Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology: Selected Papers from ICITED 2023 [366, 1 ed.] 9789819954131, 9789819954148
This book presents high-quality, peer-reviewed papers from the International Conference in Information Technology &
132 28 20MB
English Pages xvii; 743 [731] Year 2023
Preface
Contents
About the Editors
1 Relevance Analysis for the Offering of a Doctorate Program in Computer Science in Ecuador
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Analysis of Problems and Needs that Justify the Offer of the Doctoral Program in Computer Science
1.3 Ecuadorian Development Trends Related to the Field of Study of the Ph.D. Program in Computer Science
1.4 Relevance Based on Demand Analysis
1.5 Conclusion
References
2 Epistemological Justification for the Offer of the Master's Degree in Information Security in Ecuador
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Epistemological Justification
2.2.1 Academic Background
2.2.2 Some Theoretical Foundations
2.2.3 Theoretical Framework that Strengthens the Justification
2.3 Conclusions
References
3 Sustainable Learning and the Difficulties of Integral Child Development: Case Study in Children of an Educational Center in Cuenca, Ecuador
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Definitions and Basic Notions
3.3 Research Methodology and Materials
3.4 Analysis and Discussion of Results
3.5 Conclusions
References
4 Student Academic Behavior Attributes: First Phase
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Art State
4.3 Methodology
4.4 Experimentation
4.5 Conclusion
References
5 Good Teaching Practice. Teach Through Role Play
5.1 Introduction
5.1.1 Good Teaching Practices and Role Play
5.1.2 Teach Graphic Design
5.2 Methodology
5.3 Results
5.4 Conclusions
References
6 Diagnosis of Brain Tumors Using a Convolutional Neural Network
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Related Works
6.3 Methodology
6.4 Dataset
6.5 Results
6.6 Discussions
6.7 Conclusions
References
7 Safety and Occupational Health Management System in Mining to Reduce Fatal Accidents in the Mining Industry
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Material and Method
7.2.1 Material
7.2.2 Research Method
7.2.3 Research Level
7.2.4 Population
7.2.5 Data Collection Procedures, Techniques, and Instruments
7.3 Results
7.4 Discussion
7.4.1 Strategic Security Management Indicators Within the Framework of the Title III of D.S. 024-2016-EM
7.4.2 Tactical Security Management Indicators Within the Framework of the Title III of D.S. 024-2016-EM
7.4.3 Operational Security Management Indicators Within the Framework of the Title III of D.S. No. 024-2016-EM
7.5 Conclusion
References
8 Understanding the Dynamics of Gross and Informal Employment Clusters
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Methodology
8.3 Experimentation
8.4 Conclusion
References
9 E-government and the Fight Against Corruption in Latin America
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Literature Review
9.3 Methodology
9.4 Results
9.5 Conclusions
References
10 Mentoring as a Tool for Strengthening Management Competences
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Methods
10.3 Results
10.4 Discussion
10.5 Conclusions
References
11 Critical Thinking in Postgraduate Degree Work at the Israel Technological University, Ecuador
11.1 Introduction: The Development of Critical Thinking as One of the Challenges of Current Education
11.1.1 Critical Reasoning as a Complex Thinking Skill
11.2 Methodology
11.3 Results and Discussion
11.4 Conclusions
References
12 Parallelism of Physical and Simulated Industrial Communication Network Development
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Methodology
12.3 Communication Network Configuration Simulated Processes
12.3.1 Configuration Modbus TCP/IP Communication and Simulated PID-Level Process
12.3.2 Configuration C7 Communication and PID-Level Processing Simulated with Factory
12.3.3 ProfiNet Communication Configuration for the Packaging Process/FluidSIM
12.4 Communication Network Configuration Physical Processes
12.4.1 ProfiNet Communication Configuration in the Proportional Control Process of a Pneumatic Actuator
12.4.2 Communication and Machining Process Configuration
12.4.3 PID-Level Control Process Configuration Located in the SERVER and Control with SCADA System and KTP 700 Screen
12.5 Analysis and Results
12.6 Conclusions
References
13 Multidisciplinary Investigative Skills in the University Teacher
13.1 Introduction
13.2 University and Research
13.3 Investigative Skills with a Multidisciplinary Approach
13.4 Methodology
13.5 Results and Discussion
13.6 Interview with the Directors of Research, Teaching, and Community Outreach
13.7 Conclusions
13.8 Proposal of Strategic Guidelines to Reinforce the Investigative Skills of the University Professor, Under a Multidisciplinary Approach
References
14 Development of a MATLAB® MOOC to Enhance the Computational Skills of Students
14.1 Introduction
14.1.1 MATLAB® Software as a Learning Resource at IPN
14.1.2 Students’ Situation at Instituto Politecnico Nacional
14.2 Instructional Design and MOOC Development
14.3 Discussion and Results
14.4 Conclusions
References
15 Asking Higher Education Students to Write Research Case Studies—A Way to Develop Engagement and Critical Thinking
15.1 Introduction
15.2 ISCAP’s MA in Intercultural Studies for Business
15.3 Why Give Students Written Assignments
15.4 Types of Students’ Case Studies
15.5 Results
15.5.1 Sources and Documentation
15.5.2 Accuracy and Reliability of Sources
15.5.3 Analysis and Interpretation
15.5.4 Detailed Description and Creative Writing
15.5.5 Storytelling
15.5.6 Analytical Generalisation
15.6 Going Back to the Teaching Case Method
15.7 Conclusions
References
16 A Pedagogical Model for Teaching the Subject of Research Methodology
16.1 Introduction
16.2 Literature Review
16.2.1 First Teaching Strategy: Brainstorming as a Tool in What to Investigate
16.2.2 Second Teaching Strategy: Cognitive Mapping as a Tool for Delimiting Information
16.2.3 Third Teaching Strategy: The Ishikawa Diagram as a Tool for Analyzing a Research Problem
16.2.4 Fourth Teaching Strategy: The SWOT Matrix as a Tool for Conceptual and Procedural Analysis of Research
16.2.5 Fifth Teaching Strategy: The CANVAS Model, a Tool to Support Research Ideas
16.2.6 Pedagogical Model Based on the Cognitivist Constructivist Approach
16.3 Methodology
16.4 Results and Discussion
16.5 Conclusions
References
17 Study to Update the Concept of Broadband According to Ecuador’s Regulatory Framework and Its Impact on the Economic, Social, and Productive Spheres
17.1 Introduction
17.2 Theoretical Framework
17.2.1 Broadband Concepts and Definitions
17.2.2 Socio-Economic Momentum
17.2.3 Economic Impact (GDP)
17.2.4 Impact on Job Creation
17.2.5 Impact on Productivity
17.2.6 Consumer Surplus
17.3 Comparisons to Consider with Respect to Broadband in the Region
17.4 Regulations and Considerations Regarding Broadband in Ecuador
17.5 Current Broadband Scenario in Ecuador
17.5.1 Fixed Internet Access
17.5.2 Mobile Internet Access
17.5.3 Fixed Broadband Internet Subscriptions in Ecuador
17.6 Conclusions
References
18 3D Printer as a Resource for Didactic Development Tool for the Maker Culture—An Open-Source Design of the COREXY 3D Printer
18.1 Introduction
18.2 Bibliographic Review
18.2.1 Additive Manufacturing
18.3 Methodology
18.4 TriCLOPs-mono: COREXY 3D Printer Project
18.4.1 TriCLOPs-mono Costs
18.5 TriCLOPs-mono Calibration and Tests
18.6 Final Considerations
References
19 Open-Source Web System to Improve Eating Styles Accompanied by Exercises: HealthLife
19.1 Introduction
19.2 Related Works
19.3 Description of the Proposed Methodology
19.4 Case Study
19.5 Case Study Results
19.6 Discussion of Results
19.7 Conclusion and Future Work
References
20 Pandemic Reflections on Higher Education: A Theoretical Examination of Work-Related Stress in the Teaching Role
20.1 Introduction
20.2 Method
20.2.1 Design
20.2.2 Data Collection
20.3 Results
20.3.1 Teacher Stress and Distance Learning
20.3.2 Teacher Stress and Physical and Mental Health
20.3.3 Factors of Teacher Job Stress
20.3.4 Technostress and the University Teacher
20.4 Discussion
20.5 Conclusions
References
21 Technology and Tax Culture. An Evolutionary Perspective
21.1 Introduction
21.1.1 ICTs as a Tool for Continuous Improvement
21.1.2 The Internal Revenue Service and Its Use of ICTs
21.2 Methodology
21.3 Results and Discussion
21.3.1 Data Entry Channels
21.3.2 Electronic Invoicing: SRI Y YO
21.3.3 Consultation of Services and Formalities: SRI Services and Formalities, Regulations
21.3.4 Training
21.3.5 DIMM
21.3.6 Relationship Between Effective Collection and Digital Transformation
21.4 Conclusion
References
22 An Exploration of the Skills and Knowledge of the Accounting Profession
22.1 Introduction
22.2 Methodology
22.3 Results
22.4 Conclusion
References
23 The Impact of Affective Behavior on Co-creation and Customer Satisfaction
23.1 Introduction
23.2 Literature Review: Relationships Between Affective Behavior, Co-creation, and Satisfaction
23.2.1 Affective Behavior Versus Co-creation
23.2.2 Affective Behavior Versus Satisfaction
23.2.3 Co-creation Versus Satisfaction
23.2.4 The Proposed Model
23.3 Methodology, Data Collection, and Techniques
23.3.1 Measures
23.4 Results
23.4.1 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
23.4.2 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
23.4.3 Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)
23.5 Discussion and Conclusions
References
24 Active Methodologies: An Approach to Virtual Teaching in Natural Sciences
24.1 Introduction
24.2 Methodology
24.2.1 Participants
24.2.2 Materials/Resource Used
24.2.3 Procedure
24.3 Active Strategies Design
24.3.1 I Draw My Thought
24.3.2 Autonomous Transposition
24.3.3 Virtual Labs
24.4 Results’ Discussion
24.5 Conclusion
References
25 Articulation of Environmental Education in the Curricula of Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Review
25.1 Introduction
25.2 Methodology
25.3 Results
25.4 Discussion and Conclusion
References
26 The New Educational Models Based on Information and Communication Technology and Education 4.0
26.1 Introduction
26.2 Methodology
26.2.1 Planning the Review
26.2.2 Conducting the Review
26.2.3 Analysis of Results
26.3 Conclusion
References
27 Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model: A Proposal for Next Generation Classroom
27.1 Introduction
27.1.1 Education Future and the Demands of the Twenty-First Century
27.1.2 Scrum in Educative Context
27.1.3 Machine Learning in Educative Context
27.2 Methodology
27.2.1 Aim and Investigation Questions
27.2.2 Procedure
27.2.3 Sample
27.3 Results
27.3.1 Phase 1 Results
27.3.2 Phase 2 Results
27.3.3 Phase 3 Results
27.4 Conclusion and Discussion
References
28 Blogging as a Tool for Andragogical Learning
28.1 Introduction
28.1.1 Virtual Education as an Option for Adult Learning
28.1.2 Connectivism; The Effect of Technology on Andragogy
28.1.3 Use of the Blog as an Educational Tool
28.1.4 Factors to Consider for the Use of BLOGS in Andragogical Learning
28.1.5 Putting into Practice the Use of Blogs in Andragogic Education
28.1.6 Process for the Development of the Class
28.1.7 Usefulness of the Blog for the Actors in the Teaching–Learning Process
28.2 Methodology
28.3 Results
28.3.1 Use of Blogs in Adult Education
28.4 Conclusion
References
29 Environmental Management of the Ecuadorian Public Sector in the Fight Against Climate Change
29.1 Introduction
29.1.1 SDGs
29.1.2 Nationally Determined Contributions NDC
29.2 Methodology
29.3 Results
29.3.1 Management at the National Level
29.3.2 Management at the Provincial Level
29.4 Discussion
29.5 Conclusion
References
30 Cognitive Performance and Use of Digital Tools as Predictors of Academic Success in University Students
30.1 Introduction
30.1.1 Role of Neurocognitive Functions in Learning
30.1.2 Educational Technology and Student Performance
30.2 Method
30.2.1 Population and Sample
30.2.2 Instruments
30.2.3 Procedure
30.2.4 Analysis of Data
30.3 Results
30.3.1 Sociodemographic Profile of the Sample
30.3.2 Differences Between the Scores Obtained in the Tests Regarding the Male and Female Gender
30.3.3 Differences Between the Scores Obtained in the Tests with Respect to the Age Groups
30.3.4 Relationship Between the Scores Obtained in the D2 Test and the Scores Obtained in Each Cognitive Test
30.3.5 Survey on Digital Tools that Facilitate Attention and Learning
30.4 Discussion
30.5 Conclusion
References
31 SOLL as an Auxiliary Teaching and Learning Tool—Case Study in Higher Education
31.1 Introduction
31.2 Methodology
31.3 Results
31.4 Conclusion
References
32 Mindfulness in the Advanced Human Capital: A Theoretical Proposal of a Training Program at the University Bernardo O’Higgins, Assemblies, and Definitions
32.1 Introduction
32.2 Literature Review
32.2.1 On the Concept of Experience
32.2.2 The Practice of Mindfulness
32.2.3 Mindfulness in Educational Contexts
32.3 Materials and Methods
32.3.1 A Project Based on PAR
32.3.2 The Organizational Structure of UBO
32.4 Theoretical Proposal: Mindfulness at UBO
32.5 Discussion
32.6 Conclusions
References
33 Student Satisfaction in Polytechnic Higher Education: Assessment Model Based on the ECSI Index
33.1 Introduction
33.2 Literature Review
33.2.1 Satisfaction Concepts
33.2.2 The European Consumer Satisfaction Index (ECSI)
33.3 Methodology
33.4 Results
33.5 Conclusions
References
34 Didactic-Disruptive: Technological Tool for Children Who Present Slow Learning of Basic Arithmetic Operations
34.1 Introduction
34.2 Context
34.3 Materials and Method
34.4 Characteristics of the Target Population
34.5 Technology Implementation Design Model
34.6 Results
34.7 Conclusion
References
35 Relationship Between Performance and Psychosocial Factors in Teachers of Private Educational Institutions in Quito—Ecuador
35.1 Introduction
35.1.1 Motivation
35.1.2 Related Works
35.2 Methodology
35.3 Results
35.4 Conclusions
References
36 Estimation of Income Tax Collection in Ecuador
36.1 Introduction
36.2 Theoretical Framework
36.2.1 Econometrics and Econometric Models
36.2.2 Application of Predictive Models
36.3 Methodology
36.3.1 Statistical Method
36.4 Results
36.5 Conclusions
References
37 Virtual Laboratories for Learning Chemistry and Physics Through Chemlab and Modellus
37.1 Introduction
37.2 Methodology
37.2.1 Participants
37.2.2 Procedure
37.2.3 Google Sites: Virtual Laboratories to Teach Chemistry
37.3 Results and Discussion
37.4 Conclusions
References
38 Quadrilaterals in the Dynamic Figural Register Through Digital Technology
38.1 Introduction
38.2 Dynamic Figural Register
38.2.1 Dynamic Formation
38.2.2 Dynamic Treatments
38.3 Activities on Quadrilaterals
38.3.1 Activity 1
38.3.2 Activity 2
38.4 Conclusions
References
39 Synthetic Data Generator for an E-Learning Platform in a Big Data Environment
39.1 Introduction
39.2 State of the Art
39.3 Knowledge Extraction Using Big Data Tools
39.3.1 Big Data Cluster
39.3.2 Data Selection and Filtering
39.3.3 Fact Table Construction
39.4 Implementation and Results
39.4.1 Metrics
39.4.2 Request Simulator
39.5 Validation
39.5.1 Clustering Using SimpleKMeans
39.5.2 A Priori Association Rules
39.6 Conclusions
References
40 Gamification for Virtual Learning Environments in Ecuadorian Universities
40.1 Introduction
40.2 Material and Methods
40.3 Results
40.4 Discussion
40.5 Conclusions
References
41 Electronic Platform of Students’ Social Competencies Development as a Learning Management System
41.1 Introduction
41.2 Methodology
41.2.1 Operational Feasibility
41.2.2 Functional Module Design
41.3 Conclusion
References
42 Proposal for the Inclusion of Narrative in the Video Game Design Process
42.1 Introduction
42.1.1 New Narrative Discourses
42.1.2 Narratology
42.1.3 Video Games as Narrative Discourses
42.1.4 The Plot that Builds Narratives in Video Games
42.2 Related Works
42.3 Methodology
42.3.1 Bibliographic Selection
42.3.2 Analysis of Narrative in Video Game Design Documents GDD
42.3.3 Systematization of the Teaching Experience
42.3.4 A Starter’s Guide to Narrative-Driven Game Design
42.4 Proposed Model for the Inclusion of Narrative in the Video Game Design Process
42.5 Conclusions
References
43 Real-Time Visual Feedback Technology in Support of a Didactic Voice Tuning System
43.1 Introduction
43.2 Methodology
43.2.1 Fundamental Frequency Determination
43.2.2 System Description
43.2.3 Objective Evaluation
43.3 Experimental Results of the Pitch Training Process
43.4 Conclusions
References
44 The Future of Learning in Romanian Schools: Examining the Transformative Impact of Gaming Technologies in Education—A Pilot Study in Bucharest
44.1 Introduction
44.2 Short Literature Survey: Technology and Education
44.2.1 The Impact of Technology on Society and Education
44.2.2 Implications of Technology Integration in Education
44.3 Gaming Technologies in Education
44.3.1 Gaming Practices and Technologies in Education
44.3.2 The Benefits of Gaming Technologies in Education
44.4 Methodology
44.5 Results and Discussion
44.6 Recommendations
44.7 Conclusions
44.8 Research Limitations and Further Research
References
45 Behavioral Finance: Prospect Theory Topics in Decision-Making
45.1 Introduction
45.2 Traditional Finance
45.3 Behavioral Finance
45.4 Limits to the Expected Utility Theory
45.5 Prospect Theory
45.5.1 Effects of the Prospect Theory
45.5.2 Prospect Theory Improvement
45.6 Conclusion
References
46 Virtual Classroom and the Impact of E-Skills on the Performance of Peruvian University Students
46.1 Introduction
46.2 Framework
46.2.1 Virtual Classroom
46.2.2 Execution of Activities in the Virtual Classroom and Master Classes
46.3 Methodology
46.4 Results
46.5 Discussion and Conclusions
References
47 Students’ Perceptions from an Integrated Software Engineering and Databases Course
47.1 Introduction
47.2 Related Work
47.3 Course Context
47.3.1 The Course
47.3.2 The Projects
47.4 Methodology
47.4.1 The Survey
47.4.2 Data Collection
47.4.3 Threats to Validity
47.5 Results
47.5.1 Discussion
47.6 Conclusions
References
48 Scratch as a Tool to Promote Computational Thinking in Technological Education
48.1 Introduction
48.2 Literature Review
48.3 Methodology
48.4 Proposal
48.5 Results
48.6 Conclusions
References
49 The Use of WhatsApp and English Language Learning in High School Students at a Public School in Peru
49.1 Introduction
49.2 Methodology
49.3 Results
49.4 Discussion and Conclusions
References
50 Beyond the Screen: Exploring the Impact of Virtual Learning on the Socioemotional Well-Being of University Students and Educators
50.1 Introduction
50.2 Framework
50.3 Methodology
50.4 Results and Discussion
50.4.1 Natural Semantic Networks (NSN)
50.4.2 Identity Drawing
50.5 Conclusions
References
51 Improvement of Teaching Competencies Training in Higher Education Faculty Based on Student Evaluations of Teaching and AI Systems
51.1 Introduction
51.2 Method and Data
51.3 Results
51.4 Discussion and Conclusion
References
52 SOLO Taxonomy to Assessment of Skills and Competencies Required to Students: Comparison Between Online Versus Face-to-Face Exam
52.1 Introduction
52.2 SOLO Taxonomy
52.3 Methodology
52.3.1 Online Exam
52.3.2 Face-to-Face Exam
52.4 Analysis and Discussion
52.5 Conclusions
References
53 Digital Technology in Higher Education: Identification of Surfaces in Space Generated by Functions of Two Variables
53.1 Introduction
53.2 Surfaces in Space
53.3 Mathematical Working Space
53.4 The Task
53.5 Analysis of the Expected Mathematical Production
53.6 Conclusions
References
54 Metaverse, Education, and Inclusion: Integrative Review Using the PRISMA Method
54.1 Introduction
54.2 Methods and Materials
54.2.1 Procedures of the Integrative Review
54.3 Presentation and Analysis of the Results
54.4 Final Considerations
References
55 Simplifying Specialized Texts with AI: A ChatGPT-Based Learning Scenario
55.1 Introduction
55.2 ChatGPT as an Ally for Education
55.3 A Learning Scenario for Specialized Texts
55.4 Translation Students Working with Legal Texts—A Case Study
55.5 Conclusion and Future Work
References
56 Perceptions and Dispositions of Parents and Teachers Toward Technological Learning Communities
56.1 Introduction
56.2 Materials and Methods
56.2.1 Methodology
56.2.2 Participants
56.2.3 Instruments
56.2.4 Instrument Validation
56.2.5 Information Processing
56.3 Results
56.3.1 Descriptive Analysis
56.3.2 Correlational Analysis
56.4 Discussion
56.5 Conclusions
References
57 A Novel Approach for Distributed Security Over IoT in Learning Environment
57.1 Introduction
57.2 State of the Art
57.3 A Novel Model Approach
57.4 Conclusions
References
58 Open-Source Technologies for Simulation and Operation of a Low-Cost Robotic Platform for Educational Mobile Robotics
58.1 Introduction
58.2 Methodology
58.2.1 Hardware
58.2.2 Software
58.2.3 Teaching Different Contents Related to Robotics
58.3 Results
58.3.1 CoppeliaSim
58.3.2 Robotic Operating System (ROS) and EV3
58.4 Kinematic Control of Mobile Robots
58.5 Conclusions and Future Work
References
59 SparkDigiGirls: Challenges to Motivate Girls to STEM
59.1 Introduction
59.2 Program Unleash CreativITy with Technology
59.3 Methodology
59.4 Results
59.5 Conclusions
References
60 Mobile App Prototype for Citizen Science: Toward the Development of Complex Thinking
60.1 Introduction
60.2 Current Context of Tech-Based Citizen Science
60.2.1 Assessing the Impact of Citizen Science Projects
60.2.2 Development of Complex Thinking in Educational Tech-Based Projects
60.3 Methodology
60.4 Results
60.4.1 Citizen Science Mobile App Development
60.4.2 Focus Group for the General Assessment of the Mobile App
60.4.3 Mobile App Impact According to the Threshold Framework
60.5 Conclusion
References
61 Is the Human-in-the-Loop Concept Applied in Educational Recommender Systems?
61.1 Introduction
61.2 The Human-in-the-Loop Concept
61.3 Systematic Review Methodology
61.4 Data Analysis
61.5 Conclusion
References
62 Managing the Inclusion of Students with High Cognitive Performance and/or Dual Exceptionality, from Virtual and Face-to-Face Collaborative Spaces
62.1 Introduction
62.1.1 Inclusion of Students with Special Educational Needs in the Regular Classroom
62.2 Objectives and Method
62.2.1 Participants
62.2.2 Dimensions of Interest
62.2.3 Information Sources
62.3 Results
62.4 Discussion and Conclusion
References
63 Open Platform Prototype for Technocreative Labs: Case-Based Assessment to Enhance Complex Thinking
63.1 Introduction
63.2 Theoretical Framework
63.2.1 Transformation of Education Through Digital Technology
63.2.2 Technocreative Labs
63.2.3 Complex Thinking in Higher Education
63.3 Methodology
63.3.1 Case Study: Nova-Plat Platform Development Context
63.4 Results
63.4.1 Activity Plan to Enhance Students’ Complex Thinking
63.5 Discussion
63.5.1 Findings from the Nova-Plat Project
63.6 Conclusion
References
64 Enhancing Speaking Skills in a Foreign Language Using Virtual Reality. A Study in a Portuguese Higher Education Institution
64.1 Introduction
64.2 Virtual Reality in Foreign Language Learning
64.2.1 Potential Challenges
64.3 The Experiment: Methods and Procedures
64.4 Results and Findings
64.5 Concluding Remarks
References
65 Using Identity and Access Management Systems in Hotels: Evidence from Algarve, Portugal
65.1 Introduction
65.2 Literature Review
65.3 Data and Methodology
65.4 Empirical Results
65.5 Discussion and Conclusion
Appendix: Software for Identity and Access Management (IAM) in Hotels Survey
References
66 Attitudes and Values of Portuguese School Principals Concerning Social Justice
66.1 Introduction
66.2 Method
66.3 Results
66.4 Discussion and Final Considerations
References
Author Index
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Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366
Anabela Mesquita · António Abreu · João Vidal Carvalho · Cleuciliz Santana · Cristina Helena Pinto de Mello Editors
Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology Selected Papers from ICITED 2023
123
Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies Volume 366
Series Editors Robert J. Howlett, KES International Research, Shoreham-by-Sea, UK Lakhmi C. Jain, KES International, Shoreham-by-Sea, UK
The Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies book series encompasses the topics of knowledge, intelligence, innovation and sustainability. The aim of the series is to make available a platform for the publication of books on all aspects of single and multi-disciplinary research on these themes in order to make the latest results available in a readily-accessible form. Volumes on interdisciplinary research combining two or more of these areas is particularly sought. The series covers systems and paradigms that employ knowledge and intelligence in a broad sense. Its scope is systems having embedded knowledge and intelligence, which may be applied to the solution of world problems in industry, the environment and the community. It also focusses on the knowledge-transfer methodologies and innovation strategies employed to make this happen effectively. The combination of intelligent systems tools and a broad range of applications introduces a need for a synergy of disciplines from science, technology, business and the humanities. The series will include conference proceedings, edited collections, monographs, handbooks, reference books, and other relevant types of book in areas of science and technology where smart systems and technologies can offer innovative solutions. High quality content is an essential feature for all book proposals accepted for the series. It is expected that editors of all accepted volumes will ensure that contributions are subjected to an appropriate level of reviewing process and adhere to KES quality principles. Indexed by SCOPUS, EI Compendex, INSPEC, WTI Frankfurt eG, zbMATH, Japanese Science and Technology Agency (JST), SCImago, DBLP. All books published in the series are submitted for consideration in Web of Science.
Anabela Mesquita · António Abreu · João Vidal Carvalho · Cleuciliz Santana · Cristina Helena Pinto de Mello Editors
Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology Selected Papers from ICITED 2023
Editors Anabela Mesquita Polytechnic of Porto São Mamede de Infesta, Portugal
António Abreu Polytechnic of Porto São Mamede de Infesta, Portugal
João Vidal Carvalho Polytechnic of Porto São Mamede de Infesta, Portugal
Cleuciliz Santana Nilton Lins University Manaus, Brazil
Cristina Helena Pinto de Mello Higher School of Advertising and Marketing Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing (ESPM) São Paulo, Brazil
ISSN 2190-3018 ISSN 2190-3026 (electronic) Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies ISBN 978-981-99-5413-1 ISBN 978-981-99-5414-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Paper in this product is recyclable.
Preface
This book—Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology: Selected Papers from ICITED23—from the SIST Series is composed of the best selected papers accepted for presentation and discussion at the 2023 International Conference in Information Technology and Education (ICITED’23). The ICITED is a multidisciplinary conference with a special focus on new technologies and systems in the education sector and was held between June 29 and 30, 2023. The ICITED’23 was supported by the Nilton Lins University, Manaus, Brazil, and by IADITI—International Association for Digital Transformation and Technological Innovation. The International Conference in Information Technology and Education is an international forum for researchers and professionals in the education sector, which enables the discussion of the latest innovations, trends and concerns in several areas, in the education sector, associated with information technologies and systems. It is an event for professionals in the sector, in search of technology solutions, where academics, IT experts and business managers meet to discuss new ideas that help them maximize the potential of learning processes through technology. The ICITED’23 Scientific Committee is composed of a multidisciplinary group of 189 experts who assessed some 250 papers from 24 countries, received for each of the main topics proposed for the conference: (a) ICT and Virtual learning; (b) Pedagogical and Didactical Innovations; (c) Technologies Issues in Education in the different scientific areas; (d) Quality in Education; (e) Technological Issues in Education and Research; (f) Educational Software and Serious Games; (g) Curriculum Design and Innovation and (h) University-Industry Collaboration; SPECIAL SESSIONS: DTLP’22—Digital Transformation in the Teaching and Learning Process; FoE’22— Future of Education. SPECIAL TRACKS: Digital Literacy x Media Literacy—New Literacies and Education in Brazil; Cultural Tourism, Education and Marketing— CulTurEM’23; New Technologies in Accounting Education; Internationalization in Higher Education as a challenge; Education and the problems of the contemporary world.
