Learning Information Resources Research Articles

Development of a Questionnaire Focused on Sports Coaches Learning

Coaching is one of the most demanding social, helping and pedagogical professions. Therefore, research attention is rightly paid mainly to formal coach education aiming at adequate preparation for the practice of this profession. In recent years, however, many empirical studies have demonstrated that non-formal coach education is playing an increasingly important role in coach development in addition to formal coach education. At the same time, research findings show that it is not only the completed “official” coach education that is crucial for the professional development of each coach, but above all, it is the complex results of their lifelong learning.
 Therefore, it is essential for various sports institutions, for sports educational facilities, especially for coach educators, to have information about the course, features, and potential problems related to lifelong learning of specific sports coaches. Therefore, our paper aims to create a research tool – a questionnaire that identifies the essential circumstances of lifelong coach learning.
 The design of the questionnaire builds on our previous research on formal, non-formal and informal coach education and, in particular, on the results of many analogous international empirical studies on coach learning. These starting points show that the following areas play an essential role in the lifelong learning process of coaches: (1) personal sports and coaching experience, (2) reflection (self-reflection) of this experience, (3) professional sharing of coach experience, (4) mentoring and (5) accessible and understandable coach learning information resources.
 We prepared a working version of the questionnaire based on the above principles. This research tool aims to identify sports coaches' learning and education processes. We designed the questionnaire containing 66 items (closed, open, semi-closed, and scales) to suit various respondents – coaches (multiple types of sports, competitive and recreational sports, different age groups, beginners and experienced coaches, etc.).
 The first stage of verifying the draft version of the questionnaire consisted of an expert assessment. A total of 6 active coaches (three male coaches and three female coaches from the environment of top, competitive and hobby sports), who were acquainted with the theoretical basis of the questionnaire, recommended minor corrections to the questionnaire. The second stage of the questionnaire verification took place in interviews with six coaches (again working in competitive and leisure sports) who were not acquainted with the theoretical basis of the questionnaire. This stage focused on the clarity and unambiguity of individual items. The revised questionnaire was subsequently converted into an electronic form. The functionality of the final electronic version of the questionnaire was verified within a pilot study (n = 18).

Research on the Reform of Higher Education Training Mode under the Background of Big Data and Internet of Things

With the rapid development of information processing, storage, and transmission technologies, the demand for talents from all walks of life in the society has increased, which has put forward higher requirements for the diversity of Chinese higher education. In China’s higher education, undergraduate education is in a fundamental position. China’s undergraduate education has undergone several reforms in talent training, but there are still many problems in the innovative talent training model. With the gradual improvement of the Internet of Things infrastructure, various applications characterized by big data are deeply embedded in people’s daily life. In the era of big data, the amount of data is larger and the structure is more complex. It penetrates into all fields of human life and shows unprecedented vitality and vigor. Especially in the field of higher education, the era of big data provides more information resources for education and learning and also brings new opportunities for the cultivation of applied talents in local undergraduate colleges and universities. This paper deeply studies the training mode of applied talents in local undergraduate colleges and universities under the background of big data and the Internet of Things. Based on the data analysis results of big data application technicians and industry talents, professional ability-course structure data, this paper completes the design of the corresponding talent training mode analysis system. Under the application of the system designed in this paper, it is possible to realize the analysis of the differences in the knowledge structure requirements of talents in various positions and the needs of talents’ ability, as well as the optimization and reform of the talent training curriculum system. The design of this paper can play an important guiding role in talent training in the environment of big data and Internet of Things.

Construction of the EFL Mobile Learning Model in the Hybrid Distributed Terminal

With the integration of technology in higher education, mobile learning plays an important role in EFL classes. In order to optimize the efficiency of EFL learning, a mobile learning model in the hybrid distributed terminal is constructed. The online platform supporting both synchronous and asynchronous learning with three types of interaction helps build a blended learning model and creates a closed loop for ubiquitous online and offline learning with multiple evaluation, which also builds a community of inquiry-based learning to facilitate collaborative study and deep thinking. Aiming to improve the resource scheduling performance of learning information sharing mode, based on the traditional sharing mode hardware, the mobile learning software for the hybrid distributed terminal is thus optimized. Learning resources are mined and fused to realize the scheduling of learning information resources, and user interface management function is designed to construct the EFL mobile learning mode with the hybrid distributed terminal.

