Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Bgsu Minecraft Initiative Website, Jacob Gusching

Honors Projects

A website for the BGSU Minecraft Initiative, a program that uses Minecraft as an educational tool to engage younger students to learn. This website is a communication tool to showcase the work of BGSU students and to spread the knowledge and lesson to plans to interested parties.

Lightcraft Previzion In Distance Education, Perry L. Cox

Open Access Theses

Visual Effects has continued to progress at an astonishing rate and green screen technology can be seen in all aspects of the video industry from Hollywood blockbusters down to training videos and distance education.

As video technology has increased, so has the quality and capability of distance education. Purdue University has set itself to be at the forefront of distance education. This study looked to evaluate Purdue's investment in the Lightcraft Technology's Previzion system and its impact on distance education at Purdue. There were 65 initial participants and this study compared the impact of two separate videos on their learning. …

Students' Explanations In Complex Learning Of Disciplinary Programming, Camilo Vieira

Open Access Dissertations

Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) has been denominated as the third pillar of science and as a set of important skills to solve the problems of a global society. Along with the theoretical and the experimental approaches, computation offers a third alternative to solve complex problems that require processing large amounts of data, or representing complex phenomena that are not easy to experiment with. Despite the relevance of CSE, current professionals and scientists are not well prepared to take advantage of this set of tools and methods. Computation is usually taught in an isolated way from engineering disciplines, and therefore, …

Using Machine Learning To Predict Student Achievement On The State Of Texas Assessment Of Academic Readiness Examination In Charter Schools, Christopher D. Gonzalez

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to research and develop a way to use machine learning algorithms (MLAs) to predict student achievement on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR), specifically in the charter school setting. Charter schools have the disadvantage of a constant influx in students, so providing historical student data in order to analyze trends proves difficult. This study expands on previous research done on students in secondary and post-secondary school and determining features that indicate success in these settings. The data used is from the district of IDEA Public Schools who focuses on providing education …

Family-Friendly Science: Increasing Family Engagement In Stem Education, Alison Bixler

Honors Projects

Family engagement is vital to a child’s success in his or her academic career. Current research has focused more specifically on the relationship between parent engagement in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and a student’s success in his or her STEM education. This paper is a summary of present research pertaining to this topic, as well as a summary of the results of a field-based study the author and faculty mentors completed to learn more about methods for engaging families in STEM education, particularly in the area of science. Present research indicates that a successful method for engaging …

Creating And Automatically Grading Annotated Questions, Alicia Crowder Wood

Theses and Dissertations

We have created a question type that allows teachers to easily create questions, helps provide an intuitive user experience for students to take questions, and reduces the time it currently takes teachers to grade and provide feedback to students. This question type, or an "annotated" question, will allow teachers to test students' knowledge in a particular subject area by having students "annotate" or mark text and video sources to answer questions. Through user testing we determined that overall the interface and the implemented system decrease the time it would take a teacher to grade annotated quiz questions. However, there are …

Students' Reasoning With Haptic Technologies: A Qualitative Study In The Electromagnetism Domain, Sadhana Balachandran

Open Access Theses

With abundant applications in the medical training and entertainment industry, haptic technology is slowly making its way into the realm of science education, particularly in conveying abstract and non-visible concepts. Electric field is one such abstract concept. Past studies have shown that learning concepts such as electric fields in a traditional classroom can be quite challenging since students have a hard time visualizing the phenomena and applying its effects to reason. Furthermore, these concepts are the building blocks for more complex concepts such as matter and molecular interactions. Visuo-haptic devices provide a great platform to enable students to visualize and …

A Usability Assessment For A Career Planning Educational Video Game, Jiaqi Wang

Open Access Theses

This study focused on the design, implementation and usability assessment of an educational 2D iPad job matching game The Place You’ll Go (TPYG), which meant for matching student skill sets with career profiles. The development of the game is conducted in collaboration with Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management and Polytech Institute. A total of 7 subjects, as high school teachers, participated in the usability study. TPYG as one possible solution for job matching data visualization, did not provide players with a good experience. However, conclusions and findings can be used in similar education game development. Based on survey and …

Towards Building A Computer-Aided Accreditation System, Emmanuel Alejandro Santillana Fayett

Theses and Dissertations

Accreditation is a big subject. What is accreditation? Why should it matter to us? How many types of accreditation can an institution have? Is the government involved? What issues are present? How can we improve the accreditation process? All these questions will be covered in this paper. In addition, I will build towards a software that will apply the most important points in this paper, like applying the mission, objectives, and outcomes expected from the students in the form of a syllabus. This will help the faculty with the accreditation process and will help the students know what is expected …

