Open-ended Activities Research Articles

Perceiving Distances and Construing Targets Based on Communication

Construal level theory states that the psychological distance to events and objects affects their construal level. But how do humans get to the psychological distance in the first place? We argue that language plays a key role. Communicating a distance typically requires a particular measurement unit, and the distance and its resolution affect the perceived psychological distance. There is an important difference between an invitation to a wedding on August 3rd and next summer. To substantiate our claims, we replicate the BIF task (n = 358) and the open-ended activity descriptions (n = 357) from Liberman and Trope (1998), and the concreteness in New York Times articles (n = 15,075) from Bhatia and Walasek (2016). We show the added value in understanding the effect of communicating distances, spotlighting its relevance for academic work that studies construal based on language or uses construal to explain further social situations.

Parents' Perspectives of an Arts Engagement Program Supporting Children with Anxiety.

Arts engagement programs (AEPs) are non-clinical, structured programs led by artists and educators to support mental health and wellbeing. While evidence demonstrates positive mental health outcomes in adult AEPs, studies of childhood AEPs remain sparse. We created a gallery-based AEP (Culture Dose for Kids) for children with anxiety based on a successful arts engagement pilot for adults with depression. We questioned whether our tailored-for-children adult program would effectively and feasibly support children's mental health. Through parents' perspectives and feedback, this study tested the program's acceptability, feasibility, and effectiveness with children with anxiety. Quantitative and qualitative measures were used to determine whether the program was an effective and acceptable mental health support for children with anxiety. Our findings revealed that the program positively and significantly impacted parental perceptions of their child's anxiety. Our findings illustrate depictions of improved mood, confidence, and sense of empowerment in the child, qualities associated with resilience and mental wellbeing. Open-ended activities provided opportunities for connection, creativity, and experimentation-sources of strength for improving mental health. This study adds to the small but growing evidence base supporting the role of arts-based community care in youth mental health and wellbeing.

EFL Students’ Perspectives on Activities Designed for Asynchronous Discussion Forums: Transformative Practices

The current study aimed to examine the perspectives of EFL students regarding the types of pedagogical activities they found engaging while using asynchronous discussion forums (ADF), as well as the practices of educators in encouraging the participation of their students. An interview with ten university students who were enrolled in an English language methodology course was used to construct data. The results of the study revealed that university students preferred open-ended activities to knowledge-based tasks such as quizzes or direct tasks. They found open-ended activities to be more challenging and engaging. The results also unveiled that the participants of the study expressed appreciation for tutors who provided clear instructions for tasks uploaded on the online discussion forum. They also valued the tutors who motivated them and offered constructive feedback. These factors were crucial in enhancing students’ engagement and participation in ADF. Based on these results, the study recommends empowering tutors with the skills and knowledge necessary to design engaging assignments that align with students’ expectations and provide them with direct and constructive feedback that would enhance ensuing research.

Analisis Bibliometrik : Model Eliciting Activities Terhadap Kemampuan Koneksi Matematis Berbasis VOSviewer

Model Eliciting Activities (MEA) is an activity to create or build models and modeling perspectives for mathematical connections in mathematics education. This study aims to determine research trends from generating activities to mathematical connection abilities and to see opportunities for future research based on VOSviewer. This study used bibliometric analysis, the data in this study were obtained through Google Scholar using publish or perish from 2013 to 2023 with the keyword eliciting activities. It was found that the research trend of eliciting activities on mathematical connection abilities in Full Counting Density Visualization contained 54 terms related to mathematical connection abilities. The density display model shows that the most research related to eliciting activities is eliciting open-ended activities, learning outcomes, hots and cognitive styles which are marked in bright yellow. The brighter the yellow color, the more research has been done. While the research that is still small is the ability of mathematical connections, problem solving abilities and critical thinking which are marked with dim colors. Thus, the opportunity to carry out the latest research to retrieve these items can be done because they are rarely studied.

