Publication Archives - Page 4 of 20

May302025 by Sebastian GombertNo Comments

[Workshop] Introduction to Language Technology and Language Modeling for Education

New Pub

At the recent 19th Joint Summer School on Technology-Enhanced Learning located in Rhetimno, Greece, I (Sebastian Gombert) gave an introductory workshop on language technology and language modeling and their various use cases of in education. This included use cases such as short answer scoring, essay scoring, classification of texts according to the CEFR framework, and group communication analysis in CSCL. Overall, the workshop was well-received and well-attended.

May222025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: Pedagogical Framework for Hybrid Intelligent Feedback

Artificial Intelligence, Feedback, Journal, Publication

[caption id="attachment_7525" align="alignright" width="300"] Principles of hybrid intelligent Feedback[/caption] ChatGPT and other Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools have quickly become an active part of everyday academic life. Both teachers and students use them regularly to do research, summarize texts or responses, create exercises or quizzes or explain course content. But GenAI needs to be used in a sensible manner and consistent with sound teaching principles. Otherwise, it could lead to an over-reliance on technology and neglect the important roles of teachers and students. Ideally, GenAI should be used to complement rather than replace human-centered education. When pedagogical practices combine the strengths of humans and AI, this can ultimately lead to enhanced creativity, empathy and academic comprehension of students. A recently published paper explores a promising field of human-AI collaboration in…

Apr232025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: On-Your Marks, Ready? Exploring the User Experience of a VR Application for Runners

Multimodal Learning Analytics, Publication

Do you wish to be a better runner and ready to get going? Becoming a better runner is more than just choosing the right pair of running shoes and increasing your physical ability to perform a successful run. You also need to be mentally prepared to increase your running productivity. Here is where Virtual Reality (VR) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help. Up until now, there have been limited options available for mental training using technologies like sensors and actuators. These technologies have primarily been used to improve physical training. A newly published study explores the possibilities that VR and CBT have to create a technology-based mental training for athletes. Our team carried out a formative study to explore the user experience by incorporating CBT techniques into VR technology,…

Apr152025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: Enhancing User Onboarding in Virtual Reality Educational Applications

Multimodal Learning Analytics, Publication

Learning in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment can be a captivating and immersive experience for students. Despite the potential that VR has to help students learn in new and exciting ways, many students may also struggle during their initial interactions with a given VR environment. Whether or not effective user onboarding takes place can be the make or break of an application’s success. A new publication sheds light on this key challenge of effective onboarding by exploring how pre-training methods impact the onboarding experience in VR educational applications. 36 people, primarily university students, participated in a study to understand how different approaches affected their ability to navigate VR environments and their overall satisfaction. The findings show that pre-training helps users get an orientation and slightly boosts satisfaction, but it falls…

Feb52025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: Memorizing Plans With an App

Journal, Learning Analytics, Publication, School, Self-Regulation

Mobile phones and devices are an integral part of the daily lives of students, and educators are increasingly trying to take advantage of this day-to-day usage for educational purposes. But how can mobile technologies, like app-based learning activities, be designed to effectively help students in the learning process? [caption id="attachment_7331" align="alignright" width="500"] Screenshots of the reading (A), puzzle (B), and emoji (C) activity[/caption] A newly published study from Daniel Biedermann, Jasmin Breitwieser, Lea Nobbe, Hendrik Drachsler and Garvin Brod tries to answer this question. Using the PROMT app, the team compared three types of learning activities used by children aged 9 to 14 years to memorize one learning plan per day over the course of 27 days. The activities varied in their planned level of cognitive engagement based on the…

Jan242025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: The Student Feedback Literacy Instrument (SFLI)

