Research Article
Abbas Bodaubekov, Shakhrizat Agaidarova, Talgat Zhussipbek, Davronzhon Gaipov, Nuri Balta
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 17, Issue 1, Article No: ep548
ABSTRACT
This study investigates the effectiveness of feedback provided by teachers versus feedback generated by the Write & Improve platform in enhancing the writing skills of senior undergraduate students enrolled in a “two foreign language” program at a private university in Kazakhstan. The quasi-experimental design involved four teachers, each teaching one control and one experimental class, totaling eight groups of students. Pre- and post-tests were conducted over a period of five weeks, focusing on task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, grammar and accuracy, and overall score. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U tests for pre-test comparisons, and MANCOVA analyses for post-test comparisons. Results show no significant difference in the impact of Write & Improve feedback compared to traditional teacher feedback across multiple dimensions of the writing test, both within individual teachers’ classes and when combined. Longitudinal analysis reveals fluctuating scores over time with no consistent improvement. Thus, the study concludes that the Write & Improve tool is equally effective as teacher feedback in improving students’ writing skills. This implies that educational institutions can potentially integrate technology-based feedback systems like Write & Improve alongside traditional teaching methods to enhance student learning outcomes in writing proficiency.
Keywords: AI feedback, English language, student learning outcomes, teacher feedback, Write & Improve tool
Review Article
Elham Hussein, Ashraf Kan’an, Abeer Rasheed, Yousef Alrashed, Malek Jdaitawi, Ahmed Abas, Sherin Mabrouk, Mona Abdelmoneim
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 15, Issue 3, Article No: ep443
ABSTRACT
Special education settings have experienced technological innovation that have advanced the development of various skills. Gamification is increasingly used to enhance the skills of individuals with special needs. There have been some studies and limited systematic reviews of gamification in general and special needs settings in particular, however, gamification design applied to special needs lacks a comprehensive systematic review. This article conducts a Literature review of gamification in special needs settings to investigate the effect of gamification in special needs as well as to identify gamification domains, groups and trends for individuals with special needs. Valuable data has been highlighted concerning the technology techniques used in enhancing the skills of individuals with a disability. However, further studies are still needed to examine areas, where research is lacking in the gamification field. The preferred reporting items for literature reviews and meta-analysis PRISMA standard was adopted for inclusion and exclusion criteria’ in this study such as including, eligibility, screening, dentification, and inclusion and exclusion steps. The results revealed that gamification design facilitates the development of various skills among individuals with special needs. Additionally, gamification design was mostly used to enhance the learning skills of individuals with a disability.
Keywords: special needs, gamification, literature review, outcomes
Research Article
Katherina Gallardo, Leonardo Glasserman, Nohemi Rivera, Lizette Martínez-Cardiel
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 15, Issue 2, Article No: ep415
ABSTRACT
A mixed-method study about the perception of students and faculty around learning assessment practices was conducted in a multicampus competency-based approached Mexican private university. The objective was getting new knowledge about higher education community perception around learning assessment practices, learning outcomes production and how authentic assessment was driven while working on different modalities during the pandemic: remote learning, synchronous hybrid learning, alternate hybrid learning, and on-site modality. A questionnaire, and an interview for faculty and focus groups for students were designed, validated, and conducted. A total of 281 faculty and 908 students participated in this study. The main quantitative results indicate that students who took on-site classes evaluate the variables better than those who took hybrid classes. In addition, students who took remote classes evaluate the authenticity variable better than those who took it in alternate hybrid modality. In the case of the faculty, only the equality variable showed significant differences between the reported modalities. Besides, the main qualitative results indicate that perceptions are quite different between faculty and students while getting their perceptions from an evaluation standards scope. Thus, their perspectives around equality, authenticity, feasibility, reliability and ethics were obtained and discussed against literature. The main conclusions of the study remarked that students and faculty were positive towards most of the execution of learning assessment and learning outcomes practices during the pandemic. Nevertheless, students’ preference of on-site modality was determined as the way they have more opportunities for interacting and learning more from assessment and feedback.
Keywords: innovation in education, competency-based education, higher education, learning outcomes, performance assessment