A Critical Case Study on the Implementation of Computational Thinking in Mathematics Education

Abstract We report the critical case of an expert teacher, with whom we codesigned, implemented and discussed an innovation consisting of a task addressing a dual learning goals that uses block programming in a geometry lesson for her sixth-grade class. We analyse the case focusing on three sub-processes of implementation. First, the teacher constructs agency over both the structure and content of the innovation, illustrated by altering the sequencing within the task and adding of an open-ended activity. Second, her practice changes to adapt the innovation by bringing her expertise in programming and mathematics teaching to guide the solution of one hybrid task. Third, the innovation is adapted to accommodate her pedagogical approach and push for appealing to students’ personal interests. Despite the realisation of these sub-processes, the outcomes of the realised innovation were not necessarily positive, implying a need for an integrated — not compound — expertise in computational and mathematics teaching. The impact sheet to this article can be accessed at 10.6084/m9.figshare.22339588.

A sample STEM activity based on the engineering design process: A study on prospective preschool teachers’ views

This research aimed to introduce a STEM activity specifically prepared in accordance with the engineering design process and to examine a group of prospective preschool teachers’ views about the activity. A total of 16 prospective teachers studying in the final year of a public university in the West Black Sea Region, Turkey, during the fall semester of the 2021/22 academic year were the participants of the study. The STEM activity was based on the problem of making a fish model that can sink, swim and float in water. At the end of the activity, an open-ended activity opinion form was used to gather the prospective teachers’ views about the activity. The data were analyzed using the descriptive analysis method by taking into consideration the themes related to STEM, as specified in the theoretical framework. The results of the study show that the prospective teachers took the opportunity to experience how a STEM activity is held, that they found the activity fun and interesting, as well as conducive to learning science concepts and higher-order thinking skills. As for the negative aspects of the activity, the respondents stated that the activity was time-consuming, and that it was difficult to decide on and build the design. We believe that this study will provide theoretical and practical contributions to both researchers and preschool teachers.

The impurity of praxis: Arendt and Agamben

If politics is understood as a foundational and open-ended activity, a general problem that arises from such a framing concerns the question of how to sustain the possibility of continuous openings without converting action into permanence and closure. In this article, we approach this problematic by treating Hannah Arendt as an exemplary figure in the current of political thought that emphasizes the indeterminate nature of action. We focus more specifically on how Arendt addressed the question of sustaining action by exploring the role of forgiveness, promises, divided power, and principles of action in her thought. While we show that the task of sustaining the indeterminacy of action partly remains an unresolvable paradox for Arendt, a general force underpinning the thought of Giorgio Agamben sheds new light on this paradox. Rather than affirming radical openness and pure praxis as such, Agamben’s work helps accentuate the need of a certain contamination of praxis by its own limit or apparent opposite. Importantly, this allows us to interpret Arendt and the paradoxical task of bestowing some degree of permanence to the open horizon of political action in a decidedly positive light: that praxis implies a moment of impurity is the very force that sustains it without sacrificing its indeterminate nature.

Validation Study of a Computer-Aided Design Augmentation Tool for Cost Estimation

AbstractWhile fundamentals of DFMA (design for manufacturing and assembly) are widely accepted and used in the engineering community, many CAD environments lack tools that address manufacturing concerns by providing rapid feedback about costs resulting from design choices. This article presents an experiment-based testing and validation of a rapid feedback tool that provides users history-based prediction of manufacturing time based on the current state of the design. A between-subject experiment is designed to evaluate the impact of the tool on design outcomes based on modeling time, part mass, and manufacturing time. Participants in the study included mechanical engineering graduate and undergraduate students with at least one semester of experience using solidworks. The experiment included three modeling activities and three tool conditions. Participants completed up to three sessions with different experimental conditions. Analysis of the data collected shows that the use of the design tool results in a small but nonsignificant increase in modeling time. Moreover, the use of the tool results in reduced part mass on average (both between subjects and within subjects). Tool use reduced manufacturing time in open-ended activities, but increased manufacturing time when activities focus more on mass reduction. Participant feedback suggests that the tool helped guide their material removal actions by showing the impact on manufacturing time. Finally, potential improvements and future expansions of the tool are discussed.

