Feedback Element Research Articles

Assessment of user experience in video-based learning environments: From design guidelines to final product

To provide students with high-quality, tailored content, higher education institutions face the challenge of helping their instructors produce their own materials. New learning objects are usually assessed when students actually use the materials. To improve quality assurance in the design of learning objects, this paper proposes systemically analyzing the user experience of new learning objects. This involves not only considering student feedback, but also integrating other perspectives into a continuous feedback loop, through a participatory design approach. The proposed framework was tested during the implementation of a flipped classroom initiative in a large Chilean university over a period of six months, involving 6 content designers, 3 teachers, 2 teaching assistants and 98 students. We observe how elements of feedback are integrated through a systemic assessment, where the end result (the learning object) is contrasted with the elements that guided its creation (the design guidelines). In this way, the roles of designer and user are complemented so as to identify design gaps early on in the process of creating a solution. This study adds to the current literature by relating design guidelines with the principles of instruction during the design process in order to ensure the overall quality of the learning objects.

Preparing students for residency interviews in the age of COVID: Lessons learned from a standardized video interview preparation program.

ABSTRACTObjectivesThe COVID‐19 pandemic has necessitated the widescale adoption of video‐based interviewing for residency applications. Video interviews have previously been used in the residency application process through the pilot program of the American Association of Medical Colleges standardized video interview (SVI). We conducted an SVI preparation program with our students over 3 years that consisted of an instructional lecture, deliberate practice in video interviewing, and targeted feedback by emergency medicine faculty. The aim of this investigation was to summarize the feedback students received on their practice SVIs to provide the guidance they need for preparing for the video interviews that will replace in‐person interviews with residency programs.MethodsA retrospective thematic analysis was conducted on faculty feedback provided to students who had completed SVI practice videos in preparation for their application to an EM residency between June 2017 and July 2019. Categorized comments were also sorted by type of faculty feedback: positive reinforcement, constructive criticism, or both.ResultsForty‐six medical students received 334 feedback elements from three faculty. Feedback was balanced between positive reinforcement statements and constructive criticism. Students performed well on appearance and attire, creating a proper recording environment, and response content. They needed the most guidance with the delivery of content and the technical quality of the video.ConclusionsOur results demonstrate a need for formal instruction in how to communicate effectively through the video medium. Medical educators will need to formally prepare students for tele‐interviews with residency programs, with an emphasis on communication skills and techniques for improving the quality of their video presentation, including lighting and camera placement.

Training public speaking with virtual social interactions: effectiveness of real-time feedback and delayed feedback

Social signal processing and virtual social interaction technologies have allowed the creation of social skills training applications, and initial studies have shown that such solutions can lead to positive training outcomes and could complement traditional teaching methods by providing cheap, accessible, safe tools for training social skills. However, these studies evaluated social skills training systems as a whole and it is unclear to what extent which components contributed to positive outcomes. In this paper, we describe an experimental study where we compared the relative efficacy of real-time interactive feedback and after-action feedback in the context of a public speaking training application. We observed that both components provide benefits to the overall training: the real-time interactive feedback made the experience more immersive and improved participants’ motivation in using the system, while the after-action feedback led to positive training outcomes when it contained personalized feedback elements. Taken in combination, these results confirm that both social signal processing technologies and virtual social interactions are both contributing to social skills training systems’ efficiency. Additionally, we observed that several individual factors, here the subjects’ initial level of public speaking anxiety, personality and tendency to immersion significantly influenced the training experience. This finding suggests that social skills training systems could benefit from being tailored to participants’ particular individual circumstances.

Improving Facilitation of Student Communication Through Observational Feedback Within a Partner Instruction Model.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to further evaluate an eight-step partner instructional model developed by Kent-Walsh and McNaughton that has been demonstrated to improve implementation quality and fidelity among adults in clinical and educational settings who support the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) for individuals with complex communication needs. Method This study examined the effectiveness of the eight-step model in a K-12 special education setting. Participants included 26 staff and 19 students. Effects on both communication partner modeling and student AAC system use were assessed. The study expanded upon prior research by employing a group design, including largely adolescent participants, and utilizing multiple AAC hardware and software types. Results Staff receiving training and coaching via the full eight-step model demonstrated gains in the percentage of utterances modeled, and their student partners increased mean length of utterance. The study failed to find statistically significant differences between the experimental group and a comparison group receiving only Stages 1-5 of the model. Conclusion Findings provide additional evidence for the viability of the eight-step instructional model as a methodology to promote the communication skills of students who utilize AAC, and also point to the advanced practice and feedback element of the model as a potential mediator of intervention outcomes.