Impact Of Visualization On Engineers – A Survey, Dhaval Kashyap Shah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the recent years, there has been a tremendous growth in data. Numerous research and technologies have been proposed and developed in the field of Visualization to cope with the associated data analytics. Despite these new technologies, the pace of people’s capacity to perform data analysis has not kept pace with the requirement. Past literature has hinted as to various reasons behind this disparity. The purpose of this research is to demonstrate specifically the usage of Visualization in the field of engineering. We conducted the research with the help of a survey identifying the places where Visualization educational shortcomings may …

Visual Code: Breaking The Binary, Jacob Johannesen, Andrew Adriance

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

This project seeks to create an accessible programming language that is more visually based. Although some solutions exist, namely MIT’s Scratch, nothing has caught up to the mobile age. This proj- ect aims to reframe creating a game or app into the context of tell- ing a story, putting character creation first. By researching sto- ry-telling and how people learn, and by applying technical and user interface design knowledge, this project intends to deliver a soft- ware solution that opens introductory coding education to more people.

Undergraduate Students' Goals For Chemistry Laboratory Coursework, Brittland K. Dekorver

Open Access Dissertations

Chemistry laboratory coursework has the potential to offer many benefits to students, yet few of these learning goals are realized in practice. Therefore, this study seeks to characterize undergraduate students’ learning goals for their chemistry laboratory coursework. Data were collected by recording video of students completing laboratory experiments and conducting interviews with the students about their experiences that were analyzed utilizing the frameworks of Human Constructivism and Self-Regulated Learning. A cross-sectional sampling of students allowed comparisons to be made among students with varying levels of chemistry experience and interest in chemistry. The student goals identified by this study were compared …

Social Customer Relationship Management In Higher Education, Victorian A. Farnsworth

Open Access Theses

Customer Relationship Management is a concept that has become a requirement for any successful entity to attract and retain desired constituents. It is a set of processes and tools that help track, analyze, and act upon customer related data. Over the last decade, the toolsets have evolved to include social media as another source of information and connection. Nowhere is this information and connection more important than in higher education where globalization and tighter budgets have created a competitive market. This research evaluated the use of this most recent social toolset and its effectiveness in a higher education institution, all …

Enhancing The Campus Experience: Helping International Students To Adapt To North American Campus Life, Qiaoying Wang

Open Access Theses

This thesis investigates how culture adaption topic can be applied to a design solution by enhancing international students experience on North American campus. Each year more than half a million international students enroll in American colleges and universities. Many will spend several years on a campus working toward their degree. Most of them arrive with clear academic goals, but they may have no clue what their social lives will be like. In that case, a common phenomenon that most of the international students need to get along with is called “Culture Shock”, which involves culture and academic adapting difficulties, limited …

Analysis Of Scientific Argumentation In Two Physical Chemistry Classrooms Using The Pogil Approach, Alena C. Moon

Open Access Dissertations

The benefits of facilitating argumentation in science education have been well reported (Jimenez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2007). Engaging in argumentation has shown to model authentic scientific inquiry as well as promote development of content knowledge. However, less emphasis has been placed on facilitating argumentation in upper level undergraduate courses, though it is important for evaluating undergraduate curricula to characterize upper level students’ scientific reasoning. This work considers two implementations of the POGIL physical chemistry curriculum and evaluates the classroom argumentation. The researchers aimed to consider the content of the arguments and dialectical features characteristic of socially constructed arguments (Nielson, 2013). To …

Blended Learning For Faculty Professional Development Incorporating Knowledge Management Principles, Julie E. Hewitt

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Adjunct faculty comprise a large percentage of part-time faculty for many colleges and universities today. Adjunct faculty are hired because they are experts in their content areas; however, this does not guarantee that they are skilled in effective classroom management. These instructors can become bewildered and frustrated because they lack the knowledge and skills that are needed to run an effective classroom.

While educational organizations have adopted blended learning environments as an effective delivery method for their students, this method has not gained much traction as a way to deliver instruction to their own employees. Thus, there are opportunities to …

Use Of Student Created Video Podcasts To Promote Foreign Language Grammar Acquisition In Middle School, Sergio Parra

CCE Theses and Dissertations

The use of video podcasts in education has emerged as a phenomenon that has gained a considerable amount of attention over the last few years. Although video podcasting is becoming a well-established technology in higher education, new multimedia instructional strategies such as student-created video podcasts in grades K-12 are under-researched.

The study investigated the effects of video podcasts created by students to promote foreign language grammar acquisition at the middle school level and find how students described such experience. The current investigation was conducted by using the explanatory sequential design, which is a mixed methods research design that occurs in …

Teaching Presence And Intellectual Climate In A Structured Online Learning Environment, Janice Marie Orcutt

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Teaching presence and its implications for the intellectual climate of an online classroom cannot be fully understood unless explored from the perspective of the instructors who experience it. Framed in the theoretical perspective of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model, this collective case study investigated the actions, intentions and perceptions of instructors with the intent of developing an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon of teaching presence as it was established in a structured online learning environment.