Playfulness and Creativity as Vital Features when School Children Develop Game-based Designs

The presence of digital technologies in classroom settings is relentlessly getting stronger and has shown to have powerful playful qualities. In recent years, digital game-based learning (DGBL) has been introduced in schools. In this paper we explore game-based design activities to unfold playful and creative actions and interactions among children. The study is based on two cases, where game design activities were applied in both analogue and digital form. The unit of analysis is game design activities. The research questions posed in this study are: (1) What activities develop when school children design games in two similarly framed workshop cases, where one included analogue material and the other a combination of analogue and digital material?, and (2) How do children interact in a learning environment framed by purely analogue-based material as opposed to a learning environment framed by a combination of analogue and digital material? A thematic analysis identified three themes: exploratory activities; combinational activities; and transformative activities. These themes suggest that the game design workshop sessions including only analogue material facilitated playfulness promoting creative actions in children’s production of different ideational considerations. In a mixed activity combining analogue and digital material, creativity in the form of fluency was represented by the way the children produced their ideas, which opened up for playfulness, e.g. in the form of humour. The analysis showed that a procedural activity design including pre-designed theme framing children’s constructions facilitated an open-ended activity.

Assessing Open-Ended Human-Computer Collaboration Systems: Applying a Hallmarks Approach.

There is a growing desire to create computer systems that can collaborate with humans on complex, open-ended activities. These activities typically have no set completion criteria and frequently involve multimodal communication, extensive world knowledge, creativity, and building structures or compositions through multiple steps. Because these systems differ from question and answer (Q&A) systems, chatbots, and simple task-oriented assistants, new methods for evaluating such collaborative computer systems are needed. Here, we present a set of criteria for evaluating these systems, called Hallmarks of Human-Machine Collaboration. The Hallmarks build on the success of heuristic evaluation used by the user interface community and past evaluation techniques used in the spoken language and chatbot communities. They consist of observable characteristics indicative of successful collaborative communication, grouped into eight high-level properties: robustness; habitability; mutual contribution of meaningful content; context-awareness; consistent human engagement; provision of rationale; use of elementary concepts to teach and learn new concepts; and successful collaboration. We present examples of how we used these Hallmarks in the DARPA Communicating with Computers (CwC) program to evaluate diverse activities, including story and music generation, interactive building with blocks, and exploration of molecular mechanisms in cancer. We used the Hallmarks as guides for developers and as diagnostics, assessing systems with the Hallmarks to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement using logs from user studies, surveying the human partner, third-party review of creative products, and direct tests. Informal feedback from CwC technology developers indicates that the use of the Hallmarks for program evaluation helped guide development. The Hallmarks also made it possible to identify areas of progress and major gaps in developing systems where the machine is an equal, creative partner.

Exploring Primary-School EFL Teacher Expertise in Scaffolding: A Comparative Study

While much attention has been focused—in the field of teacher expertise—on expert teachers’ cognitive and behavioral characteristics, little attention has been devoted to how expert teachers reciprocally interact with the learning process. To bridge this gap in knowledge, this study seeks to explore primary-school EFL (English as a Foreign Language)—teacher expertise in the area of scaffolding. A comparison has been made among 2 expert EFL teachers, 20 experienced non-expert teachers, and 2 novice teachers in Chinese primary-school settings. By adopting a qualitative method of inquiry using interviews, classroom observations, and stimulated recalls, (yet with a quantitative aspect incorporating data analysis), the study demonstrates that expert teachers show a tendency to use scaffolding strategies more frequently and appropriately. These findings suggest that more open-ended activities be conducted to allow for scaffolding in EFL classrooms and that ESL/EFL teacher education raise scaffolding awareness in pre-service and in-service teachers.

Evaluating the Textbook Used in the Greek Centre of Further Merchant Marine Education: School of Mechanics

This paper attempts to evaluate a teaching textbook used in the Greek Merchant Marine Center of Further Education: School of Mechanics. The evaluation considers adult learners’ needs and practices to evaluate the prescribed textbook used in this institution. This textbook has been used for a long time and, though it includes proper ESP knowledge, it is considered to need embellishment to satisfy learners’ growing needs, especially as it concerns engineering vocabulary. The research question mainly investigates whether this textbook helps learners in their practice of receptive and productive language skills both in general English and English for Specific Purposes use. Following a checklist of evaluation criteria, internal and external evaluation took place. It was found that the textbook is considered very plain and unattractive by learners. Though it includes the teaching of main vocabulary and grammar necessary to learners, it does not include material for pronunciation practice. Furthermore, it does not offer enough practise of all four language skills. It does not present activities for the practicing of vocabulary use or writing. There is also a lack of participatory tasks like group activities or teamwork. The findings contribute to the field because they could help embellish the teaching material with more communicative tasks and open-ended activities, which would motivate, interest, and engage learners more. The more purposeful use of technical language would be aiding mechanics in their training and in their work field in merchant navy vessels.