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The papers accepted for presentation and discussion at the conference are published by Springer and will be submitted for indexing by ISI, SCOPUS, EICompendex, Google Scholar and SpringerLink. We thank all those who contributed to the ICITED’23 conference (authors, committees, workshop organizers and sponsors). We deeply appreciate your involvement and support, which were crucial to the success of the conference. São Mamede de Infesta, Portugal June 2023
Anabela Mesquita António Abreu João Vidal Carvalho
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Relevance Analysis for the Offering of a Doctorate Program in Computer Science in Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miguel Arcos-Argudo
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Epistemological Justification for the Offer of the Master’s Degree in Information Security in Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miguel Arcos-Argudo
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Sustainable Learning and the Difficulties of Integral Child Development: Case Study in Children of an Educational Center in Cuenca, Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kely Nieto-Andrade, Enith Quezada-Loaiza, and Miguel Arcos-Argudo
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Student Academic Behavior Attributes: First Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ruth Patricia Maldonado Rivera, Bolívar David Narváez Montenegro, Federico Miguel Estrella Gómez, and Fredy Cañizares Galarza
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Good Teaching Practice. Teach Through Role Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lilia Carpio-Jiménez, Abel Suing, and Kruzkaya Ordóñez
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Diagnosis of Brain Tumors Using a Convolutional Neural Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percy DelaCruz-VdV, Dayanne Cadenillas-Rivera, Hugo Vega-Huerta, Ernesto Cancho-Rodriguez, María Elizabeth Puelles Bulnes, Gisella Luisa Elena Maquen-Niño, and Jorge Pantoja-Collantes
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Safety and Occupational Health Management System in Mining to Reduce Fatal Accidents in the Mining Industry . . . . . . Jorge Luis Tomas Florez-Salas, Elizabeth Marina Ramos-Saira, Carlos Eduardo Joo-García, Rosmery Ramos-Alave, Fabrizio Del Carpio-Delgado, and Kevin Mario Laura-De La Cruz
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Understanding the Dynamics of Gross and Informal Employment Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patricio Jaramillo Guerrero, Bolívar David Narváez Montenegro, Juan Manuel Garcia Samaniego, and Hector F Gomez A E-government and the Fight Against Corruption in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pierre Gilles Fernand Desfrancois
10 Mentoring as a Tool for Strengthening Management Competences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mónica Acuña Rodríguez, Yeferson Gómez López, Grace Rocha Herrera, María José Navarro Romero, Samir F. Umaña Ibáñez, Jairo Coronado Hernández, and Gustavo Gatica 11 Critical Thinking in Postgraduate Degree Work at the Israel Technological University, Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Molina Prendes Norma, Quintero Cordero Yolvy Javier, Bustillos Peña Mayra Alejandra, and Alejo Pastora Betty
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12 Parallelism of Physical and Simulated Industrial Communication Network Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Martha Elizabeth Salazar Jácome, Wilson Edmundo Sánchez Ocaña, José Javier De la Torre Guzmán, and Héctor Sebastián Pérez Manosalvas 13 Multidisciplinary Investigative Skills in the University Teacher . . . . 121 Quintero Cordero Yolvy Javier, Bustillos Peña Mayra Alejandra, Molina Prendes Norma, and Alejo Pastora Betty 14 Development of a MATLAB® MOOC to Enhance the Computational Skills of Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Vladimir Avalos-Bravo, Jorge Toro-González, and Elizabeth Velazquez-Morales 15 Asking Higher Education Students to Write Research Case Studies—A Way to Develop Engagement and Critical Thinking . . . 141 Laura Tallone, Sara Pascoal, and Marco Furtado 16 A Pedagogical Model for Teaching the Subject of Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Alejo Betty Pastora, Quintero Cordero Yolvy Javier, Bustillos Peña Mayra Alejandra, and Molina Norma
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17 Study to Update the Concept of Broadband According to Ecuador’s Regulatory Framework and Its Impact on the Economic, Social, and Productive Spheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 José Javier De la Torre Guzmán, Martha Elizabeth Salazar Jácome, William Fernando Ortega Naranjo, and Héctor Sebastián Pérez Manosalvas 18 3D Printer as a Resource for Didactic Development Tool for the Maker Culture—An Open-Source Design of the COREXY 3D Printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Antonio Vítor Souza Otoni, José Jean Paul Zanlucchi de Souza Tavares, and Roberto Mendes Finzi Neto 19 Open-Source Web System to Improve Eating Styles Accompanied by Exercises: HealthLife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Alba Miranda, Stalin Carreño, and Jordan Vera 20 Pandemic Reflections on Higher Education: A Theoretical Examination of Work-Related Stress in the Teaching Role . . . . . . . . 199 Kevin Mario Laura-De La Cruz, Gabriela Manzur-Vera, Cynthia Karín Rodriguez-Palumbo, Miliam Quispe-Vargas, Luz Anabella Mendoza-Del Valle, and Silverio Fausto Torres-Mamani 21 Technology and Tax Culture. An Evolutionary Perspective . . . . . . . . 211 Lorena Muquis, Carolina Jaramillo, and William Ortega 22 An Exploration of the Skills and Knowledge of the Accounting Profession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Andrés Palacio-Fierro, Tatiana Valle Alvarez, Ximena Morales-Urrutia, and Marcelo Mantilla Falcón 23 The Impact of Affective Behavior on Co-creation and Customer Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Odette Pantoja-Diaz, Ana Lucía Tulcán, and Andrés Ramos-Alvarez 24 Active Methodologies: An Approach to Virtual Teaching in Natural Sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Eulalia Becerra-García, David Castillo-Salazar, and Fernanda Viera Muñoz 25 Articulation of Environmental Education in the Curricula of Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Review . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Mónica Acuña-Rodríguez, Liliana Canquiz Rincón, Alicia Inciarte González, Yeferson Gómez López, Samir F. Umaña-Ibáñez, Jairo R. Coronado-Hernández, and Gustavo Gatica
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26 The New Educational Models Based on Information and Communication Technology and Education 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Javier Guaña-Moya, Tamara Ballesteros-Casco, Yamileth Arteaga-Alcívar, Jaime Antamba-Guasgua, Eduardo Vladimir Azanza Lutsak, and Jessica Carvajal Morales 27 Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model: A Proposal for Next Generation Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Ignacio Salamanca Garay and Emilio Sagredo Lillo 28 Blogging as a Tool for Andragogical Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Karen Stephany Córdova Vera, Nancy Cristina Uquillas Jaramillo, Milton Patricio Altamirano Paredes, and José Alejandro Velasco Jaramillo 29 Environmental Management of the Ecuadorian Public Sector in the Fight Against Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Miguel Aizaga, Marcelo Ramírez Terán, Carlos Arias, and Renato M. Toasa 30 Cognitive Performance and Use of Digital Tools as Predictors of Academic Success in University Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Alexandra Yakeline Meneses Meneses, Ana Victoria Poenitz, and Jorge Edmundo Gordón Rogel 31 SOLL as an Auxiliary Teaching and Learning Tool—Case Study in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 Andreia Magalhães, António Andrade, José Matias Alves, Pedro Miguel Rodrigues, and Patrícia Batista 32 Mindfulness in the Advanced Human Capital: A Theoretical Proposal of a Training Program at the University Bernardo O’Higgins, Assemblies, and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Roberto Cortés Cancino, Macarena Dehnhardt, Claudio Ruff, Marcelo Ruiz, and Alexis Matheu Pérez 33 Student Satisfaction in Polytechnic Higher Education: Assessment Model Based on the ECSI Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357 Joaquim Antunes, Adriano Costa, and Clarinda Almeida 34 Didactic-Disruptive: Technological Tool for Children Who Present Slow Learning of Basic Arithmetic Operations . . . . . . . . . . . 373 Rubén Jerónimo Yedra, María Alejandrina Almeida Aguilar, Gerardo Arceo Moheno, Eric Ramos Méndez, Kristian Armando Pineda Castillo, and María Evilia Magaña
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35 Relationship Between Performance and Psychosocial Factors in Teachers of Private Educational Institutions in Quito—Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 Fausto Pazmiño, David Martínez, M. Xavier López, and Renato M. Toasa 36 Estimation of Income Tax Collection in Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395 Galo Geovanny García-García, Andrés Ramos-Alvarez, and Odette Pantoja-Díaz 37 Virtual Laboratories for Learning Chemistry and Physics Through Chemlab and Modellus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405 Lidya Alulima, Evelyn Mena-Alvarado, and Marcos Chacón-Castro 38 Quadrilaterals in the Dynamic Figural Register Through Digital Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 Jesús Victoria Flores Salazar, Daysi Julissa García-Cuéllar, Jorge Luis Vivas-Pachas, and Tito Nelson Peñaloza Vara 39 Synthetic Data Generator for an E-Learning Platform in a Big Data Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431 Yaneth Moreno, Anthony Montero, Francisco Hidrobo, and Saba Infante 40 Gamification for Virtual Learning Environments in Ecuadorian Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441 Marcelo Ramírez Terán, Miguel Aizaga, and Renato M. Toasa 41 Electronic Platform of Students’ Social Competencies Development as a Learning Management System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449 Rasa Poceviciene and Donatas Daugirdas 42 Proposal for the Inclusion of Narrative in the Video Game Design Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457 Miguel Cobos and Patricia Salvador 43 Real-Time Visual Feedback Technology in Support of a Didactic Voice Tuning System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471 João Paulo Teixeira and Izabela Ribeiro Leão 44 The Future of Learning in Romanian Schools: Examining the Transformative Impact of Gaming Technologies in Education—A Pilot Study in Bucharest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483 Florentina Alina Grigorescu (Pîrvu), Cezar Scarlat, and Alexandra Ioanid 45 Behavioral Finance: Prospect Theory Topics in Decision-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493 Joana Robalinho, Luís M. P. Gomes, and Cláudia Pereira
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46 Virtual Classroom and the Impact of E-Skills on the Performance of Peruvian University Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503 Paola Palomino-Flores and Ricardo Cristi-López 47 Students’ Perceptions from an Integrated Software Engineering and Databases Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 Alexandra Martínez, Christian Quesada-López, and Marcelo Jenkins 48 Scratch as a Tool to Promote Computational Thinking in Technological Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525 Aracelly Núñez-Naranjo, José Luis-Masabanda, Elizabeth Morales-Urrutia, and José Manuel Gómez Goitia 49 The Use of WhatsApp and English Language Learning in High School Students at a Public School in Peru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535 Kevin Mario Laura-De La Cruz, Miriam Estefani Condori-Chacolli, Bianca Daisa Laura-De La Cruz, Jehovanni Fabricio Velarde-Molina, Giomar Walter Moscoso-Zegarra, Miliam Quispe-Vargas, and Ruthy Merla Pilco-Velasquez 50 Beyond the Screen: Exploring the Impact of Virtual Learning on the Socioemotional Well-Being of University Students and Educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545 Paola Palomino-Flores, Ricardo Cristi-López, and David Paul 51 Improvement of Teaching Competencies Training in Higher Education Faculty Based on Student Evaluations of Teaching and AI Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555 Katherina Gallardo, Sabur Butt, and Hector Ceballos 52 SOLO Taxonomy to Assessment of Skills and Competencies Required to Students: Comparison Between Online Versus Face-to-Face Exam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565 Cristina M. R. Caridade and Verónica Pereira 53 Digital Technology in Higher Education: Identification of Surfaces in Space Generated by Functions of Two Variables . . . . 577 Jorge Luis Vivas-Pachas, Edwin Cristian Julián Trujillo, Jesús Victoria Flores Salazar, and Nancy Saravia-Molina 54 Metaverse, Education, and Inclusion: Integrative Review Using the PRISMA Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587 Ingrid Weingärtner Reis, Ivam Galvão, and Vania Ribas Ulbricht
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55 Simplifying Specialized Texts with AI: A ChatGPT-Based Learning Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599 Sílvia Araújo and Micaela Aguiar 56 Perceptions and Dispositions of Parents and Teachers Toward Technological Learning Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611 Corina Núñez-Hernández and Jorge Buele 57 A Novel Approach for Distributed Security Over IoT in Learning Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621 J. Lourenço, C. Lucas, J. Becker, and J. Morais 58 Open-Source Technologies for Simulation and Operation of a Low-Cost Robotic Platform for Educational Mobile Robotics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633 Henry Díaz-Iza, Harold Díaz-Iza, Wilmer Albarracín, and Rene Cortijo 59 SparkDigiGirls: Challenges to Motivate Girls to STEM . . . . . . . . . . . 645 Célio Gonçalo Marques, Inês Araújo, Laura Grineviˇci¯ut˙e, Brigita Dane, and Renata Danielien˙e 60 Mobile App Prototype for Citizen Science: Toward the Development of Complex Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657 Jorge Sanabria-Z, Jose-Martin Molina-Espinosa, Inna Artemova, and Berenice Alfaro-Ponce 61 Is the Human-in-the-Loop Concept Applied in Educational Recommender Systems? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667 María Viola, Daniel de Queiroz, and Regina Motz 62 Managing the Inclusion of Students with High Cognitive Performance and/or Dual Exceptionality, from Virtual and Face-to-Face Collaborative Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677 Emilio Sagredo-Lillo and Ignacio Salamanca-Garay 63 Open Platform Prototype for Technocreative Labs: Case-Based Assessment to Enhance Complex Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . 689 Jorge Sanabria-Z, Inna Artemova, and Berenice Alfaro-Ponce 64 Enhancing Speaking Skills in a Foreign Language Using Virtual Reality. A Study in a Portuguese Higher Education Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701 Graça Chorão, Célia Tavares, and Pedro Duarte 65 Using Identity and Access Management Systems in Hotels: Evidence from Algarve, Portugal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713 Rashed Isam Ashqar, Huthaifa I. Ashqar, and Célia M. Q. Ramos
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66 Attitudes and Values of Portuguese School Principals Concerning Social Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731 Nuno Paula Santos, Sofia Gonçalves, Estrela Paulo, Rosa Martins, and João Pascoinho Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741
About the Editors
Anabela Mesquita is Professor at the Porto Accounting and Business School/ Polytechnic of Porto since 1990, Vice Dean between 2007 and 2018, President of the SPACE European network, Member of the Algoritmi Research Centre (Minho University), and Former Director of CICE (Research Centre for Communication and Education). She is Member of MAERA and President of the External Evaluation Committee for the A3ES (Agency for Evaluation and Accreditation in Higher Education) in the area of Executive Management. She has been (and is) involved in many European and national research projects both as Researcher and as Coordinator. She has published numerous papers in various international journals and conference proceedings. She is Member of the Programme Committee and Scientific Committee of several national and international conferences. She serves as Member of the Editorial Board and Referee for IGI Global. She also serves as Associate Editor of the Information Resources Management Journal, is Co-editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction and Associate Editor of Helyion. She has also been Evaluator and Reviewer for Erasmus+ National Agency and European Commission projects. Her interests include education, e-learning, technologies and information systems, knowledge management, innovation and intellectual capital. António Abreu is Associate Professor at the Higher Institute of Accounting and Administration of Porto, Polytechnic of Porto and received Post-doctorate in Information Technologies and Systems, at the University of Coimbra, Department of Computer Engineering of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra, Ph.D. in Software Engineering based on reusable components with HumanMachine Interface applications, at the University of Vigo, Master in Management Informatics at the University of Minho and Degree in Informatics Applied Mathematics by the Lusíada University. He is currently Lecturer in the scientific area of Information Systems, at the Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto/Politécnico do Porto, ISCAP/Porto, and Integrated Researcher of the Research Centre CEOS.PP—Centre for Organizational and Social Studies of the Polytechnic of Porto. Between 2015 and 2018, he was Coordinator of the Professional Higher Technical Courses (CTeSP) of the Higher Institute and Accounting and Administration of xv
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About the Editors
Porto (ISCAP) and Coordinator for Market Development of the Training Centre and Services Abroad of ISCAP. Currently, he is responsible for the Information Systems discipline group of CTeSP, Member of the Scientific Committee of the research center CEOS.PP, Member of the Direction of the Master in Digital Communication, Member of the Scientific Committee of several national and international conferences and initiatives in the area of Technologies and Information Systems (CISTI—Conferencia Ibérica de Sistemas y Tecnologías de Información; WORLDCIST—World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies; CAPSI—Conference of the Portuguese Association of Information Systems; COMETEL—Congresso Internacional de Computación y Telecomunicaciones; RISTI—Revista Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação; MICRADS—Conferência Internacional Multidisciplinar de Pesquisa Aplicada à Defesa e Segurança; ICOTTS—International Conference on Tourism, Technology and Systems; ICITED—International Conference in Information Technology and Education), Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Information Systems Engineering and Management (JISEM), President of IADITI—International Association for Digital Transformation and Technological Innovation, General Chair of ICOTTS—International Conference on Tourism, Technology and Systems, and ICITED—International Conference in Information Technology and Education, and Author of several papers and chapters/books indexed in the Scopus and Web of Science databases, some of which with a JCR impact factor, with publication in the area of Information Systems. João Vidal Carvalho, Instituto Politechnico do Porto, completed Post-doctorate in Technologies and Information Systems from University of Coimbra (Portugal), Doctorate in Information Systems and Technology from University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), Master in Information Technology Management from University of Minho (Portugal) and Bachelor in Computer Science from Portucalense University (Portugal) and has membership of Professional Organization Vice-Director of the Research Center for Organizational and Social Studies of the Polytechnic of Porto (CEOS.PP), Member of the Iberian Systems and Information Technology Association (AISTI) and Effective Member of the ISCAP/Polytechnic of Porto Skills Recognition/Certification Committee. Cleuciliz Santana, Ph.D. in Education and Socio-educational Development from Valladolid University, Spain since 2008, has 25 years of experience in the management of private Higher Education Institutions. She is currently Pro-rector of research and post-graduation at the University Nilton Lins, in Manaus, Amazonas, in the North of Brazil, where she also works in the training of teachers for the use of ICTs in Higher Education. Economist, Prof. Cleuciliz has three published books in the areas of Introduction to Economics and Economic Globalization. Her hobbies are playing the guitar and singing Brazilian popular music.
About the Editors
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Cristina Helena Pinto de Mello completed Ph.D. in Economics at FGV-SP and Global Management Education Program at Nankai University, China. She is National Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at ESPM, Former Provost at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo and Former President of the Management Council of the Sorocaba Hospital Complex. She was Deputy Coordinator of the Professional Master’s in Consumer Behavior and is currently Professor in the Program. Actually she was Deputy Coordinator of the Research Group on New Developmentalism and Social Democracy, Member of the editorial board of The Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Visiting Professor at Pantheon Sorbonne, Paris 1, and Academic Member of the Committee of Global Business Conferences, Brazilian correspondent at the International Association of University Professors and Speakers (IAUPL), part of the Educamídia Advisory Council.
Chapter 1
Relevance Analysis for the Offering of a Doctorate Program in Computer Science in Ecuador Miguel Arcos-Argudo
Abstract The offer of doctoral programs has skyrocketed in recent decades. Latin American universities have greatly promoted the doctoral training of their professors with the aim of increasing the academic, scientific, and research quality of their institutions. The offer of doctoral programs in Ecuador is not abundant, especially in the area of Computer Science. This paper presents the analysis that has been developed in order to determine the relevance of the offer of a Doctorate in Computer Science in Ecuador, a project developed by the Salesian Polytechnic University. The objective of this work has been to demonstrate the relevance of the offer of a Doctoral Program in Computer Science in Ecuador, for which a review of public planning documents has been carried out, as well as a demand study on people potentially interested in this such studies. This offer is justified due to the extensive academic and research trajectory of the university, which can be corroborated in different publications, among which an appreciable quantity and quality of work in the field of computing stands out. It is worth mentioning that the governing body of Ecuadorian higher education approved the project in 2022, and this is because the present study demonstrates in a concrete way that it is necessary to offer this doctorate in the Ecuadorian territory.
1.1 Introduction Higher education in Ecuador has experienced a series of favorable changes in recent years. The Higher Education Council (CES), through its Academic Regime Regulations and derived regulations, has motivated higher education institutions (IES) to offer careers and programs that are the product of an adequate analysis of problems and needs that are can be identified through public planning documents (in addition to others) within which the National Development Plan 2017–2021 contemplates the M. Arcos-Argudo (B) Artificial Intelligence and Assistant Technologies Research Group—GI-IATA, Salesian Polytechnic University, Cuenca 010102, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_1
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Fig. 1.1 Offer of doctoral programs in Ecuador [2]
globality of the most important objectives of the State and in which HEIs are called upon to cooperate directly to achieve their achievement [1]. Doctoral programs are among the possibilities of academic offer. According to the CES application available at the following link http://appcmi.ces.gob.ec/oferta_vigente/especializaciones/ especializacion.php and consulted on February 26, 2021, in Ecuador, there are only ten doctoral program offers, as can be seen in Fig. 1.1. In Fig. 1.1, we can also notice that of the ten offers, five are from the Social Sciences area, four from the Electrical Engineering area, and only one from the Computer Science area, the latter offered by a university in Guayaquil city. “Doctoral programs correspond to an academic level whose training and research activities, duly integrated, lead to the development of competencies, skills and investigative skills validated by obtaining the Ph.D. degree” (CES Doctoral Regulations, Art. 4). In accordance with this definition, we can also cite the concept of doctorate, which “is the highest academic degree awarded by universities or polytechnic schools, with the purpose of developing and strengthening scientific research and academic training. This academic title is awarded to the student who, within the framework of a doctoral program, presents an individual work that represents an original contribution in their respective field of knowledge” (CES Doctoral Regulations, Art. 5). On the other hand, on December 9, 2016, the Government of Ecuador through Official Gazette No. 899 published the Organic Code of the Social Economy of Knowledge, Creativity and Innovation, which pursues the following purposes: … promote national and regional circulation and transfer of available knowledge and technologies, through the creation of networks of social innovation, research, academics and in general, to increase them from the practice of complementarity and solidarity; promote the disaggregation and transfer of technology through mechanisms that allow the generation of
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research, technological development and innovation with a high degree of national component; promote the development of the knowledge and information society as a fundamental principle to increase the productivity of productive factors and knowledge-intensive labor activities. [3]
The importance of Ecuador having professionals who are dedicated to research is notorious. According to information obtained from the portal https://siau.sen escyt.gob.ec/estadisticas-de-educacion-superior-ciencia-tecnologia-e-innovacion/? doing_wp_cron=1614721004.4976379871368408203125, a total of 288 doctoral students have completed or are currently completing their studies in foreign HEIs as SENESCYT scholarship holders between 2012 and 2019; however, this represents a fairly high investment, not only for tuition costs but also for transportation, accommodation, and living expenses. Additionally, the fact that the research is generated in HEIs of other countries means that the knowledge generated, the articles in scientific journals, and congresses continue to be the property of those universities, when it could well be the Ecuadorian HEIs that keep the academic credit. That is why the need to increase the offer of doctoral programs in Ecuador stands out. In this context, the Salesian Polytechnic University (UPS) has proposed to design and offer doctoral programs that are capable of competing academically with the offers of foreign HEIs but that also meet the main objectives proposed by the State. The offer of doctoral programs is fully aligned with the planning of the State embodied in the National Development Plan 2017–2021, which in its section National Territorial Strategy (p. 125) establishes the following: d.14. Promote the development of innovative territories and creative and intelligent cities, generating knowledge networks and linking higher education with social and productive needs.
1.2 Analysis of Problems and Needs that Justify the Offer of the Doctoral Program in Computer Science The relevance analysis of the Ph.D. Program in Computing Sciences proposed by the Salesian Polytechnic University takes as its starting point the curricular recommendations established by the Association of Computing Machinery or simply ACM for its acronym in English. The ACM is the main reference for programs and careers related to Computer Science, since it is the first academic and scientific society created with the purpose of establishing adequate criteria for the teaching and learning of Computer Science. Since 1947, the year it was founded, it has published several scientific journals in this field and has become an important sponsor of world-renowned scientific events in the field of computing such as: SIGGRAPH, SIGCOMM, and the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). Therefore, it is completely acceptable that the relevance of the doctoral proposal considers the disciplines published by the ACM on its site https://www.acm.org/education/curricula-recomm endations, which are listed below [4]: Information Systems Engineering, Computer
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Science, Information Technology, and Software Engineering. This document presents the way in which these disciplines are related to problems identified in the national environment and the way in which the Ph.D. project in Computational Sciences proposed by UPS will contribute to their solution by working on the different lines of research that they have been developing for several years, achieving important publications and scientific achievements. In relation to the discipline of Information Systems, we can state the following problem: Problem 1: Need for professional researchers to promote the development and optimization of information systems to improve the automation and execution of processes in companies and public and private institutions. The National Development Plan 2017–2021 ratified the need to solve the aforementioned problem since in its Axis 3: More society, better State, the importance of Information Systems, an important field of Computer Science, and that currently they are useful for any type of administration, be it administrative, technological, in the field of education, health, construction, civil works, national security, in the financial field, in communication, in the academic and scientific field, among many others. In other words, it is clear that there are currently very few areas of national development in which the computational factor does not have direct (or indirect) participation. Even Computer Science can be very useful to combat a major problem that affects the entire society: corruption; this is established in the National Development Plan 2017–2021: … At the same time, information systems for the early detection of corruption must be acquired and strengthened, which can prevent tax evasion or money laundering. This must include the private sector, since corruption is a phenomenon that is not limited to the state sphere and requires responses within a broader framework of co-responsibility …
At this point, it is worth reviewing some of the main definitions of a computer system: In general, an information system is a set that includes the participation of people and computer equipment through organized methods in order to group, process, transmit, and disseminate data that represents information for a user [5]. On the other hand, from the point of view of telecommunications, an information system consists of a set of interconnected computer equipment whose purpose is the acquisition, storage, manipulation, administration, movement, control, presentation, switching, exchange, transmission, or data reception, including: software, firmware, and hardware [6]. In relation to the discipline of Computer Engineering, we can pose the following problem: Problem 2: Need to carry out research in the field of computer networks necessary for the optimal functioning of telecommunications that allow offering adequate coverage throughout the Ecuadorian territory. The National Development Plan 2017–2021 within its National Territorial Strategy section (p. 124) contemplates a series of objectives focused on achieving equitable access to infrastructure and knowledge, of which we cite the following:
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“d.10 Increase access to public telecommunications and information technology services, especially in the rural sector, the border, Amazonia and Galapagos.” This same public planning document, on page 104, says: In all instances and integration processes, the Ecuadorian State will commit to: … 4. Protect and promote cultural diversity, the exercise of interculturality, the conservation of cultural heritage and the common memory of Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as such as the creation of communication networks and a common market for cultural industries.
Despite the fact that this last bet of the Ecuadorian State in the first instance seems to point to the area of culture, the need to have highly qualified people in the field of computer networks included in a telecommunications system can be explicitly pointed out, since it is natural that the flow and exchange of information between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean mainly use this channel on a daily basis. Regarding objective d.10 mentioned above, the priority that the State has in having professionals and researchers with in-depth knowledge of the subject is clearly evident. This problem is also aligned with the objectives outlined by the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society in its National Plan for Telecommunications and Information Technologies of Ecuador 2016–2021 [7]. The researcher in the area of computer engineering, another subarea of Computer Science according to the ACM, must be able to design networks that efficiently combine computer-based systems, including hardware and software, in order to help solve problems. Engineering problems considering the constraints that make it difficult to achieve its objectives, therefore, the knowledge of a professional who only knows how to assemble and configure systems is not enough [8], it is necessary Develop models that involve new variables and allow reaching an optimal solution at the lowest possible cost. The elaboration of models is a skill of the researcher, since it requires a complete review of the literature where he can find, analyze, and compare models previously proposed by other researchers, with this he will be able to have an important base of inputs and knowledge that will allow him to make a decision. Better decision on the solution you propose, considerably reducing the margin of error. The Ph.D. in Computational Sciences proposed by the Salesian Polytechnic University will have an important set of research groups that will constantly develop lines oriented toward progress in the field of science that will optimize telecommunications processes. In relation to the discipline of Information Technology, we can pose the following problem: Problem 3: Need for professional researchers who deepen their knowledge of Information Technologies with the aim of integrating them to optimize the automation of various work processes and improve people’s quality of life. The National Development Plan 2017–2021 on its pages 61 and 78 highlights how important the articulation of Information Technologies has been to improve the lives of Ecuadorians:
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M. Arcos-Argudo In the last ten years, the conditions of systemic competitiveness have been improved through the construction of an infrastructure that allows connectivity (roads, ports, airports) as the basis of productive development. To this is added a supply of electrical energy that comes, for the most part, from renewable energies and that lowers production costs, in addition to the development of a technological infrastructure that allows more and more people to access Information Technologies and the communication. (ICT) and its wide benefits of information and knowledge.
However, it also considers that there is still a long way to go in this matter, as shown by the following quoted texts from this national planning document: In Objective 4: Consolidate the sustainability of the social and solidarity economic system, and strengthen dollarization, p. 78: Undoubtedly, the economic system must guarantee the proper functioning of the monetary and financial system through optimal administration of liquidity and economic flows, safeguarding systemic stability, promoting access to credit and services for the entire population. financial flows, ensuring that locally generated financial flows finance endogenous development with a focus on territorial equity, and promoting financial inclusion thanks to banking access and the use of new technologies.
In Objective 5: Promote productivity and competitiveness for sustainable economic growth in a redistributive and supportive manner, within the 2021 Goals: Increase the Information and Communication Technology Development Index from 4.6 to 5.6 by 2021.
In the justification of Problem 2, the following objective has already been mentioned, which is also related to this problem: d.10 Increase access to public telecommunications and information technology services, especially in the rural sector, the border, Amazonia and Galapagos.
This problem is also fully aligned with the objectives outlined by the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society in its National Plan for Telecommunications and Information Technologies of Ecuador 2016–2021. It is clear then that this discipline of Computer Science represents a field of interest in any labor and social field. A researcher who is dedicated to the study of Information Technology is ideal to help solve this need because they will contribute their knowledge related to the integration of systems, development, and administration of services and platforms that allow the objectives of an organization to be achieved, public or private; similarly, within the social field, a researcher in this area can provide solutions to provide high-level support to all members who work in collaborative projects, as well as provide security to systems, communication networks, applications, data centers, etc., data, and web services [9]. The Doctorate in Computer Science proposed by UPS will have lines of research that are currently active and that delve into the development of different Information Technologies. In relation to the discipline of Software Engineering, we can pose the following problem.
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Problem 4: Need for professional researchers with in-depth and up-to-date knowledge in Software Engineering who apply appropriate methodologies for the development of programs in order to efficiently integrate information technologies. The National Electronic Government Plan 2018-2021 issued by the Ministry of Telecommunications and the Information Society of Ecuador on page 34 respectively states the following: Is not possible speak of a true development of electronic government as well as of the information society when citizens who need to comply with their rights and obligations by electronic means have access barriers due to lack of digital skills and knowledge, the digital society is one of the most important enablers for the development of electronic government, for which it is necessary to reduce digital illiteracy in priority attention groups, the generation of digital skills in the education sector, the promotion of the national software industry and awareness on issues of cybersecurity and protection of information and personal data.
On the other hand, the same Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society in its National Plan for Telecommunications and Information Technologies of Ecuador 2016–2021 on page 32 states: 2.4.- INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES: In the field of Information Technologies, the use of free software in the entities of the Central Public Administration has been established as a public policy; actions are currently being evaluated to encourage developers, such as the prioritization of national software, both for free and proprietary software that meets the requirements, preferring national, regional or international solutions with a national component.
In Problems 1, 2, and 3, various approaches to the problem have been widely developed in relation to Computer Science; however, any solution that aims to contribute to these needs requires software that allows effective control of all the processes involved. In this context, the development of programs has undergone a drastic evolution in the last decades. Currently, there are a series of factors that must be considered within the development, the same ones that must contemplate a very well organized and articulated structure in such a way that it allows working efficiently and safely. These factors that influence the development and its integration is what within Computer Science is called Software Engineering. Here, are two scientific definitions of this term: The establishment and use of robust engineering principles, aimed at economically obtaining software that is reliable and works efficiently on real machines. [10] The technological and managerial discipline concerned with the systematic production and maintenance of developed and modified software products within stipulated time frames and estimated costs. [11]
As can be seen, Software Engineering makes possible the existence of computer systems. Therefore, its application requires a systematic method that in turn is disciplined and measurable for its development, implementation, and maintenance [12]. When we talk about an efficient system, where the response time and the precision of the processing calculations are paramount, we also talk about the reduction of economic costs. That is, the applied methodology must result in the best product at the lowest possible price, and in this way, society will receive a tangible benefit; well,
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in this area, several disciplines of Computer Science converge that, applied correctly, will allow obtaining an adequate cost-effectiveness relationship [13]. The Ph.D. Program in Computer Science proposed by UPS will have research groups that for several years have been working on lines aimed at implementing appropriate Software Engineering methodologies that allow obtaining high-quality products at affordable costs.
1.3 Ecuadorian Development Trends Related to the Field of Study of the Ph.D. Program in Computer Science The development trends have already been implicitly detailed in number 2 of this work; however, in this section, these trends will be linked to the objectives of the program. Trends related to Problem 1: (a) Acquisition and strengthening of computer systems: focused on the automation and optimization of processes for both companies and public and private institutions. The students of the Ph.D. Program in Computational Sciences will have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge through lines of research whose groups have members with many years of experience. The knowledge that the doctoral students acquire will allow them to know and discriminate the different computer systems that are currently used and in different fields of application. Based on this knowledge, he will be able to propose new system models that incorporate artificial intelligence elements to incorporate new variables that other systems do not contemplate. Trends related to Problem 2: (a) Massification of access to public telecommunications services: especially in the most isolated geographical areas of the Ecuadorian territory, offering quality services. (b) Creation of communication networks between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean: that are capable of remaining active in a 24/7 format with the purpose of facilitating the permanent exchange of information. (c) Achieve levels of positive impact on the quality of 2G, 3G, and 4G network services: that provide citizens with stable and efficient communication. The Salesian Polytechnic University will make available to the students of the Doctorate in Computer Sciences the works and research projects coordinated by a whole set of research groups that have proven to be efficient in deepening the topics related to these trends. Ph.D. students will have the opportunity to study and propose new models for data processing using artificial intelligence techniques that allow a much broader understanding of the information contained in the data, thus increasing the level of security of the same, taking care of the data. Citizen rights and the interests
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of the state will promote the use of open data, promote the protection of personal data, and strengthen cybersecurity. Trends related to Problem 3: (a) Development of technological infrastructures that facilitate the access of more people to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). (b) Research, development, and implementation of new information technologies in all strategic sectors of the State, such as: financial, educational, health, food, and security. (c) Increase the supply and use of ICT services throughout the Ecuadorian territory: that can be used in various services such as: education, health, judicial, security, defense, industry, environmental, recreational, and tourist, which will contribute to the economic development of the country. (d) Lay foundations that contribute to the development of Information Technology industries. These trends have as one of their main objectives to increase the level of efficiency in the strategic sectors of the State where the economic aspect is always a primary factor to be considered. According to Ministry of Telecommunications [7], we can see the economic impact that Information Technologies can cause in public services as their digitization increases. For example, that the use of ICTs in the educational field can increase its productivity by 11%, which represents an impact of approximately 326 billion dollars worldwide, in terms of citizen services (water drinking water, electric light, telephony, etc.) productivity can benefit by 14%, which is reflected in around 133 billion dollars globally, among other fields. Trends related to Problem 4: (a) Development of computer programs through the application of methodologies that allow the generation of efficient and safe software engineering products. As already mentioned previously, all solutions related to Problems 1, 2, and 3 will require software that facilitates their manipulation and control. The Doctorate in Computer Science proposed by UPS will make available to its students the entire contingent of research groups that have dedicated themselves to the development of applications for which they have used efficient methodologies that allow scientific methods to be involved. The accumulated experience, an intangible value that UPS has, has allowed the creation of several applications that are currently used in important sectors of the State, for example: technologies for education and inclusive education, computer systems that implement artificial intelligence, GIS (information geographic systems), data science applications, telemedicine, telehealth, among others. As can be seen, all these applications require efficient and methodologically developed software that integrates elements such as: telecommunications networks, information systems and technologies, and security.
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1.4 Relevance Based on Demand Analysis Finally, we justify the offer of the Ph.D. Program in Computational Sciences by the Salesian Polytechnic University based on the results obtained through a survey of people who expressed interest in the field of computing; 112 people potentially interested in studying this type of program were surveyed. The purpose of this instrument was to capture the opinion of the informants and, based on it, verify the importance of the offer of the doctoral program. The main results are summarized below: (a) The survey was filled by 164 people, of which 97.6% would be interested in deepening their knowledge through research training. (b) 89% of people would be interested in pursuing a doctoral study program. (c) 100% of people think that research in their field of work can contribute to solving social problems. (d) 100% of people think that research is a very important process that contributes to the fields: academic-scientific, professional, social development, and economic development. (e) 98.8% of people think that the offer of a Doctoral program in Computer Science is relevant to society in general.