Self-Balancing Robotic Car

Technology is being developed every time with an innovative upgrades to it. And in present days we are very familiar with the Segway and hoverboard devices which works on the same principle that of a self-balancing robot. A self-balancing robotic car is a device which comprises of only two wheels unlike any other conventional four wheel robotic cars and it follows the principle of inverted pendulum and it balances itself, by constantly correcting its position by comparing the reference angle and current angle. If the difference is positive bot moves forward and if it is negative it moves backward. In here MPU-6050 is acts as a (gyro + accelerometer) sensor and feedback element which senses the actual position of the bot so to keep robot in 90 degrees vertical position with respect to ground which makes it balanced. Speed, response time and motion of the device are dependent on the PID values. Method followed in present device is closed loop system. And this device architecture comprises of Arduino microcontroller, BO motors and wheels , motor driver, and MPU-6050.In real life application this can be used for travelling nearer distance paths.

On the use of catalysis to bias reaction pathways in out-of-equilibrium systems.

Catalysis is an essential function in living systems and provides a way to control complex reaction networks. In natural out-of-equilibrium chemical reaction networks (CRNs) driven by the consumption of chemical fuels, enzymes provide catalytic control over pathway kinetics, giving rise to complex functions. Catalytic regulation of man-made fuel-driven systems is far less common and mostly deals with enzyme catalysis instead of synthetic catalysts. Here, we show via simulations, illustrated by literature examples, how any catalyst can be incorporated in a non-equilibrium CRN and what their effect is on the behavior of the system. Alteration of the catalysts' concentrations in batch and flow gives rise to responses in maximum conversion, lifetime (i.e. product half-lives and t90 – time to recover 90% of the reactant) and steady states. In situ up or downregulation of catalysts' levels temporarily changes the product steady state, whereas feedback elements can give unusual concentration profiles as a function of time and self-regulation in a CRN. We show that simulations can be highly effective in predicting CRN behavior. In the future, shifting the focus from enzyme catalysis towards small molecule and metal catalysis in out-of-equilibrium systems can provide us with new reaction networks and enhance their application potential in synthetic materials, overall advancing the design of man-made responsive and interactive systems.

Positioning game review as a crucial element of game user feedback in the ongoing development of independent video games

The research is designed to determine the extent to which game reviews on the Steam platform can be used as a means of discerning the common needs of players and any flaws in existing games. In this study, the independent game No Man’s Sky is adopted as the subject of the research. Results indicated that the majority of reviews reflect shortcomings of No Man’s Sky and that the developer has acknowledged these shortcomings. Statistical research and the analytic hierarchy process supported that variables on the Steam platform reflect players’ common needs and constitute a model by means of which developers can assess constructive data. Based on these results, the researcher argues that it provides clarification for indie game developers who rely on online reviews on Steam for ideas which can assist them in effecting improvements in-game quality on a constant basis.

High-Order Compensator Augmentation of a Baseline Partial Authority Controller for Rotorcraft

An architecture and design methodology for high-order compensator (HOC) augmentation of a baseline controller for rotorcraft is presented. With this architecture, the HOC compensator is selectable and can easily be authority limited, which might ease certification. Also, the plant for this augmentative multi-input multioutput compensator design is a stabilized helicopter system, so good flight-test data could be safely gathered for more accurate plant identification. The design methodology is carried out twice on an example helicopter model, once with turbulence rejection as the objective, and once with the additional objective of closely following pilot commands. The turbulence rejection HOC is feedback only (HOC_FB), while the combined objective HOC has both feedback and feedforward elements (HOC_FBFF). The HOC_FB was found to be better at improving turbulence rejection but generally degrades the following of pilot commands. The HOC_FBFF improves turbulence rejection relative to the baseline controller, but not by as much as HOC_FB. However, HOC_FBFF also generally improves the following of pilot commands.