The experiences of selected successful instructors in this specific online context were explored to gain insight on how pedagogical choices influenced the establishment of …

Teachers' Perceptions Of Manipulatives During Middle School Math Instruction, Angela L. Vizzi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In a Colorado school district, school personnel and parents were concerned that middle school math proficiency levels were low for 2011-2014 and math teachers were not using manipulatives in their classes to increase math performance. The district's math coordinator did not foresee providing specific professional development (PD) for math manipulative use to address these concerns. Without this PD, math teachers may be ill-quipped to teach math concepts when using manipulatives, which, in turn, could lead to further poor math performance. The purpose of this qualitative bounded collective case study was to explore middle school teachers' perceptions of PD and perceived …

Design And Evaluation Of The Impact Of A Multi-Agent Control System (Framework) Applied To A Social Setting, Perez Antonio Perez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this research is to design and analyze the performance of a new mechanism to improve the advising of students in a nontraditional environment. This nontraditional environment includes: a minority serving, commuter campus with a high percentage of transfer students. Specifically, these demographics are unable to keep a tightly controlled cohort of students flowing through to the completion of the curriculum. Students in these circumstances usually have varied course loads and competing priorities due to family and financial needs or other societal responsibilities. Therefore, there is a need for an individualized approach to advising.

University administrations face challenges …

An Examination Of Intrinsic Existence Value Towards Wildlife Of Columbus Zoo And Aquariums Tourists: Evaluating The Impact Of Behind The Scenes Programming, Robert Maxwell Lakes

Online Theses and Dissertations

Changes in climate and the corresponding environmental issues are major concerns facing the world today. Human consumption, which is leading the rapid depletion of the earth’s finite resources and causing a dramatic loss of biodiversity, is largely to blame (Pearson, Lowry, Dorrian, & Litchfield, 2014). American zoos and aquariums are positioned to create positive experiential relationships between zoo tourists and animals that have the potential to positively change the zoo tourists’ conservation behaviors. Challenges to changing the conservation behaviors of zoo tourists are many. One particularly important challenge is conservation/environmental education. Zoos and aquariums aim to provide effective and quality …

Using Mathematical Research Methods To Solve A Problem In Music Theory Instruction, Specifically, The Teaching Of Secondary Dominant Chords, Angela Ulrich

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The mathematical method for research is used to find a solution to a problem in music theory: understanding and identifying secondary dominant chords. By reviewing and assessing the teaching methods of university professors and theory textbooks, and comparing those findings with student reviews, a new method for teaching the concept is developed. The proposed system incorporates aural, visual, and kinetic exercises to serve every learner. The literature review and sample unit plan are followed by a possible procedure for testing the effectiveness of the new method.

Computing Language And Thinking: Analysis, Design, And Assessment Of Introductory Computer Science Workshops In The Liberal Arts Experience, Kathleen Teresa Burke

Senior Projects Spring 2016

This project seeks to assess and improve upon a new required introductory computer science workshop for first year students at Bard College. It addresses the design and implementation of the course itself, along with the improvements needed in order to continue the program. Many students are not offered computer science courses prior to college; this program has been designed to remedy that by requiring all students to learn key concepts in computer science as a part of their orientation. The program consists of a 90 minute lesson taught by professors with expertise in fields outside of computer science, in addition …

Educational Methods For Inverted-Lecture Computer Science And Engineering Classrooms To Overcome Common Barriers To Stem Student Success, Kathleen Timmerman

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

New educational pedagogies are emerging in an effort to increase the number of new engineers available to enter the workforce in the coming years. One of the re-occurring themes in these pedagogies is variations of the flipped classroom. Often the additional classroom time gained from flipping is used to reinforce learning objectives. It is hypothesized that it might be more beneficial to students if a portion of that time is used to address common non-cognitive barriers that prevent students from succeeding in the major. In a freshman Introductory Computer Science course, three different pedagogies are compared: a hybrid lecture-active learning …

Correlations Between Introductory Students’ Attitudes About Physics And Conceptual Understanding, Raym Alzahrani

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to measure correlations between the students’ incoming attitudes, beliefs and expectations about physics and their conceptual understanding. The study presents a profile of the attitudes and beliefs for Wright State University students who enrolled in calculus-based General Physics I courses during academic years 2014-2015 and 2015-2016. Students’ initial and final attitudes, measured using the CLASS, are correlated with initial and final conceptual gain, measured using the Force Concept Inventory. Students’ initial attitudes (Opre) was correlated with students’ gain (FCIgain) in many sections. Correlations between students’ final attitudes (Opost) and their conceptual understanding (FCIpost), reported …