1.5 Conclusion The offer of Doctoral Programs in Computer Science in Ecuador is insufficient, and this is causing people to choose to study in HEIs abroad, which generates a significant outflow of foreign currency and the knowledge generated does not fully benefit the national HEIs. The Ecuadorian State has expressed its interest in generating investigative processes within its limits, which demonstrates the need to offer doctoral programs by national HEIs. Computer Science is involved in all strategic and labor sectors worldwide, so it is necessary to deepen the investigation of this detailed field. The Ph.D. Program in Computer Science proposed by the Salesian Polytechnic University has been designed based on an in-depth study of the problems and needs expressed in the public planning documents issued by the Ecuadorian State demonstrating the need for this type of researchers. Therefore, it is concluded that the offer of this program is totally relevant. The Ph.D. Program in Computer Science focuses its research areas on four macro-disciplines established by the ACM: Information Systems, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, and Software Engineering, which will have the support of a broad set of investigation groups research dedicated to the study of various lines that delve into various areas of these disciplines, which will provide sufficient support for the students of the doctoral program to successfully complete their studies. The Ph.D. Program in Computational Sciences will be able to train professional researchers who contribute effectively and efficiently to solving the problems identified in this document.
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References 1. Government of Ecuador: National Development Plan 2017–2021 (2017) 2. Consejo de Educación Superior del Ecuador (CES) (2021). http://appcmi.ces.gob.ec/oferta_ vigente/especializaciones/especializacion.php 3. MINTEL: National Electronic Government Plan 2018–2021 (2018) 4. ACM: Association for Computing Machinery (2021). Obtenido de https://www.acm.org/ 5. Murdick, R.: Information systems. Prentice Hall Latin American, Mexico (1989) 6. Federal Standard 1037C, M.-S.-1. a. (s.f.) 7. Ministry of Telecommunications: National Plan for Telecommunications and Information Technologies of Ecuador 2016–2021 (2016) 8. Association for Computing Machinery, A., & IEEE Computer Society, I. Computer Engineering Curricula 2016 (2016) 9. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), & IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS): Information Technology Curricula 2017 (2017) 10. Bauer, F.: Software Engineering. Information Processing (1972) 11. Fairley, R.: Software Engineering Concepts. McGraw-Hill, New York (1985) 12. IEEE: IEEE Std 610-1990 (1990) 13. SEI: SEI Report on Undergraduate Software Engineering Education (1990)
Chapter 2
Epistemological Justification for the Offer of the Master’s Degree in Information Security in Ecuador Miguel Arcos-Argudo
Abstract The Ecuadorian higher education system is regulated by the Higher Education Council (CES), a body that establishes the guidelines and directives for the academic offer by higher education institutions (HEIs). The Regulation of Harmonization and Nomenclature of Professional Titles and Academic Degrees conferred by the Higher Education Institutions of Ecuador, issued by the CES, in its annex 2 details the degrees of the degree and postgraduate level that the HEIs can offer. Until mid-2021, this document did not allow a university to offer a Master’s Degree in Information Security. To achieve this, the Salesian Polytechnic University has prepared the relevance study presented in this work, which demonstrated the importance of professionals who have this degree. The CES verified the importance of this qualification and decided to include it in the mentioned regulation. The study contemplates an epistemological justification with theoretical foundations and supported by an analysis of problems and needs related to the field of information security.
2.1 Introduction Until mid-2021, the Regulations for the Harmonization and Nomenclature of Professional Titles and Academic Degrees conferred by the Higher Education Institutions of Ecuador (RANT) allowed Ecuadorian universities to only offer the Master’s Degree in Cybersecurity and the Master’s Degree in Computer Security, leaving out the Master in Information Security. Sometimes the term “Cybersecurity”, “Computer Security”, and “Information Security” can be used interchangeably; however, they are different topics with their own particularities [1]. This confusion may arise because today the greatest trend in technology is focused on digitizing information [2]. It is convenient to start with a brief but simple difference between these two terms: “computer security is described M. Arcos-Argudo (B) Artificial Intelligence and Assistant Technologies Research Group—GI-IATA, Salesian Polytechnic University, Cuenca 010102, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_2
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as the tactical and operational distinction of security, while information security is the strategic line of security” [2]. More broadly, we can define computer security as “Computer security protects the computer system, trying to ensure the integrity and privacy of the information it contains. Therefore, we could say that it is about implementing technical measures that will preserve the infrastructure and communication that support the operation of a company, that is, the hardware and software used by the company” [2] cited in [1]. When we talk about cybersecurity we refer to cyberspace defined as the environment in which communication between computer networks takes place [3]. While information security “is the discipline that tells us about risks, threats, scenario analysis, good practices and regulatory schemes, which require us to ensure levels of process and technology assurance to raise the level of confidence in the creation, use, storage, transmission, retrieval and final disposition of the information” [2]. It is evident then that a Master in Computer Security will develop skills only to protect the computer system through technical measures that will only focus on the hardware and software infrastructure that a company has. On the other hand, a Master in Information Security has a much broader field of action since; in addition to the field of action of the Master in Computer Security, it has the skills to carry out an analysis of risks and threats, promotion of good practices that includes campaigns awareness of the importance of information security in a company, human aspects that affect the security of a company, regulations, and legislation related to information security, among others.
2.2 Epistemological Justification 2.2.1 Academic Background In this section, some academic offers aligned with the Master’s degree in Information Security will be cited: At the national level: • Universidad de las Américas—UDLA: Master in Information Security Management [4]. Worldwide: • Polytechnic University of Madrid—UPM: Master in Information Security [5]. • Security College US: Master in Information Security [6]. • Alfonso X el Sabio University: Master in Information Security and Communications [7]. • European Postgraduate Center—CEUPE: Master’s Degree in Information Security and Technology [8].
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• School of Cybersecurity: Master in Information Security Management [9].
2.2.2 Some Theoretical Foundations In this section, the main theoretical foundations that help to highlight the importance of the Master’s degree in Information Security are presented: According to ISOTools Excellence in [2]: “… computer security protects the computer system, trying to ensure the integrity and privacy of the information it contains. Therefore, we could say that it is about implementing technical measures that preserve the infrastructure and communication that support the operation of a company, that is, the hardware and software used by the company. Information security goes much further, since it tries to provide security measures to other media where the information is located, such as: printed matter, hard drives, and security measures regarding the people who know it. It is oriented not only to preserve information, but also to improve business processes. They must be added to the technical, other organizational or legal measures that allow the organization to ensure greater strength of confidentiality, integrity and availability of information systems. Information security integrates all information regardless of the medium in which it is. Computer security deals only with the protection of computer installations and information in digital media”.
The ISO/IEC 27000 [10] standard is an internationally accepted standard that in its entirety speaks only of Information Security and at no time speaks of Computer Security. This standard provides a set of guidelines that allow implementing and maintaining an adequate Information Security Management System (ISMS), the latter can be understood as a set of measures whose main objective is to guarantee that all assets of an organization are under adequate monitoring and the risks that threaten information security are minimized and controlled. The guidelines established in this standard tend to guarantee the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information. Large organizations, such as banking companies, often invest many resources to get their ISMS to obtain ISO/IEC 27000 certification. The implementation of the ISO/EIC 27000 standard represents the following advantages for a company: • Increase the level of security on your most valuable assets. • Manage the risks to which your assets are exposed more effectively (identification, mitigation, monitoring, response, etc.). • Give your customers the feeling of security and trust. • Prestige by demonstrating that the company implements internationally accepted norms and standards. • Minimize the risk of your brand suffering any damage. • Minimize the risk of decreased profits. • Minimize the risk of economic losses caused by regulatory fines. • Create a culture of information security within your company.
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Based on the foregoing, there is a clear theoretical trend that leads us to conclude that Information Security is currently the most appropriate term to ensure that a company has its most valuable asset safe: its data and information.
2.2.3 Theoretical Framework that Strengthens the Justification As mentioned above, the terms “Information Security”, “Cybersecurity”, and “Computer Security” are often used synonymously; however, this is a fundamental mistake. This section presents a summarized theoretical framework that justifies the inclusion of the Master’s degree in Information Security in the Regulation of Harmonization and Nomenclature of Degrees (RANT) of the Higher Education Council. According to different authors, [3, 11] there are important differences between these concepts. When we talk about cybersecurity, we refer to cyberspace defined as the environment in which communication between computer networks takes place [3]. While Computer Security “is the discipline that tells us about risks, threats, scenario analysis, good practices and regulatory schemes, which require us to ensure levels of process and technology assurance to raise the level of confidence in the creation, use, storage, transmission, retrieval and final disposition of the information” [2]. On the other hand, Information Security considers aspects that go beyond information and communication technologies, including human aspects, the legal or regulatory aspect, Information Security Management Systems (ISMS), auditing, among others; that is, Information Security is intended to secure all Information Technology (IT) infrastructures as well as their processes [3] (see Fig. 2.1). On the other hand, the Ministry of Telecommunications and the Information Society in [12, 13] affirms that Ecuador is in a process of maturation of digital technologies, and proof of this is the increase in demand for personnel who have the profile of Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), a position that can be adequately performed by a person who handles the field of Information Security and that is regulated in recognized regulatory frameworks such as the General Data Protection Regulation (EU-GDPR) [14] and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act [15]. In addition, the reference frameworks for management system certification include standards such as ISO/IEC 27001:2013, which emphasizes the entire process of Information Security Management Systems [16]. Figure 2.2 clearly shows that the greatest probability of risk of attacks on organizations is focused on traditional security that includes aspects that are outside the scope of cybersecurity and that were previously mentioned. Therefore, it is clear that there is a great need to advance in research related to the field of Information Security since, in a special way, the Government of Ecuador has goals to meet having this important issue as one of its axes.
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Fig. 2.1 Information security and cybersecurity area of interest [3] Fig. 2.2 Likelihood and impact of security risks [2]
Therefore, it is concluded that it is pertinent to include the Master’s program in Information Security in its own domain within the detailed field of Information Systems of the RANT.
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2.3 Conclusions The offer of the Master in Cybersecurity and the Master in Computer Security is not equivalent to or replaces the offer of the Master in Information Security. As presented in this paper, information security covers a much broader field that involves the protection of cyberspace but also human factors that can affect the security of information assets, and it also covers the regulatory aspect as well as the study of the standards that allow an Information Security Management System to strengthen its level of security and reliability and facilitate the formation of a culture of security among employees throughout the organization. Then, this work concludes that the offer of the Master in Information Security in Ecuador is very pertinent, corroborating the correct decision of the governing body of the Ecuadorian higher education system.
References 1. Figueroa-Suárez, J., Rodríguez-Andrade, R., Bone-Obando, C., Saltos-Gómez, J.: Computer security and information security. Pole Knowl 2(12), 145–155 (2017) 2. ISOToolsExcellence: Computer security or information security? 01 26 2017 [Online]. Available: https://www.pmg-ssi.com/2017/01/seguridad-de-la-informacion/. Accessed 10 Aug 2021 3. OAMK a: MSI Sisaneci, A Novel Concept For Cybersecurity: Institutional Cybersecurity, Turkey (2016) 4. UDLA: UDLA 2019 [Online]. Available: https://www.udla.edu.ec/carreras/programas-aca demicos/posgrados-udla/facultad-de-posgrados/maestria-en-gestion-de-la-seguridad-de-lainformacion/. Accessed 16 Aug 2021 5. UP d. Madrid: UPM [Online]. Available: https://montegancedo.upm.es/Formacion/Masteres/ ArticulosRelacionados?fmt=detail&prefmt=articulo&id=cc754cb66509c310VgnVCM10000 009c7648a. Accessed 16 Aug 2021 6. SC US: SECURITY COLLEGE US [Online]. Available: https://www.securitycollege.us/mas inf.html. Accessed 16 Aug 2021 7. UAX e. Sabio: Alfonso X el Sabio University [Online]. Available: https://www.cursosypostg rados.com/programas/master-universitario-en-ingenieria-de-seguridad-de-la-informacion-ylas-comunicaciones-22724.htm. Accessed 16 Aug 2021 8. CEUPE: CEUPE [Online]. Available: https://www.ceupe.com/blog/razones-para-estudiar-unmaster-en-seguridad-de-la-informacion-tecnologia.html. Accessed 16 Aug 2021 9. E.d. Cybersecurity: Cybersecurity School [Online]. Available: https://www.imf-formacion. com/pdf/programa-curso/master-en-seguridad-de-la-informacion.pdf. Accessed 16 Aug 2016 10. ISO/IEC, ISO/IEC 27000 11. R.v. S.a. J.v. Niekerk: From information security to cyber security. Comput. Secur. 38, 97–102 12. M.d. Telecommunications: National Plan for Telecommunications and Information Technologies of Ecuador 2016–2021 (2016) 13. M.d. Telecommunications: National Electronic Government Plan 2018–2021 (2018) 14. GDP Regulation: General Data Protection Regulation [Online]. Available: https://gdpr-info.eu/ 15. SW. Act: Sarbanes-Oxley Act [Online]. Available: https://www.soxlaw.com/ 16. ISO-IEC: ISO/IEC-27001 [Online]. Available: https://www.iso.org/isoiec-27001-informationsecurity.html. Accessed 10 Aug 2021
Chapter 3
Sustainable Learning and the Difficulties of Integral Child Development: Case Study in Children of an Educational Center in Cuenca, Ecuador Kely Nieto-Andrade, Enith Quezada-Loaiza , and Miguel Arcos-Argudo
Abstract This paper presents the results of an investigation carried out on a group of children at the initial education level (between 3 and 5 years old) from an educational center in Ecuador. The goal was to determine the incidence of sustainable learning in the difficulties of comprehensive child development within the context of the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus. During the investigation, quantitative and qualitative methods were used, involving teachers and parents. Among the main findings, it is highlighted that there is an appreciable lack of knowledge about the milestones of child development by parents and teachers, and also deficient knowledge about comprehensive child development was evidenced, which represents a risk, since these factors could prevent an early detection of learning difficulties in children and, consequently, a late intervention of support so that they can overcome them. In addition, important recommendations are presented that teachers at this level, educational institutions, and children’s families can apply to improve the learning process.
K. Nieto-Andrade · E. Quezada-Loaiza Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, Loja, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] E. Quezada-Loaiza e-mail: [email protected] M. Arcos-Argudo (B) Artificial Intelligence and Assistant Technologies Research Group—GI-IATA, Salesian Polytechnic University, Cuenca 010102, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_3
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3.1 Introduction The study of difficulties in child development represents a topic of great interest for the field of educational sciences. The initial education centers constantly try to train their professionals in this matter so that they can detect early warning signs that indicate the presence of some learning difficulty in their students to proceed to the respective verification and intervention in case it is necessary. This work has focused on the study of difficulties in comprehensive child development by applying an appropriate research methodology. During the bibliographical review, it has been found that the difficulties of integral child development refer to the alterations or limitations that a person can present, said difficulties can be of a mental, sensory, or motor type and manifest at any stage of the individual’s life, but especially during childhood and adolescence [1]. A summary of Piaget’s theory on child development milestones in a concrete and chronological way is also presented. An investigative process carried out during the period and in the context of the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has been developed, for which data has been collected from students of the initial education level of an institution in the Cuenca canton in the province of Azuay-Ecuador. The data has been provided by the institution’s teacher, as well as by the mothers of the students of the same group, for which they have signed a consent with the corresponding authorization.
3.2 Definitions and Basic Notions In this section, some concepts that are necessary for the understanding of this work are exposed. Difficulties in comprehensive child development can be understood as alterations or limitations that a person can present, and these difficulties can be of a mental, sensory, or motor nature and manifest at any stage of the individual’s life, but especially during childhood and adolescence [1]. A developmental disorder consists of an alteration or dysfunction of the “comprehensive intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior of a person” which implies that timely intervention is necessary through strategies and resources that support it, considering the environment in which it develops [2]. Development milestones can be conceived as a set of actions that take place during an organized period of time in which each phase must be completed and surpassed to advance in the development scales [3]. In other words, these milestones consist of the abilities and/or behaviors that are observed in children during their growth, for example: babbling, sitting, eating, crawling, etc., of course, each milestone must be executed in an age range specific of the child [4]. The actions that a child develops allow him to acquire new specific skills.
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Characteristics of developmental milestones. Piaget affirms that there are four milestones in the development of children between zero and twelve years of age [5], and these stages are briefly described below: Sensory motor (from zero to two years): It consists of the first stage of cognitive development, from the birth of the child until he uses language through simple phrases with which he interacts with the beings that exist in the environment, in which it develops (people, things, or animals). During this phase, children play to satisfy their needs through egocentric behavior [6]. Pre-operational (from two to seven years): Children begin to participate in roleplaying, and this is assuming a role of another person. The minor’s ability allows him to execute complex mental tasks such as simple and arbitrary associations that allow him to try to understand how the world works [6]. Concrete operations (from seven to eleven years): The infant makes use of concrete situations to reach conclusions through the use of logic. He is able to categorize elements of his environment with greater complexity [6]. Formal operations (from eleven to twelve years old): Their logic allows them to obtain abstract conclusions that may or may not be related to specific cases; that is, they can think and overthink [6]. Sustainable learning. For Sterling, cited in [7], sustainable learning comprises three key ideas: learning for all, meaningful teaching, and lasting learning. It consists of a type of learning that focuses on inclusiveness with the aim of contributing to the creation of a just society, for which it provides teachers with the necessary instruments that make them capable of carrying out their task within classrooms progressively more differently, and simultaneously sustainable learning implies that the teacher acquires sufficient skills to execute the teaching process in a “sustainable, valid, healthy and lasting” way with each of their students. Sustainable learning dimensions. For UNESCO, the educational field plays a fundamental role in sustainable development [8]. Sustainable learning (contemplated within sustainable development) focuses its purpose on promoting effective teaching in order to respond to the learning needs of all students during their academic preparation and that is lasting throughout their existence. It uses inclusive practices as one of the main tools to contribute to the elimination of barriers that represent an obstacle in the learning process, with this it tries to enhance the capacities of boys and girls without neglecting their learning needs, granting them equal opportunities in their own communities. Once again, the importance of considering the individual learning needs of each child is emphasized, without which true inclusion could not be achieved and, consequently, the objectives of the process would not be achieved. We must never rule out the possibility of, if necessary, resorting to the help of external professionals who support from their fields in the process of inclusion of the child, for example, psychologists, doctors, therapists, nutritionists, etc. [7]. However, in no way is it intended to say that sustainable learning focuses only on “inclusion” boys and girls, that is, those who have special educational needs, since in the group of students, there may be children who are not categorized within this group but will have learning needs that require attention. Therefore, sustainable learning promotes the training of
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responsive teachers who prepare their microcurricular planning considering the entire group in their classroom [9]. The Responsive Teaching Framework (RTF) presents a proposal for inclusive practices that try to enhance the strengths of the student. Regarding the ATRIO capacities (Active learning, Transformation through thought, Interpersonal relationships, Computer science, symbols and language, Personal organization, and Lasting self-learning), which also contemplate inclusive practices, it is highlighted that the child possesses the necessary qualities to achieve the learning objectives to a greater degree than they would achieve if they were not developed in an appropriate environment [7].
3.3 Research Methodology and Materials This work has been developed using a mixed methodology; that is, both quantitative and qualitative variables have been analyzed. Regarding the quantitative component, variables that can be measured have been considered, this in order to establish relationships or correlations between said variables that allow reaching both deductive and objective generalizing conclusions. On the other hand, qualitative research has allowed us to develop an inductive process that has led us to understand and interpret the meaning attributed by the participants in the context of the study. For which children between 4 and 5 years of age, students from different initial education centers have been chosen. Two semi-structured interviews have been prepared (one destined for parents and another for educators), and the teacher has been asked to select a sample of children at random. The main purpose of this interview was to obtain information from two sources that are observing the daily behavior of children and their reaction within the new reality produced by the pandemic. Subsequently, the interview was applied to the teacher and the parents to collect relevant information from the infants about: child development and its difficulties, the education provided during the pandemic, communication practices with the children’s families., learning barriers, teaching practices, the evaluation method used, among others. Finally, the information has been systematized in order to obtain relevant results and conclusions. Due to the pandemic conditions at the time of developing the investigation, the interviews have been sent to each of the parents using means of communication that allow the sending of files. Subsequently, virtual meetings have been held with them in order to conduct the interview. A dialogue was held in which the objective of each question was explained, and the parents proceeded to write their response. Regarding the interview with the teacher, a video call was also used, but in this case the answers were written by the author of this research. It should be noted that the chosen children belong to the same classroom in an educational center in the city of Cuenca, which is why only one teacher was interviewed.
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3.4 Analysis and Discussion of Results Table 3.1 summarizes the basic data that has been collected on the mothers of the children; although they are all adults. Two of them are currently married, while one has the marital status of divorced. Similarly, two of them have a higher level of education, and the third has stated that her education for now corresponds to a basic level of education. Finally, two of the representatives are mothers of three children, and the remaining one has only one child, being also the youngest of all. Torres et al. [10] in their research collected data from a group of Latin American families whose members stated that women are generally the ones who are in charge of the children. This agrees with the results of this table, since it is evident that in the Ecuadorian culture mothers continue to assume the responsibility of raising children since in this study the parents have not been involved to answer the interview. Table 3.2 shows general data for each of the children, two of whom are male (both 4 years old) and one female (5 years old). As for the weights of four-yearold children, there is no major news; according to [10], a child of this age should weigh approximately 15.5 kg; however, it is likely that in the five-year-old girl, there is overweight because according to the same author, her ideal weight would be 18.2 kg, which implies that she has almost two kilograms more. It is important that a child always maintains a good diet; however, this implies maintaining their weight at a healthy level with a balanced diet rich in protein, vegetables, and fruits, controlling the amount of fats and carbohydrates, as well as constant and adequate physical activity. Regarding knowledge about child development: The teacher has a criterion that is close to the theoretical foundation of child development because in her response, she has considered physical growth that can be contained in the field of gross motor skills, affective development is within the socio-emotional aspect, and the cognitive factor can be framed in the pre-operational capacities. On the other hand, the answers given Table 3.1 General information of the parents or representative of the children Age
Civil status
Education level
Number of children
Profession
40
Divorcee
University
3
Accountant
25
Married
University
1
Businessman
32
Married
School
3
Domestic
Table 3.2 Children information overview Age (years)
Weight (kg)
Sex
Problems in pregnancy?
Special educational Serious illness? need?
4
15
Male
No
No
No
4
15.9
Male
No
No
No
5
20
Female
No
No
No
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by the children’s mothers are much more general. Two of the informants agree that child development is directly related to the maturation process of children’s abilities according to their age; however, one of the mothers considers that this development refers only to the growth process of her child. About development milestones: The teacher’s criteria are very focused and result in the aspect of the development of social skills. It does not refer to any aspect of the preconceptual stage (where symbolic representation plays a fundamental role) nor to the prelogical stage (where logical reasoning begins to be cultivated). On the other hand, the mothers of families present a total ignorance about the central theme of this question. About the effects of the pandemic on children: The teacher’s perception is that during this time, the children have become more withdrawn. Teaching from one side of the screen is a difficult task, even more so with children from 3 to 5 years of age. To this must be added the fact that the teachers in our environment and the students did not have the adequate preparation or technology to face this challenge. This agrees with what was expressed by one of the mothers of the family. However, the two remaining mothers claim that their children have remained unchanged. About the management of diversity in the classroom: It is evident that the procedure adopted by the teacher is adequate because it takes into account that her students come from different realities and have different difficulties. However, during the interviews, none of the informants mentioned the importance of inclusive practices to combat learning barriers. About the developmental aspects of the children, no major novelties were found, except that one mother responded that her son always tries to influence the behavior of others and another affirmed that her son only sometimes shows independence and self-confidence.
3.5 Conclusions During this research, the family and school perspective on development difficulties and their incidence in sustainable learning of children from 3 to 5 years of age have been studied through a semi-structured interview. It has been shown that the representatives of the children do not know the concept of comprehensive child development and therefore are not really aware of the damage that developmental difficulties can cause in their children. In addition, mothers are completely unaware of the developmental milestones in children from 3 to 5 years of age, which can be a negative factor, since they will not have the necessary knowledge to verify that their children demonstrate adequate development throughout the time. According to the answers given by the teacher, it is concluded that she is unaware of some of the milestones of child development for children between three and five years of age. Regarding the learning barriers, both the teacher and the mothers of the family have not considered inclusive practices when answering the survey.
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Recommendations: The initial development center could offer parents a workshop on comprehensive child development: its concept and importance, in order to make family members aware of the relevance of ensuring that the child has adequate development in accordance with your age. It is also recommended to carry out a workshop on “developmental milestones” aimed at parents, and this will allow them to carry out a continuous process of observation of the skills that their child is developing and detect possible warning signs that they can communicate to the educational center to verify it and intervene if necessary. This training could also be offered to teachers, as it will make it easier for them to carry out a continuous evaluation of the child’s evolution in terms of their normal development, in order to identify possible difficulties early in order to address them on time and achieve the expected recovery in the future in the shortest possible time. Also, training for teachers on the subject of learning barriers could be considered in order for them to implement inclusive practices on a daily basis and according to the special educational needs of each child. The objective will be to train responsive teachers within the institution. Finally, in those cases in which children with self-concept difficulties are identified, activities should be planned to cultivate their autonomy in a progressive way, and this will allow them to have confidence in themselves and develop their learning properly.
References 1. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and statical manual of mental disorders, Washington: Washington: American Psychiatric (2013) 2. Fiuzam, M., Fernández, P.: Dificultades de aprendizaje y trastornos del desarrollo. Ediciones Pirámide, Madrid (2014) 3. Cardona, J., Alzate, S.: Topografía de los hitos del desarrollo. La voz del semillero, pp. 124–135 (2015) 4. MedlinePlus, «MedlinePlus,» MedlinePlus, 08 10 2021. [En línea]. Available: https://bit.ly/ 3OK6cZS. [Último acceso: 10 03 2022] 5. Jaume, J.: Desarrollo Cognitivo: Las Teorías de Piaget y de Vygotsky, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (2008) 6. Londoño, C.: Según Jean Piaget, estas son las 4 etapas del desarrollo cognitivo. Elige Educar, [En línea]. Available: https://bit.ly/3HdQmnI 7. Graham, L., Berman, J., Bellert, A.: Aprendizaje Sostenible. Prácticas inclusivas para las aulas del siglo XXI.. de Australia-Latin America Training Academy (2015) 8. Fernández, A.: Educación para la sostenibilidad: Un nuevo reto para el actual modelo universitario. Research, Society and Development (2018) 9. ALATA Inclusive Education Consultancy: Educación Inclusiva y Aprendizaje Sostenible, CIDE Ecuador, s/f 10. Torres, L., Garrido, A., Reyes, A., Ortega, P.: Responsabilidades en la crianza de los hijos. Enseñanza e investigación en psicología, vol. 13, nº 1, pp. 77–89 (2008)
Chapter 4
Student Academic Behavior Attributes: First Phase Ruth Patricia Maldonado Rivera, Bolívar David Narváez Montenegro, Federico Miguel Estrella Gómez, and Fredy Cañizares Galarza
Abstract This work consists of identifying attributes in the data record that help to understand student behavior, and thereby improve teacher feedback. For this, the J48 algorithms were applied, which were able to identify the base attribute on which students can be grouped and know their possible behavior in the classroom. The results show a ROC curve with an AUC = 0.97 and the grouping of KNN greater than 80%, which indicates possible attributes for the identification of academic student behavior.
4.1 Introduction Knowledge of the set of attributes that can influence the behavior and achievement of students is very important as a feedback effect for the improvement of the educational process. The process of examining students and their assessment strategies is heavily affected due to because of the rapid adoption of online education over physical education at the campus. All physical strategies in educational institutions will be converted to digital for the safety of the students, instructors, and platform. Furthermore, examining these relationships within and between classes revealed R. P. M. Rivera (B) Departamento de Psicología, Universidad Tecnica Particular de Loja, Loja, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] B. D. N. Montenegro · F. M. E. Gómez Docente de la carrera de Derecho de la Universidad Regional Autónoma de los Andes (UNIANDES), Los Andes, Chile e-mail: [email protected] F. M. E. Gómez e-mail: [email protected] F. C. Galarza Docente de la carrera de Software de la Universidad Regional Autónoma de los Andes (UNIANDES), Los Andes, Chile e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_4
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that reinforcer and outsider behaviors were more common among students who, compared to their classmates, were higher in moral disengagement and lower in defender self-efficacy, whereas defending was more common among students who, compared to their classmates, were higher in defender self-efficacy [3]. One of the issues commonly faced by teachers is managing students’ challenging behavior. This behavior might lead to teachers’ frustration and helplessness, especially in novice teachers. In addition, the issues that arise from this challenged behavior, such as bullying toward peers and teachers, increases the importance of teacher competence in dealing with these issues. Students learn via eLearning (electronic online learning) systems in learning in different ways depending on their learning needs, learning behaviors as well as eLearning system policy for users. However, most learning outcome prediction models for eLearning the systems are still not stable and still cannot be applied in many situations, such as the use of eLearning is highly dynamic. The main objective is to identify the variable behavior of students and a methodology that allows clarity to personalize education. Another of the research contributions is the selection of attributes (Ribot, Ribot, Perez, & Cayabyab). It is known that student behavior is made up of different variables, but it is difficult to analyze them all, so the attribute selection algorithm is used to maintain the correct variables in the vector of characteristics (Adhiselvam 2021). For the objectives, it is proposed to use the J48 algorithm based on the student behavior proposals developed in Hamim et al. (2021), Ribot et al., Sathe and Adamuthe (2021). On the other hand, once the classifying base attribute has been identified, it is possible to apply the alternative of student behavior groups based on the proposals [2]. These two algorithms were applied to the data of this work, which allowed us to obtain the experimental conclusions. This research continues with the explanation of the most relevant works regarding the identification of student human behavior, to then explain the methodology and the conclusive experimentation of the case.
4.2 Art State This research describes a students’ participation, using both an individual (studentlevel) and a group approach collective (classroom) approach. Results show that students’ individual behavior, such as notetaking or hand-raising, is challenging to recognize, and does not correlate with students’ self-reported engagement. Interestingly, students’ collective behavior can be quantified in a more generic way. Nonetheless, the evidence for a connection between these collective measures and engagement is rather weak [4]. The study used a narrative inquiry methodology and the participants’ accounts of their experiences were collected through semi-structured interviews. Through the participants’ narratives, it was found that the teachers in this study were influenced differently by the sources of self-efficacy and that their selfefficacy differed. These differences could have been affected by the varying levels of professional [5]. Due to health problems such as epidemics and any emergencies, many schools, universities, and educational many of these institutions are forced to
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stop using their facilities for educational purposes, so many of them have switched to a virtual education. All these educational institutions have begun to choose digital tools such as Google Meet, team, and Zoom to bring classes and teach students 24% were unaware or, for some reason, their academic performance did not improve. Moodle can be exploited to understand if an eLearning system can be predicted based on eLearning usage log data. To understand it, features from the web log course-student in Moodle are being considered. Result found that the current group doesn’t give a better understanding and significant [1]. Student profile modeling using machine learning techniques during last four years. Analyze the most used and most efficient machine learning techniques in both online and face-to-face education context, for different objectives such as failure, dropout, orientation, academic performance (Hamim et al. 2021). Understudies were clustered into two groups agreeing to sex and year level. The result appeared that the essential reasons of referrals among the male students were unlucky deficiencies, lateness, destitute scholastic execution and on probation. On the other hand, for the female was misconduct. In terms of the year level of the understudies, it appeared that the essential reasons of referrals among the primary and second year understudies were nonattendances, lateness, destitute scholarly execution and on probation. Whereas for the third and fourth year understudies was wrongdoing [2]. In the following methodological section is the description of the application of the method strictly based on discovering through J48 the base attribute for clustering that allows academic feedback.
4.3 Methodology The selection of attributes to be able to distinguish the behavior of the students, according to the data collection, is based on determining what may be influencing even their academic performance, for this case the Attribute Selection method is applied, although in this research work is also experimented with all the variables corresponding to the feature vector. It is verified which is the attribute that allows to establish differences between the data to be able to have the conclusions regarding student behavior. Likewise, once the attributes have been located, the base attribute is used to obtain the student groups that allow the visualization of particular and even individual behaviors as feedback to the teaching–learning process.
4.4 Experimentation It works on the data of students collected on their financial status, hobbies, work and 16 more attributes that correspond to their behavior. The J48 algorithm is applied, to obtain the classification results:
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Fig. 4.1 J48, ROC
Fig. 4.2 J48 tiempo de dedicación
The area under the curve (Fig. 4.1) allows us to classify and verify that the variable hours of dedication to study allows us to obtain a clear mechanism for student personalization, an average of which would make it easier to make decisions regarding the subject. The behavior of the students (Fig. 4.2) reflects the dedication of the students according to their financial status, those whose income is between bad and good are those who spend more than four hours studying.1
1
https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/berkeleyearth/climate-change-earth-surface-temperature-data.
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Table 4.1 shows that 73 students dedicate between 30 to 60 min a day to carry out their studies and 1 dedicates more than 4 h. According to Fig. 4.3, the Finacial_status attributes, and within the Part_time_ job, can discriminate between male and female options, as well as academic degree. The attribute selection method was also applied, which determines only 8 attributes for the analysis. Among the eliminated attributes is Hobby, who can at the time be considered as an attribute that is related to behavior in student performance. With a new population of 14 students, new interesting results are obtained for decision making (Fig. 4.4): The algorithm recommends a relationship between the hobbies and the financial status of the students, which will even imply their participation in the part-time occupational aspect. Table 4.1 J48 classify Confusion matrix a
b
c
f
Classified as
1
1
1
0
a = 0–30 min
73
5
0
0
0
b = 30–60 min
6
51
1
0
0
c = 1–2 h
2
2
5
#
1
0
d = 2–3 h
0
0
3
0
12
0
e = 3–4 h
3
0
1
0
2
2
f = More than 4 h
37
6
3 3
d
Fig. 4.3 Male and female J48
Fig. 4.4 J48 financial status
e
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R. P. M. Rivera et al.