Crowdsensing campaigns management in smart cities

The use of information technology is one way to help in solving urban problems, aiming for the development of smart cities. Crowdsensing mechanism is an important tool in this process, exploring a collective intelligence and organising a collaboration of large groups of people. This work focuses mainly on the process of management of crowdsensing campaigns contributing to the theoretical framework regarding the theme. Through a crowdsensing system, collaborative data collection and sensor monitoring campaigns were executed, which allowed learning about the management of crowdsensing campaigns, with results such as adjustments in the computational platform by the insertion of new types of campaigns and the inclusion of feedback elements. Collaborative data collection campaigns were carried out in a monitored way that enabled learning about crowdsensing campaigns management, resulting in significant contributions to the improvement of the system and propositions of adjustments in the theoretical framework of management campaign models.

Reconceptualising the Elements of Islamic Propagation: Religious Response and Adaptation to New Media

The internet has tremendous effects to social and religious lives, including Islamic propagation (da'wah) activities. This paper aims to examine the fundamental concepts of da'wah in response to the mushrooming of cyber based-da’wah as well as adaptation to new media culture. Using a qualitative research for conceptual design, this study has found that the proliferation of cyber religious proselytizing leads the elements of da'wah have become ever-widening concepts. The concept of da’i, for instance, has experienced the reconceptualisation that not only refers to person who convey Islamic teachings through religious sermon (khutbah), but also denotes to a creative content provider for da’wah purposes in the internet. Additionally, the power of preaching in the new media lies in good, comprehensive, and argumentative messages. Similarly, redefinition of the concepts ma'du, feedback, and other da'wah elements occur as response to digital media culture.

Students’ sense-making of personalised feedback based on learning analytics

Although technological advances have brought about new opportunities for scaling feedback to students, there remain challenges in how such feedback is presented and interpreted. There is a need to better understand how students make sense of such feedback to adapt self-regulated learning processes. This study examined students’ sense-making of learning analytics–based personalised feedback across four courses. Results from a combination of thematic analysis and epistemic network analysis show an association between student perceptions of their personalised feedback and how these map to subsequent self-described self-regulated learning processes. Most notably, the results indicate that personalised feedback, elaborated by personal messages from course instructors, helps students refine or strengthen important forethought processes of goal-setting, as well as to reduce procrastination. The results highlight the need for instructors to increase the dialogic element in personalised feedback in order to reduce defensive reactions from students who hold to their own learning strategies. This approach may prompt reflection on the suitability of students’ current learning strategies and achievement of associated learning goals.
 Implications for practice or policy:
 
 Personalised feedback based on learning analytics should be informed by an understanding of students’ self-regulated learning.
 Instructors implementing personalised feedback should align this closely with the course curriculum.
 Instructors implementing personalised feedback in their courses should consider the relational element of feedback by using a positive tone.
 Personalised feedback can be further enhanced by increasing the dialogic element and by including more information about learning strategies.

Prototipe Aplikasi Pembelajaran Bagi Anak Berkebutuhan Khusus dengan Menerapkan Pendekatan Gamification

Outbreaks of Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) require the entire community to change, including education. The government issued a home study policy to reduce the spread of the virus. For students, studying at home relatively does not pose significant obstacles. Whereas for disabilities students, they need learning methods which able make them think that they are studying at school because there are scheduled lessons such as at school and material content that interests them in learning. So, they can concentrate on receiving the material. All learning processes must make it easier for parents to assist them in learning. This study provides a solution through learning media for disabilities in the form of an android-based application using a gamification approach that utilizes elements of character, challenges, interactive, stories, feedback and freedom to fail. This application presents convenience for parents in creating a child's daily schedule, selecting activities that are suitable for disabilities students and providing space for parent and child collaboration. For children, this application can help to stay enthusiastic in learning like at school in a more fun way. The limited trial application uses the System Usability Scale (SUS) as a benchmark for the perception of system usability, with a result of 85,3 which means it has a grade B grade with an Adjective Rating Excellent.

Experiences of Faculty Members Giving Corrective Feedback to Medical Trainees in a Clinical Setting.