ВЫБОР ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНЫХ ИНФОРМАЦИОННЫХ И СПРАВОЧНЫХ РЕСУРСОВ ДЛЯ ДИСТАНЦИОННОГО ОБУЧЕНИЯ

The article is focused on the importance of selecting information resources for distant learning. In the era of globalization and information progress the modernization of the higher education system has a great importance for introducing the new approaches to organization of educational activities. The emergence of accessible information technologies allows the students to receive education outside the educational institutions, which caused the formation of distance learning. The demand for distance learning is increasing every year. The technologies for developing distance learning will be very important in the future. Virtual laboratories are especially popular in distance learning in chemical and technological departments of the universities. This paper presents a comparative analysis of virtual laboratories and reference electronic resources for use in distance learning for technical universities. Safety of experiments, clarity, lack of significant equipment costs, possibility of repeated experiments and quick analysis of results, lack of reference to the schedule of classes and the ability to conduct experiments at convenient time, as well as, if necessary, a wide coverage of students with different levels of training are the undoubted advantages of the distant resource. There has been given a comparative analysis of Russian and foreign virtual laboratories and the free reference electronic resources that serve as a tool in distance learning at technical universities. There has been stated the need to improve the implementation of functional elements for increasing adoption the interactivity of a virtual laboratory or information resource

COVID-19-Related Challenges in Dental Education: Experiences From Brazil, the USA, and Australia

Objective: To describe and compare how three dental schools from different countries (Australia, Brazil, and the USA) have managed experiences in dental education during the COVID-19 crisis. Material and Methods: It is a descriptive study reporting the experience that three distinct dental schools faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. They represent countries that adopted different measures to tackle the pandemic and were undergoing different stages of the disease. Results: After the WHO declared the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal University of Paraíba suspended all on-site teaching, research, and service activities. For the return to teaching activities, the use of information and communications technology resources for distance learning was recommended. At the School of Dental Medicine (University of Pittsburgh), all research activities were suspended or, otherwise, could not be interrupted because of the employment of unique materials or supplies. When the pandemic started, Australia was one of the first countries to introduce strong regulations related to social distancing, travel restrictions, testing and tracking of infected patients. As such, the universities started to be closed from mid-March, cancelling all clinical and pre-clinical activities, maintaining online theoretical activities, such as seminars, lectures, and journal clubs. Conclusion: Numerous and critical difficulties have arisen as a result of the pandemic for individuals, communities and institutions that will have long-lasting effects. Our students face disruption to their education and career; our professional colleagues will be challenged rebuilding their practices, while staff at all Dental Schools are experiencing various hardships.

Social learning about construction behaviour via an artefact

One source of public information may be the enduring products of others’ behaviour, such as discarded tools or vacated nests. Here, we examined whether observation of a nest affects the material captive zebra finch males prefer when they construct their first nest. It does: for first-time nest construction, males that viewed only an empty cage preferred the colour of material each initially favoured but those males that had observed a pre-built nest of material of their non-preferred colour lost their material-colour preference altogether. Additionally, half of the males that viewed a nest were tested in an environment (the laboratory) different to that in which they were reared (an outdoor aviary). We had expected the aviary-reared (versus laboratory-reared) males would be more uncertain, and thus more likely to select material for their first nest that matched in colour to the colour of the ‘demonstrated’ nest—but this was not the case. The aviary-reared males did, however, tend to touch first the demonstrated colour of material more than did the laboratory-reared males. Together these results show that both observation of a nest and a change in environment can influence the material choices of novice builders. For naïve animal builders, then, construction artefacts can be information resources for learning about potential construction material.

Availability and Utilization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Resources for English Language Teaching and Learning in Secondary Schools in Nsukka Urban: Implication for National Security.

The study examined the availability and utilization of ICT Resources for teaching English Language in secondary schools located in Nsukka urban of Enugu state, Nigeria. Two research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The design of the study was descriptive survey design. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 9 teachers out 29 English teachers from the 9 public secondary schools in Nsukka urban. One English teacher each from the nine schools making it a total number of 9 teachers were used for the study. Checklist and questionnaires were used to collect data. These instruments were validated by three experts from university of Nigeria Nsukka. Percentages, mean and standard deviation and t-test were used to analyse the data collected. The findings of the study revealed that only 3 ICT resources were available for teaching English language in secondary schools. The study also revealed that the very few that were available were grossly underutilized. This implied that the teaching of English which is known for its capacity to douse linguistic tension in our multilingual Nigeria is not effectively and efficiently taught and learnt. Recommendations made include that government should make available ICT resources for the purposes of teaching English in secondary schools in Nsukka urban and that teachers should be exposed on how to use the ICT resources.