Table 4.2 KNN clusters Attribute
Cluster Full data
0.00
1.00
Have you completed any certification courses or are you currently enrolled in any?
No
No
No
Gender
Female
Female
Male
Department
Education
Education
Education
Height (cm)
139.27
138.65
148.00
Weight (kg)
63.72
64.71
49.88
10th mark
8.04
8.48
7.00
12th mark
8.27
8.36
7.00
College mark
Play soccer
Play soccer
Watch videos
Hobbies
2h
2h
30–60 min
Daily studying time
2h
2h
30–60 min
Prefer to study in
Night
Night
Anytime
Salary expectation
1000.00
1011.43
840.00
Possibility of choosing their career based on their degree 0.80
0.80
0.50
Social media and video games spending time
4h
4h
0–60 min
Traveling time
2h
2h
30–60 min
Stress level
Medium
Medium
Good
Are you doing a part-time job right now?
No
No
No
Table 4.2 shows the grouping directed by J48, in relation to financial status. Hobbies should be observed as an analysis variable, where the division can be verified by playing soccer and watching videos.
4.5 Conclusion Knowing the academic behavior that in some way can influence academic performance is essential. In this work, two groups of methodological application are analyzed whose grouping is based on what was obtained with J48. The hours of dedication, the financial state, seem to be the most important attributes of identification to be able to work on the identification of student behaviors. On this basis, grouping can help identify the group analysis of students and even improve academic feedback, in relation to the fact that students could already be known outside of their strictly academic training. It is necessary, then, to identify more attributes within student behavior, which allows verifying what is happening outside the classroom and that may be influencing student performance, and above all, knowing how to personalize students to improve pedagogical feedback academic.
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References 1. Chayanukro, S., Mahmuddin, M., Husni, H.: Understanding and assembling user behaviours using features of Moodle data for eLearning usage from performance of course-student weblog. Paper presented at the Journal of Physics: Conference Series (2021) 2. Saren, J.G., Talirongan, H., Talirongan, F.J.B., Malicay, C.L.: Mining student behavioral concern through referrals using k-means clustering. Min. Student Behav. Concern Through Referrals Using K-Means Clustering 71(1), 19–19 (2021) 3. Sjögren, B., Thornberg, R., Wänström, L., Gini, G.: Bystander behaviour in peer victimisation: moral disengagement, defender self-efficacy and student-teacher relationship quality. Res. Pap. Educ. 36(5), 588–610 (2021) 4. Vanneste, P., Oramas, J., Verelst, T., Tuytelaars, T., Raes, A., Depaepe, F., Van den Noortgate, W.: Computer vision and human behaviour, emotion and cognition detection: a use case on student engagement. Mathematics 9(3), 287 (2021) 5. Zahr, F.S.: Junior high school novice teachers’ self-efficacy in managing students’ challenging behaviour in Indonesia. KnE Soc. Sci. 53–67 (2022)
Chapter 5
Good Teaching Practice. Teach Through Role Play Lilia Carpio-Jiménez, Abel Suing, and Kruzkaya Ordóñez
Abstract In the education, more and more strategies are included that allow diversifying and energizing the teaching–learning process, including gamification, which, although not new, seeks to include recreational activities that allow students to acquire knowledge in a more attractive and dynamic way. The methodology used is experimental, through role play, which consists of assigning a certain function to each member of a group and making them responsible for achieving the objectives of a project. It is explaining the development of a good teaching practice proposal, the objective was to develop a graphic design product. Students assume different roles that allow them to simulate the operation of a printed media, and develop a real product, in this case a newspaper. The results show that students through real projects develop their skills and meet the competencies of the subject successfully.
5.1 Introduction Good teaching practices involve guiding students in the learning process, for which different strategies and tools are used to achieve positive results in the classroom. The good practice is “the set of actions carried out by the teacher to promote the learning of their students, train them comprehensively and favor complex cognitive processes (critical thinking, creativity, among others)” [1]. On the other hand, graphic design is the organization of different elements in a space, images, fonts, color, etc. are used to achieve a product that communicates a message. L. Carpio-Jiménez (B) · A. Suing · K. Ordóñez Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, Loja, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] A. Suing e-mail: [email protected] K. Ordóñez e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_5
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The designer must structure the shapes, proportions, colors, visual, and linguistic signs in the most opportune way; condense the spirit of the message, which must be put into circulation to impact and try to provoke attention, recognition by the recipients [2]. Editorial products are part of graphic design; products such as books, magazines, catalogs, newspapers, among others, have the objective of informing. Nowadays, with the evolution of the Internet and social networks, it is important that traditional media take care of the products they develop, in this case, the written press must seek the attention of the reader, mainly young people who, in many cases, discard this means of communication. Information that still maintains its value and that, despite the multiple deaths announced as printed media, remains valid. One of the ways in which they can attract the attention of the public, in addition to valuable and entertaining content, is through comprehensive visual design, taking care that the composition is attractive and dynamic. In the proposal worked within a good teaching practice project, the students design a newspaper with information of interest to the university community. The project of good teaching practice developed in the Communication career of the Private Technical University of Loja—Ecuador, has as objective that the students of the Visual Communication Design subject develop their abilities and skills, and apply the knowledge acquired in class, for example creativity, teamwork, leadership, software management, mastery of concepts such as composition, color theory, layout, among others. The projects of good teaching practices are strategies that are implemented in class in order to stimulate the teaching–learning process. In this project the teacher involves the students in the development of a real product, a printed newspaper. Students assume different roles that allows them to simulate a print media.
5.1.1 Good Teaching Practices and Role Play Please note that the first paragraph of a section or subsection is not indented. The first paragraphs that follows a table, figure, equation, etc. does not have an indent, either. Subsequent paragraphs, however, are indented. Good teaching practices should motivate, innovate, and generate new teaching– learning spaces that are different from the traditional ones. This is possible “when a set of initiatives are generated that lead to thinking in a new way, that is, when conceptions and attitudes are modified to generate educational innovation” [3]. Within education, more and more strategies are included that allow diversifying and dynamizing the teaching–learning process, including gamification, which, although not new, seeks to include recreational activities that allow new knowledge to be obtained in the classroom. One of the ludic activities is role playing, which consists of assigning a certain function to each student and making them responsible as a team to achieve the objectives of a project. Pita and Cárdenas [4] point out that:
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Role playing is a form of learning in which students represent previously assigned roles; therefore, it requires an active participation on the part of the students. These activities serve as reduced models of real situations. If a relaxed atmosphere is created, this activity offers the opportunity for students to assume roles or practice skills that they would otherwise not exercise due to shame or fear of consequences in real life [4].
The role play is developed as a strategy from considering that in children the game activates different cognitive mechanisms. “The thematic game of social roles is the source of child development and creates the zone of proximal development” [5]. “When children play appropriately in preschool, the game contributes to learning at school age” [5]. These concepts and strategies have been transferred to the different levels of education, with higher education being an optimal space to put into practice the possibilities of role playing. Higher education institutions seek to develop in student’s competencies based on learning outcomes that include knowledge, creativity, skills, leadership, teamwork, etc. [6]. Education in today’s society is characterized by the presence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), young people have access to different platforms where the information is very broad, this may or may not be advantageous. The information found on the Internet is not always valid, which is why educational institutions and teachers must be prepared and updated with trends, tools, and appropriate strategies for teaching. The institutions, as Grande and Abella [7] point out: They must provide the resources so that the student learns to adapt to this constantly changing environment and strategies to deal with the information that can overwhelm us. Role-playing games, in this sense, constitute an interesting strategy to convert data and information into knowledge [7].
The teacher has the function of promoting learning, he is no longer just a simple transmitter of knowledge, his role is to guide, advise, guide during the learning process, role playing becomes an ideal strategy to promote meaningful learning, the student remains active, when interacting, research, coordinate, and looking for solutions to problems posed. “The student is capable of creating their own worlds through role playing. Meditate, analyze, ponder these and even offer innovative solutions” [8]. In role play game, the participants fulfill a certain function, or a role “in a particular situation by following a set of rules and interacting with other actors” [9]. Through the role they play, students acquire different knowledge and abilities, not only improves the learning of the subject, they also develop communication and interactive skills, solve problems and conflicts, in the end they value their own work, done with dedication and greater effort. The role play becomes a learning strategy that enables the development of creativity, the acquisition of knowledge in a more attractive and dynamic way; the teacher must turn the classroom into an adequate, creative, stress-free space, since, in role play “key elements involve interaction within a predetermined context, often involving forms of competition, cooperation, conflict, or collusion” [9]. Therefore,
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the teacher must also be creative, must motivate students, be a mediator in problem solving, and value the contribution and role of each student.
5.1.2 Teach Graphic Design Graphic design is one of the most interesting and creative professions, we see it in many elements, objects, images, that we have in our environment. We find it in the supermarket, on the posters in avenues in the city, in the messages that arrive through the Internet and social networks, among many other products and services. In universities, the teaching of graphic design is mainly entrusted to those professionals in the area of graphic design whose theoretical and practical training, added to experience, allows them to exercise the teaching function, Zatarain [10] points out that they lack pedagogical knowledge [10]. However, this is not always the case, the teaching function involves preparing through pedagogical tools and strategies to impart theoretical and practical knowledge. Even designers for their creative ability can resort to dynamic strategies to reach students and develop academic skills. The teaching of graphic design starts with the basic principles and foundations, as well as manual practices (drawings, typographies, etc.) that are an elementary basis for the creation of graphic products. That is, not only tools or software are taught, as many amateurs estimate. It seems almost anyone can become a designer as long as they can access a computer and design software, resulting in the visual chaos we see today. However, mastering only the tools and tips of a particular software program and simply embellishing an idea in a visual way does not make one a master designer [11]. It is important to consider the competencies that a professional must have, for this reason it is necessary to teach, for example, execution and presentation of projects, or “collaborative work, expression and defense of ideas, how sell your work, how to get clients, argumentation, identification, and resolution of problems” [10]. All this is necessary for the development of graphic projects; however, it is not only about teaching them, they must be put into practice through real work. “Teaching developed through real projects is essential for students to have access to all possible levels of learning” [12]. Today’s teaching must be through constructivist approaches, where students acquire more active roles, and become protagonists of their own learning. Graphic design requires skills and creativity, it is necessary to foster in students that capacity that all human beings have, but which in some cases requires a little help for its development. Creativity is not only related to artists or designers; it is a capacity that all individuals have. For the AIGA American Institute of Graphic Arts, “graphic design is a creative process that combines art and technology to communicate ideas” [13]. In this creative process, teachers should encourage students to deepen and develop for their creativity.
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5.2 Methodology The methodology proposed within the good teaching practice project is mainly experimental, using role playing as a pedagogical strategy. Experimentation is the method that allows discovering with a greater degree of confidence, causal relationships between facts or phenomena of reality. For this reason, it is the highest type and level of scientific research… experimentation is characterized by the provocation of the phenomenon under study, the manipulation of variables, the control of the experimental situation and the use of comparison [14]. Role playing is the technique that is applied for learning and teamwork. Role play is a learning methodology in which students assume a specific role in real situations, allowing them to acquire responsibilities and also active participation in the development of a project. Simulation exercises, such as role playing, enhance the educational experience as they promote critical thinking and analytical skills, offering students a deeper level into the dynamics of political exchange, fostering oral communication skills, and writing and building student confidence [15]. In addition, the design process is applied, which, according to López [13] has the following stages: Analytical: the sender, their needs, the concept they want to transmit, the receiver and the communication medium are analyzed. Creative: the design concept is generated, expressed visually through the creation, selection, combination, manipulation, and organization of visual and textual elements. Development and implementation: the visual form of the concept is articulated, prototypes more elaborate and refined than the preliminary sketches are developed [13]. Within this design process, students apply the theoretical and practical knowledge learned in the course, these are, for example, basic design elements and principles, design tools and software such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Based on this methodology, the project is structured in two phases: 1. With the theoretical-practical teaching of the fundamentals and basic elements of design, composition, typography, color, software management, among others. It is important to mention that the Visual Communication Design subject is located in the curriculum of the Communication major in the third cycle, it is a subject that is seen in a single academic cycle, students must acquire knowledge from a general perspective and critique in the field of visual communication. 2. The second phase focused on the assignment of roles, and the practice of design, working with journalistic content developed by the students themselves. This phase was developed in the hours that correspond to the component of application and experimentation (CAE) and in the hours of the autonomous component (CA). Twenty-two students participated, who were assigned different roles, considering
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Table 5.1 Communication media structure Department name
Responsibilities
Members
Editorial Board
They define the topics and types of news, respond to the problems that arise
Director of the medium, general editor, editors of each section, editorial committee, heads of design and layout
Research
Research in direct or indirect sources, news writing, reports, etc. Photographers and illustrators intervene to record graphic material that complements the text
Researchers, editors, photographers, illustrators, etc.
Design and layout
Development of the visual part of printed media Graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, diagrammers, etc.
Printing and distribution
In printing, the material, type of paper, colors, formats, etc. are taken into account. In the distribution, coordinate so that the print media reaches as many audiences as possible
Technicians, support staff, etc.
the abilities and skills of each of them and which were identified in the first phase. The roles were determined taking into account the real structure of a printed medium, for example, Table 5.1 describes the proposal of Fuentemayor [16] for the operation of a printed medium [16].
5.3 Results The first phase of the project is developed in the first half of the academic cycle. Theoretical knowledge about graphic design, its foundations and elements, composition, color theory, typography, and various practices are taught. In addition, basic management and practice of design software such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop are taught. To end the first two-month period, the second phase begins and the roles are assigned (Fig. 5.1) considering the abilities of each student, and taking into account the base structure of a printed media [16]. The General Director-Editor of the media is democratically elected taking into account characteristics of responsibility and leadership within the group. Based on this, editors are designated for each section and they are the ones who choose their work team, according to the skills required for each task. The indications of the work are given at the beginning of the second half of the academic cycle, rules and norms are established that must be respected. The teacher fulfills the role of adviser and support in conflict resolution. Being a real project, whose objective was the construction of a printed newspaper, the responsibilities, activities, and decisions are made within the editorial team, and they are communicated to the rest of the members. Based on the real structure of
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Fig. 5.1 Print media organization chart. Own elaboration
a medium, the following roles and work teams were assigned, the 22 students are distributed as shown in the following organization chart (Fig. 5.1). Each of the students has a role to play, from the General Director-Editor in charge of the entire medium, to whom the rest of the editors or managers of each section respond. For its part, each section has a work team, made up of researchers and editors who are under the responsibility of each section head. In the three sections: academic; culture and sports; and entertainment, the news that will be included in the medium must be investigated, in addition to the wording of each note, taking care of aspects such as writing and spelling. The fourth group corresponds to the graphic editing part, this group includes all the creative part, from the director of photography, designers and diagrammers, to printing and distribution. The cinematographer is in charge of taking and editing the photographs for each news item. The designers and diagrammers are responsible for creating the design proposals for the newspaper, starting with the graphic image that includes the logo, slogan, colors, typography, etc. This last team applies everything learned in the first half, and beginnings of the second half of the academic cycle, where knowledge of corporate image, editorial design, journalistic design, and Adobe InDesign software are taught. The final results are evidenced through the development of each of the stages established in the experimental methodology.
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Role play Working groups are established to fulfill different roles (Editors, journalists, creative team, photographers, etc.). Design Process 1. Research stage: Investigate, select, and correct the information that would be included in the printed newspaper (text, photography, illustrations). 2. Creative Stage: Design and selection of graphic brand proposals for the printed newspaper (logo). Creation and selection of layout proposals for the printed newspaper (includes page design, grids, typography, design elements). 3. Stage of development and implementation: Final layout process of the printed newspaper. Final correction of texts and layout of the printed newspaper. Finally, the project is evaluated to find out the degree of student satisfaction, the results are shown in Table 5.2, where the Likert scale corresponds to: (1) Totally dissatisfied; (2) Dissatisfied; (3) Satisfied; and (4) Totally satisfied. A large number of students agree with the project is evident, the evaluation is positive. Among the comments of the students, we can highlight the following: Table 5.2 Evaluation of the good practice project ITEM
Scale 3
4
The good practice project was communicated in good time
1
1
21
The objectives of the good practice project were clearly explained
3
19
The appropriate material and resources were used for the development of the project
2
20
Are you agree with the role play for teamwork and as a methodology for the development of the project?
2
20
There was motivation on the part of the teacher for the development of the good practice project
2
20
The theme of the good practice project was related to the contents of the subject
2
20
7
13
1
21
The time dedicated to the project was sufficient Do you consider that the good practice project contributes to his learning, and to the development of the subject?
2
2
The teacher answered the doubts that arose throughout the project
22
Are you satisfied with the development and results of the project?
22
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• “It allows us to familiarize ourselves with the professional environment of newspaper editors.” • “With this project I was able to put into practice everything seen in classes such as program management; illustrator and InDesign using skills of aesthetic appreciation, imagination and originality.” • “It allowed the theoretical content to be put into practice.” • “It helped me learn to organize myself, develop communication skills, and work as a team.” • “This project allowed us to develop creative skills.” • “There was knowledge of what it is like to work in a medium, knowing how to choose the sources, headlines, which letter is the right one, how to distribute the information, some are more relevant; it helps to work as a team and the importance of communication for the different roles to work.” • “It has been one of the best subjects, the teacher knew how to contribute a lot to our professional profile, many of us did not know anything about design, and I can say that we came out with a good level. As a suggestion, I would like there to be more subjects like this, in which we can learn in detail the professional tools.”
5.4 Conclusions Good teaching practice included role playing as a technique for the development of a real project, the students assumed each of the functions that corresponded to them, which allowed the development of a quality project. The role plays implied assuming responsibilities, understanding that teamwork is essential to achieve a goal. The students with the help of the teacher were able to successfully solve the problems that arose during the development of the project. The final results allow students to feel proud of the work done, the motivation went beyond obtaining a positive grade in the subject. It was mainly about achieving a quality product, in this case a newspaper for the university community, where the names of each student are reflected on the different pages and in the editorial credits. The problems that arose were mainly related to the investigation of the different journalistic notes, the students initially presented difficulty in conducting interviews and later in the writing of the notes. Errors were evidenced in the writing, but after understanding, committing, and identifying with the project objectives this was solved. Therefore, writing skills were also strengthened. It is concluded that the role play cannot always be considered a success, this will depend mainly on the group of students, good results cannot be obtained if the group of students does not identify with the project, it will be very difficult to meet the objectives. This project highlights the quality and disposition of each of the young people, this was essential to successfully complete the project and the subject. Although graphic design is a profession that requires various studies and experience, in the case of this subject which, as we mentioned before, does not intend to
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train designers, it can be concluded that students managed to acquire creative and critical skills. The experience obtained through the good teaching practice project and the role play for learning graphic design for the students of the communication major was successful as a first project, it is expected to apply the same teaching–learning methodology for the following years, and with different groups of students.
References 1. Guzmán, J.: Las Buenas Prácticas de Enseñanza de los Profesores de Educación Superior REICE. Revista Iberoamericana sobre Calidad, Eficacia y Cambio en Educación, vol. 16, núm. 2, pp. 133–145 (2018) 2. Tena, D.: Diseño Gráfico y Comunicación. Pearson, Madrid (2005) 3. Castañeda, K., Vargas, A.: En tiempos de pandemia: una mirada retrospectiva sobre la educación a distancia, virtual y remota de emergencia, así como sobre las buenas prácticas docentes. Academia y Virtualidad 14(1), 13–22 (2021). https://doi.org/10.18359/ravi.5346 4. Pita, G., Cárdenas, M.: Los juegos de roles como método de enseñanza aprendizaje. Sus potencialidades en la asignatura orientación educativa de la sexualidad. Revista Atlante: Cuadernos de Educación y Desarrollo. https://www.eumed.net/rev/atlante/2017/12/juegos-roles-aprend izaje.html (2017) 5. González, C., Soloviera, Y., Quintanar, L.: El juego temático de roles sociales: aportes al desarrollo en la edad preescolar. Avances en Psicología Latinoamericana 32(2), 287–308 (2014). https://doi.org/10.12804/apl32.2.2014.08 6. Fernández, R.: Calidad de la enseñanza a través de los juegos de rol en el espacio europeo de educación superior. Revista Electrónica sobre Educación Media y Superior 4(7) (2017) 7. Grande, M., Abella, V.: Los juegos de rol en el aula. Teoría de la Educación. Educación y Cultura en la Sociedad de la Infromación 11(3), 56–84 (2010). https://www.redalyc.org/art iculo.oa?id=201021093004 8. Rodríguez, F., Garza, L., Delgadillo, J.: El juego de rol, didáctica activa generadora de aprendizajes significativos en estudiantes. Memorias del Congreso Internacional. La Universidad Pública del Siglo XXI, formando ciudadanos del mundo (2015) 9. Lean, J., Moizer, J., Towler, M., Abbey, C.: Simulations and games. Use and barriers in higher education. Active Learning in Higher Education: The Journal of the Institute for Learning and Teaching (2006) 10. Zatarain, C.: La didáctica en el diseño gráfico ¿Qué, cómo y para qué enseñar? En Agentes dinámicos en la enseñanza del diseño gráfico. Coord. Irigoyen, L; et al. Qartuppi (2015) 11. Sevak, P.: Moving Forward: Graphic Design Teaching and Technology. School of Art, Western Michigan University (2005). https://mxdesign.diseno.ibero.mx/conference/2005/ HTMs-PDFs/GDTeachingandTechnology.pdf 12. Rivadeneira, A.: Importancia y proceso de la enseñanza del Diseño de la Información en el ámbito del Diseño Gráfico. Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación, pp. 165–191 (2020) 13. López, A.: Curso Diseño Gráfico fundamentos y técnicas. Anaya Multimedia, Madrid (2012) 14. Rodríguez, N.: Diseños Experimentales en Educación. Revista de Pedagogía, vol. XXXII, núm. 91, pp. 147–158 (2011) 15. Gaete-Quezada, R.: El juego de roles como estrategia de evaluación de aprendizajes universitarios. Educ. 14(2), 289–307 (2011) 16. Fuentemayor, A.: Manual de edición y estilo. Géneros del periodismo, vol. 6. Revista Palabra (1997)
Chapter 6
Diagnosis of Brain Tumors Using a Convolutional Neural Network Percy DelaCruz-VdV , Dayanne Cadenillas-Rivera , Hugo Vega-Huerta , Ernesto Cancho-Rodriguez , María Elizabeth Puelles Bulnes , Gisella Luisa Elena Maquen-Niño , and Jorge Pantoja-Collantes
Abstract The purpose of this research is to support the diagnosis of brain tumors in adult patients. To obtain greater accuracy in the detection of the diagnosis, the following input variables were considered: type; class; grade; location and size of the brain tumor. To achieve the proposed objective, a convolutional neural network composed of three levels of layers was implemented: (a) the input layer, which captures the images and applies a filter or kernel that returns a map of the characteristics of the original image, thus reducing the size of the parameters; (b) the reduction or pooling layer whose function is to reduce the spatial dimensions of the input volume; and (c) a connected classifier layer: this classifier layer will have as many neurons as the number of classes to be predicted. A total of 2870 images were used to support the implementation and training of the convolutional neural network P. DelaCruz-VdV · D. Cadenillas-Rivera · H. Vega-Huerta (B) · E. Cancho-Rodriguez · J. Pantoja-Collantes Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru e-mail: [email protected] P. DelaCruz-VdV e-mail: [email protected] D. Cadenillas-Rivera e-mail: [email protected] E. Cancho-Rodriguez e-mail: [email protected] J. Pantoja-Collantes e-mail: [email protected] M. E. P. Bulnes Universidad Ricardo Palma, Lima, Peru e-mail: [email protected] G. L. E. Maquen-Niño Universidad Nacional Pedro Ruiz Gallo, Lambayeque, Peru e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_6
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model and thus identify whether the patient’s brain was healthy or had a brain tumor, for this diagnosis an image of a real case of a patient with a brain tumor was taken, and the result was the identification of the type of tumor “pituitary”, i.e., the convolutional neural network effectively diagnosed the brain tumor. The results obtained indicate that the trained model was effective and efficient. To validate the effectiveness of the algorithm, the confusion matrix was used, which yielded an accuracy of 0.9059.
6.1 Introduction In the last decades due to the increase in incidence and mortality due to brain tumors [1], the number of studies related to the diagnosis and treatment of brain tumors increased, since an early diagnosis of this disease can be valuable in preventing a benign tumor from evolving into a malignant tumor, that it becoming a much more aggressive cancer [2], since cancer currently occupies one of the first places that cause death in people [3]. Brain cancer studies are intense, and different alternatives are constantly being sought for the administration of drugs to patients, such as slow and continuous bursts of tumor-targeted chemotherapy, known as convection-enhanced delivery [4]. Currently, diagnosis of brain tumors is inefficient, and this disease needs to receive adequate treatment in the shortest possible time and enable effective quality of life and prolong life [5]. Early diagnosis is very important as these patients often experience drastic changes in mood and behavior [6]. A recent alternative that is gaining great strength in the scientific area for the early detection of brain tumors is artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning, which through the use of algorithms allows the creation of models that can learn from the detection of patterns in a large dataset [7, 8]. Adults were taken as the population for this research since they are the most affected [9]. It is worth mentioning that the diagnosis of brain tumors is influenced by the symptoms presented by the patient, those symptoms vary greatly depending on the affected area, depending on the size, location and growth rate of the brain tumor, on the other hand, there are a variety of types of brain tumors [10] which are divided into two main groups which are primary and secondary brain tumors [11], these types of brain tumors vary according to the age of the patient [12] taking into account the classification of brain tumors of the international system of the World Health Organization (WHO) [13]. Therefore, for this research, we focused on three types of brain tumors: glioma, meningioma and pituitary [14]. Symptoms may include seizures, headache, vomiting, slowness of thought, lack of concentration, problems with balance and alterations in movement or language, among others [15]. These variations are given as example in the inefficiency to identify if the patient’s brain is healthy or has a brain tumor, to determine the type of brain tumor also as to identify the kind of brain tumor in patients that is to say if the brain tumor detected is benign or malignant [16], where a benign tumor has a slow growth, while
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a malignant tumor is the opposite [17] and on the other hand, also influences the degree of malignancy of the brain tumor [18]. Nowadays, there are different techniques using diagnostic imaging and expensive equipment that help physicians to detect brain tumors, such as “Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) and Ultrasonic Imaging (UI)” [2]. Therefore, a convolutional neural network was used and implemented for this research to diagnose brain tumors.
6.2 Related Works Some studies use machine learning and deep learning to solve health problems, such as research of [19] that seeks the classification of melanoma in the skin as an indicator of skin cancer through a convolutional neural network under the EfficientNET and VGG-19 architectures achieving an accuracy of 92.85% with an improvement of 0.06% in accuracy and specificity [19]. Other research use medical images to apply a machine learning model, as is the case of Wadood Abdul who uses a convolutional neural network to classify tumors found in the lungs into malignant or benign, configuring 30 epochs and obtaining a training accuracy of 0.98, by reading radiographs of the lung, concluding that the proposed model will be useful in medical diagnosis and health systems [20]. Balasooriya and Nawarathna used convolutional neural networks to perform brain tumor prediction in six different classes: astrocytoma, glioblastoma multiforme, oligodendroglioma, healthy tissue and unidentifiable tumor, using brain MRI scans of the axial, coronal and sagittal planes obtaining an accuracy of 0.995 in the evaluation stage [21]. Ayadi et al. [22] performed a new neural network model for the classification of brain tumors using brain MRI; their model uses Softmax classifier and is classified into three categories: meningioma, glioma and pituitary, obtaining a test accuracy of 0.9474.
6.3 Methodology Topology CNN The technique for the diagnosis of brain tumors is based on a CNN since it is the state of the art in the automatic classification of natural images [23], so this network comprises three different levels of layers that will be described in detail below which will be applied in this research, and it is shown in Fig. 6.1.
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Fig. 6.1 Structure of a convolutional neural network. Source Calvo [24]
• Input layer The convolution operation takes an image as input and applies a filter or kernel to it, returning certain features of the original image and thus reducing the size of the parameters. Convolution exploits three important ideas such as sparse interactions, where the number of parameters can be greatly reduced by applying certain filters on the original input of smaller size; parameter sharing, which among different types of filters is related to parameter sharing and also helps to efficiently improve the system; and equivariant representations, which detail that if the input changes, the output will change in a similar way [25]. • Reduction or pooling layer It usually follows the input layer. Its main purpose is to reduce the spatial dimension (width × height) of the input volume of the next convolutional layer. The operations performed by this layer are also called down-sampling since they also cause information loss. Despite this, this loss can benefit the network for two reasons: (a) The size reduction results in less computational overhead for the subsequent layers of the network. (b) It can also reduce overfitting, since the operation commonly used by this layer is max-pooling, as shown in Fig. 6.2, which divides the input image into a set of rectangles, and for each subregion, the maximum value is maintained [25]. Fig. 6.2 Max-pooling operation. Source López [25]
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• Fully connected classifier layer At the end of the convolutional and clustering layers, the network generally uses fully connected layers, where each pixel is treated as a separate neuron, just as in normal neural networks. The last classification layer will comprise as many neurons as there are classes to predict [25]. Vega et al. [26] and De-La-Cruz et al. [27] show some applications with CNN topology that have solved similar problems.
6.4 Dataset Kaggle was used, which is a free environment that allows users to write and execute code using Keras with TensorFlow in Python through a conventional laptop. A dataset of 2870 images was used to perform the training, and a test dataset with 20 images was also used, to later process these images. We used 2870 images for the model distributed in two sets, train (80%) and test (20%) which are divided into four categories: glioma_tumor, meningioma_tumor, no_tumor and pituitary_tumor. Additionally, we also used 20 images for validation as shown in Fig. 6.3. Image processing For image processing, the pandas, NumPy and OS libraries were imported; on the other hand, TensorFlow was also imported since it is an open-source library very efficient in numerical computation [28], and cv2 and random were also imported. The constants for the convolutional neural network are defined, where one of these constants is the “epochs” which refers to 20 epochs that means the number of times that will be traversed during the training process. After that, we continued with the
Fig. 6.3 Image of dataset
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implementation and training of the convolutional neural network model, using the Python programming language through the Keras API with the TensorFlow library. Therefore, the results obtained will be shown through the training process of the convolutional neural network and the performance of the model, in which results are indicated in a loss graph as shown in Fig. 6.4 and an accuracy graph as shown in Fig. 6.5. Fig. 6.4 Loss graph
Fig. 6.5 Accuracy graph
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Fig. 6.6 Real case of patient with brain tumor
Fig. 6.7 Prediction of outcome
6.5 Results In this section, we will present the results obtained with the test dataset, where we obtained a percentage of hits of 90% and 10% of misses, for which an image of a real case of a patient with a brain tumor was taken as shown in Fig. 6.6, obtaining as a result the type of tumor pituitary_tumor as shown in Fig. 6.7 that is the convolutional neural network effectively diagnosed the brain tumor.
6.6 Discussions We will validate the certainty of the results understanding that the performance of the supervised learning classification algorithm is reliable; for this, we will make use of the confusion matrix, which shows the number of cases of each class regarding
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true positives, true negatives, false positives and false negatives, obtaining in this way good results since the main diagonal that are the correct predictions shows high values as shown in Fig. 6.8. Therefore, a low number of false negatives were obtained, which are efficient since in these cases it is where the patient is told that he does not have the disease when in fact he does have it, and on the other hand, it is not so critical to have false positives since in these cases the patient is told that he has the disease when in fact he does not have it. The following are the classification metrics as shown in Table 6.1, precision, recall, f1-score and accuracy metrics [29]. We will now detail how the precision, recall and f1-score metrics were found for classes 0, 1, 2 and 3:
Fig. 6.8 Confusion matrix
Table 6.1 Performance metrics Precision
Recall
F1-score
Support
0
0.9600
0.8571
0.9057
84
1
0.8478
0.8764
0.8619
89
2
0.9231
0.9474
0.9351
38
3
0.9136
0.9737
0.9427
76
0.9059
287
Macro avg.
0.9111
0.9136
0.9113
287
Weighted avg.