Effects of a Thermal Inversion Experiment on STEM Students Learning and Application of Damped Harmonic Motion

There are diverse teaching methodologies to promote both collaborative and individual work in undergraduate physics courses. However, few educational studies seek to understand how students learn and apply new knowledge through open-ended activities that require mathematical modeling and experimentation focused on environmental problems. Here, we propose a novel home experiment to simulate the dynamics of a flue gas under temperature inversion and model it as damped harmonic motion. After designing and conducting the experiment, twenty six first year students enrolled in STEM majors answered six qualitative questions to inform us about their epistemological beliefs regarding their learning process. Their answers imply that this type of open-ended experiments may facilitate students’ understanding of physical phenomena and point to the significance of physics instructors as promoters of epistemological development. In general, students described this activity as a positive experience that helped them connect an environmental phenomenon with a fundamental physics concept.

Developing Creativity in Young Children by Implementation of Open Ended Activities in the USA and in China

This qualitative case study aims to analyze whether there are differences in creativity in preschool children growing up in China and in the U.S. by exploring how children used symbols in the creation of artwork. The context of this research includes early childhood education in China and America, theories of childhood development and creativity, and the development of symbolic thinking in young children. The instruments for collecting data included classroom observations, open-ended interviews and the children’s artwork. The research findings offer important information about cross-cultural investigations into creativity. First, the study found that children's artwork demonstrates varied and unique expression patterns and can be interpreted in connection with children's thoughts. Second, the study indicated that environment has a significant influence on how children produce art. As a result of the findings, the research suggests that in order to better promote creativity and imagination in children, teachers and parents should give them more opportunities to observe the outside world. Moreover, through a comparison of American and Chinese teaching strategies in connection with art, it can be concluded that educators should balance children’s natural talents and instincts with professional guidance and instruction.

A review study about creativity in adolescence: Where is the social context?

Although adolescent creativity development is a promising area of research in the field, there is still much to be known with respect to the factors involved in adolescent creativity development and the role played by the social context . The purpose of this systematic review study was to identify and summarize factors associated with enhancing or inhibiting adolescent creativity in a sample of 65 published studies. We classified supportive and inhibiting factors into four categories: individual factors, parental factors, educational factors, and social contextual factors. Individual factors supportive of adolescent creativity development included: openness to experience, intrinsic motivation, creative self-efficacy, attributing adversity to external factors, and academic achievement. State and trait anxiety were associated with inhibitory factors. Supportive parental factors included parental support and autonomous motivation with maternal involvement. Educational factors supportive of adolescent creativity development included: balancing freedom and necessary guidance; flexible, open-ended activities with clear learning expectations; openness to and encouragement of student ideas; atmosphere of trust and respect; and varied learning resources. Finally, supportive social contextual factors included providing interactions that encourage expression or challenging of ideas; and encouraging adolescents to view issues from multiple global and temporal perspectives. Inhibitory social contextual factors included increased pressures placed on teachers to prepare students to perform well on assessments; and increased emphasis placed on standardized curricula and related assessments. We also noted that the vast majority of studies in our sample (n = 61, 94 %) did not take into account the role played by social contextual factors. We conclude by discussing implications for future research.

Culturally sustaining systemic functional linguistics praxis in science classrooms

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for students to exhibit an in-depth understanding of scientific inquiry practices, including direct observation, creative design thinking, and argumentation based on evidential learning. To support academic equity for multilingual learners, these new expectations require reconceptualization of science teacher education and classroom instruction, whereby emphasis is placed on incorporating the linguistic and cultural repertoires of learners through multimodal and open-ended learning activities. To support this shift in practices, this paper presents a culturally sustaining systemic functional linguistics (CS SFL) framework for science teachers and multilingual classrooms. CS SFL praxis emphasizes three intersecting areas: language development, knowledge development, and cultural sustenance.

