csikszentmihalyi's theory of flow, flow was conceptualised as a complex, multimentional, reflective construct composing of 'enjoyment', 'telepresence', 'focused attention', 'engagement' and 'time distortion' on the part of learners. A flow model was put forward with regard to virtual class environment in a traditional university context, comprised with flow antecedents, flow and flow consequences. Based on the model, a virtual-course flow measure was developed and administered to 525 undergraduate students engaged in virtual classes in order to examine the empirical relationships between measured flow antecedents, flow experiences and flow consequence-course satisfaction in this case. The analysis of the data showed that: (1) students' perceptions of their level of 'skill' and 'challenge' specific to each course are critical to determining the level of flow, (2) flow is a significant predictor of course satisfaction and (3) other than flow, individual differences such as 'gender' and 'having a clear goal' can make a significant difference in the level of flow in a virtual course. These findings are discussed along with the implications for bringing up a computer-mediated environment more conducive to flow and learning.

This paper argues that, apart from interactive activities, the perceptions of psychological presence that distance education students hold of their teachers, peer students, and the institution can be significant predictors of their learning. The "perception of presence" in this paper is defined as the degree to which a distance education student senses the availability of, and connectedness with, each party. This form of presence is designated here as "Transactional Presence" (TP). In this study, distance education student learning was assessed in the light of students' perceived learning achievement, satisfaction, and intent-to-persist. An analysis of student survey data indicates that a distance student's sense of institutional TP predicts all the selected measures to do with success in distance learning. While a sense of peer student TP is significantly related to satisfaction and intent-to-persist, the effect of teacher TP is found to relate only to student-perceived learning achievement. Implications of the TP construct are discussed with respect to the theory, research, and practice of distance education, along with recommendations for future research.

No abstract

25 Int. J. Human. Robot. 2008.05:25-46. Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com by MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY on 02/03/15. For personal use only. 26 T. Nomura et al.To broadly explore the rationale behind more socially acceptable robot design and to investigate the psychological aspects of social acceptance of robotics, a cross-cultural research instrument, the Robot Assumptions Questionnaire (RAQ) was administered to the university students in Japan, Korea, and the United States, focusing on five factors relating to humanoid and animal-type robots: relative autonomy, social relationship with humans, emotional aspects, roles assumed, and images held. As a result, it was found that (1) Students in Japan, Korea, and the United States tend to assume that humanoid robots perform concrete tasks in society, and that animal-type robots play a pet-or toy-like role;(2) Japanese students tend to more strongly assume that humanoid robots have somewhat human characteristics and that their roles are related to social activities including communication, than do the Korean and the US students; (3) Korean students tend to have more negative attitudes toward the social influences of robots, in particular, humanoid robots, than do the Japanese students, while more strongly assuming that robots' roles are related to medical fields than do the Japanese students, and (4) Students in the USA tend to have both more positive and more negative images of robots than do Japanese students, while more weakly assuming robots as blasphemous of nature than do Japanese and Korean students. In addition, the paper discusses some engineering implications of these research results.

This paper presents an exploratory study that investigates the effects of online learning on distance education students in an open university context. Two hypotheses are posited: (1) a direct relationship exists between students' involvement in online learning and distance learning outcomes, and (2) an indirect relationship exists between these two domains via the mediating variable of an institutional Transactional Presence (TP), that is, a student's sense of the availability of and connectedness with an educational institution. Student learning achievement, satisfaction and intent-to-persist are used as indicators of outcomes of distance learning. The analysis of data garnered from 285 distance students reveals multifaceted relationships between students' engagement in online learning, their perceptions of institutional TP and the three learning outcome variables. Besides the findings, the paper will discuss factors affecting students' engagement in online learning in relation to different requirements, that is, optional or compulsory online use as well as the level of the course (undergraduate or postgraduate). IntroductionThis paper presents an exploratory study that is part of a research project investigating the effects of online learning on various aspects of distance education at the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK). To support its students, the OUHK has developed an Online Learning Environment (OLE) for both English and Chinese courses. The aim of the OLE is to provide distance students with rich resources for learning as well as a more flexible mode of interaction with teachers and other students, thereby enriching students' learning experiences. This has been the standard rhetoric of distance education programme providers when they adopt online technology partly, or entirely, in a course delivery system. This belief, however, may weaken unless buttressed by valid evidence.

Robotics technology is expected to alter many aspects of people's lives as well as the field of education. The following study will be concerned with three scenarios in which robots were related to student learning, i. e. learning about, from, and with robots. The analysis of the interview data, garnered from 85 students, allows for an understanding of students' perceptions and attitudes towards robots and learning: (a) generally, the younger the students, the more enthusiastic they were about learning about robots; (b) robots were predominantly perceived as being male or having no sex; (c) the students found it possible to learn something from robots, though this itself did not suggest that they regarded teaching robots as teachers; (d) an element critically lacking in robots, which allowed them to act as qualified teachers, was the 'emotion' generally embedded in human behaviors and communications; and (e) in relation to the scenario of learning with robots, the students were expecting the robots to perform roles such as private tuition or that of learning tools rather than companions or collaborators.

No abstract