Imperative to medical training is the observation and provision of feedback. In this era of competency-based medical education, feedback is one of the core components of this new model. A better understanding of the medical faculty's attitudes and experiences when providing feedback is essential. Currently, there are limited qualitative studies that have explored attitudes and experiences of faculty members when giving corrective feedback to medical trainees. To allow an in-depth exploration of this phenomenon, a hermeneutics phenomenology approach was used, by conducting semistructured interviews with 10 faculty members representing six disciplines and used thematic analysis to create data-driven codes and identify key themes through an iterative consensus-building process. Four themes were identified by the authors: (1) Elements of effective feedback, (2) Faculty members' perception of giving corrective feedback, (3) Challenges as it relates to the assessment culture of the institution, and (4) Providing effective corrective feedback as a mutual process focused on relationship building between learners and preceptors. By exploring faculty members' perceptions of providing perceived corrective feedback, we identified actionable recommendations based on the study participants' experiences, expectations, and challenges which could be addressed involving future faculty development with the focus on modifying concepts of feedback and institutional changes that will promote an attitudinal and a cultural shift.

COMMUNICATION PRACTICES OF 12-14 YEARS-OLD DIGITAL USERS

This study aims to explore the online communication habits and practices of 12-14-year-old 50 students from an urban school. Measuring their answers on the Digital Native Scale of Timothy Teo (DNAS), this study refers to the suggested four-factor by the author, creating a framework for the analysis of their digital native profile: grown up with technology, comfortable with multi-tasking, reliant on graphics for communication, and thrive on instant rewards (Teo, 2013). The results of the study enhance the understanding of digital natives. As we expected, this research shows a high degree of comfort in online communication in their differentiated profile. It is relevant the issue of age when exemplifying digital natives’ skills. Also, it is estimated that there are similar behaviours, related with the debut age of technology use (4-5 years old). The most common actions in virtual space are surfing on the Internet, photographing, communicating, downloading, disseminating, adding to comments on colleagues’ posts. According to this study, the online communication practices of these 12-14-year-old students include in terms of content various symbols, instant bonuses, and feedback elements. From an educational point of view, these can be included in a structured manner of learning. The article proposes, in this view, several ways to integrate usual students’ communication practices in learning activities with the support of digital resources (virtual bulletin boards, online presentations, digital stories so on). The results indicate that students showed the digital native characteristics, that can be successfully used in school.

Ionized outflows from active galactic nuclei as the essential elements of feedback

Outflows from active galactic nuclei (AGN) are one of the fundamental mechanisms by which the central supermassive black hole interacts with its host galaxy. Detected in $\ge 50\%$ of nearby AGN, these outflows have been found to carry kinetic energy that is a significant fraction of AGN power, and thereby give negative feedback to their host galaxies. To understand the physical processes that regulate them, it is important to have a robust estimate of their physical and dynamical parameters. In this review we summarize our current understanding on the physics of the ionized outflows detected in absorption in the UV and X-ray wavelength bands. We discuss the most relevant observations and our current knowledge and uncertainties in the measurements of the outflow parameters. We also discuss their origin and acceleration mechanisms. The commissioning and concept studies of large telescope missions with high resolution spectrographs in UV/optical and X-rays along with rapid advancements in simulations offer great promise for discoveries in this field over the next decade.

Learning UI Functional Design Principles Through Simulation With Feedback

The user interface (UI) is a key component of an interactive software application; therefore, it is important to provide software developers with basic UI design skills. However, teaching UI design is challenging, even at a basic level, and there is little teaching support. In this article, we investigate the benefits of the feedback-enriched simulation environment (FENIkS) for learning fundamental UI design principles toward designing the functional aspects of a UI. FENIkS is a model-driven educational environment making use of simulation as learning support by generating a UI and the underlying application starting from conceptual domain and presentation models. The generated application and UI contain feedback elements for the learners. This feedback shows if the generated prototype is compliant with certain key design principles and why the principles are considered to be well applied or not. We conducted an experiment using bachelor-level courses to observe the effects of FENIkS on the learning of UI design principles by novice UI designers. The effectiveness of FENIkS was measured by comparing the results of students on a test performed without and with the use of FENIkS, using statistical methods. The findings show an improvement in student's learning of UI design principles when using the FENIkS approach.

Impact of readiness assurance process and faculty feedback on individual application exercises: a model for continuous assessment in physiology.

