A study on the influence of individual and group dynamics on students’ interpretation of logos and pathos

Gender difference has continued to influence achievement and retention of students due to inconsistencies in performance, which troubles researchers. This therefore calls for different approaches to ameliorate this problem by deploying the use of Telegram and WhatsApp in collaborative learning settings in order to bride those gender gaps since technology serves as a leveler. This study examined gender difference on achievement and retention of students in microteaching using Telegram and WhatsApp platforms in collaborative learning settings. A sample of 282 students enrolled on Telegram and WhatsApp from two universities in Gombe State, Nigeria, was purposively selected for the study, where the two sampled groups were assigned into two experimental groups. The instrument used in this study is the micro-teaching achievement test validated by experts in the field of educational technology and curriculum studies, where a split-half method of reliability was used to obtain a figure of 0.91 using Pearson product moment correlation. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions while inferential statistics involving an independent sample t-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that there is no significant difference in the mean achievement scores of male and female students taught using Telegram platform (t=2.571, p>0.05); there is no significant difference in the mean achievement scores of male and female students taught using WhatsApp platform (t=3.671, p>0.05); there is no significant difference in the mean retention scores of male and female students taught using Telegram platform (t=5.274, p>0.05). However, there is a significant difference in the mean retention scores of male and female students taught using WhatsApp platform in favor of the female students (t=4.071,p<0.05). It is hereby recommended that lecturers should deploy the use of Telegram and WhatsApp platforms in collaborative learning settings during micro-teaching in order to bridge the individual differences occasioned by gender since technology has the potential to serve as a leveler and also be able to bridge gender differences.

BackgroundVisual representations are pervasive in electrical engineering instruction in various instructional settings. Further, electrical engineering instruction often requires students to extend simple visual representations to learn about more complex visualization in subsequent instruction. Yet, students often struggle to understand visualizations. An open question is whether supporting students' understanding of visual representations enhances their subsequent learning. We investigate this question in both individual and collaborative learning settings.PurposeWe investigated the impact of support for students' understanding of simple visual representations on students' learning of subsequently presented complex visual representations. Further, we investigated whether students' level of mental rotation skills moderates the impact of such instructional support.MethodTwo experiments tested the impact of instructional support for visual representations in an individual or a collaborative learning setting. Students were randomly assigned to receive different versions of instructional support, or none.ResultsStudy 1 was conducted in an individual learning setting. While students with high mental rotation skills benefited from the instructional support, students with low mental rotation skills did not benefit. Study 2 was conducted in a collaborative learning setting. Here, all students benefited equally from the support.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that instructional support for simple visual representations can enhance students' subsequent learning with complex visual representations. Further, our findings suggest that a collaborative learning setting may be particularly beneficial to students with low mental rotation skills. This study contributes to an understanding of instructional environments that can improve learning with visual representations in engineering education.

The growing concerns to accommodate large classroom sizes, lack of microteaching laboratory and inadequacy of time for every student to present and be properly assessed has affected the performance of students in micro-teaching in Nigeria. This therefore calls for different innovative approaches backed up by technology to ameliorate the problem. Thus, this study checked the ­­­comparative performance of undergraduate students in micro-teaching using Telegram and WhatsApp in collaborative learning settings in Gombe State, Nigeria. A sample of 282 students enrolled on Telegram and WhatsApp from Federal University Kashere and Gombe State University, respectively was purposively selected for the study. The two sampled groups were assigned into experimental group I (Telegram) and experimental group II (WhatsApp) in collaborative learning settings using a simple random sampling technique. The instruments for the study comprised of micro-teaching achievement test validated by experts in the field of educational technology and curriculum studies, where a split-half method of reliability was used to obtain a figure of 0.91 using Pearson product moment correlation. Descriptive statistics involving mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions while inferential statistics involving an independent sample t-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that while the students in both Telegram and WhatsApp platforms performed better in the post-test, a significant difference was obtained in the achievement and retention of the two groups in favor of WhatsApp. It was therefore recommended that lecturers should deploy the use of Telegram and WhatsApp in collaborative learning settings to cover for large classroom sizes and lack of micro-teaching laboratory.