0.9080
0.9059
0.9058
287
Accuracy
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Class 0: precision = TP/(TP + FP) = 72/(72 + 3) = 0.9600 recall = TP/(TP + FN) = 72/(72 + 12) = 0.8571 f1 - score = 2 ∗ (precision ∗ recall)/(precision + recall) = 2 ∗ (0.9600 ∗ 0.8571)/(0.9600 + 0.8571) = 2 ∗ (0.8228)/(1.8171) = 2 ∗ 0.452809 = 0.9057 The values obtained for class 0 were 96.00% accuracy (positive cases detected), 85.71% recall (ability to correctly detect the disease among patients) and 90.57% f1-score (compromise between accuracy and recall). Class 1: precision = TP/(TP + FP) = 78/(78 + 14) = 0.8478 recall = TP/(TP + FN) = 78/(78 + 11) = 0.8764 f1-score = 2 ∗ (precision ∗ recall)/(precision + recall) = 2 ∗ (0.8478 ∗ 0.8764)/(0.8478 + 0.8764) = 2 ∗ (0.7430)/(1.7242) = 2 ∗ 0.430924 = 0.8619 The values obtained for class 1 were 84.78% accuracy, 87.64% recall and 86.19% f1-score. Class 2: precision = TP/(TP + FP) = 36/(36 + 3) = 0.9231 recall = TP/(TP + FN) = 36/(36 + 2) = 0.9474 f1-score = 2 ∗ (precision ∗ recall)/(precision + recall) = 2 ∗ (0.9231 ∗ 0.9474)/(0.9231 + 0.9474) = 2 ∗ (0.8745)/(1.8705) = 2 ∗ 0.467522 = 0.9351 The values obtained for class 2 were 92.31% accuracy, 94.74% recall and 93.51% f1-score. Class 3: precision = TP/(TP + FP) = 74/(74 + 7) = 0.9136 recall = TP/(TP + FN) = 74/(74 + 2) = 0.9737 f1-score = 2 ∗ (precision ∗ recall)/(precision + recall)
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= 2 ∗ (0.9136 ∗ 0.9737)/(0.9136 + 0.9737) = 2 ∗ (0.8896)/(1.8873) = 2 ∗ 0.471361 = 0.9427 The values obtained for class 3 were 91.36% accuracy, 97.37% recall and 94.27% f1-score. Overall, 0.9059 accuracy was obtained, that is, 90.59%.
6.7 Conclusions The use of the convolutional neural network achieved the proposed objectives from the specific problem, effectively identifying and determining the diagnosis to detect brain tumors. The confusion matrix determined that the performance of the algorithm used for brain tumor detection is quite good, with an accuracy of 0.9059 (the number of positive predictions that were correct). The maximum values found for precision are 96.00% as positive cases detected, for recall 97.37% as ability to correctly detect the disease among patients, and the f1-score was 94.27% (compromise between precision and recall). Acknowledgements We would like to thank CEREMA for their unconditional support without which the validation of the results obtained would not have been possible.
References 1. El Pais: NEUROLOGÍA. El tumor cerebral es el cáncer más mortífero entre los 15 y los 29 años, 2000. https://elpais.com/diario/2000/02/22/salud/951174004_850215.html 2. Hernández López, R., Marrero Callicó, G.I., Fabelo Gómez, H.: Identificación de tumores cerebrales usando datos espectrográficos (2020) 3. Rivero-Morey, R., Ramirez Morfa, C.: Tratamiento del glioma cerebral de alto grado en el paciente adulto. Univ Méd Pinareña. Univ Méd Pinareña 16(1), 1990–7990 (2020) 4. Hodelin Maynard, E.H., Cardona Castillo, M., Maynard Bermúdez, G.I., Maynard Bermúdez, R.E.: Aspectos epidemiológicos, clínicos y quirúrgicos de los tumores cerebrales metastásicos. Rev. Inf. Científica 98(4), 524–539 (2019) [Online]. Available: http://scielo.sld.cu/pdf/ric/ v98n4/1028-9933-ric-98-04-524.pdf 5. Salazar Villanea, M., et al.: Calidad de vida en pacientes costarricenses con tumores cerebrales: aportes de la neuropsicología. Actual. en Psicol. 30(121), 49–66 (2016). https://doi.org/10. 15517/AP.V30I121.24417 6. Oncology American Society of Clinical: Cancer.Net - El cuidado de una persona con tumor cerebral o cáncer metastásico en el cerebro (2020). https://www.cancer.net/es 7. Cubas, J.V., Maquen-Niño, G.L.E.: Machine learning model in the detection of phishing websites. RISTI Rev Iber. Sist. e Tecnol. Inf. 2022(E52), 161–173 (2022) 8. Maquen-Niño, G.L.E., Villegas-Cubas, J.E., Celis-Bravo, P.J., Carrión-Barco, G., AdrianzenOlano, I.: Integrative methodology model for the creation of pathfinding systems. RISTI Rev Iber. Sist. e Tecnol. Inf. 2022(E51), 46–57 (2022)
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9. Gomez-Vega, J.C.: Epidemiología y caracterización general de los tumores cerebrales primarios en el adulto (2018). https://revistas.javeriana.edu.co/index.php/vnimedica/article/view/24470 10. Sottile, V.S., Zanchi, D.E.: Proyecto Integrador Clasificación de Tumores Cerebrales por medio de Espectroscopía de Resonancia Magnética Nuclear de Protones (ERM) (2017) 11. Golldman, S.a.: Introducción a los tumores cerebrales—Enfermedades cerebrales, medulares y nerviosas—Manual MSD versión para público general (2019). https://www.msdmanuals. com/es-pe/hogar/enfermedades-cerebrales,-medulares-y-nerviosas/tumores-del-sistema-ner vioso/introducción-a-los-tumores-cerebrales 12. Ana Gabriela, P., Alejandra, L.P., Rosales, E., Asesor, H., Alfredo Muñoz, M.: Tesis presentada para optar al título de Doctorado en Medicina 13. Anaya-Delgadillo, G., Juambelz-Cisneros, P.P., Fernández-Alvarado, B., Pazos-Gómez, F., Velasco-Torre, A., Revuelta-Gutiérrez, R.: Prevalencia de tumores del sistema nervioso central y su identificación histológica en pacientes operados: 20 años de experiencia. Cir. Cir. 84(6), 447–453 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CIRCIR.2016.01.004 14. Revista Medica del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Tumores del sistema nervioso central (2021). http://revistamedica.imss.gob.mx/editorial/index.php/revista_medica/article/ view/1084/2059%0A. Accessed 31 Aug 2021 15. Pérez Segura, P.: Tumores cerebrales SEOM: Sociedad Española de Oncología Médica (2022). https://seom.org/info-sobre-el-cancer/tumores-cerebrales?showall=1 16. Neurorgs: Diagnóstico de los tumores cerebrales (2020). //neurorgs.net/?s=tumores+cerebrales 17. Goldman, S.A.: Generalidades sobre los tumores intracraneanos—Trastornos neurológicos— Manual MSD versión para profesionales (2021). https://www.msdmanuals.com/es-pe/profes sional/trastornos-neurológicos/tumores-intracraneanos-y-medulares/generalidades-sobre-lostumores-intracraneanos 18. Sinning, M.: Clasificación De Los Tumores Cerebrales. Rev. Médica Clínica Las Condes 28(3), 339–342 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/J.RMCLC.2017.05.002 19. Vega-Huerta, H., Villanueva-Alarcón, R., Mauricio, D., Gamarra-Moreno, J., Rodriguez, C.: Convolutional Neural Networks on Assembling Classification Models to Detect Melanoma Skin Cancer. Int. J. Online Biomed. Eng. 18(14) (2022). https://doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v18i14. 34435 20. Abdul, W.: An Automatic Lung Cancer Detection and Classification (ALCDC) System Using Convolutional Neural Network, pp. 443–446 (2023) 21. Balasooriya, N.M., Nawarathna, R.D.: A sophisticated convolutional neural network model for brain tumor classification. In: 2017 IEEE International Conference on Industrial and Information System ICIIS 2017—Proceedings, vol. 2018, pp. 1–5 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1109/ICI INFS.2017.8300364 22. Ayadi, W., Elhamzi, W., Atri, M.: A new deep CNN for brain tumor classification. In: 2020 20th International Conference on Science and Techniques Automatic Control Computer Engineering, pp. 266–270 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1109/STA50679.2020.9329328 23. Suárez, A.S.L., Jiménez, A.F., Castro-Franco, M., Cruz-Roa, A.: Clasificación y mapeo automático de coberturas del suelo en imágenes satelitales utilizando Redes Neuronales Convolucionales. ORINOQUIA 21, 64–75 (2017). https://doi.org/10.22579/20112629.432 24. Calvo, D.: Clasificacion de redes neuronales artificiales (2019). http://www.diegocalvo.es/cla sificacion-deredes-neuronales-artificiales. Accessed 15 June 2022 25. López, R.: Redes neuronales convolucionales con TensorFlow. (2016). https://relopezbriega.git hub.io/blog/2016/08/02/redes-neuronales-convolucionales-con-tensorflow/. Accessed 31 Aug 2021 26. Vega, H., Sanez, E., De la Cruz, P., Moquillaza, S., Pretell, J.: Intelligent System to Predict University Students Dropout 18(07), 27–43 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v18i07.30195 27. De-La-Cruz, P., Rojas-Coaquira, R., Vega-Huerta, H., Lagos-Barzola, M., Pérez-Quintanilla, J.: A Systematic Review Regarding the Prediction of Academic Performance. J. Comput. Sci. 18(12) (2022). https://doi.org/10.3844/jcssp.2022.1219.1231
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Chapter 7
Safety and Occupational Health Management System in Mining to Reduce Fatal Accidents in the Mining Industry Jorge Luis Tomas Florez-Salas , Elizabeth Marina Ramos-Saira , Carlos Eduardo Joo-García , Rosmery Ramos-Alave , Fabrizio Del Carpio-Delgado , and Kevin Mario Laura-De La Cruz
Abstract This article is based on identify new preventive safety management indicators in Title III—Occupational Safety and Health Management System of the Regulation of Occupational Safety and Health in Mining that fulfills a preventive role in the decrease of the number of fatal accidents in mining activities (DS-0242016-EM). A detailed analysis of the contents of the 27 chapters included in the Title III of D.S. N° 024-2016-EM and the articles modified by D.S. N°023-2017-EM was elaborated. We started by defining safety management indicators among the components and tools of Title III of D.S. N°024-2016-EM that are effective in the task of meeting the regulation’s objective, which is to decrease the number of accidents, especially fatal accidents in mining sites in Peru. For this purpose, the findings of the two specific objectives of the preceding research were taken as a reference, which in the first case consisted of detracting the “safety indicators” as preventive management indicators and secondly, the ordering and categorization of the 27 chapters of the Title III of D.S. N°024-2016-EM into 10 components, 05 safety management J. L. T. Florez-Salas · E. M. Ramos-Saira · C. E. Joo-García · R. Ramos-Alave · F. Del Carpio-Delgado Universidad Nacional de Moquegua, Moquegua, Peru e-mail: [email protected] E. M. Ramos-Saira e-mail: [email protected] C. E. Joo-García e-mail: [email protected] R. Ramos-Alave e-mail: [email protected] F. Del Carpio-Delgado e-mail: [email protected] K. M. Laura-De La Cruz (B) Universidad Privada de Tacna, Tacna, Peru e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_7
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tools, and 12 chapters that fulfill a complementary function within the safety management system. These important aspects are transversal to the research and focus on the identification of preventive management indicators among the elements of the system that have been catalogued as components and tools. A rigorous analysis was carried out, based on a solid foundation of occupational risk management in mining.
7.1 Introduction First, we define the security management indicator as a quantitative expression derived from the planning process or other phases of management that measures the progress, achievement, or failure in the achievement of a goal over a given period of time, as well as measuring the scope of the proposed results and subsequently adjusting the action plans, goals, or activities [1]. In the framework of the Occupational Health and Safety Systems (SGSSO) of the mining activity, the safety management indicators must be related to the Title III of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation in Mining approved by Peru’s Supreme Decree No. 024-2016-MS that regulates the mining activity in Peru. Accordingly, management indicators must be able to monitor the efficacy of each component and instrument of the SGSSO, since they are strongly tied to occupational risk management in the mining industry. Measuring the level of compliance of the SGSSO is essential, the development of an extractive activity such as mining with acceptable occupational health and safety standards enables the continuation of the production process and boosts the motivation and sense of belonging of all the mining firm employees [2]. The strategic management indicators respond to a general action plan with patterns, action guidelines to achieve strategic objectives, perspectives on how the organization should act, and a long-term purpose [3]; therefore, the Policy serves as the ideal reference for the design of these indicators. The Security Management Systems are controlled, measured, analyzed, and evaluated by establishing indicators developed at the general level of the management system with risk management indicators and indicators that allow evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the controls, with risk and accident frequency reduction always serving as the ultimate conclusion [4]. In this regard, it is crucial to abandon the current paradigm of management indicators, which are limited to the security indices outlined in the D.S. N°024-2016-EM, while the frequency, severity, and accident rates are ineffective in preventing fatal accidents because they are not representative as preventive indicators [5]. It is necessary that the main aspects are management planning and risk assessment, where activities must be investigated and evaluated to understand the risks, categorize them, and pave the way for management so that corrective actions can be implemented in this manner later, are necessary for establishing objectives for a correct risk management system [6]. This research aims to find new preventive safety management indicators in Title III—Occupational Health and Safety Management System of the Occupational
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Health and Safety Regulation in Mining issued by D.S. N° 024-2016-EM, which provide a preventative role to minimize fatal mining accidents.
7.2 Material and Method 7.2.1 Material Ten components and 5 security management tools that are part of the 27 chapters, 8 subchapters of the Title III, annexes and guides of D.S. N° 024-2016-EM and the articles modified by D.S. N°023-2017-EM, which were consolidated into priority tables and a value judgment was established for each of the components and management tools, such that three structured blocks can be generated for the strategic, tactical or operational security management indicators that allow measuring the level of effectiveness of the SGSSO in mining.
7.2.2 Research Method The method developed for this study is qualitative in the sense that it is a methodological process for comprehending social life through meaning, employing words, texts, speeches, drawings, graphics, and images that, when related, enable us to comprehend the set of characteristics that cause a particular phenomenon [7].
7.2.3 Research Level The development of the overall objective relates to a descriptive design, which aims to precisely depict the angle or dimension of a phenomena, event, community, context, or situation, previously defining what is being measured, the concepts, the variables, the components, and the data collection [8]. This design is based on the description, linking, and subsequent analysis of the articles, subchapters, and chapters of the Title III of the D.S. N°024-2016-EM and the articles modified by D.S. N°023-2017-EM, as well as the occupational risk management guides and manuals published by the MTPE and SUNAFIL, respectively.
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7.2.4 Population The population or universe of data studied in this part of the research consists of all articles of the Title III, Occupational Health and Safety Management System of D.S. No. 024-2016-EM and all articles modified by D.S. No. 023-2017-EM.
7.2.5 Data Collection Procedures, Techniques, and Instruments The data collection procedure was conducted from the information sources of MINEM, SUNAFIL, and the MTPE via their respective electronic sites. In addition, the documentary analysis technique was applied to all the available information, establishing pertinent points of view regarding how to structure the strategic, tactical, and operational security management indicators of D.S. No. 024-2016-EM and the articles modified in D.S. No. 023-2017-EM. Since the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation in Mining is already in effect in Peru, it was unnecessary to utilize a data collection instrument.
7.3 Results First, all the chapters that serve a complementary function in occupational risk management that were identified in the previous study mentioned in the previous section were excluded [9]. Lastly, a percentage distribution graph was created with management indicators, and the level of compliance with these parameters was measured, giving them the opportunity to make the necessary changes and readjustments to their management and occupational health systems that will enable those who manage occupational risks in mining units to reduce accident rates, particularly fatal accidents. Table 7.1 lists three strategic management indicators directly connected to the strategic objectives of each SGSSO of a mining unit. The importance of leadership in effective security management lies in the fact that leadership increases security performance and pushes it via work teams, strategically explains missions in the most competitive business scenarios, and stimulates individuals to think independently [10]. Consequently, it also allows assessing the level of compliance with the Safety Policy, taking into consideration all the features that must be evaluated in line with the Regulations [11]. Table 7.2 lists four tactical management indicators that measure in real time the major operations of the entire SGSSO of a mining unit. These are the same indicators that are used to determine the amount of compliance with the Safety Committee’s tasks. According to Protocerebrum [12], the Occupational Health
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Table 7.1 Strategic management indicators found within the title III—occupational health and safety management system of the D.S. No. 024-2016-EM Order N°
Strategic indicators
Basis of choice
01
Quantify the resources provided by senior management for leadership and commitment
Four literals of article 54 of the mining safety regulations permit this component of the SGSSO to serve as a strategic management indicator, as the leadership and commitment of senior management entail providing the necessary resources for the development of all activities in the mining unit that lead to the implementation of the SGSSO
02
Level of compliance with the occupational health and safety management system policy
Although it is true that the SGSSO Policy “is a declaration of intent established by the senior management of the owner of the mining activity in conjunction with the employees for its strict compliance by line officials and workers”
03
Level of compliance with the annual occupational health and safety program
The annual occupational health and safety program “represents the backbone of the occupational health and safety management system, as its structure allows for the diagnosis and monitoring of the activities scheduled annually for occupational risk management, applying the criteria for continuous improvement”
Note These indicators and their corresponding selection criteria were prepared by the authors based on the chapters of the Title III of D.S. 024-2016-EM
and Safety Committee is the best form of participation because both workers and employers make decisions through their representatives. Moreover, Castelo [13] notes in this regard that emergency plans are a tool for conducting monitoring activities, minimizing the consequences and severity of catastrophic events that may occur in a certain area or sector, with the purpose of monitoring the daily tasks of the company and detecting the failures. According to Table 7.3, there are five operational management indicators that measure the SGSSO’s activities. Thus, the measuring of objectives provides a clear sense of commitment and compliance with the principles and values communicated to the workers of the entire organization and to the interest groups, thereby preventing difficult circumstances in the management plan [14]. For this reason, it is virtually necessary to map the operational management indicators, as the collection and assessment of information for its analysis must be processed efficiently in relation to the update validity period and the mining production processes. Figure 7.1 summarizes the distribution of the three categories of SGSSO indicators within framework of the 27 chapters of the Title III of D.S. 024-2016-EM. As can be observed, 42% of the indicators pertain to operational, followed by 33% belonging to indicators for tactical management, and ultimately 25% corresponding to strategic indicators.
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Table 7.2 Tactical management indicators found in the title III—occupational health and safety management system of the D.S. No. 024-2016-EM Order N°
Tactical indicators
Basis of choice
01
Level of compliance with the functions of the occupational health and safety committee in occupational health and safety management
Five literals of article 63 of the occupational health and safety regulation in mining that allow for the possibility of assessing this safety system component as a tactical management indicator were identified. The safety committee regularly and periodically monitors the operations of the mine owner in terms of risk prevention
02
Level of compliance with the functions of the occupational health and safety manager
In accordance with the norm, the manager must be a certified professional in the management of mining operations and occupational health and safety, as well as possessing strong leadership skills and substantial professional experience
03
Quantify and assess the number of inspections and external audits
According to the safety standard, the senior management of the mining unit is required to conduct planned and unplanned internal inspections of all mining operations, beneficiation plants, facilities, and related activities, with special attention to critical work areas based on the risk map of all facilities
Note These indicators and their corresponding selection criteria were prepared by the authors based on the chapters of the title III of D.S. No. 024-2016-EM Table 7.3 Operational management indicators within the framework of the title III—occupational health and safety management system of the D.S. No. 024-2016-EM Order N°
Operational indicators
Basis of choice
01
Monitoring of updates to the internal occupational health and safety regulations and IPERC baseline
We must keep in mind that the internal occupational health and safety regulations prepared by the owner of the mining activity are updated as often as changes occur in mining operations and production processes
02
Quantification of the training established in article 76 of the regulation
The occupational health and safety regulation stipulates that the annual training program for workers at all levels must be formulated and developed in order to train qualified personnel by competencies
03
Measurement of compliance with occupational hygiene management
The regulation defines occupational hygiene as the non-medical profession concerned with identifying, recognizing, evaluating, and controlling occupational risk factors (physical, chemical, biological, psychosocial, ergonomic, and others) that may affect the health of workers in order to prevent occupational diseases
Note These indicators and their corresponding selection criteria were prepared by the authors based on the chapters of the Title III of D.S. 024-2016-EM
7 Safety and Occupational Health Management System in Mining … Fig. 7.1 Percentage consolidation of the 12 management indicators of the title III of D.S. 024-2016EM—occupational health and safety regulations
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Distribution of Management Indicators
25% 42% 33%
Strategic indicators Tactical indicators Operational indicators
7.4 Discussion Considering the significance of the discussion of the results, we will concentrate on the objective and general hypothesis given in this study; this will facilitate a better understanding of the criteria employed in Tables 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3. In this way, the sequential study of three categories of management indicators that serve a preventative role within the scope of the Title III of D.S. N° 024-2016-EM was fulfilled, namely strategic, tactical, and operational indicators. In essence, these indicators aim to lay the groundwork for swift action to be taken on the provisions of the SGSSO in order to reduce the number of accidents in mining activity; however, it should be noted that if the indicators are ambiguous, the interpretation will be inaccurate, highlighting the significance of their precise formulation. The implementation of an SGSSO based on safety indicators aims to achieve the well-being of employees and the creation of a good working environment for the company by reducing the frequency of accidents, as well as complying with the regulations, concluding that after observing the registered values of the safety indicators, it will be necessary to implement urgent, concrete, and efficient safety measures to prevent more accidents in the unit [15]. Next, we ask ourselves why it is vital to establish preventative indicators for the SGSSO in mining. The analysis of these two questions lays the groundwork for the discussion of the research results in order to rigorously analyze the information on the levels of compliance with the proposed objectives and expected results proposed by an SGSSO in mining in order to strictly comply with the provisions of Article 1 of D.S. N° 024-2016-EM, “The present regulation seeks to prevent the occurrence of incidents, dangerous incidents, work accidents, and occupational diseases by promoting a safe and healthy work environment. It has the participation of employees, employers, and the government, which will assure its promotion, distribution, and enforcement”.
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7.4.1 Strategic Security Management Indicators Within the Framework of the Title III of D.S. 024-2016-EM After establishing the eligibility requirements for indicating the safety management indicators in the results presentation phase, the criteria defining why the indicators are crucial for measuring the results of an SGSSO are outlined below. Management Indicator: “Quantify the resources provided by Senior Management for Leadership and Commitment” The financial valuation of an investment in an Occupational Health and Safety System in an organization is transcendental because it minimizes the risk, to protect the health of workers and subsequently the well-being of the organization, from a legal, economic, and social perspective, the costs of prevention and maintenance of the health of workers should be considered an investment, as productivity increases, and greater profitability is achieved [16]. The second unit of measurement relates to the incorporation of occupational risk management into the comprehensive management of the company; for this, it must be demonstrated not only in written form (organizational chart of functions). For this reason, the management of health and safety in the workplace adopts a perspective centered on people as the first beneficiaries and participants in the work culture that it promotes, establishing continuous improvement [17]. Management indicator: “Level of compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Management System Policy” This indicator is composed of three units of measurement, the first of which indicates the degree of conformity with occupational health and safety goals and objectives. Said units of measurement must be incorporated into the policy, and their compliance will be monitored constantly. This will require the assistance of an additional safety management indicator, such as the Annual Occupational Health and Safety Program. The second measurement unit verifies that the Policy is documented and that these papers include precise information to enable compliance with the organization’s senior management’s obligations outlined in the Policy. According to Oyola [18], the policies of each organization must be appropriate to the nature and scope of the risk, as well as include efforts for continuous improvement and the commitment to comply at least with the applicable current legal regulations on Occupational Health and Safety and other requirements signed by the organization, always keeping in mind that they must be documented and implemented to be communicated to all workers in order to make them aware of their individual responsibilities in terms of safety and health at work. The goal of the management review is to examine and validate that the Occupational Health and Safety System is dynamic and effective; it is a procedure that requires sufficient, accurate, and pertinent information so that management may periodically and objectively evaluate the management system [19].
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7.4.2 Tactical Security Management Indicators Within the Framework of the Title III of D.S. 024-2016-EM After establishing the three eligibility criteria for the security management indicators in the results section, we will discuss their applicability for assessing the outcomes of a security management system. Management indicator: “Level of compliance with the functions of the Occupational Health and Safety Committee in occupational health and safety management” It is composed of five measurement units, the first of which is to monitor the Occupational Health and Safety Committee’s regular monthly meetings within the first ten calendar days of each month. The outcomes of the previous month and the previous year are analyzed and assessed to determine if the Committee’s work is consistent. The second unit of measurement verifies that the Committee conducts monthly inspections of all facilities and records in the Occupational Health and Safety Book the appropriate recommendations and timeframes for their implementation and/or compliance. The following unit of measurement verifies through records that the Committee continuously monitors compliance with the Mining Plan, noting in the Occupational Health and Safety Book the recommendations corresponding to the implementation deadlines; it also verifies compliance with the recommendations of previous inspections. Management indicator: “Level of compliance with the functions of the Occupational Health and Safety Manager” It consists of five measurement units, the first of which evaluates the implementation and application of design standards, task standards, and PETS, examining primarily whether or not they were developed in accordance with the IPERC Baseline and all the activities mapped in said security management tool. The second unit of measurement refers to the number of work stoppages and/or work in operation that was discovered to be in imminent danger and/or in a substandard condition that jeopardized the employees’ safety. The third unit of measurement consists of verifying through records such as attendance sheets, participation in mining planning preparation meetings, and the various phases of mining operations, the effectiveness of the to-be-applied occupational health and safety procedures. The fourth unit of measurement is the quantification of monthly reports supplied by the entire mining business on the performance of occupational health and safety management administration, such as yearly management reports.
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7.4.3 Operational Security Management Indicators Within the Framework of the Title III of D.S. No. 024-2016-EM After defining the three eligibility criteria for indicators of security management in the Results section, we will now explain the operational requirements for each indicator. Management indicator: “Monitoring of updates to the Internal Occupational Health and Safety Regulations and IPERC Baseline” This indicator consists of two units of measurement. The first measuring unit refers to determining if the IPERC Baseline was updated at least yearly, taking into consideration the fact that a new Annual Occupational Health and Safety Program is developed every year. This includes the verification of updates due to changes in processes, equipment, materials, supplies, tools, and work environments that impact worker safety, as well as updates based on an increase in hazardous incidents. These modifications and their correspondence with the updates of the IPERC Baseline, Standards, and PETS must be documented. Typically, these modifications arise from incident and accident investigations and the efficacy of existing control mechanisms [20]. Management indicator: “Measuring compliance with Occupational Hygiene Management” This indicator consists of three units of measurement. The first unit verifies that risk prevention programs were implemented following hazard identification and risk assessment. The second unit verifies risk controls related to exposure to physical and chemical agents, biological and ergonomic that were applied in the mining unit, as well as verifying that these controls were implemented based on an evaluation and the corresponding occupational exposure limits. The third measurement unit monitors the implementation of safe and healthy practices and procedures at all levels of the operation, based on the monitoring of risk agents performed by the mining unit.
7.5 Conclusion Taking into account the results of Fig. 7.1, which catalogs 12 preventive safety management indicators (100%) of the Title III called Occupational Health and Safety Management System of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation in Mining D.S. N°024-2016-EM, which are distributed as 3 strategic indicators (25%), 4 tactical indicators (33%), and 5 operational indicators (42%); it is concluded that it is possible to measure the level of performance that is relevant to achieving the objectives of the SGSSO, and that it is quantifiable and measurable in order to contribute to the goals of the mining activity holder in the task of reducing the high rates of fatal accidents that are registered annually in Peru.
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References 1. Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública. https://www.dadep.gov.co/sites/default/ files/guia_para_la_construccion_y_analisis_de_indicadores_de_gestion_version_4.pdf. Last accessed 05 Dec 2022 2. Calvo, J.: Sistema de gestión de seguridad y salud ocupacional para la prevención de ries-gos en la industria metalmecánica de la compañía minera SHOUGANG Hierro Perú SAA-año 2014, p. 137. Universidad Nacional Santiago Antunez de Loyola, Huaraz (2017) 3. Tavo, J.: Herramienta de apoyo para el proceso de selección de iniciativas y monitoreo de indicadores estratégicos, p. 100. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima (2019) 4. Valencia, F., Orozco, M.: Metodología para la implementación de un sistema de Gestión de Seguridad de la Información basado en la familia de normas ISO/IEC 27000. Revista Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação 22, 73–88 (2017) 5. Flores, J., Chcuuya, E., Joo, C., Navarrete, A.: Índices de seguridad e incidentes peligrosos como indicadores de seguridad preventiva en la actividad minera del Perú. Ciencia Latina Revista Científica Multidisciplinar 6(2), 3127–3147 (2022) 6. Paniagua, A., Sambueza, M.: Diseño del sistema de gestión de prevención de riesgos laborales en la operativi-dad del sistema de distribución del área urbana de concesión de la empresa EDEN S.A. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, La Plata 151 p (2018) 7. Guerrero, M.: La investigación cualitativa. INNOVA Res. J. 1(2), 1–9 (2016) 8. Esteban, N.: Tipos de investigación. Universidad Santo Domingo de Guzmán, 1–4 (2018) 9. Hiberus Tecnología, https://www.hiberus.com/crecemos-contigo/tableau-la-importancia-delanalisis-de-datos/. Last accessed 25 Nov 2022 10. Martinez, C., Lázaro, V.: Liderazgo y cultura en seguridad: su influencia en los comportamientos de trabajo seguros de los trabajadores. Salud de los Trabajadores 20(2), 179–192 (2012) 11. Catacora, J.: Influencia de la política de seguridad y salud ocupacional en la gestión de riesgos laborales en el Gobierno Regional Tacna, durante el año 2020, p. 99. Universidad Privada de Tacna, Tacna (2021) 12. Portocarrero, K.: Participación de trabajadores en Comité de Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima (2015) 13. Castelo, L.: Diseño e implementación del plan de respuesta a emergencias en la unidad minera Chipmo Compañía de Minas Buenaventura SAA, p. 141. Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa, Arequipa (2016) 14. Molina, M.: Propuesta de mejora de la gestión de inventarios y su influencia en los objetivos operacionales de una empresa minera aurífera del sector de mediana minería 2016, p. 172. Universidad Ricardo Palma, Lima (2018) 15. Díaz, J., Rodríguez, J.: Implementación de un sistema de gestión de seguridad y salud ocupacional para la reducción de accidentes en la UEA SECUTOR, p. 102. Universidad Privada del Norte, Cajamarca (2016) 16. Jiménez, E.: Evaluación financiera del sistema de seguridad y salud ocupacional en la empresa privada y su impacto económico–social. Actualidad contable FACES 20(34), 102–118 (2017) 17. Anaya, A.: Modelo de Salud y Seguridad en el Trabajo con Gestión Integral para la Sustentabilidad de las Organizaciones (SSeTGIS). Ciencia & trabajo 19(59), 95–104 (2017) 18. Oyola, R.: Implementación del sistema de gestión de seguridad, salud ocupacional y medio ambiente en la empresa minera Paraíso SAC para la mejora continua–Arequipa 2019, p. 98. Universidad Nacional José Faustino Sánchez Carrión, Lima (2019) 19. Piedrahita, L., Cano, J.: Diseño de un modelo para iniciar la implementación del sistema de gestión de seguridad y salud en el trabajo en interaseo SASP, p. 270. Universidad CES, Medellín (2015) 20. Barandiarán, L.: Propuesta de un sistema de gestión de seguridad y salud para una empresa constructora de edificaciones, p. 126. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima (2014)
Chapter 8
Understanding the Dynamics of Gross and Informal Employment Clusters Patricio Jaramillo Guerrero, Bolívar David Narváez Montenegro, Juan Manuel Garcia Samaniego, and Hector F Gomez A
Abstract Employment is a key indication of economic growth, and measuring it is important for determining economic and social policy. The total number of persons participating in profitable economic activity is known as their gross employment. Since the majority of employees in Ecuador are engaged in the informal sector, gross and informal employment are serious problems. An all-encompassing strategy involving the government and the private sector will be necessary to address the issue of informal employment in Ecuador. With two and four clusters, running the K-means algorithm, interpreting the clusters, and using the insights acquired to influence policy decisions are all steps in the approach for using K-means clustering to evaluate ground and informal employment.