Informal mentoring for aspiring school leaders: a phenomenological study

ABSTRACT Informal mentoring had been previously identified as a vital component to leadership development and succession planning. Through a phenomenological approach, we sought to capture the lived experiences of aspiring school leaders pertaining to informal mentoring. Using open-ended questions and reflective activities, eight aspiring school leaders provided information about their experiences and characteristics of informal mentoring. Through a human science research perspective, four themes emerged from the data analysis: (a) defining informal mentoring, (b) characteristics of effective informal mentors, (c) constructive relationship, and (d) mentoring recommendations. Participants found their experiences with informal mentoring beneficial. There was a reported high level of trust between mentor and protégé and the process was flexible. Because the aspiring leaders sought to become school leaders in the near future, most were cognizant of the fact they needed to have quality mentors, but also be a mentor to new educators.

Gatherings of Studying: Looking at Contemporary Study Practices in the University

This article is mainly about two things: first, exploring the gatherings of studying in the university. And second, it is about describing new relations to understand studying practices beyond the normative interventions carried out inside learning environments (e.g. learning centers, libraries) and the clearly demarcated functions imposed to their practice. In a certain sense, common assumptions about study recognize its importance for achieving learning goals and its capacity to be designed according to pre-conceived intentions. However, in an attempt to reconsider our understanding about studying, the basic arguments here is that studying practices are constituted by open-ended activities that are guided by present interests to things that matter. Based on Theodore Schatzki’s practice theory, activities of studying were observed through scenes, where students and study-materiality join together in the event of studying at the Agora Learning Centre of KU Leuven in Belgium. Adopting a particular sensibility and narrative to describe and attend to actions and material entities entangled on studying activities, the article attempts to take a look at these activities beyond their functionality. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to take a look at ‘what is going on’ in studying practices.

Locating the Inexhaustible: Material, Medium, and Ambient Information.

The fundamental difference between the enactive approach and Gibson’s ecological approach lies in the view toward our shared environment. For Varela et al. (1991), a pregiven environment that exists “out there” is incompatible with the worlds enacted by various histories of life. For Gibson (1979/2015), the environment with its unlimited possibilities that exists out there offers many ways of life. Drawing on the recent empirical studies on the mechanical basis of information and pattern formation in a wide range of fields, this paper illustrates a principle regarding how pattern and change that are formed in an environmental medium, under certain conditions, could serve as the reservoir of information that makes available a variety of opportunities for perception. The second part of this paper offers a discussion about how the consideration of the materials that make up the terrestrial environment—the particles in the atmosphere and the textured surfaces—led Gibson to replace the concept of “space” with the notion of “medium” that allows for the open-ended activities of perception. Finally, I argue that given due consideration of the ambient information available in the medium, the apparent incompatibility between the world independent of the perceiver that exist out there and the worlds enacted by various histories of life could be resolved.

A screening questionnaire for occupational and hobby exposures during pregnancy.

Occupational and environmental exposures during the prenatal period may be associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes and lifelong health effects. Yet, identification and evaluation of these potential hazards is lacking in routine obstetric care. To assess the feasibility of incorporating a self-administered occupational and environmental exposure questionnaire into obstetric clinics. A cross-sectional survey assessed prenatal clinic patients at a public hospital who were currently employed and <20 weeks gestation. Questionnaires evaluated job characteristics, workplace and hobby exposures, protective equipment use and symptoms during pregnancy. Of 69 participants (96% response rate), 46% were predominantly Spanish-speaking. Primary occupations were caregiver (16%), cleaner (14%) and administrative assistant (14%). Overall, 93% were exposed to a workplace hazard, with most participants reporting physical stressors (82%) or organic solvent exposure (78%). Most women (74%) used some personal protective equipment. Nearly half (54%) reported at least one non-pregnancy symptom, and 52% were referred for follow-up with an occupational medicine practitioner. Household and hobby-related chemical exposures were common in our sample (91%). We observed moderate consistency between job task and chemical use responses: 67-99% of intentionally redundant questions were fully or partially matched. Closed- compared to open-ended activity questions identified a higher proportion of physical stressors (82% versus 12%) and cleaning product (76% versus 30%) exposures. A self-administered questionnaire is an effective screening tool for identifying women with occupational and hobby-related exposures during pregnancy. Consistent incorporation of exposure assessment into prenatal care can improve clinical communications and early interventions for at-risk pregnant women.