This study is aimed at the implementation of a continuous assessment model in physiology for a large-enrollment classroom with 250 students. The readiness assurance process (RAP) and immediate feedback elements from team-based learning (TBL) methodology were adopted to test their ability to guide students to solve applications exercises individually. Three continuous assessments in physiology (CAPs) were conducted with the RAP to include individual (iRAT) and group readiness assurance tests (gRAT). Immediate feedback was provided with faculty-student discussion (FSD), and the individual application exercises (iAE) were designed to be answered individually. Each CAP was subjected to three types of experimental manipulation in subgroups created out of 250 students. The intervention began with iRAT for all three subgroups. The sequence of iRAT, gRAT, FSD, and iAE varied between subgroups within a CAP. In a cross-over study design, each subgroup of students was subjected to all three intervention types over three CAPs. The subgroup completing iAE after RAP and FSD showed higher scores than the subgroup with RAP alone. One hundred eight-two students (82.35% response rate; 101 women and 81 men) responded to the questionnaire. The majority of students (87.4%) felt that doing iRAT and gRAT at the beginning helped them to solve iAE better. Most of the students (86.8%) responded that they received useful feedback and clarification during the discussion with the teacher after the gRAT. In conclusion, the administration of iRAT first followed by gRAT and immediate feedback from faculty seem to be beneficial to prepare students to tackle application-based exercises.

Active control technology for flexible solar array disturbance suppression

The satellite attitude is disturbed by uneven movement of the solar array driven by traditional stepper motor assembly. In order to reduce the attitude disturbances resulting from solar array drive mechanisms of high-resolution satellites, permanent magnet synchronous motors are employed as driving units. The flexible modes of the solar array directly connected with the driving motor output shaft are detected by the feedback element. Through feeding back the flexible modes to the drive mechanism controller, the active control and disturbance suppression of the solar array are realized. Purely employing the traditional PI regulator would cause low stability margin and is easy to couple with the low-order mode of solar array. To overcome the shortcomings of the traditional PI regulator, a phase compensation active control strategy is proposed. Ground and on-orbit experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm. Furthermore, the advancement is verified by the comparative analysis of attitude disturbance to the satellite. The phase compensation active control strategy combined with PI regulator has been successfully applied in a high-resolution satellite.

Control of primary disinfection in a drinking water treatment plant based on a fuzzy inference system

Drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) have to be efficiently managed to produce safe water at all times, independently from variations of influent water quality. Artificial Intelligence techniques like fuzzy inference systems (FIS) can help in consolidating process knowledge accumulated through years of experience and improve the consistency and resiliency of decision-making in these facilities. The objective of this study was to develop an advanced control system for choosing the combined dose of sodium hypochlorite and chlorine dioxide at the primary disinfection step of a full-scale DWTP. To accomplish this, two FISs consisting of a feed-forward and feed-back control elements were developed. The models were integrated in an environmental decision support system (EDSS) that evaluates the disinfection by-products (DBPs) formation risk and proposes actions which can be verified and applied by treatment managers. Implementation of the EDSS at a full-scale DWTP of Barcelona was positively validated 85.5 % of the times, maintaining acceptable DBPs concentrations at the effluent. The presented methodology can be used at similar surface water DWTPs for developing control strategies to manage DBPs formation.

External cavity terahertz quantum cascade laser with a metamaterial/graphene optoelectronic mirror

Photonic engineering of the terahertz emission from a quantum cascade laser (QCL) is fundamental for the exploitation of this unique source in a myriad of applications where it can be implemented, such as spectroscopy, imaging, and sensing. Active control of the frequency, power, polarization, and beam profile has been achieved through a variety of approaches. In particular, the active control of the emitted frequency, which is difficult to determine a priori, has been achieved through the integration of a photonic structure and/or by using external cavity arrangements. In this work, an external cavity arrangement, which implements a metamaterial/graphene optoelectronic mirror as an external feedback element, is proposed and demonstrated. The reflectivity and dispersion properties of the external active mirror were tuned via electrostatically gating graphene. It was possible to electronically reproduce the mode-switch occurring in a QCL emitting ∼2.8 THz by mechanically changing the external cavity length formed by an Au mirror. The external cavity arrangement was investigated and described in the framework of the self-mixing theory. These results open a way for the all-electronic engineering of the QCL emission by the use of a fast reconfigurable external mirror. This approach can uniquely address both power and frequency control, with ∼100 MHz reconfiguration speeds, using an integrated external element. Furthermore, the metamaterial/graphene mirror's strong dispersive properties might be implemented for the active mode locking of THz QCLs. Finally, this approach offers a unique opportunity to study the laser dynamics and mode competition in THz QCLs in the self-mixing feedback regime.