8.1 Introduction Employment is a vital indicator of economic development, with its measurement being critical for both economic and social policy-making. Gross employment measures the total number of people who are engaged in productive economic activities. Informal employment, on the other hand, refers to jobs that are not regulated, protected, or taxed by the government. This paper aims to explore the concept of P. J. Guerrero · B. D. N. Montenegro Ambato, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] B. D. N. Montenegro e-mail: [email protected] J. M. G. Samaniego Docente Investigador Sec. Deptal. Manejo y Gestión de Recursos Naturales, Universidad Tecnica Particular de Loja, Loja, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] Hector F Gomez A (B) Centro de Posgrados, Universidad Tecnica de Ambato, Ambato, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_8
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gross and informal employment, the clusters that contribute to their prevalence, and their implications for the economy and society as a whole. There are different definitions of employment, and its measurement varies across countries and regions. In the formal sector, employment is usually regulated by labor laws, and employees have access to social protection benefits such as health insurance, pensions, and paid leave. However, in the informal sector, employment is not regulated, and workers often have no access to social protection benefits. The measurement of employment in the informal sector is challenging due to its unregulated nature. Therefore, the actual number of informal workers is often underreported. Several factors contribute to the prevalence of informal employment, such as labor market regulations, taxation policies, social protection policies, and informality as a coping mechanism for workers and businesses. In many countries, the high cost of compliance with labor regulations and taxes has resulted in businesses opting for informal employment. In addition, a lack of access to social protection benefits in the formal sector has forced workers to seek informal employment opportunities. The consequences of informal employment are complex and have implications for both workers and businesses. Informal workers are often vulnerable to exploitation, low wages, and poor working conditions, which can result in poverty and social exclusion. Moreover, the lack of social protection benefits makes them more susceptible to economic shocks such as illness, disability, and unemployment. On the other hand, informal businesses are often excluded from formal financial systems, which limit their access to credit, technology, and training. The formalization of the informal sector has been a challenge for many governments. However, policy interventions such as tax incentives, simplified regulations, and social protection programs have the potential to promote formalization. Furthermore, the adoption of technological advancements in the financial sector can help formalize informal businesses by providing them with access to formal financial services. Figure 8.1 show gross employment rate by province, 2019 and 2020. In Ecuador, formal employment is defined as employment that is regulated by labor laws, and employees have access to social protection benefits such as health insurance, pensions, and paid leave. Informal employment, on the other hand, refers to jobs that are not regulated, protected, or taxed by the government. The measurement of employment in the informal sector is challenging due to its unregulated nature. Therefore, the actual number of informal workers in Ecuador is often underreported. Figure 8.2 shows the population with employment in the informal sector for a provincial level, year 2021 (as a percentage of the total number of people with employment). There are several factors contributing to the prevalence of informal employment in Ecuador. One of the significant factors is the country’s high level of poverty, which forces workers to take up informal employment opportunities. The high cost of compliance with labor regulations and taxes has also resulted in businesses opting for informal employment. Moreover, the country’s labor market is characterized by a high level of informality in the rural areas, where agriculture and informal commerce are dominant.
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Fig. 8.1 Dataset1
K-means clustering is a popular unsupervised machine learning algorithm used to group similar data points into clusters. It is widely used in data mining, image processing, and pattern recognition, among other fields. In this context, we can explore the application of K-means clustering in analyzing gross and informal employment in the economy. K-means clustering can also be used to identify patterns of informal employment across different regions and demographics. For instance, the algorithm can group different regions based on the prevalence of informal employment and identify demographic groups, such as women or youth, who are more likely to be engaged in informal jobs.
8.2 Methodology The methodology for using K-means clustering to analyze ground and informal employment involves the following steps: 1
https://www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/documentos/web-inec/EMPLEO/2021/Anual-2021/Bolet% C3%ADn%20t%C3%A9cnico%20anual%20enero-diciembre%202021.pdf.
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Fig. 8.2 Informal employment
Data Collection: The first step is to collect data on ground and informal employment in the economy from Ecuador en Cifras. Data Preprocessing: Once the data is collected, it needs to be preprocessed to ensure that it is in a suitable format for clustering. This may involve data cleaning, normalization, and feature selection. Running the K-means Algorithm: Once the number of clusters is chosen, the K-means algorithm is run on the preprocessed data with two and four clusters. The algorithm will group the data into the chosen number of clusters based on the similarity of the data points. Interpreting the Clusters: After the algorithm has run, the clusters need to be interpreted to gain insights into the characteristics of ground and informal employment in the economy. This may involve analyzing the demographic, geographic, or industry distribution of the clusters.
8 Understanding the Dynamics of Gross and Informal Employment Clusters Table 8.1 Two clusters
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Final cluster centroids: Cluster# Attribute
Full data
0
1
(24.0)
(14.0)
(10.0)
Province
Azuay
Bolivar
Azuay
GY2019
69.7667
63.8429
78.06
GY2020
68.0833
61.2143
77.7
I2019
54.2875
47.5
63.79
I2021
55.6583
50.1071
63.43
Table 8.2 Four clusters Final cluster centroids: Cluster# Attribute
Full data
0
1
2
3
(24.0)
(8.0)
(4.0)
(6.0)
(6.0)
Province
Azuay
Carchi
Azuay
Cotopaxi
Bolivar
GY2019
69.7667
61.325
66.075
82.25
71
GY2020
68.0833
58.6125
62.875
82.2167
70.05
I2019
54.2875
50.1
30.225
69.8833
60.3167
I2021
55.6583
53.475
32.875
69.6833
59.7333
8.3 Experimentation The data used in K-means clustering to analyze ground and informal employment typically includes a range of variables that are used to cluster the observations into distinct groups (Tables 8.1 and 8.2). By using a combination of these variables, K-means clustering is used to group observations in two and four clusters based on the level of formality in the employment sector. This can provide insights into the characteristics of ground and informal employment and inform policy decisions aimed at promoting formal employment and reducing the prevalence of informal employment.
8.4 Conclusion Gross and informal employment are critical indicators of economic development, and their measurement is crucial for economic and social policymaking. Informal employment is prevalent in many countries, with several factors contributing to its
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persistence. The consequences of informal employment are complex and have implications for both workers and businesses. However, policy interventions such as tax incentives, simplified regulations, and social protection programs have the potential to promote formalization. The formalization of the informal sector will lead to better social protection, higher productivity, and greater economic growth. Gross and informal employment are significant issues in Ecuador, with the majority of workers in the country being employed in the informal sector. The high level of informality in the country’s labor market is caused by several factors, including poverty, the high cost of compliance with labor regulations and taxes, and the dominance of agriculture and informal commerce in rural areas (Table 8.1). The consequences of informal employment in Ecuador are complex and have implications for both workers and businesses. The government has implemented various policies to address the issue of informal employment in the country, but the success of these policies has been limited. Addressing the issue of informal employment in Ecuador will require a comprehensive approach that involves both the government and the private sector (Carchi-Azuay-Cotopaxi-Bolivar, Table 8.2). K-means clustering is a powerful tool that can be used to analyze ground and informal employment in the economy. Its application can provide insights into the characteristics of different industries and demographics (Azuay-Bolivar, Table 8.1) and inform policy decisions aimed at promoting formal employment and reducing the prevalence of informal employment. Overall, the methodology for using K-means clustering to analyze ground and informal employment involves collecting and preprocessing data, choosing the number of clusters, running the K-means algorithm, interpreting the clusters, and using the insights gained to inform policy decisions.
References 1. Clavel, C., Vasilescu, I., Devillers, L., Richard, G., Ehrette, T.: Fear-type emotion recognition for future audio-based surveillance systems. Elsevier 50, 487–503 (2008) 2. Du, S., Tao, Y., Martinez, A.: Compound Facial Expressions of Emotion. National Academic Sciences, New York (2014) 3. Frank, M., Svetieva, E.: Microexpressions and deception. Understandig Facial Expressions in Communication, pp. 227–242 (2014) 4. Gonzalez, S.: La inteligencia artificial aplicada a la videovigilancia revoluciona los sistemas de cctv. Recuperado el 20 de 03 de 2013, de (2009). http://www.borrmart.es/articulo_seguritecnia. php?id=1226&numero=324 5. Hurley, C.: Do you see what I see? Learning to detect micro expressions of emotion. Motiv. Emot. 36, 371–381 (2012) 6. Polikovsky, S., Kameda, Y., Ohta, Y.: Facial Micro-expressions Recognition Using High Speed Camera and 3D Gradient Descriptor. IEEEXplore, London (2009) 7. Porter, S., Brinke, L.: Reading between the Lies. identifying concealed and falsified emotions in Universal Facial Expressions. Psychol. Sci. 19(5), 508–514 (2008)
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8. Shen, X.-B., Wu, Q., Fu, X.-L.: Effects of the duration of expressions on the recognition of microexpressions. J. Zhejiang Univ. 13(3), 221–230 (2012) 9. Shreve, M., Godavarthy, S., Manohar, V., Goldgof, D.: Towards Macro- and Micro-expression Spotting in Video Using Strain Patterns. Snowbird, IEEE (2009)
Chapter 9
E-government and the Fight Against Corruption in Latin America Pierre Gilles Fernand Desfrancois
Abstract The adoption of e-government measures in the fight against corruption has increased in Latin America and the Caribbean in recent decades. Using a panel data model covering the period 2003–2020, the impact of e-government in reducing corruption levels in the region is evaluated. The results suggest that e-government significantly influences the reduction of corruption in the region, but institutional variables moderate the relationship between e-government and corruption. The impact of e-government on corruption levels is more significant in countries with effective legal systems. Among the components of e-government, the quality and scope of online services is the variable with the greatest significance in reducing corruption. These findings highlight the importance of complementing structural reforms in the field of e-government with actions aimed at strengthening the quality of institutions and promoting effective governance.
9.1 Introduction The use of information and communication technology (ICT) to provide information to citizens and connect them with the government has been called electronic government or e-government. E-government includes all those activities based on new information technology, particularly the internet, that the State develops to increase the efficiency of public management, improve the services offered to citizens, and provide government actions with a much more transparent framework than the current one, both in internal and external applications of information and communication technology (ICT) within the public sector. In recent decades, the increasing development of ICT has opened up many opportunities to create, process, and socialize relevant information from organizations, including those in the public sector, in order to generate efficiency, speed, and transparency in their communication. For example, the increase in mobile technology has P. G. F. Desfrancois (B) Israel Technological University, Haifa, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_9
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generated changes in the business models of organizations, and it is also changing the approach of governments focusing them toward improving their communication strategies and service delivery [6]. Therefore, e-government is defined as the use of ICT by government agencies in order to transform relationships with citizens, businesses, and other branches of government. By using information and communication technology to improve transparency, accountability, and citizen participation, e-government can help reduce opportunities for corruption and strengthen integrity in public management. This allows citizens and civil society to monitor government activities, identify potential acts of corruption, and hold responsible officials accountable. Despite the increase in the adoption of e-government in the region, there is no empirical evidence of its potential impact on corruption reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean based on an econometric methodology. This paper evaluates the potential role of e-government in mitigating corruption. It examines the relationship between ICT-driven e-government and corruption by developing and testing empirical models that examine how changes in the use of e-government in several Latin American and Caribbean countries are linked to changes in their levels of corruption.
9.2 Literature Review The purpose of e-government is to develop an electronic government portal, a gateway to crucial government services through the use of ICT, in order to foster information sharing with an informed citizenry. Previous research has suggested that the main rationale for the use of e-government is that it can reduce costs and delays in processing and service delivery, expand citizen access to public sector information, increase transparency and public accountability, and weaken authoritarian tendencies [18]. Delivering public services online has a direct impact on reducing administrative costs compared to a face-to-face system and, in turn, increases the efficiency of public service delivery. Reducing bureaucracy and modernizing public services contribute to improving the business climate in the economy [21]. E-government is positively associated with citizen satisfaction [9] by efficiently managing citizen information. Concerning anti-corruption, improved e-government could lead to higher institutional quality, especially greater political and civil rights [1]. The use of ICT has empowered citizens to have more control over the public policy decision-making process through access to information and thus encourages citizen participation. E-government is also a key factor in strengthening transparency and public accountability. Consequently, citizens benefit from e-government, through easy access to information, time saving, and greater ease of participation in public decisions. Organizations benefit through more agile procedures, lower operating costs, and greater access to contracts with the public administration, and finally, the government benefits with an improved public opinion of the government and greater revenue collection capacity.
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The field of e-government has focused more directly on the use of technology within the routine activities carried out by public organizations: the delivery of public services, the quality and cost-effectiveness of basic government operations, citizen participation and consultation, the statutes and legislative mandates necessary to carry out these processes, and the administrative and institutional reforms undertaken in pursuit of innovation. Administrative modernization, which is based on the redesign, reorganization, and reengineering of structures and processes, facilitates the development of e-government programs. However, for successful implementation, e-government programs must be accompanied by institutional commitment and communication policies. There are four categories of e-government [2]: Government to Citizen (G2C), which seeks to improve access to information for citizens and enhance interactions between the population and the government; Government to Business (G2B), which is characterized by increased efficiency for both governments and the business sector through the exchange of services between the two agents; Government to Government (G2G), which includes online cooperation and communication between government entities; and Government to Employees (G2E), which allows employees to interact with each other and with government management. Moreover, corruption has been cited as one of the most prevalent and persistent challenges to driving economic growth and improving the quality of life of citizens worldwide [3]. The World Economic Forum [19] states that the annual cost of corruption through bribery amounts to $3.6 trillion and affects all global economies, regardless of their level of development. According to Transparency International [17], corruption is defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. This broad definition covers a variety of illicit acts, including bribery, abuse of office, extortion, nepotism, clientelism, and embezzlement, among others. Corruption stems from the quest for power, the obtaining of a benefit, and the predominance of personal interest. Corruption is born in society through improper practices but tolerated by the family itself and then spread through various methods of cognitive reinforcement such as education, work, and interpersonal relationships. Among the main factors affecting corruption levels in developing countries, Shabbir and Anwar [16] conclude that economic factors such as income level and distribution, globalization, education levels, and economic freedoms are important in explaining the differences between countries. In their efforts to fight corruption, many countries have adopted e-government strategies, open government initiatives, and efforts to increase the transparency of data, information, and regulatory processes. By making governments more transparent, participatory, and collaborative through the use of ICT, more opportunities are provided for the public to closely monitor government actions, thereby reducing the risk of corruption [11]. Although e-government in public administration has been studied in the context of improving efficiency, recent research has shed light on the causality between egovernment and corruption. Most studies have been limited to the analysis of one country or case study whose results are not generalizable. Choi [4] concludes that the three components related to e-government: ICT infrastructure and e-governmentdriven transparency, accountability, and empowerment have a statistically significant influence on corruption reduction. Mistry and Jalal [10] examine the relationship
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between e-government and corruption in a panel of developing and developed countries. The results show that an increase in the use of ICT with e-government reduces corruption and that the impact is greater in developed countries. Park and Kim [12] confirm the negative relationship between corruption and e-government; however, they reveal that the rule of law moderates the relationship between open government and corruption; i.e., in countries with more effective legal systems, open government is more likely to reduce corruption than in countries with less effective legal systems. These results imply that governments should focus on improving the quality of public service delivery through the practice of e-government. A well-managed transformation to e-government requires forward-looking policies and political will to eliminate opportunistic behaviors such as corruption and bribery [15, p. 13]. Diéguez et al. [5, p. 43] states that, in Latin America and the Caribbean, at the level of large cities in the region, the performance of e-government is incipient. In addition, the region presents great heterogeneity in e-government performance, which is partly due to sociodemographic, economic, infrastructure, and institutional criteria. Rodríguez et al. [14] show that e-government portals in Latin America reach an evaluation ranging from deficient to very deficient in terms of accessibility. However, the relationship between e-government and corruption in the region has been a topic that has hardly been researched empirically. In Latin America, recent corruption scandals have revealed the magnitude of corruption and its criminal structure, which often involves a network of politicians, organizations, businesses, and private individuals who join together to benefit from access to power, public resources, and policymaking at the expense of the public good. Despite government-driven efforts to make policy improvements to fight corruption, the risk of corruption remains at high levels across the region [13]. In the region, corruption has a statistically significant impact on the growth of the region’s economies and affects the innovativeness and productivity levels of firms [20]. Galvá [7] investigates the impact of e-government in the region and concludes that the reduction of perceived levels of corruption is possible only when countries reach high levels of institutionality and democracy.
9.3 Methodology The data is collected over the period of 2003–2020 with a sample of 30 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The data includes: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The data is collected from different sources. The dependent variable is the perceived level of corruption. The World Bank’s Good Governance Indicators are used to measure corruption, which provides, from a set of more than 30 data sources, an assessment of different governance dimensions, including control of corruption. It is a composite indicator that captures perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private
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gain, including petty and grand corruption, as well as the “capture” of the state by elites and private interests. The control of corruption indicator ranges from − 2.5, which represents the highest level of corruption, to a value of 2.5, which characterizes a corruption-free country. In order to measure the level of e-government, the Electronic Government Development Index (EGDI) published by the United Nations is used, which gives each of its member countries a value ranging from 0 to 1, based on a combination of three indices: Online Services Index, Information and Telecommunications Index, and Human Capital Index. The E-Government Development Index incorporates access characteristics, such as infrastructure and educational levels, to reflect how a country is using information technology to promote access and inclusion of its people. This paper uses the overall E-Government Development Index as a measure of e-government. In addition, the model is controlled for a set of economic and institutional variables. The institutional variables include accountability (VA), political stability (PS), government effectiveness (GE), regulatory quality (RQ), and rule of law (RoL), obtained from the World Bank’s Good Governance Indicators. As for the economic variables, we control for Gross Domestic Product per Capita in logarithm (lnGDP), trade openness in logarithm (lnTrade), defined as the sum of exports and imports divided by Gross Domestic Product, and the total percentage of income obtained from natural resources (RRNN). The economic variables are obtained from the World Development Indicators, conducted by the World Bank. Also included is the Economic Freedom Index (Econ_Free), conducted by The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation. Following the methodology used in empirical work on the relationship between corruption and e-government [10, 12], a fixed effects model is used for panel data analysis. In a fixed effects model, the main assumption is that each country has a constant country-specific effect that does not vary over time but can influence the dependent variable. These fixed effects capture the unobserved characteristics of each country and are included in the model as dummy variables. The inclusion of these fixed effects makes it possible to control their impact on the relationship between the explanatory variables and the dependent variable. The results of the Hausman test are statistically significant (p < 0.01), so it is concluded that the fixed effects model is preferred to the random effects model. The results of the Wooldridge test for autocorrelation in panel data and the modified Wald test for group heteroscedasticity in the fixed effects regression model are statistically significant, and clustered standard errors are applied for both heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation. Due to some missing data, the panel model is unbalanced. The main hypothesis of the paper is that an increase in the e-government index will lead to an increase in the corruption control index. The impact is expected to be stronger in countries with better levels of institutional quality. Equation (9.1) presents the specification of the empirical model. Corruption = α + β ∗ EGDI + γ ∗ Control + ε
(9.1)
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9.4 Results The empirical results are presented in Table 9.1. The first column includes only egovernment as an explanatory variable. The coefficient associated with e-government is positive and statistically significant, which means that an increase in e-government leads to an improvement in the control of corruption in Latin American and Caribbean countries. The second column presents the results of the model including the economic control variables. The coefficient associated with e-government maintains a positive and statistically significant sign. However, the coefficients associated with the economic control variables are not significant. Column 3 presents the results including the institutional variables. The results show that the impact of e-government is weaker, although it is significant at the 10% level. On the other hand, the institutional variables have a significant impact on the reduction of corruption in the region, especially the “Voice and Accountability” and “Government Effectiveness” indicators. This result indicates that, in Latin America and the Caribbean, institutional factors are more important than economic factors in reducing corruption. In Column 4, the two control variables, both economic and institutional, are aggregated. The coefficient of e-government remains positive but does not become significant. The results indicate that the impact of e-government on corruption reduction is weak when controlling for economic and institutional variables. In Table 9.2, an empirical assessment is made using the different dimensions of e-government. The results are presented in Table 9.2. The estimates include the economic and institutional control variables present in Column 4 of Table 9.1. Column 1 presents the result for the Online Services Index (OSI) dimension. Column 2 presents the results for the Technology Infrastructure Index (TII), while the third column presents the results for the Human Capital Index (HCI). The results reveal that the scope and quality of online services are determinants of corruption reduction. The impact of technological infrastructure and human capital is positive, but not statistically significant. This result confirms that the presence of digital services, which reduce direct contact between public officials and users, reduces the permissive role of the public sector and reduces corruption risks [8]. In Table 9.3, interactions between institutional variables and e-government are added. In Column 1, we add an interaction between government effectiveness and the e-government index; in Column 2, an interaction between accountability and the e-government index; and in Column 3, an interaction between rule of law and e-government. The results show that the interactive effect between e-government and accountability and the interactive effect between e-government and rule of law are positive and significant. This result implies that the effect of e-government in reducing corruption would be greater in countries with higher levels of accountability and rule of law and that the implementation of e-government measures, such as the adoption of online services, should be accompanied by legal reforms aimed at fostering transparency and accountability of the state. However, the coefficient of the interaction between government effectiveness and e-government is not significant.
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Table 9.1 Corruption and e-government Variables
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
EGDI
0.338 (1.97)**
0.394 (1.99)**
0.317 (1.87)*
0.164 (0.90)
LnGDP
0.072 (0.82)
0.367 (4.03)***
Econ_Free
0.001 (1.02)
0.001 (1.20)
LnTrade
− 0.138 (− 1.96)**
− 0.025 (− 0.40)
RRNN
0.005 (0.93)
0.006 (1.31)
GE
0.179 (4.50)***
0.119 (2.82)***
PS
− 0.033 (− 0.96)
− 0.042 (− 1.09)
RQ
0.023 (0.60)
0.064 (1.32)
RoL
0.020 (0.49)
0.090 (1.87)*
VA
0.414 (8.82)***
0.456 (7.64)***
Note All models n = 242, Prob > F = 0.000. * p < 0.10; ** p < 0.05; *** p < 0.01, Clustered standard error adjusted. Fixed effects regression for panel data analysis
The results, in general, underline the need to accompany structural e-government reforms with measures to strengthen the quality of institutions and good governance.
9.5 Conclusions This paper investigates the impact of e-government on corruption reduction efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean. The paper uses annual data from 2003 to 2020 in a sample of 30 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and estimates the results using a panel model with fixed effects. The results suggest that e-government contributes to the reduction of corruption in countries with better governance, especially in countries with better levels of accountability. In terms of e-government dimensions, the provision of online services is the main component that enables corruption reduction. The results are important for the formulation of public policies, confirming that e-government can be an effective measure to fight corruption
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Table 9.2 Dimensions of e-government Variables
Online Services Index (OSI)
Technology Infrastructure Index (TII)
Human Capital Index (HCI)
EGDI
0.200 (2.66)***
0.212 (1.39)
0.203 (0.75)
LnGDP
0.323 (3.57)***
0.241 (− 2.62)***
0.339 (3.79)***
Econ_Free
0.001 (1.50)
0.001 (0.48)
0.001 (0.88)
LnTrade
− 0.049 (− 0.80)
− 0.065 (− 1.05)
− 0.037 (− 0.59)
RRNN
0.007 (1.60)
0.003 (0.82)
0.006 (1.28)
GE
0.131 (3.35)***
0.167 (4.27)***
0.126 (3.17)***
PS
− 0.060 (− 1.62)
− 0.06 (− 1.66)
− 0.046 (− 1.22)
RQ
0.046 (0.99)
0.025 (0.52
0.053 (1.10)
RoL
0.100 (2.21)**
0.030 (0.68)
0.072 (1.58)
VA
0.434 (7.71)***
0.494 (8.25)***
0.457 (7.85)***
Note All models n = 242, Prob > F = 0.000. * p < 0.10; ** p < 0.05; *** p < 0.01, Clustered standard error adjusted. Fixed effects regression for panel data analysis
when accompanied by legal reforms to improve the quality of institutions. It is recommended to strengthen scientific research in the evaluation of citizen perception of corruption and electronic government, examining how trust in digital systems affects perception and attitude toward corruption, and how greater trust in digital systems can be fostered. electronic government. Additionally, it is necessary to investigate the challenges in terms of data security, equitable access to technology, the digital divide, and possible manipulation or misuse of electronic tools by corrupt officials.
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Table 9.3 Interaction between e-government and institutions Variables
E-government and government effectiveness
E-government and accountability
E-government and rule of law
EGDI
0.148 (0.81)
0.074 (0.35)
0.131 (0.73)
LnGDP
0.367 (4.20)***
0.375 (4.23)***
0.374 (4.19)***
Econ_Free
0.001 (1.23)
0.001 (1.23)
0.001 (1.42)
LnTrade
− 0.020 (− 0.31)
− 0.019 (− 0.31)
− 0.018 (− 0.29)
RRNN
0.005 (1.12)
0.003 (0.69)
0.004 (1.00)
GE
0.039 (0.47)
0.137 (3.23)***
0.129 (3.05)***
PS
− 0.041 (− 1.06)
− 0.041 (− 1.07)
− 0.037 (− 0.97)
RQ
0.071 (1.46)
0.070 (1.47)
0.078 (1.64)
RoL
0.095 (1.99)*
0.098 (2.07)**
0.078 (0.89)
VA
0.441 (7.22)***
0.228 (2.10)**
0.437 (7.30)***
GE * EGDI
0.173 (1.08)
VA * EGDI RoL * EGDI
0.425 (2.48)** 0.354 (2.26)**
Note All models n = 242, Prob > F = 0.000. * p < 0.10; ** p < 0.05; *** p < 0.01, Clustered standard error adjusted. Fixed effects regression for panel data analysis
References 1. Ahn, M.J., Bretschneider, S.: Politics of e-government: E-government and the political control of bureaucracy. Public Adm. Rev. 71(3), 414–424 (2011) 2. Alshehri, M., Drew, S.: E-government fundamentals. In: IADIS International Conference ICT, Society and Human Beings (2010) 3. Bahoo, S., Alon, I., Paltrinieri, A.: Corruption in international business: a review and research agenda. Int. Bus. Rev. 29(4), 101660 (2020) 4. Choi, J.W.: E-government and corruption: a cross-country survey. World Polit. Sci. 10(2), 217–236 (2014) 5. Diéguez, G., Gasparín, J.M., Sánchez, J., Schejtman, L.: E-government scenarios and perspectives in Latin America and the Caribbean. CIPPEC, Buenos Aires, 39 (2015) 6. Faisal, M.N., Talib, F.: E-government to m-government: a study in a developing economy. Int. J. Mobile Commun. 14(6), 568–592 (2016)
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7. Galvá, R.L.: E-government and corruption perception: a comparative study in the countries of Latin America. Doctoral Dissertation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2017) 8. Gurin, J.: Open governments, open data. SAIS Rev. Int. Aff. 34(1), 71–82 (2014) 9. Ma, L., Zheng, Y.: National e-government performance and citizen satisfaction: a multilevel analysis across European countries. Int. Rev. Adm. Sci. 85(3), 506–526 (2019) 10. Mistry, J.J., Jalal, A.: An empirical analysis of the relationship between e-government and corruption. Int. J. Dig. Account. Res. 12 (2012) 11. Nam, T.: Examining the anti-corruption effect of e-government and the moderating effect of national culture: a cross-country study. Gov. Inf. Q. 35(2), 273–282 (2018) 12. Park, C.H., Kim, K.: E-government as an anti-corruption tool: panel data analysis across countries. Int. Rev. Adm. Sci. 86(4), 691–707 (2020) 13. Pastrana Valls, A.: Study on corruption in Latin America. Mex. J. Public Opin. 27, 13–40 (2019) 14. Rodríguez, Y.S., Pérez, L.B., Calderón, E.Á., Anlas, C.A.S.: Status of web accessibility of e-government portals in Latin America. Libr. Res. Ann. 16(1), 7–22 (2021) 15. Sadik-Zada, E.R., Gatto, A., Niftiyev, I.: E-government and petty corruption in public sector service delivery. Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag. 1–17 (2022) 16. Shabbir, G., Anwar, M.: Determinants of corruption in developing countries. Pak. Develop. Rev. 751–764 (2007) 17. Transparency International: What is corruption? (2019) Retrieved from https://www.transpare ncy.org/en/what-is-corruption 18. Twizeyimana, J.D., Andersson, A.: The public value of E-government-a literature review. Gov. Inf. Q. 36(2), 167–178 (2019) 19. World Economic Forum: Corruption is costing the global economy $3.6 trillion dollars every year. (2018) Retrieved from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/12/the-global-economyloses-3-6-trillion-to-corruption-each-year-says-u-n 20. Wu, R.: Firm development and bribery: an empirical study from Latin America. Atl. Econ. J. 47(1), 53–64 (2019) 21. Widodo, J.: Building Performance-Based Bureaucracy. Bayumedia Publishing, Malang (2019)
Chapter 10
Mentoring as a Tool for Strengthening Management Competences Mónica Acuña Rodríguez, Yeferson Gómez López, Grace Rocha Herrera, María José Navarro Romero, Samir F. Umaña Ibáñez, Jairo Coronado Hernández, and Gustavo Gatica
Abstract The objective of this research was to analyze the effect of using mentoring as a tool to strengthen managerial skills, for which this research was quantitative, quasi-experimental and with a pretest–posttest design. The results show that the use of mentoring in the teaching–learning process to strengthen managerial competencies fosters a significant increase in the evaluated competencies, being an ideal tool to achieve established goals, finding a high effect size, therefore which suggests its use in educational and organizational scenarios to contribute to the key aspects of said spaces.
10.1 Introduction It is important to highlight that there are various competencies that are directly related to the performance of people and that allow the effective development of work activities. Adaptability, for example, according to Zarrinabadi et al. [29] focuses on the function that the human being has to offer appropriate responses to variable situations, as well as the function of changing or adjusting behavior to face different situations or different people. This competence is related to the direction of work teams, since through it, groups of work can be effectively guided, oriented toward results, assertively influencing the achievement of goals and results expected by the organization [20]. In the context of Higher Education, especially in postgraduate programs, establishing methodologies and strategies based on competencies must be a fundamental commitment, since those interested and enrolled in an academic program come M. A. Rodríguez (B) · Y. G. López · G. R. Herrera · M. J. N. Romero · S. F. Umaña Ibáñez · J. C. Hernández Universidad de la Costa CUC, Barranquilla, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] G. Gatica Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_10
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with interests according to specific knowledge that they want to acquire and that go beyond the curricular content. For this reason, this study raises the following research question: what is the effect of using mentoring as a tool to strengthen managerial skills? In this sense, work environments require processes for the continuous review of information that facilitates and guides decision making. That is why systematic analysis as a competence is pertinent since it leads to identifying and recovering relevant evidence from the generation of specific questions that give value to practical results [18]. In addition, they aim at a collective purpose for all members of a company and generate solutions to the problems presented, which, in the words of Pereira et al. [19] is the ability to give response to needs or difficulties with objectivity and integrity, allowing us to understand the factors that affect them, to be assertive in decision making and to act in a pertinent manner. In accordance with the above, decision making according to De Angelis and Diaz [8] is oriented to the ability to analyze, investigate, and decide in a situation taking into account a prior evaluation of the consequences, benefits, scope, and impact both in the present and in the future and, in the same way, covers the willingness of the person to assume the possible risks that are generated in the decision that was selected. To decide, there must be knowledge of the environment and understanding of the organization; it is a competence that grants the ability to understand the nature of the organization, its missionary aspects, and its priorities in the present and future. The environment of influence allows people to analyze complex situations in a holistic way, comparing variables and specific factors that allow their understanding and facilitate decision making. In other words, it facilitates and strengthens the competence related to the global conceptualization of the environment [22]. Finally, the competitiveness and sustainability of companies will depend on the strategic vision of their entire team of collaborators; this is a competence focused on reading the needs and orientation of internal and external clients and, in turn, on the management of solutions that manage to provide growth and job satisfaction through the efficient organization of resources that efficiently provide the management of assets and capital designated in a company, both financial and human [1, 3, 17]. The following sections are an important input to answer the question posed. The implemented method is described, which has two moments, a pre- and a postapplication of the 360° test as an instrument for the measurements in both moments, an intervention process is carried out, the results and the discussion are elaborated, and with it, the proposed objective is responded to effectively analyzing whether mentoring strengthens managerial skills.
10.2 Methods The objective of the research was to analyze the effect of using mentoring as a tool to strengthen managerial skills, for which this research was quantitative, quasiexperimental, and with a pretest–posttest design [12]. The instrument used was the
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CEC 360° test to measure managerial competencies, this test being applied to 81 postgraduate students from the Corporación Universidad de la Costa—CUC in the area of organizational psychology. For the study, the CEC 360° test is chosen because, due to its exploratory quantitative nature, it allows measuring the predictive level of a person’s competence against a set of variables related to the profile of the position to be evaluated. On the other hand, it is possible to demonstrate or not the presence or capacity of the subject against specific behaviors through two postulates: (1) The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior; and (2) behaviors can be demonstrated, both what has been done in the past and what is capable of doing in the present. The students participating in the study filled out the questionnaire at first, the results were generated, each of the competencies evaluated was analyzed, and based on this, an intervention was structured taking into account the competencies with weaker results. The strategy was based on “mentoring” as a tool to strengthen the management skills of each of them. After the intervention process, the test is applied again, (posttest), and the assessments of the competencies and the changes obtained after the “mentoring” are analyzed. The students participating in the study took the test before and after an intervention where “mentoring” was used as a tool to strengthen the managerial skills of each of them. The standardized and systematized test has validity and reliability from its theoretical supports [23] where their pilot tests showed a normal distribution of the same. The intervention lasted 4 months; in the process, each student had direct and personalized support from a mentor with whom they could strengthen the skills that in the first measurement had been identified with lower scores. Data analysis was performed using the statistical software SPSS and Stata.
10.3 Results Prior to the admission of the subjects to the program for the strengthening of managerial competencies, the CEC 360° test was applied, whose purpose is for the institution to measure the managerial competencies of the students of the different postgraduate programs; after that, different sessions were held during a period of 4 months where a mentor designed and implemented various strategies to strengthen the skills that in the first diagnosis had shown aspects of improvement. Finally, the 360° test was applied again to the same participants once their personalized mentoring had finished, resulting in a pretest and posttest measurement of the same sample of participants with an adequate level of reliability according to their Cronbach’s alpha (see Tables 10.1 and 10.2). Table 10.1 shows a “good” Cronbach’s alpha as mentioned by HernándezSampieri et al. [12] for which the use of the results for the present investigation is ideal. The descriptive results presented in Table 10.2 show that those evaluated according to the test manual are between the “good” and “high” levels, being 71–80 good and
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M. A. Rodríguez et al.