Exploration of An Open Online Learning Platform Based on Google Cloud Computing

With the progress of society, traditional online learning platforms have demonstrated the uneven distribution of information resources, and teacher–student communication exhibits a certain delay. At present, cloud computing, which is a new product of information technology, has been favored in many areas because of its superior feedback mechanism and storage space. Therefore, to improve the integration of online learning information resources and facilitate interaction between teachers and students, we designed our own online learning system based on the Google cloud computing platform. We used Google’s cloud computing platform and the Google App Engine to develop a unified and open online learning platform that is capable of storing large amounts of data, integrating considerable amounts of learning resources, and storing them on cloud. Through a test, we determined that the designed online learning platform for sharing information resources and integrating teacher–student exchanges is highly beneficial. The platform helps the classroom learning atmosphere become active, and has a positive effect on teaching methods. The proposed platform can promote further development of online learning.

Evaluating the appropriateness of electronic information resources for learning.

Current US medical students have begun to rely on electronic information repositories-such as UpToDate, AccessMedicine, and Wikipedia-for their pre-clerkship medical education. However, it is unclear whether these resources are appropriate for this level of learning due to factors involving information quality, level of evidence, and the requisite knowledgebase. This study evaluated appropriateness of electronic information resources from a novel perspective: amount of mental effort learners invest in interactions with these resources and effects of the experienced mental effort on learning. Eighteen first-year medical students read about three unstudied diseases in the above-mentioned resources (a total of fifty-four observations). Their eye movement characteristics (i.e., fixation duration, fixation count, visit duration, and task-evoked pupillary response) were recorded and used as psychophysiological indicators of the experienced mental effort. Post reading, students' learning was assessed with multiple-choice tests. Eye metrics and test results constituted quantitative data analyzed according to the repeated Latin square design. Students' perceptions of interacting with the information resources were also collected. Participants' feedback during semi-structured interviews constituted qualitative data and was reviewed, transcribed, and open coded for emergent themes. Compared to AccessMedicine and Wikipedia, UpToDate was associated with significantly higher values of eye metrics, suggesting learners experienced higher mental effort. No statistically significant difference between the amount of mental effort and learning outcomes was found. More so, descriptive statistical analysis of the knowledge test scores suggested similar levels of learning regardless of the information resource used. Judging by the learning outcomes, all three information resources were found appropriate for learning. UpToDate, however, when used alone, may be less appropriate for first-year medical students' learning as it does not fully address their information needs and is more demanding in terms of cognitive resources invested.

Digitization of Journal Collections in Libraries: A Case Study of Kenneth Dike Library, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Digitization of journal collections in libraries is inevitable with the advent of Information Communication Technology (ICT). There is a need to digitize journals in the academic library in order to preserve and to give wider visibility and accessibility to information resources for teaching, learning, and research. This article describes the processes of journal collection digitization in Kenneth Dike Library, University of Ibadan. Underfunding and copyright clearance are the challenges encountered, among others. The study recommends adequate funding and concludes that the benefit of instant access to digital information is the most distinguishing attribute in this present information age.

The Impact of Q&A Forums’ Level of Elaboration on Students’ Learning

Recently online discussion forums have become alternative information resources for student learning. This paper investigated the influences of the quality of online discussion forums on students’ discussion behaviors and learning performance. The statistical results revealed that students would have better learning performance and more discussion behaviors when an elaborated online discussion forum was provided as a learning resource.

МОБІЛЬНЕ НАВЧАННЯ: СУТНІСТЬ ТА МОДЕЛІ ВПРОВАДЖЕННЯ В НАВЧАЛЬНИЙ ПРОЦЕС ВИЩИХ НАВЧАЛЬНИХ ЗАКЛАДІВ МВС УКРАЇНИ

Сучасні тенденції створення та розширення функціональності портативних електронних пристроїв змушують світову спільноту замислюватися про їх використання з освітньою метою. Останніми роками вчені все частіше говорять про виникнення навчання за допомогою мобільних пристроїв або мобільне навчання. Автором визначена сутність мобільного навчання, його співвідношення із дистанційним та електронним навчанням, а також окреслені його переваги та недоліки. На підставі особливостей мобільних пристроїв сформульовано правила розробки інформаційних ресурсів для мобільного навчання. Запропоновано моделі впровадження мобільного навчання у навчальний процес вищих навчальних закладів МВС України.