Organizational citizenship behavior refers to “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization (Organ, 1988, p. 4)”. Previous research suggests organizational citizenship behavior can be a beneficial concept in a collaborative learning setting because it may affect learning outcomes, student satisfaction, and social loafing in organizations and teams. However, a measure of organizational citizenship behavior in the collaborative learning setting does not exist. This research aimed to adapt and validate the measurement of organizational citizenship behavior in a collaborative learning setting. 511 college students in Korea participated in this study. First, we conducted exploratory analysis, and as a result, four dimensions were extracted: altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, and courtesy. Subsequently, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis to examine the stability of multidimensionality, and the result indicated the four-factor structure has a reasonable fit statistically. In addition, we examined convergent, discriminant and criterion validities. With this validated measurement, future studies can examine how organizational citizenship behavior in the collaborative learning is related to other learning constructs such as student engagement and academic achievement.

Emotional appeals are ubiquitous in persuasive discourse. The construction and analysis of emotional appeals has, moreover, been a central part of rhetorical theory since antiquity. Nevertheless, without a method for analyzing how language can influence, arouse, or amplify emotions, emotional appeals pose a problem for contemporary analysts. This is due to their simultaneous linguistic, rhetorical, psychological, and emotion-arousing qualities. The author develops a method for analyzing emotional appeals by supplementing a classical Aristotelian model for understanding the emotional appeal – referred to here as the pathotic enthymeme – and interfacing it with work from cognitive semantics and emotion science. Specifically, he turns to the concept of frame metonymy, a cognitive process wherein a salient element of a frame provides conceptual access to part or the whole of a frame, thus allowing conceptualizers to form new inferences. He argues that this is precisely how pathotic enthymemes work at the lexical and discursive levels. By demonstrating how emotional appeals in post-2016 American political discourse work, he also underscores the indexical nature of emotional appeals, providing an explanation of how they work for different communities with different endoxa or conventional beliefs.

This study reevaluates the persuasive impact of emotional visual appeals within politics and examines two different explanations for their effects. One possibility is that the effects of emotive visual images are essentially superficial in nature, consistent with the view that feelings aroused by an affective image are transferred somewhat mechanically to a political candidate or cause with which it is paired. This transfer‐of‐affect explanation suggests that emotional appeals may work best among the least informed voters or those paying the least attention to a persuasive political message. The second possibility is that emotional appeals work via passionate reason, in which affective responses to an emotive image are integrated with, and potentially bias, reasoned thought about the accompanying message. This integrated approach leads to the counterintuitive prediction that individuals who are most highly involved in an issue (and who know the most about it) are most influenced by emotional imagery. This prediction arises from growing evidence that people highly involved in value‐laden social issues generate the strongest emotional responses to issue‐related persuasive appeals. These two models were tested in a study in which undergraduate students were presented with a picture of a cute or an ugly animal and a flyer from an organization advocating a pro‐ or anti‐environment stance with respect to preserving the animal's habitat. The responses showed that emotive imagery was most persuasive among the most involved environment supporters, providing clear evidence of passionate reasoning.

Do the simultaneous alignment of student activities (temporal synchronicity) and students successively building on each other's reasoning (transactivity) predict the quality of collaborative learning products? To address this question, we used a mixed‐method approach to study 74 first‐year university students who were randomly assigned to work in dyads on an ill‐defined problem of biodiversity collapse in tropical forests within a computer‐supported collaborative learning setting. The quantitative analysis revealed that neither temporal synchronicity nor transactivity was related to the quality of group products. The qualitative analysis of chat transcripts revealed that the variability between the groups could be explained by group dynamics, students' prior knowledge, confidence in managing the learning task, collaborative strategy and communication skills. The study findings could be used to optimize collaboration by informing students directly of their activities or the teachers that scaffold these activities.Lay DescriptionWhat is already known about this topic: Collaborative learning effort is influenced by how well students coordinate their activities across time and transact on each other's ideas. What this paper adds: This study examines the relation between temporal synchronicity, transactivity and the quality of group products in the context of synchronous computer‐supported collaborative learning. Neither temporal synchronicity nor transactivity was found to be directly related to the quality of group products. Implications for practice and/or policy: Collaboration groups require socio‐cognitive support not only based on the attunement of their efforts but also based on differences within groups.

Promoting health or promoting pleasure? A contingency approach to the effect of informational and emotional appeals on food liking and consumption