Table 10.1 Reliability statistic
Reliability statistics Cronbach’s alpha
No. of elements
0.891
20
Source SPSS software
Table 10.2 Descriptive results of pretest–posttest 360° test N
Average Deviation Variance
Pre-adaptability
81 85.64
6.880
47.333
Systematic pre-analysis
81 76.64
11.853
140.483
Pre-analysis and troubleshooting
81 83.43
7.940
63.048
Pre-orientation to the internal and external client
81 84.75
8.868
78.638
Pre-management of work teams
81 82.73
10.418
108.525
Pre-knowledge of the environment and understanding of the business
81 81.12
11.871
140.910
Efficient pre-organization of resources
81 83.73
10.331
106.725
Global pre-conceptualization
81 79.64
9.570
91.583
Pre-decision making
81 78.74
9.484
89.944
Strategic foresight
81 77.80
11.148
124.285
Post-adaptability
81 85.81
7.593
57.653
Systematic post-analysis
81 85.96
6.055
36.661
Post-analysis and troubleshooting
81 88.22
5.097
25.975
Post-orientation to the internal and external client
81 87.25
5.456
29.763
Post-management of work teams
81 88.84
5.342
28.536
Post-knowledge of the environment and understanding of 81 88.58 the business
5.846
34.172
Efficient post-organization of resources
81 88.77
6.032
36.382
Global post-conceptualization
81 82.14
7.025
49.344
Post-decision making
81 83.25
8.445
71.313
Strategic post-vision
81 86.67
6.346
40.275
Valid N (per list)
81
Source SPSS software
81–90 high; however, the posttest was the moment when everyone managed to obtain a “high” level. The results of Table 10.3 contain the comparison of the means of each one of the managerial competences of the participants in both moments (pretest–posttest), where the student’s T scale was applied to said data, managing to show that in almost all the skills worked on, the value of the means was higher at the end of the intervention compared to the initial point of each participant. It should be noted that some competencies such as adaptability whose significance was 0.82 in the
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pretest obtained a “high” level as well as in the posttest, the degree of adaptability competency present in the sample being equally representative. The size of the effect was calculated through “Cohen’s d” which includes reference points to specify the real magnitude of the effects produced by an intervention [7], with a value of d < 0.20 being an insignificant effect, 0.20 ≤ d > 0.50 a small effect, 0.50 ≤ d > 0.80 a medium effect, and finally, d ≥ 0.80 a high effect. The size of the effect evidenced on the participating sample as a result of the intervention to strengthen managerial competencies through mentoring was as expected, where those competencies that at the beginning had marked low levels managed to reach a representative increase. Table 10.4 shows several components whose effect was greater than 0.80, this being a high effect, followed by values equal to or greater than 0.50, which is still a desired and acceptable effect to interpret the magnitude of the intervention carried out.
10.4 Discussion In the business sector, there are many elements that are considered key to the success of an organization, among them is the set of characteristics of each role, made up of general knowledge, specific knowledge, emotions, motivations, and others [4], where the competencies that are the possession of a conglomerate of cognitive, emotional, and physical qualities [11] interact transversally within the same labor dynamics to achieve the established goals [27]. It is for this reason that research has sought to strengthen those competencies that are essential when having a managerial or managerial role, being aware of the need in this aspect [28], leading them to work for the development of leadership [25, 26] to highlight the role of strategic management vision [10] and describe other necessary competencies in these leadership roles [6] which is in line with the research whose objective is to make use of mentoring as that key tool for strengthening management skills that are crucial in an organization. It is then important to highlight that there are various techniques, tools, and programs that seek to improve management skills [14]; however, mentoring has proven in recent years to be a two-way learning process where both the mentor and the apprentice develop a formative bond and psychosocial support, which allows the experience to be more meaningful for those involved [24], leading them in turn to promote favorable results in different settings and ages, such as young people [21], adults [9], and even children [16]. Therefore, this study, like many others, was able to confirm how, after the use of mentoring, an improvement was achieved in some competencies, where a large part of these showed a significant increase after the intervention program developed (see Table 10.3). In addition, it was possible to identify a magnitude of the significant effect within the investigation from the pretest–posttest evaluation (see Table 10.4), being consistent with the results of other investigations where this tool fostered effective learning in the people who were part of each one of them. programs [13, 15].
11.013
10.895
11.434
− 7.457
Efficient pre-organization of − 5.037 resources–efficient post-organization of resources
Global pre-conceptualization–global − 2.494 post-conceptualization
Par 7
Par 8
Pre-knowledge of the environment and understanding of the business–post-knowledge of the environment and understanding of the business
Par 6
10.210
− 6.111
Pre-management of work teams–post-management of work teams
Par 5
8.231
− 2.494
Pre-orientation to the internal and external client–post-orientation to the internal and external client
Par 4
8.010
− 4.790
Pre-analysis and troubleshooting–post-analysis and troubleshooting
Par 3
7.176 11.425
Systematic pre-analysis–systematic post-analysis
Par 2
− 9.321
Pre-adaptability–post-adaptability
Par 1
− 0.173
Dev. deviation
Average
Paired differences
1.270
1.211
1.224
1.134
0.915
0.890
1.269
0.797
Dev. average error
− 5.022
− 7.446
− 9.892
− 8.369
− 4.314
− 6.561
− 11.847
− 1.760
Lower
0.034
− 2.628
− 5.022
− 3.853
− 0.674
− 3.019
− 6.795
1.414
Upper
95% confidence interval of the difference
Table 10.3 Results of the T test for related samples—comparison of pretest–posttest means
− 1.963
− 4.161
− 6.094
− 5.387
− 2.727
− 5.382
− 7.343
− 0.217
T
80
80
80
80
80
80
80
80
Gl
0.053
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.008
0.000
0.000
0.829
(continued)
Sig. (bilateral)
92 M. A. Rodríguez et al.
Strategic pre-vision–strategic post-vision
Par 10
Source SPSS software
Pre-decision making–post-decision making
Par 9
Table 10.3 (continued) Dev. deviation 10.834 9.865
Average
− 4.506 − 8.864
Paired differences
1.096
1.204
Dev. average error
− 11.046
− 6.902
Lower
− 6.683
− 2.111
Upper
95% confidence interval of the difference
− 8.087
− 3.743
T
80
80
Gl
0.000
0.000
Sig. (bilateral)
10 Mentoring as a Tool for Strengthening Management Competences 93
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M. A. Rodríguez et al.
Table 10.4 Results of the effect size test with Cohen’s d Effect size—Cohen’s d Estimate
[95% conf. interval]
Post-adaptability–pre-adaptability
0.0238558 − 0.2841712 − 0.3318082
Systematic post-analysis–systematic pre-analysis
0.9904075
0.6625151
1.315532
Post-analysis and troubleshooting–pre-analysis and troubleshooting
0.7179753
0.3990684
1.034771
Post-orientation to the internal and external client–pre-orientation to the internal and external client
0.3387378
0.0280127
0.6484194
Post-management of work teams–pre-management of work teams
0.7382052
0.4187172
1.055529
Post-knowledge of the environment and 0.7969796 understanding of the business–pre-knowledge of the environment and understanding of the business
0.4757234
1.115923
Efficient post-organization of resources–efficient pre-organization of resources
0.5954695
0.279775
0.9093805
Global post-conceptualization–global pre-conceptualization
0.2970879 − 0.0130624
0.6063202
Post-decision making–pre-decision making
0.5018369
0.1882356
0.8139171
Post-decision making–pre-decision making
0.9772184
0.6498173
1.301881
Source Own elaboration with results from the Stata software (2022)
This is how mentoring can then be considered as a tool whose implementation allows the tutor and the apprentice to develop and strengthen a large part of the elements that are arranged as long as the process is carried out by trained professionals with an active disposition of the people participating in the mentoring.
10.5 Conclusions Management competencies make up a series of gears that are part of the knowledge of the human being, it being essential that from the role that an individual exercise, they have an ideal development of those competencies that will facilitate their success and the environments in which they operate, thus leading to a constant search by educational institutions and labor organizations to implement tools that work on aspects to improve their students and/or collaborators. Thanks to the development of this research, it was possible to statistically demonstrate the important utility that mentoring can carry out within the training processes of some individuals, strengthening the elements that required special attention in each one of them to reach levels of directive or managerial competencies higher to
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function more efficiently in the current world of work that is permeated by demanding needs and demands for its collaborators. Finally, for future research, it is important to take into account the limitations to be presented, which may be focused on the time and willingness to apply the test and, above all, the availability to assume the intervention. In addition, when thinking about applying it in other programs and Higher Education Institutions, it is necessary to have the economic resources for the acquisition of the test, the human capital for the process of application and start-up of the “mentoring”, and, above all, the organization of curricular contents where the strategy can be supported.
References 1. Alsaaty, F.M., Kapur, K., Ntembe, A.: Is disruptive innovation your entrepreneurial vision? J. Small Bus. Entrep. 9(2), 16–22 (2021) 2. Anderson, A.J., DuBois, D.L.: Are adults influenced by the experience of mentoring youth? A scoping review. J. Community Psychol. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22954 3. Anwar, G., Abdullah, N.N.: The impact of human resource management practice on organizational performance. Int. J. Eng. Bus. Manag. (IJEBM) (2021) 4. Bird, B.: Toward a theory of entrepreneurial competency. In: Katz, J.A., Corbet, A.C. (eds.) Seminal Ideas for the Next Twenty-Five Years of Advances (Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth, Vol. 21), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 115–131 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1108/S1074-754020190000021011 5. Bontempo, P.C.: Countries’ governance and competitiveness: business environment mediating effect. RAUSP Manag. J. 57(1), 48–64 (2022). Recuperado de: https://www.redalyc.org/art iculo.oa?id=553869939005 6. Chen-Quesada, E., Ruiz-Chaves, W.: Competencias que potencian la capacidad gerencial en las personas directivas para el trabajo efectivo con las Juntas Administrativas y de Educación en el sistema educativo costarricense. Rev. Innovaciones Educativas 22(32), 36–50 (2020) 7. Cohen, J.: A power primer. Psychol. Bull. 112(1), 155–159 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0033-2909.112.1.155 8. DeAngelis, D.L., Diaz, S.G.: Decision-making in agent-based modeling: a current review and future prospectus. Front. Ecol. Evol. 6, 237 (2019) 9. Freitas, P.F.P., de, Montezano, L., Odelius, C.C.: A influência de Atividades Extracurriculares no Desenvolvimento de Competências Gerenciais em Grupos de Pesquisa. Administração: Ensino E Pesquisa 20(1), 12–49 (2019). https://doi.org/10.13058/raep.2019.v20n1.1070 10. González, J., Salazar, F., Ortiz, R., Verdugo, D.: Gerencia estratégica: herramienta para la toma de decisiones en las organizaciones. Telos: Revista de Estudios Interdisciplinarios en Ciencias Sociales, 21(1), 242–267 (2019) 11. Hernández Valdés, E.: Sistematización de competencias gerenciales de directivos de enfermería en el contexto hospitalario. Revista Cubana de Enfermería 36(4) (2020). Recuperado de: http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0864-03192020000400018&lng= es&tlng=es 12. Hernández–Sampieri, R., Fernández, C., Collado, M.: Metodología de la investigación. Editorial Mc Graw Hill, México, D.F. (2014) 13. Kuyini, A.B., Abukari, A., Rashid, M. A.: Student teachers and their mentors: differing perspectives of the mentoring experience during initial teacher training in Ghana. Mentor. Tutor. 30(1), 84–105 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2022.2031083 14. Luhova, V., Serikov, D., Liutviieva, Y., Serikova, T., Kovalova, V.: Directions to develop managerial competence in managers of different types. Manag. Theory Stud. Rural Bus. Infrastruct. Dev. 43(2), 269–275 (2021). https://doi.org/10.15544/mts.2021.23
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15. Lyons, M.D., Edwards, K.D., Fallavollita, W.L.: Promoting mentoring relationships through joint decisions: evidence from a national mentoring program. School Psychol. (Washington, D.C.) 36(4), 214–223 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000440 16. Madhavan, L., Modi, K., Chatterjee, S., Goel, R., Agarwal, S., Upreti, A., Dhanda, N., y Sharma, M.: The role of long-term mentoring in alternative child care settings. Child Abuse Negl. 130(Pt 3), 105298 (2022) 17. Madrakhimova, M.S.: Customer-oriented approach as a development strategy of a tourism enterprise. Middle Eur. Sci. Bull. 12, 311–314 (2021) 18. Munn, Z., Peters, M.D., Stern, C., Tufanaru, C., McArthur, A., Aromataris, E.: Systematic review or scoping review? Guidance for authors when choosing between a systematic or scoping review approach. BMC Med. Res. Methodol. 18(1), 1–7 (2018) 19. Pereira, L., Santos, R., Sempiterno, M., Costa, R.L.D., Dias, Á., António, N.: Pereira problem solving: business research methodology to explore open innovation. J. Open Innov. Technol. Market Complex. 7(1), 84 (2021) 20. Picchi, A.: The behavioral elements of a design manager. In: Design Management, pp. 3–33. Apress, Berkeley, CA (2022) 21. Raposa, E.B., Rhodes, J., Stams, G.J.J., Card, N., Burton, S., Schwartz, S., Yoviene, L., Kanchewa, S., Kupersmidt, J., Hussain, S.: The effects of youth mentoring programs: a metaanalysis of outcome studies. J. Youth Adolesc. 48(3), 423–443 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10964-019-00982-8 22. Shah, N., Michael, F., Chalu, H.: The influence of electronic human resource management use and organizational success: a global conceptualization. Glob. J. Manag. Bus. Stud. 10(1), 9–28 (2020) 23. Spencer, I.M., Spencer J.M.: Competence and Work. Wiley, New York (1993) 24. Stockkamp, M., Godshalk, V. M.: Mutual learning in peer mentoring: effects on mentors and protégés. Mentor. Tutor. Partnership Learn. 30(2), 164–183 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13611267.2022.2057100 25. Subramony, M., Segers, J., Chadwick, C., Shyamsunder, A.: Leadership development practice bundles and organizational performance: the mediating role of human capital and social capital. J. Bus. Res. 83, 120–129 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.09.044 26. Tingle, E., Corrales, A., Peters, M.L.: Leadership development programs: investing in school principals. Educ. Stud. 45(1), 1–16 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2017.1382332 27. Useche, M.C., Giler, M., Peña, L.J.G.: Competencias gerenciales en el ámbito empresarial zuliano. Revista de ciencias sociales, 25(1), 173–185 (2019). Recuperado de: https://dialnet. unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=7025821 28. Warshawsky, N., Cramer, E.: Describing nurse manager role preparation and competency: findings from a national study. JONA: J. Nurs. Adm. 49(5), 249–255 (2019) 29. Zarrinabadi, N., Rezazadeh, M., Karimi, M., Lou, N.M.: Why do growth mindsets make you feel better about learning and your selves? The mediating role of adaptability. Innov. Lang. Learn. Teach. 16(3), 249–264 (2022)
Chapter 11
Critical Thinking in Postgraduate Degree Work at the Israel Technological University, Ecuador Molina Prendes Norma , Quintero Cordero Yolvy Javier , Bustillos Peña Mayra Alejandra , and Alejo Pastora Betty
Abstract The purpose of the work is to present the results of research on the development of critical thinking in postgraduate students, utilized for the degree work developed during the period 2021–2022, at the Israel Technological University in Quito, Ecuador. For this, students studying for a Master’s in Education and Pedagogy were selected as an intentional sample in a complementary study under a descriptiveinterpretative perspective. As techniques, participant observation in the defenses and the analysis of documents for the review of the written memory were applied. On the other hand, a Likert-type estimation scale and an observation guide were used as instruments. Methodological and source triangulation were applied to contrast the results with previous research. They were compared to other studies where it was verified that there are marked insufficiencies in the development of critical thinking in graduate students.
11.1 Introduction: The Development of Critical Thinking as One of the Challenges of Current Education Critical thinking is the object of study in multiple investigations. Over time, it has responded to various contexts from different angles and been analyzed from the standpoint of sciences such as psychology, philosophy, and pedagogy; it has even been confused with creative thinking [1]. Marta Fattori, cited by [2] in her book Education and Creativity, expresses that creativity is having divergent thinking, that is, having an active brain that is willing to ask questions, and capable of making autonomous and independent judgments which reject what is accepted. We are of the opinion that its borders are blurred in the teaching–learning process if it meets the
M. P. Norma (B) · Q. C. Y. Javier · B. P. M. Alejandra · A. P. Betty Israel University of Technology, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_11
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training and development aspirations that are required in the current context, which, as we know, is far from reality. The present study coincides with the criteria that assess the importance of understanding reflection, analysis, and logical deductions for learning and development in life and therefore the need to develop critical thinking from a very early age because “it is the key to success not only academically and workwise but also in one’s personal life” [3]. Implementing strategies that contribute to the development of critical thinking in students has become one of the current challenges in educational institutions. Such challenges are based on the global context, known as “the fourth industrial revolution”, where the dizzying rise of information and communication technologies has made obsolescence and paradigm shifts in knowledge their essential features and exercised a profound impact on learning, which in turn places the teacher before new perspectives regarding the teaching–learning process regarding the need to develop in students skills, values, and professional competences, above the contents, and above all, asks the question: What learning should be promoted in the classroom? [4]. Therefore, it coincides with the criteria that value critical thinking based on the Socratic method of maieutics, precisely because of the importance of understanding reflection, analysis, and logical deductions for learning and development in life, which, in turn, are essential from the maieutics and foundations of critical reasoning, where basic reasoning is transcended toward the ability to analyze, find main ideas, reorganize them, classify, evaluate information, and find new connections in new knowledge from thought processes, such as logic, induction, and deduction. In this same line of thought, there is the work of authors such as [5], who express that critical thinking leads to understanding, and therefore, to evaluating and solving (…) and even to thinking about thinking (meta thinking), as to not make conclusions without sufficient foundations. Other works point out the need to lead the student to think independently, to solve problems by themselves, and to “identify, analyze, evaluate, classify, and explain what they learn” [6]. In the Final Declaration of the World Conference on Higher Education in the 21st Century, held in Paris in 1998, Article 9, paragraph (a) states: “In a rapidly changing world, there is a perceived need for a new vision and a new model of higher education, which should be centered on the student” [7]. For its part, subparagraph (b) means: “Higher education institutions must train students (…) provided with a critical sense and capable of analyzing society’s problems, seeking solutions, (…) applying them and assuming social responsibilities” (idem). Such formative aspirations remain in theory when traditional pedagogical conceptions prevail in educational realities; the processes of memorization and repetition continue to be highlighted, which in no way contribute to the achievement of significant cognitive development [8]. However, there can be seen, in the theses and academic works of university students, serious insufficiencies, such as the non-observance of problematic and/ or argumentative positions, that make it difficult to find the identity of the work. This question is nothing more than the result of a teaching process where the teachers themselves, even when they understand the relevance of critical thinking, very few
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incorporate it into their teaching processes [9], which, in the opinion of the authors, is an act of pedagogical irresponsibility, with the mission of training students under a socio-critical vision and to develop skills that become an instrument that allows understanding of the events that occur on a daily basis, facilitates the resolution of problems, and allows for making one’s own judgment, with overtones of validity [10].
11.1.1 Critical Reasoning as a Complex Thinking Skill Since its appearance in 1923, the Frankfurt School, which is also known as the Critical Theory of Society, has had its objectives well defined toward the need to break with positivist schemes in the analysis of social problems from a holistic perspective, where non-assessment or cold objectivity is impossible and where the context plays a determining role, whose purpose would be to “concretize theoretical and practical proposals in research (…) in an integral way, in body, mind, and spirit, through creativity and criticism of the heartless positivist science of the Enlightenment” [11]. These epistemic visions, although they broke traditional schemes, constituted a starting point to delve into reality from a complex perspective, taking into account the multicausality of facts, phenomena, and variables that are interrelated in any aspect of the context that is intended to be analyzed and to which attention is needed. The French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin, father of complex thought, emphasized the need to guarantee the development of thought processes and a basic understanding of the world as essential elements in the current era [12]. Morin’s legacy is fundamentally based on developing skills in students, for their development in life, including skills to integrate knowledge and analyze reality from the interrelation of all its elements in their relationship with the context, and therefore from inter- and multidisciplinary perspectives, far from any reductionist or fragmented vision. “This leads us to another important aspect within this approach: the systemic perspective is characterized by being interdisciplinary” [13]. According to Edgar Morin “awareness of multidimensionality leads us to the idea that all one-dimensional vision, all specialized, partial vision, is poor” [14]. These visions lead to a change in the traditional, rote perspectives of the teaching– learning process toward active learning to develop critical and creative thinking as complex thinking skills. Based on these references on critical and complex thinking and the problems surrounding the academic work of university students, the authors set out an objective: to value the critical visions in a selected sample of degree works of postgraduate students at the Israel Technological University. The analysis was focused on the theoretical referents of the titling works, the foundation of the ideas, and the theoretical-methodological coherence.
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11.2 Methodology The present study has as a background an investigation carried out on problematization in scientific research [15], where an analysis was centered around what it is to problematize in scientific research and conclusions were reached about existing insufficiencies in assuming critical positions in academic work and the lack of understanding, for many university professors, of what it means to problematize in research. Research was carried out at the Central University “Marta Abreu” of Las Villas in Cuba as part of the work of a postdoctoral degree on the performance of doctors in the process of training applicants for a scientific degree. The study was developed under a mixed approach, in which qualitative and quantitative techniques were used with an interpretive approach for a descriptive study. The analysis was carried out from two dimensions, which were separated only for the study, since the scientificity of the text lies in the integration of both the theoretical and methodological dimensions. Within the theoretical dimension, the analysis was focused on the following indicators: theoretical referents, justification of ideas, and coherence. The methodological dimension assumed two indicators: methodology and analysis of results. The sample was intentional, and it is considered necessary to specify that this type of sample, in correspondence with the inductive study, is non-probabilistic. The value of the sample, therefore, obeys the intention, the criteria established for its selection and not a numerical quantity: The sample was of an intentional type; the Master’s Degrees in Education mentioning ICT-mediated Learning Management and the Master’s Degree in Pedagogy at the Israel Technological University (UISRAEL), in Quito, Ecuador, were selected. The works under analysis belonged to the last cohort of both master’s degrees for the period 2021–2022. Being the most recent, they allowed us to take the results of this study as a starting point for future pertinent methodological analyses in the field of higher education. The following empiricallevel methods and techniques were applied. The participant observation: From the perspective of the researchers, tutors, and members of the panel of the Master’s Degree in Education, mention Management of ICT-mediated Learning and the Master’s Degree in Pedagogy at the UISRAEL during the years 2018 to the present (2022). Through the observations, it was possible to verify the development of the students in their defenses of their degree work based on the importance that they offered to the foundation and argumentation of their contributions. For this purpose, an observation guide based on the Likert scale was set up to assess the items that made up the observation. This scale assumes certain response options: Always, Almost Always, Sometimes, Almost Never, and Never. The question to consider is: “How is critical thinking verified in the works?” This is linked to the development of critical thinking dimension, according to the interpretive thinking of the researchers. In relation to the preceding question, six aspects or indicators were analyzed: theoretical references, justification of ideas, and scientific coherence.
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Content analysis: A total of 19 theses from the Master’s Degree in Education and ICT and 8 from pedagogy were analyzed, defended in the 2021 A semester (from April to September 2021). This analysis was oriented from the following question: How are the theoretical references that support the studies revealed in the contributions presented? In relation to the indicated question, the following indicators were analyzed: methodology and analysis of results. The methodological and source triangulation allowed us to compare the results obtained with other investigations, to analyze how the results of the present study correspond to previous studies, and thus reach generalizations. In the same way, the analysis of the institutional reality and the analysis of the theoretical and methodological referents consulted about critical thinking in the formative process of students in different higher education institutions were taken into account.
11.3 Results and Discussion Little development of critical thinking materialized in the degree work of the Masters of Education and Pedagogy, with results that correspond to those produced in other similar investigations, such as those of the authors [16], who express that the status is maintained or around traditional conceptions in relation to learning that comes from generation to generation. Both in the written notes of the sampled works and in the student presentations, the need to develop critical thinking skills and the need to use didactic and methodological strategies for their development are made explicit. However, this remains only in the discourse since, in practice, the following is verified. The theoretical referents are not supported correctly because, when citing an author, personal assessments are not appreciated, nor are analyses carried out or arguments expressed that reaffirm the positions assumed with respect to such referents. The ideas are not justified; they remain subjective because they are only stated without offering any treatment. The fragmentation of ideas is another constant issue that, more than the writing, affects the scientific coherence of the text. In this sense, in 98% of the works analyzed, only one subtitle or epigraph is declared to expose only one paragraph, without reference, such as the following example: “Pedagogy is the science supported by the so-called auxiliary sciences of pedagogy, which means that it is a complex process”; this example shows an empiricism that discredits the scientific nature of the work. Another very common example, verified in 60% of the works analyzed, is that of carrying out naive reconceptualizations of terms and concepts endorsed by the pedagogical sciences: “we understand that Didactics is (…)”, or “pedagogy is a discipline that is in charge of the teaching–learning process (…)”. In 60% of the degree works sampled, the theoretical corpus appears as a glossary of terms without internal coherence. Concepts with different meanings are used in the same work, such as “strengthening pedagogical processes” and “regulating pedagogical processes”; this creates contradictions in the very claims of the research
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and dissonances in the reader because it is not understood if it is intended to strengthen or regulate the pedagogical processes as an initially declared objective. Quotes from third-party authors are used, and on many occasions, they are incomplete references. Recognized authors and theorists are mentioned from a popular communicative perspective, such as “according to Vygotsky (…)”; “Watson expressed that (…)”; although the community to whom the text is directed recognizes these authors, who made important contributions to the psychological theories of learning, this gross error is far from the minimum requirements of scientific communication. Through this study, it was possible to appreciate that there are still great difficulties around making assessments and inferences, interpreting the data obtained, and contrasting them with the investigative references; a strong tendency toward empiricism and subjectivism is evident. In a study carried out on the development of undergraduate and postgraduate critical thinking at the University of Guadalajara, it also yielded similar results in that “critical thinking skills are not developed as expected” [17], and it is made explicit that “critical thinking is the opposite of haphazard and arbitrary thinking; it is reasonable, thoughtful, and it analyzes what is well founded” (op.cit). Contrary to these results, a critical perspective in research work needs problematizing, dialogic positions. In them, their authenticity and originality must be revealed, based on the dialogue that the author establishes with those referents, where their position is evidenced and shows how the findings and the contributions correspond with, contradict, or enrich that previous knowledge. When ideas are fragmented, when a subheading that only contains one paragraph is stated, when quotes from authors are superimposed indistinctly or, in the worst case, from a single author in an uncritical way, without evaluations in this regard, one is in the presence of a communicative naivety, of a lack of scientific culture. Edgar Morin compared reality with a kind of interweaving and interaction within a complex framework: “Complexity is, indeed, the fabric of events, actions, interactions, retroactions, determinations, and chances, that constitute our phenomenal world” [18]. These assertions lead us to consider that if reality is complex and contradictory, then the forms of analysis and representation used in the studies have to have the same characteristics. Hence, the analysis of social phenomena (education) must be seen through research from a holistic, integrating, and reflective dimension in relation to the context. Therefore, the comprehensive analysis of the context where the research is carried out and for which the proposal is developed in the postgraduate degree work in Education and Pedagogy must offer an integrating, multi-causal result derived from an evaluative, argumentative approach and not a simple declaration of the results of each question in a survey, whose claims are generalizations without going into depth; “The ability to argue is done through taking positions in favor of or against a certain topic, in addition to exposing the reasons for said position and supporting ideas and conclusions” [19]. Regarding the methodological insufficiencies, such as: The declaration of an alleged “mixed approach” is made mechanically, and it is wrongly argued that this mixed approach is due “to the use of qualitative and quantitative methods”. It is
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known that the use of methods and techniques is not what supports the assumption of a certain approach; on the other hand, it is very frequently seen that, under a declaration of an inductive, qualitative approach, in an intentional sample, the survey technique is only applied to less than 10 people; this demonstrates a lack of knowledge, both of the use of the survey, whose claims aim to obtain general results without going into depth, and of socio-critical visions, which require more inductive techniques to penetrate the depth of a small context. On the other hand, there is a lack of knowledge of the qualitative sample, whose selection criteria is intentional. There is a marked belief, in 95% of the works, to consider the reliability of the sample only from numbers and its quantitative proportion with a population, which denotes ignorance that the value of the intentional sample, not probabilistic, falls on selection criteria and not quantity; as expressed by the researcher [18]. “It is as if we judge the flavor of a shipment of lemons, only trying some” (p. 278). Likewise, in more than 90% of the works, the declaration of the theoretical methods together with the empirical ones can be evidenced, in formal terms, as an exposition or a slogan, without the foundation of the correct application of the same. It is known that it is impossible to carry out research without theoreticallevel methods or logical thinking skills: analysis and synthesis, induction-deduction, and logical history. For this reason, “its enunciation is redundant and unnecessary” [20]. On the contrary, critical thinking “allows us to improve the capacities of analysis, reflection, interpretation, argumentation, creativity, research, innovation, and permanent learning” (ibidem). Both the analysis of results and the proposal remain disjointed from the theoretical referents, which show empiricist, positivist positions that deny socio-critical visions. An overdimension of the quantitative results of the survey is verified, with a marked belief that “without numbers there is no reliability in the results”, above the inferences and qualitative assessments of an interview or another qualitative technique. Thus, it can be seen, for example, that to obtain information about the motivation for a subject or for the reading habit, it will only be enough to conduct a survey. This overdimension of the survey leads one to believe that a diagnosis of an educational context can be made from the mere application of a survey; this was verified in 70% of the sample analyzed. In said works, “diagnosis results” or “survey results” can be read interchangeably in the methodological part, where very beautiful graphs or descriptions of percentages can be seen without qualitative inferences about the meaning of these quantitative results. There is a marked belief that “data is only numbers” (data-numbers), and thus, qualitative data is dismissed. It is known that the etymology of the word data comes from the Latin “datum”, which means what is given; therefore, qualitative data, extracted from qualitative inductive techniques, is important for analysis in social research. Precisely delving into the realities and making assessments and inferences from the context that is analyzed requires the use of qualitative techniques that seek such aspirations, unlike the so-called quantitative objectivity, “because knowledge that is based solely on quantification and calculation cannot reveal what life means (…) many of the subjective traits of humanity” [21].
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In 99% of the works, the results are not triangulated and appear in a fragmented way, without an analysis, without evaluations, and without bibliographical support. It can be seen in all the works reviewed; only tables and a simple comment that remain without support: “50% of the respondents expressed that they feel motivated by the subject, while 50% said they did not feel motivated”. The proposals for solutions are made only taking into account the shortcomings found in the diagnosis, without taking into account the potential that may exist and that is not taken into account either when the diagnosis is made. Already from the specific objectives, it is openly declared: “diagnose the insufficiencies (…)”, which is obviously an error because both the insufficiencies and the potentialities must be within the results of the diagnosis and must constitute both important elements for the potentialities to eradicate and mitigate existing insufficiencies. In almost the entire chapter of the titling works dedicated to the proposal of the Master’s Degree in Education, a technical thought is evident; deficiencies are appreciated in its foundation, from the conceptions of the social sciences (education, pedagogy, psychology, and sociology), in contrast to a great load of graphs and articulation matrices, oversizing the use of technological tools for the development of the teaching–learning process of a certain subject. These proposals for solutions are evaluated by specialists, whose results are presented in simplistic and naive ways, such as “all the specialists rated the proposal as excellent” or “100% of the specialists thought that the proposal is pertinent and did not make any suggestions”. It goes without saying that the selection of specialists constitutes an essential element for the presentation of a result that takes into account the opinions and suggestions offered by them. In general, these insufficiencies, verified within the Master’s of Pedagogy and Education program, whose students work as basic and higher education teachers, become serious since they revert to insufficiencies in the formative process of teaching, “maintaining the status quo or around traditional conceptions about learning that come from generation to generation” [22]; insufficiencies that generally exist in the educational systems of the rest of the countries of Latin America, in addition to the multiplicity of problems; social, economic, and political. The traditional positions in the conduction of the teaching–learning process are evident, where students are mere repeaters of contents of the different subjects, decontextualized contents that are therefore devoid of meaning, where the qualification or the sum of points to pass becomes essential, and therefore, work is done (both by the teacher and the student) for the result, minimizing the importance of the teaching– learning process. An understanding of these issues is essential in assessing the need to offer greater emphasis to the work to develop critical thinking with undergraduate students of education careers in universities, “complemented with a complex epistemology of approach to social reality as the core axis to configure a reflexive rationale of acting for the good of society” [23]. Meanwhile, the gap remains between the directives, guidelines, and policies, in terms of development aspirations and pedagogical practice in institutions, where teachers are not yet sufficiently prepared to face such challenges.