Feedback, Further Education, Journal, New Pub

In the context of higher education, feedback plays an especially important role in the learning process. For students it is not only important to receive feedback, but also to be able to understand and process this feedback in a manner which helps them make learning progress. The knowledge, skills and attitudes students need to navigate the feedback process successfully are referred to as feedback literacy. A recently published study presents a refined version of the Student Feedback Literacy Instrument (SFLI), which offers a powerful tool to measure feedback literacy construct across multiple languages and cultures. The SFLI aims to measure feedback literacy across two key dimensions: feedback attitudes and feedback practices. The full-length version of the instrument was recently refined and tested, alongside a short-form version (SFLI-S), in a multilingual…

Jan152025 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

Legal Assessment of AI and Learning Analytics in Teaching and Learning

Artificial Intelligence, Learning Analytics, Press, Report

As with any new technology, the laws and regulations relating to them seem to always be one step behind and one can feel somewhat lost in a foggy, legal grey zone. The same is true for the use of AI. Using AI in a legally compliant way depends on its specific application, its range and the technical details. This has to be checked and regulated in accordance with the law in order to be able to use each AI technology safely, for the intended purpose and in compliance with data protection regulations. But how can universities know if they are using Learning Analytics and AI technologies in a legally compliant manner? In a first step in answering this question, the Goethe University has recently published an extensive legal assessment about…

Dec22024 by Prof. Dr. Hendrik DrachslerNo Comments

PhD Defense: A Bridge between Learning Analytics and Learning Design

Book, Event, Higher Education, Learning Analytics, Learning Design, Multimodal Learning Analytics, PhD defense, Publication, School

We warmly congratulate our esteemed associate partner, DR. Marcel Schmitz, on successfully defending his PhD thesis on November 29, 2024. Marcel is a senior lecturer and researcher in Data Intelligence and the Applied Data Science & Artificial Intelligence program at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences. In his dissertation, titled “Towards Learning Analytics-Supported Learning Design”, he focused on how education can be better personalized by incorporating learning analytics already in the design and course planning. His dissertation was supervised by Prof. Dr. Hendrik Drachsler (DIPF | Leibniz Institute & Goethe University Frankfurt), with co-supervisors Prof. Dr. Maren Scheffel (Ruhr University Bochum) and Dr. Roger Bemelmans (Zuyd University of Applied Sciences). Marcel's dissertation provides actionable strategies not only for higher education but also for other educational sectors. His work envisions a future…

Dec22024 by Atezaz AhmadNo Comments

New Pub: Harnessing the Power of Gaming to Influence Policies Addressing Climate Change

Conference, Game, Publication

As part of the GREAT (Games Realising Effective and Affective Transformation) project, co-funded by the European Union and UKRI, the project team has published the following paper at ECGBL which was held at Aarhus University, in October 2024. Harnessing the Power of Gaming to Influence Policies Addressing Climate Change – co-authored by Paul Hollins, Paul Watson, Anchal Garg, Jude Ower, Joost Schuur, David Griffiths, Barbara Kieslinger, Katharina Koller, Jane Yau, pages 403-413 Abstract: In this paper, the authors present the findings of an empirical case study examining the efficacy of the Games Realising Effective & Affective Transformation (GREAT) Case Study design process. The process is underpinned by an established Mixed Methodological Research (MMR) framework for eliciting the preferences of gamers and determining their priorities in climate change policies. Funded by…

Nov182024 by Heather WehnerNo Comments

New Pub: Understanding Learning Engagement in Asynchronous Online Settings

Higher Education, Journal, Learning Analytics, Publication

A newly published study illustrates the complexities of learning engagement (LE) in asynchronous online settings (AOSs) for university students. For university students it can be difficult to learn in such environments since these lack real-time interactions. This also makes it difficult for teachers to measure how engaged students actually are with their study materials. Through trace data, learning analytics can be used as a foundation to analyze students’ learning methods and LE. The study investigates whether LE can be characterized by the sub-dimensions: effort, attention and content interest. The study also explores the question of which trace data from student behavior within AOSs can best represent these factors of LE in self-reports. The research involved 764 university students and utilized best-subset regression analysis to determine which indicators most reliably represent…