The frequent consumption of sugary beverages is associated with many health risks. This study examined how persuasive appeals and graphics were used in different media campaigns to encourage and discourage sugary beverages and water in the United States (U.S.) The investigators developed a codebook, protocol and systematic process to conduct a qualitative content analysis for 280 media campaigns organized into a typology with six categories. SPSS version 28.0 was used to analyze rational and emotional appeals (i.e., positive, negative, coactive) for campaign slogans, taglines and graphic images (i.e., symbols, colors, audiences) for 60 unique campaigns across the typology. Results showed that positive emotional appeals were used more to promote sugary beverages in corporate advertising and marketing (64.7%) and social responsibility campaigns (68.8%), and less to encourage water in social marketing campaigns (30%). In contrast, public awareness campaigns used negative emotional appeals (48.1%), and advocacy campaigns combined rational (30%) and emotional positive (50%) and negative appeals (30%). Public policy campaigns used rational (82.6%) and positive emotional appeals (73.9%) to motivate support or opposition for sugary beverage tax legislation. Chi-square analyses assessed the relationships between the U.S. media campaign typology categories and graphic elements that revealed three variables with significant associations between the campaign typology and race/ethnicity (χ2(103) = 32.445, p = 0.039), content (χ2(103) = 70.760, p < 0.001) and product image (χ2(103) = 11.930, p = 0.036). Future research should examine how positive persuasive appeals in text and graphics can promote water to reduce sugary beverage health risks.

The quality and impact of computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) in radiology case-based learning

Individual behavioral engagement is an important indicator of active learning in collaborative settings, encompassing multidimensional behaviors mediated through various interaction modes. Little existing work has explored the use of multimodal process data to understand individual behavioral engagement in face-to-face collaborative learning settings. In this study we bridge this gap, for the first time, introducing a heterogeneous tripartite network approach to analyze the interconnections among multimodal process data in collaborative learning. Students’ behavioral engagement strategies are analyzed based on their interaction patterns with various spatial locations and verbal communication types using a heterogeneous tripartite network. The multimodal collaborative learning process data were collected from 15 teams of four students. We conducted stochastic blockmodeling on a projection of the heterogeneous tripartite network to cluster students into groups that shared similar spatial and oral engagement patterns. We found two distinct clusters of students, whose characteristic behavioural engagement strategies were identified by extracting interaction patterns that were statistically significant relative to a multinomial null model. The two identified clusters also exhibited a statistically significant difference regarding students’ perceived collaboration satisfaction and teacher-assessed team performance level. This study advances collaboration analytics methodology and provides new insights into personalized support in collaborative learning.

Rewarded and unrewarded competition in a CSCL environment: A coopetition design with a social cognitive perspective using PLS-SEM analyses

The ability to synthesize information has emerged as a critical skill for success across various fields. However, within the field of education, there is a lack of systematic understanding and well-defined design infrastructures that address the mechanisms and processes of knowledge synthesis in collaborative learning settings. In this poster, we introduce a design innovation – The Synthesis Lab, which aims to support students in synthesizing ideas from their online discussions in higher education classrooms. The tool offers structured work-spaces for students to decompose the synthesis process into intermediate synthesis products and features two key iterative processes of knowledge synthesis in collaborative settings: categorizing peers’ ideas into conceptual building blocks and developing a synthesis of the discussions. Future implementation and evaluation of the design will make significant contributions to both research and practice.

The purpose of this study is to explore learners' perceptions of peer assessment and evaluate its effectiveness based on the specificity of peer assessment criteria in teamᐨbased collaborative learning. The specificity of peer assessment criteria was examined through two independent variables: the use of detailed criteria and the presentation of evaluation grounds. Learners' perceptions were assessed via quantitative surveys and openᐨended questions focused on the usefulness and fairness of peer assessment, while the effectiveness was determined by the extent of equal participation in team activities, measured by actual team contribution scores. A total of 84 undergraduate students participated in the study. The findings revealed that the use of detailed criteria didn't show the statistical significance, but the provision of evaluation grounds significantly influenced learners' perceptions of the usefulness and fairness of peer assessment, though no interaction effect between the two was found. This suggests that regardless the use of specific criteria, evaluation grounds are provided enhances the perceived usefulness and fairness of peer assessment in evaluating team contributions. Moreover, the study found that group D (which used holistic criteria without providing evaluation grounds) demonstrated relatively unequal team contributions compared to other groups, highlighting the impact of specific peer assessment methods on team contribution within collaborative learning settings. To further clarify the quantitative results, openᐨended responses reflecting learners' perceptions of peer assessment were thoroughly reviewed to interpret the findings. The discussion was approached from the perspective of suggesting specific strategies for utilizing peer assessment to enhance learners' contributions in collaborative learning settings.

This study is part of a larger study that aims to better understand the complex dynamics of information seeking as it occurs in a collaborative learning setting. A total of 34 graduate students who participated in a collaborative research project were asked to complete process surveys throughout the project. The results of this study revealed that students who participated in a collaborative research task initiated the projects in confident ways but became more stressed as the project progressed. Students also perceived that they knew more as they progressed through the project.