Digital library for Earth system education adds pedagogical links

Effectively teaching Earth science requires not only a broad understanding of geoscience topics but also strategies and tools to help students learn. For example, a teacher planning a lesson on the hydrologic cycle should know students' common misconceptions (e.g., groundwater flows as underground rivers), how studying the water cycle can contribute to students' understanding of systems and processes, how to leverage students' firsthand experiences with water fluxes and reservoirs to inform class discussion, and how to assess what students know and understand about the water cycle.Such knowledge of how to teach effectively within a discipline is called “pedagogical content knowledge,” or PCK. A new service within the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) seeks to help educators teach more effectively by providing them with access to relevant PCK as they prepare to teach a given topic, issue, lesson, or idea. DLESE (http://www.dlese.org) is a Web‐based portal providing access to curriculum materials and information resources for teaching and learning about the Earth and its environment.

Assisting the uptake of on-line resources: why good learning resources are not enough

The proliferation of information resources for learning, and the increased range of media that make up learning resources, introduce new challenges for those supporting the effective use of online resources within education. This paper describes the importance of good on-line resources, and why despite the best efforts of their developers and institutional support staff, their uptake is low. It explores the issues of matching resources available to the identified needs of users and to their perceived expectations. An analysis of common strategies employed in building collections to improve uptake is made. While the impacts of these strategies are limited when separately adopted, it is possible to increase their effectiveness by combining collection-based and user-based strategies. A revised definition of critical mass is offered that is user-oriented and takes into account the human and technological constraints of developing and maintaining online resource services. The process of needs-analysis is linked to the central role of evaluation in building collections of resources that demonstrably meet the needs of users. The paper concludes that elements of both strategies are necessary to build collections that do support learning.

New media, new opportunities? The developing role of the school library in teaching and learning

Delivered at the International Association of School Librarians Annual Conference in July, 1995, at Worcester, UK, this paper comprises the 1995 Weston Woods Lecture. School libraries are facing tremendous changes in their operating context, particularly with regard to the impact of networked information resources for teaching and learning. The totality of information technology, including the Internet, television, CD‐ROM have created great opportunities. Using IT has become an essential element in school curricula. Links to other information providers, especially public libraries, are now being developed, while methods of accessing information are changing. The role of children in introducing IT within the home is also significant and IT in schools is becoming pervasive, from information to support planning through to classroom and library developments. Experience in the US, the UK, Australia and Canada has highlighted similar opportunities and also problems. Less developed countries have, however, lagged behind in developing IT in schools. The balance between old and new media, between books and IT, now has to be addressed worldwide. Ensuring that children are able to discriminate between information on the networks and within other sources remains an important role for librarians.

Designing databases as tools for higher-level learning: Insights from instructional systems design

This article reports on a naturalistic study of online and CD-ROM databases to identify design characteristics that are important to high school students' use of these information resources for higher-level learning as well as for information access and retrieval. Primary data collection techniques were interactive observations of 92 students and informal interviews with 54 students, 4 teachers, and the school library media specialist. The article presents an inventory of specific problems students experienced while using 7 CD-ROM and 18 online databases and discusses implications for database design based on the study results. By showing how the lens of instructional systems design can be applied to the study of a specific information technology, this article provides a new perspective on database design and suggests how electronic information resources can be designed to promote higher-level learning through enhancing students' opportunities to process, evaluate, and apply the information they retrieve from these resources.

RESEARCH AND LEARNING INFORMATION RESOURCES: BOOK REVIEWS

RESEARCH AND LEARNING INFORMATION RESOURCES: BOOK REVIEWS

RESEARCH AND LEARNING INFORMATION RESOURCES: BOOK REVIEWS

RESEARCH AND LEARNING INFORMATION RESOURCES: BOOK REVIEWS

RESEARCH AND LEARNING INFORMATION RESOURCES: BOOK REVIEWS

RESEARCH AND LEARNING INFORMATION RESOURCES: BOOK REVIEWS

RESEARCH AND LEARNING INFORMATION RESOURCES: BOOK REVIEWS

RESEARCH AND LEARNING INFORMATION RESOURCES: BOOK REVIEWS