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In global terms, and as it has been possible to appreciate in the results of the study, there remain great difficulties around making assessments, inferences, interpreting the data obtained, and contrasting them with the research referents; a strong tendency to empiricism and subjectivism is evident. In a study carried out on the development of undergraduate and postgraduate critical thinking at the University of Guadalajara, it also yielded similar results in that “critical thinking skills are not developed as expected” [24], and where it is made explicit that critical thinking does not correspond to haphazard and arbitrary thinking; it is reasonable, thoughtful; analyzes what is well founded” (Op.cit) (Table 11.1). In the content analysis, a total of 19 theses from the Master’s Degree in Education and ICT and 8 from pedagogy were analyzed, which shared the results of their research to qualify for the corresponding master’s degree in the corresponding semester, April to September 2021-A. Said analysis was oriented from the following question: How are the theoretical referents that support the studies revealed in the contributions presented?” In relation to the indicated question, the indicators were analyzed: methodology and analysis of results. It should be noted that directing the methodological process to achieve the analysis of the results is significant since it allows for discussion between the indicators consulted in the administration of the instrument and in contrast to the theory for the theoretical support that demonstrates the scientific rigor of the research done (Table 11.2). The results obtained show that 36.75% of the students always or almost always exercise higher-order cognitive processes that are linked to critical thinking skills, which are important since it produces logical-reflexive reasoning in the face of the Table 11.1 Dimensions and indicators of the Paseo a la Deriva questionnaire pilot version Dimensions
Indicators
Theoretical dimension
Theoretical referents, justification of ideas, and coherence
Methodological dimension
Methodology and analysis of results
Source self-made (2023)
Table 11.2 How is critical thinking verified in the works? Is this linked to the dimension development of critical thinking?
Content analysis: A total of 19 theses of the Master’s Degree in Education and ICT were analyzed Items
Alternative
1
Always
3
15.7
2
Almost always
4
21.05
3
Sometimes
10
52.6
4
Hardly ever
2
10.5
5
Never
0
0
Source self-made (2023)
Frequency
%
106 Table 11.3 How is critical thinking verified in the works? This is linked to the development of critical thinking dimension
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Content analysis: A total of 8 of pedagogy were analyzed Items
Alternative
Frequency
%
1
Always
1
12.5
2
Almost always
4
50
3
Sometimes
3
37.5
4
Hardly ever
0
0
5
Never
0
0
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reality studied in this case, while 63.1% sometimes or almost never apply critical thinking. These results demonstrate and support the need to propose the reinforcement of strategies for comprehensive reading, which helps to understand the information and produce a scientific text (Table 11.3). It is found that 62.5% of postgraduate students develop critical thinking in the preparation of degree work, while 37.5% sometimes apply this type of thinking in their research, with a frequency between high and medium, which promptly requires the reinforcement of academic activities to promote skills in the analysis of information based on logical and critical reasoning, especially in these future university professionals who have to demonstrate various theoretical and technical skills in the exercise of the functions that correspond to the academic title.
11.4 Conclusions The development of critical thinking must be established as one of the essential objectives within the training aspirations of higher education institutions given the current world context, which requires inclusive views and effective responses by competent professionals to global problems that afflict humanity. Critical thinking is an important attribute of scientific research, which must be developed based on active methodologies and supported by learning theories that break with traditional paradigms in the degree and be materialized throughout the undergraduate and postgraduate degree processes, as well as in the presentation and defense of the same. Despite the need for the development of critical thinking in students of higher education institutions, there are still serious shortcomings supported by consulted research, which served as important references in the present study at the Israel Technological University and were evidenced in the selected sample within the postgraduate level. There are still strong positivist and empiricist tendencies that obstruct and
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deny the essence of what constitutes critical views, such as theoretical and methodological fragmentation, both in form and content, as well as difficulties in integrating, making conclusions, assessments, or inferences, revealing contradictions, and making a deep holistic analysis of the educational phenomenon. Said results, produced in the present study, constitute important references and starting points to carry out actions from the methodological objectives of the degrees, particularly in the education degrees, due to the implications for the professional performance of the future graduate.
References 1. Castro, R.M., Cortaza, Franco, D.E., Villacis, P.W.: Critical thinking applied to research. Univ. Soc. 10(1), 336–342 (2018) 2. Rodari, G.: Grammar of Fantasy. The Art of Inventing Stories, Barcelona. Argos Vergara, SA (1983) 3. Diaz-Larenas, C.H., Ossa-Cornejo, C.J., Palma-Luengo, M.R., Martín, N.G.L.-S., Araneda, J.I.B.: The concept of critical thinking according to Chilean students of pedagogy. Sophia, Collect. Philos. Educ. 27, 275–296 (2019) 4. Zárate, P.R.A.: The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Some Implications for Business Schools, pp. 185–200. Palermo Business Review (2018) 5. Bezanilla-Albisua, M.J., Poblete-Ruiz, M., Fernández-Nogueira, D., Arranz-Turnes, S., Campo-Carrasco, L.: Critical thinking from the perspective of university professors. Pedagog. Stud. (Valdivia) 44(1), 89–113 (2018) 6. Benavides, C., Ruíz, A.: Critical thinking in education: a systematic review. Rev. Innova Educ. 4(2), 62–79 (2022) 7. UNESCO, Higher Education and Society. In: World Conference on Higher Education, Paris (1998) 8. Zambrano, S.B., Martínez-Daza, V., Tabares-Díaz, Y.A.: Evaluation of critical thinking in social work students from the Atacama-Chile region. Entramado 16(1), 152–164 (2020) 9. Tahriri, F., Abdorreza, A.: A survey of EFL teachers’ attitudes towards critical thinking instruction. J. Lang. Teach. Res. 6(2), 388–396 (2015) 10. Bolaños, J.G., Otero, J.N.M., Alonso, H.B.: The formation of socio-critical thought and its characteristics: educational need in Colombia. Univ. Soc. 12(1), 64–72 (2020) 11. López, O.E.V., Rodríguez, L.M.R., Gómez, Á.H.: Revisiting the Frankfurt School: contributions to the critique of the commodification of the media. Estud. Desarrollo Soc. 8(1) 12. Morin, E.: The Seven Necessary Knowledge for Education in the Future. UNESCO, Paris (1999) 13. Chaves, J.M.P.: Basic considerations of Edgar Morin’s complex thought in education. Rev. Electrónica EducareXIV(1), 67–75 (2010) 14. Morin, E.: Introducción al Pensamiento Complejo. Editorial Gedisa (2005) 15. Delgados, S.G., Molina, N., Moreno, I.: The problematization in scientific research. Varela Mag. 12(33), 1–11 (2012) 16. Minte-Münzenmayer, A., Ibagón-Martín, N.J.: Entramado 13(2), 186–198 (2017) 17. Hernández, L.C-., Guzmán-Sánchez, C.C.: Evaluation of the level of critical thinking in undergraduate and postgraduate university students. The case of a Center9 Thematic University of the University of Guadalajara. Rev. Educ. Desarrollo 39, 1–9 (2016) 18. Hernandez, S.: Investigation methodology (1997). file:///C:/Users/yquintero/Downloads/ Metodologia-de-la-Investigaci%C3%83%C2%B3n_Sampieri.pdf
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19. Morin, E.: Introduction to Complex Thought. Gedisa, Barcelona (2003); Yasaldez Eder, L.Z., Osorio, D.: The development of critical thinking in natural sciences with secondary school students in an Educational Institution of Pereira—Risaralda. Dialogues Educ. Curr. Issues Educ. Res. 9(16) 20. Álvarez, L.A.: The Art of Investigating Art. Oriente, Santiago de Cuba (2010) 21. Arias, R., Peralta, H.: Teaching, a door to complexity and criticism. Pedagog. Stud. (Valdivia) 37(1), 293–302 (2011) 22. Minte-Münzenmayer, A., Ibagón-Martín, N.J.: Critical thinking: forgotten competence in the teaching of history? Lattice 13(2), 186–198 (2017) 23. Zabala, J.J.A., Vallejo-Valdivieso, P.A., Argûelles, J.I.: Research and learning: challenges in Latin America towards 2030 ALTERITY. Educ. Mag. 16(1), 78–91 (2021) 24. Rodríguez, S.R., Cisneros, L., Guzmán, C.C.: Evaluation of the level of critical thinking in undergraduate and postgraduate university students. The case of a thematic university center at the University of Guadalajara. Educ. Dev. 63–71 (2016) 25. Castro, R.M., Cortázar, D.E.F., Villacís, P.W.: Critical thinking applied to research. Univ. Soc. 10(1), 336–342 (2018) 26. Aupud Rodari, G.: Grammar of Fantasy. Imprenta Juvenil, S. A., Barcelona (1973) 27. Albisua, M.J.B., Ruiz, M.P., Nogueira, D.F-., Arranz-Turnes, S., Campo-Carrasco, L.: Critical thought from the perspective of university professors. Pedagog. Stud. (Valdivia) 1(44), 89–113 (2018) 28. UNESCO, World Conference On Higher Education. UNESCO, Paris (1998) 29. Betancourth-Zambrano, S., Daza, V.M-., Tabares-Díaz, Y.A., Evaluation of critical thinking in social work students from the Atacama-Chile region. Entramado 16(1), 154–164 (2020) 30. Asgharheidari, F., Tahiri, A.: A survey of EFL teachers’ attitudes towards critical thinking instruction. J. Lang. Teach. Instr. 6(2), 388–396 (2015) 31. Likert, R., Edmondson, D.R.: A technique for the measurement of attitude. Archives of Psychology. Likert scales. In: A story. Conference on Historical Analysis and Research in Marketing, 1932 (2005) 32. Delgado, S.G., Molina, N., Moreno, I.: The problematization in scientific research. Varela 1(33), 437–447 (2012)
Chapter 12
Parallelism of Physical and Simulated Industrial Communication Network Development Martha Elizabeth Salazar Jácome , Wilson Edmundo Sánchez Ocaña , José Javier De la Torre Guzmán , and Héctor Sebastián Pérez Manosalvas
Abstract To confirm the reliability and accuracy of simulation models, physical and virtual processes are compared. Simulation models, which represent physical processes in the real world in a simplified, mathematically simplified form, are often used to predict how complex systems will behave under various conditions. However, how well simulation models capture the underlying physical processes is a key factor in determining their validity and accuracy. To validate simulation models and ensure their accuracy and reliability, a comparison of simulation results with experimental data from real physical processes is imperative. The co-simulation approach and the emulation approach are the two main approaches that can be used to communicate between physical and simulated processes. This method involves running physical and virtual processes at the same time and allowing them to communicate through a predetermined protocol. For the validation of complex systems where a complete and accurate simulation of the processes is required, the co-simulation approach is useful. Both strategies use communication protocols such as Modbus and Profibus, among others, to connect physical and virtual processes. Modbus and ProfiNet protocols are two co-communication protocols used in industrial automation and control systems. Modbus is based on a master–slave communication scheme in which a master device M. E. Salazar Jácome (B) · J. J. De la Torre Guzmán Departamento de Ciencias de la Ingeniería, Universidad Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] J. J. De la Torre Guzmán e-mail: [email protected] W. E. Sánchez Ocaña Departamento de Eléctrica y Electrónica, Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE, Latacunga, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] H. S. Pérez Manosalvas Departamento de Ciencias Administrativas, Universidad Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_12
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sends requests to slave devices (e.g., sensors) to read or write data. It uses a simple and efficient message structure that includes a device address, a function code, and a data set. Modbus messages are transmitted over a serial communication network, such as RS-485 or Ethernet. ProfiNet is a real-time industrial communication protocol used to connect automation and control devices, such as sensors, actuators, and controllers.
12.1 Introduction The most important priority in automation will always be connectivity [1]. In order to meet the complex and diverse communication circumstances in the industrial environment, industrial networks are made up of several network protocols [2]. The main difference between a pure embedded system and a computer peripheral system (CPS) is the existence of a communication network connecting the computer systems [3]. The susceptibility of the Modbus TCP/IP protocol is mainly related to two aspects. One is instability caused by a flaw in the protocol itself; the other is fragility due to misconfiguration. The Modbus TCP/IP protocol is first implemented in the industry control system and is isolated from the edge of the network protocol [4]. Industrial Ethernet has greatly improved the efficiency of in-industry production. Among them, due to the advantages of high performance and flexibility offered by ProfiNet and Modbus, they are the most widely used in industrial environments. ProfiNet is a complete solution for industrial automation fields involving faulttolerant detection, real-time communication, and motion control that require exceptionally high real-time performance [5]. The training model of the production line is controlled by a PLC device that uses the application to visualize the production process in real time and record the process data in the database [6]. Automation reduces the possibility of interruptions and saves energy and resources, so the latest trend in the industry is toward faster and more reliable automated systems instead of inefficient manual controls [7]. Industry monitoring using different technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Zigbee, or PLC-SCADA, can detect equipment condition and improve accuracy. This can help to detect errors early and improve communication between systems or processes [8]. The PLC control function is implemented in software and works in a PC environment. Compared with traditional PLCs, software PLCs have an open architecture, robust network capabilities, and advanced data processing capabilities. This technology can meet modern industrial automation requirements [9]. IoT networks are gaining momentum worldwide. These networks mainly use wireless technology, as a wired environment not only reduces ease of use but also increases the initial capital cost (CAPEX) due to the need to install new cables [10].
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12.2 Methodology A large amount of information on industrial networks was obtained that can be applied in an organized and coherent way for the development of the project. Figure 12.1 shows the proposed methodological framework for the configuration of three field protocols ProfiNet, Modbus TCP, C7 communication applied to simulated and physical processes. Using the communication channel of our server controller, which has three client controllers, each client has a different communication protocol, each with a different simulated process, the network is designed with PLC 1511-PN controllers that provide security in the application. Parallel to this, a server controller is implemented with two client controllers, each one with a different communication protocol and physical processes, this network is designed with PLC 1214 AC/DC/Rly controllers, and this will allow us to validate industrial networks in multi-variable processes.
Fig. 12.1 Proposed methodological framework of the network
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For a process control implemented in conjunction with a PC SCADA system, using the superior computer software Tia Portal, the WinCC screen can monitor and control in real time our industrial processes, while for local control is used a HMI display Simatic Comfort Panel TP700 where it will be linked in addition to all the protocols used.
12.3 Communication Network Configuration Simulated Processes The communication networks include different protocols that provide security in sending and receiving data; each protocol has different ways of configuration, which vary depending on the needs of the processes [11] (Fig. 12.2). Next, a communication network is made using three of the most implemented protocols in the industrial field; one of them is the aforementioned Modbus TCP/ IP communication protocol; for this implementation of a PID-level control process simulated using a SCADA system for better visualization, the next protocol implemented is S7 COMMUNICATION; a PID-level control process is implemented that
Fig. 12.2 Distributed system architecture
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will be simulated using Factory IO software, a 3D simulation software dedicated to the creation of industrial processes in real time [12]. As with the last protocol implemented, ProfiNet, in this protocol, we implement a packaging process using a sequence A+B+A-B; in addition, this process will be communicated through the FluidSIM software. The great advantage is that it also allows us to do real-time simulation; this in addition uses a communication protocol called OPC, which facilitates the link between Tia Portal and FluidSIM.
12.3.1 Configuration Modbus TCP/IP Communication and Simulated PID-Level Process Modbus TCP/IP is a protocol that provides security to the sending and receiving of data in a server/client architecture, where the server is the device that will receive information from the different elements that are in the network and concentrate them into one or different blocks of data as required, while the client is responsible for sending the information that the server needs [13]. The first step is to mount in the network two PLCs, our client and our server, as shown below. In addition to the PLCs that will be used with the other communication protocols, the following network is designed using PLC S7 1500 CPU 1511-1 PN. By connecting the PLCs and the SCADA, a PN/IE_1 network is established, which is short for ProfiNet/Ethernet Industrial and means that the devices have been properly connected [14]. Next, the MB server is configured for the simulated PIDlevel process. It will send data to the client as Boolean data that will help us control the switching on and off of the level plant, and it will receive data as the levels of each of the tanks present in the process. Two important parameters are configured in the MB_HOLD_REG, where the data block to be sent will be located, and the CONNECTION, where the IP address of the client to be connected is established. The MB_CLIENT unlike the MB_SERVER has important parameters to communicate, starting from the MB_MODE. This parameter helps to establish if you want to write as 1 or read as 0. When the client is reading information from the server, we set it as 0, the MB_DATA_ADDR establishes the register where you want to write. The Siemens brand in particular has a preset block of registers for the Modbus protocol ranging from 40,001 to 49,999, each register of 2 bytes. For our case, we will start from 40,001. The MB_DATA_LEN is set as the length of data to send, in our case UINT 8. MB_DATA_PTR is a parameter where the data block to write the information received or sent to the server is placed; CONNECT sets the IP address of the server. Once the two necessary blocks are configured, the simulation is performed using S7PLSIM Advanced, a software established by Tia Portal for the simulation of PLCs (S7 1500). The same simulation ensures that data is sent correctly to the SERVER/ CLIENT.
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12.3.2 Configuration C7 Communication and PID-Level Processing Simulated with Factory Communication C7, a protocol like ProfiNet, is very easy to configure, but it is important to take into account that the PLC where the PUT and GET blocks will be located must be the client; the GET block is in charge of reading the information provided by the server, and the PUT block is in charge of sending the information to the server [15]. Once the two PLCs are placed in the network, we proceed to create a GET block in the main client. Once inside the configuration, we select the PLC from where the information is sent, in our case the SERVER; the same being connected in the same network, PN/IE_1, will establish the connection S7_Conexion. The green indication is a signal that the S7 Connection has been done correctly. Once out of the configuration, two important parameters are established: ADDR_ 1 creates the data block from which the information is sent by the following configuration: P#DB5.DBX0.0 BYTE 32, the place from where it is read, is a DB5 that starts at Byte X0. 0; for our process, a 32-byte reading is performed, as can be seen in the block of Fig. 12.3. RD_1 establishes the block where the read data will be deposited using the following configuration: P#DB1.DBX0.0 BYTE 32, and it is of great importance that the data block will be of the same length in bytes for the communication to be performed properly. In the same way, we send information from the CLIENT to the SERVER for which it is necessary to create the PUT block, which, when entered in the configuration, establishes the same procedure. For the PID factory-level process, a sending of 11 bytes is made; just like the GET block, it is necessary to configure the ADD_1 parameter, which is where the information will be sent from the client to the server, using the configuration P#DB6.DBX0.0 BYTE 11 for our case. Once the two necessary blocks are configured, the simulation is performed using S7-PLSIM Advanced, a software established by Tia Portal for the simulation of PLCs S7 1500 in addition to the Factory IO software, to observe the process in 3D. The simulation is used to ensure that the data sent by the server and client is handled correctly.
12.3.3 ProfiNet Communication Configuration for the Packaging Process/FluidSIM ProfiNet, a protocol like S7 Communication, is very simple to configure; it uses two specific blocks: TSEND is the block that sends the information, and T_RCV is the one that receives it, either from the client or the server, or vice versa [16]. Once the two PLCs are placed in the network, if we want to send information from the server to the client, we proceed to create a TSEND block in the server main and a T_RCV block in the client main.
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When entering the configuration, we select the client where we are going to write the information we want to send, the sending process, which requires Boolean data that will serve to control the sequence off and on. Each protocol requires at least 2 bytes sent and received to work correctly. Once the connection is established, the external parameters of the TSEND block are configured. When configuring the connection parameters, the external parameter CONNECT will be activated automatically. The next parameter to be configured is DATA; here the block from which the data is sent is established. The T_RCV block requires the same configuration in the network; we select the PLC from where the information is sent or the interlocutor, and the external parameter DATA establishes the data block where the information received from the server will be placed. Once the two necessary blocks are configured, the simulation is performed using S7-PLSIM Advanced, a software established by Tia Portal for the simulation of PLCs S7 1500, in addition to the FluidSIM Pneumatics software, to observe the process in 3D. To do this, you need two pieces of software: NetToPLCsim and KEPServerEX 6 Configuration. The first software will establish the network with which we want to co-connect; in our case, this is the network of the S7-PLCSIM Advanced Simulator, which uses the NeworkIp Siemens PLCSIM Virtual Ethernet Adapter. The next step is to perform the configuration in the KEPServerEX 6 software, where it is necessary to create a new communication channel specifying that it will be done through Siemens TCP/IP Ethernet. Next, we will create two tags: IB0 will extract all the inputs that are in the FluidSIM and send them to the program located in the PLC, and QB0 will extract all the outputs that are in the Tia Portal and send them to the FluidSIM. Finally, we create the program in FluidSIM and activate the OPC connection option, select the OPC server in the KEPServerEX 6 software, and test that it works properly.
12.4 Communication Network Configuration Physical Processes The primary function of communication networks is to send data in a physical and secure manner, adopting one of the communication protocols mentioned above. The following is a physical communication network using two of the most widely implemented protocols in the industrial field to establish a speed comparison between the protocols. The first protocol implemented is COMMUNICATION S7, which will be used for the control of a machining process. As our last implemented protocol, ProfiNet, has a great deal of similarity to S7 Communication, but with different forms of configuration. In this protocol, a proportional control process for a pneumatic actuator located in the same laboratory is implemented (Fig. 12.3).
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Fig. 12.3 Configuration physical processes
12.4.1 ProfiNet Communication Configuration in the Proportional Control Process of a Pneumatic Actuator The automation technology uses the industrial Ethernet protocol known as ProfiNet. The data transmission between ProfiNet devices uses the ProfiNet TSEND frame type, the same that was used in the simulated processes; its configuration will be loaded from a physical IP network to the computer, the same that will be linked to the laboratory network known as WEB SERVER. The connection configuration this time is made between two Gama 1200 PLCs, which, as in the simulated process, use the same configuration logic. For our proportional control process, the server sends Boolean control data off and on the plant and a data in of the SET POINT value, which will be sent through the TSEND block to the client. For the configuration of the TRCV block, the same concept applied in the simulated process is applied; this process sends from the server/client 3 bytes, which helps perform the transfer properly. The same total of bytes must contain the same data block that is received by the PLC client.
12.4.2 Communication and Machining Process Configuration PUT and GET are communication protocols used in the ProfiNet context to exchange data between ProfiNet devices that use the Process Data Out (PUT) protocol to send data from a controller to an I/O device. The I/O device receives data from
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the controller, processes it, and then sends a response to the controller. Process data from an I/O device can be updated via PUT. In the configuration, as in the simulated process, the first step is to know from where the data is sent and who is going to receive that information. The SERVER will be in charge of controlling the CLIENT by sending Boolean data that contains activation and deactivation data for the machining process. For the machining process, a sending of 3 bytes is done as shown in Fig. 12.4, as well as the GET block, and it is necessary to configure the ADD_1 parameter, which is where the information is sent from the client to the server in the same way using the configuration P#DB4.DBX0.0 BYTE 3 for our case. We send information from the CLIENT to the SERVER because it is necessary for the creation of the PUT block, which when entering the configuration establishes the same procedure. For the machining process, we send 2 bytes, which will be the value of the machined parts. As well as the GET block, it is necessary to configure the ADD_1 parameter, which is where the information will be sent from the client to the server, using the configuration P#DB2.DBX0.0 BYTE 2 for our case.
12.4.3 PID-Level Control Process Configuration Located in the SERVER and Control with SCADA System and KTP 700 Screen In addition, a factory-level control process is added, which will be located in the SERVER, and controlled through the use of a SCADA/WINCC, and also being a physical process (Fig. 12.4). There is a KTP 700 screen that will facilitate communication and operation properly; on it, the curves of both the pneumatic proportional control process and the PID factory-level control process will be displayed. All the variables and data are directed to the SERVER which is in charge of controlling and supervising the CUSTOMERS, thanks to a SCADA system.
12.5 Analysis and Results The Modbus TCP, applied to the PID-level simulated process, presents a very fast and reliable response where different set points are sent from the SCADA system, the process does not present delays, and a communication and sending/receiving of data in real time was observed, defining the response of the process in milliseconds, which makes it a very suitable communication protocol for industrial applications. The ProfiNet protocol applied to the packaging process using a sequence A+B+AB-, using FluidSIM software, and to the physical process of proportional control of a pneumatic actuator, is reliable, efficient, and fast, and in the simulated process,
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Fig. 12.4 Control interface designed on a KTP 700 comfort screen
it is sent different set points instructions from the SCADA system, which has a minimum of 2 bytes of data sent so that there are no problems when establishing the communication link; in FluidSIM software, it has observed in real time the set point assigned immediately, which means that it is capable of handling both high-speed processes and slower processes. The physical process acts in a similar way, the set point command is sent from the SCADA system or from the local control, using the HMI screen Simatic Comfort Panel TP700, and the response to the set point change is fast in the order of milliseconds, where the pneumatic actuator control acts quickly, in addition to sending the actual position to be monitored from the SCADA system. Much of this depends on the computer, and it must have a device with enhanced functions, which helps to carry out a good communication. Communication S7 has the same characteristics as the ProfiNet protocol, and it applies PID-level control process through the Factory IO software and to the physical machining process; in the simulated process, when sending the set point from the SCADA system, there is an immediate response and without any delays, which establishes that the communication link between the Tia Portal software and Factory is developed in a reliable and efficient way. The physical process presents the same characteristics, the data is sent from the SCADA system or from the local control using the HMI screen Simatic Comfort Panel TP700, and a quick response to the different elements that make up the machining table is observed in a physical way, which establishes that the communication link between the PLCs and the process is developed in an efficient and fast way. In summary, both ProfiNet, Modbus TCP, and S7 Communication are communication protocols that can be used in industrial automation, and the response to
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sending/receiving data is developed in a fast, reliable, and secure way due to the different configurations required in each of the communication protocols. ProfiNet and S7 Communication are Ethernet-based real-time communication protocols, while Modbus TCP is a simpler communication protocol and is mainly used for process monitoring and control. The choice of a particular protocol came down to the specific requirements of the application and the existing network.
12.6 Conclusions The ProfiNet, S7 Communication, and Modbus TCP are communication protocols that can operate in parallel to data exchange between devices and control systems, which provide security in sending/receiving data applied to multi-variable process control for both physical and simulated processes. ProfiNet is a more advanced protocol that uses Ethernet for real-time and nonreal-time communication between automation devices. In addition, it provides advanced diagnostic and monitoring functions to facilitate troubleshooting and network maintenance. On the other hand, Modbus TCP is a simpler protocol used primarily for process monitoring and control. Although less advanced than ProfiNet, Modbus TCP is very popular due to its simplicity and ease of implementation. In general, the choice of protocol depends on the application if real-time communication is required, and if an Ethernet network is available, ProfiNet may be the best choice. If simpler communication is required and easy and fast implementation is preferred, Modbus TCP may be the best choice. A PLC industrial communication network is a fundamental tool in the automation of industrial processes, since it allows greater efficiency and precision in the control and monitoring of production processes. It is important to select and configure the network correctly, as well as to implement the appropriate security measures to ensure the continuity of the production process. Each communication protocol applied must be correctly configured, and the specification of the bytes sent and received is important for the different protocols to work correctly.
References 1. Mahdi, A.H., Hößler, T., Franchi, N., Fettweis, G.: Multi-connectivity for reliable wireless industrial communications: gains and limitations. In: IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), pp. 1–7. (2020). https://doi.org/10.1109/WCNC45663. 2020.9120512
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Chapter 13
Multidisciplinary Investigative Skills in the University Teacher Quintero Cordero Yolvy Javier , Bustillos Peña Mayra Alejandra , Molina Prendes Norma , and Alejo Pastora Betty
Abstract The objective of the study was to propose strategic guidelines to reinforce the multidisciplinary investigative skills of the university professor. It is descriptive, projective, with a field design, and trans-sectional—not experimental. The population consisted of 158 teachers from three universities in Quito. The sample was made up of 112 teachers. The data collection techniques were surveys and interviews, as well as questionnaires and structured interviews. The results determine limitations in multidisciplinary investigative skills, mainly in cognitive and participatory aspects. On the other hand, according to the interviews carried out, it was determined that teachers, along with having limited investigative skills, do not have enough time to undertake them. The importance of multidisciplinary research is recognized. Strategic guidelines were proposed to reinforce their investigative skills with a multidisciplinary approach.
13.1 Introduction The intention of this study is to respond precisely to the need to design strategic guidelines leading to the reinforcement of multidisciplinary investigative skills among university professors. In this sense, a diagnosis was previously made to learn about multidisciplinary research and what level of skills teachers have in the field of this investigative approach. For this, three universities in Ecuador were selected: two public and one private. It is considered important to carry out this research, based on the social responsibility of the university, given that research is the engine of development, but for it to be successful, teachers must have mastery of their investigative skills. Román et al. [9] carried out an investigation entitled “Scientific research skills of teachers from the Catholic University of Cuenca, Ecuador,” inquiring about the characteristics of the research skills of the teaching community of the Faculty of Q. C. Y. Javier (B) · B. P. M. Alejandra · M. P. Norma · A. P. Betty Israel University of Technology, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_13
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Biopharmacy. It is noteworthy that the predominant scientific degree corresponded to a master’s degree in science in various areas of knowledge (multidisciplinary). The results showed weaknesses in investigative skills, which leads to studies with very little impact on solving community problems. For their part, [1] carried out an investigation entitled “Multidisciplinary Intervention as a Learning Strategy in Health.” Its objective was to implement the teaching strategy of cooperative work, implementing multidisciplinary integration in students of the health area of the Catholic University of the Most Holy Conception of Chile. Students of kinesiology, nursing, nutrition, and dietetics were put into action, which formed work teams advised by a tutor. The results are consistent with the recognition by the students of the educational intervention. The best evaluated variables were the assessments of teamwork with other disciplines.
13.2 University and Research Within the framework of the III World Conference on Higher Education (2022) [2], universities are considered a public good, given their level of relevance to society in relation to solving its problems. In this order of ideas, it is perceived as an entity called to generate more open, equitable, and cooperative spaces in tune with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is also pronounced for the undertaking of learning, whose premise is to expand knowledge through interaction and cooperation between disciplines.
13.3 Investigative Skills with a Multidisciplinary Approach They refer to a set of knowledge and skills required to undertake studies related to academia, science, and technology, so university professors must possess and strengthen them with the preconceived idea of planning and carrying out innovative teaching practices capable of generating, in their students, effective thinking in favor of sustainable development [4, 10]. They are an essential part of their pedagogical training. This “becomes a practice that is built on the interactions, knowledge, and experiences in which the subject is present, that is, it belongs to that now that determines its action” (p. 10) [6]. The multidisciplinary approach is substantive for universities, hence the need to prepare and form academic research groups. It implies improving communication between students of different disciplines, encouraging participation in the creation of knowledge (collaborative work), and creating an environment conducive to learning with a constructivist approach. Investigating with a multidisciplinary approach requires greater training in specific aspects that define it; in the words of [4], it requires greater depth in pedagogical and didactic skills. An approach with other disciplines is required, with the help of psychology, psychopedagogies, philosophy,
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epistemology, and knowledge of new information and communication techniques. Multidisciplinary research is a collective work in which each member bets on a goal that is common, but uses their own methodological conceptions, which generates new perceptions from different perspectives and, therefore, knowledge that acquires greater relevance. In this sense, authors such as [3, 5, 7, 8] contemplate four aspects: pedagogical, cognitive, personal, and participatory. The pedagogical aspects constitute the modes of professional action of the teacher as an intervener in the didactic process. Here, the reflective capacity of the teacher in relation to the environment in which he finds himself becomes important. This exercise leads him to plan, design, and put into action the strategies required to solve the problems inherent to his educational work, sequentially integrating the theoretical foundation with practice and evaluating, with a constructive sense, the participation of students in the environment. Social object of study. The cognitive aspects are in correspondence with their professional training in the research area; in this sense, they must demonstrate specialized mastery of techniques, methods, and procedures to build knowledge, disseminate it to their students, and discuss it with their peers [4]. They are related to the intellectual capacity of the teacher at the service of their students: mastery over analysis, synthesis, decisionmaking, creativity, initiative, and community projects. It tries an approach toward other disciplines to get to know them and perceive how they contribute to the improvement of their practice, with the purpose of influencing the student so that they become aware of their creative and imaginative potential [3]. Authors such as [8] conceive a new research approach based on the application of investigative intelligence, “conceived as a set of abilities, skills, and attitudes to interact with the problems present in various social contexts.” (p. 14), which covers the orientation of thought, methods, epistemology, and research techniques. Linked to this is information literacy, which refers to the effective use by the teacher of new information and communication techniques through actions that seek the strategic use of information in order to build new knowledge with the mediation of technology. Using the information involves knowing how it is accessed, organizing it, evaluating it critically, and applying it in the context of the investigation. That is, a qualified search of the bibliography in the appropriate databases. In the field of personal aspects, the research teacher must be the bearer of conduct in accordance with inalienable principles and values, be responsible for their actions, make informed decisions, and have an attitude toward listening to others; this will allow them to be open to changes that may arise in the field of research [5]. The teacher must instill in his students respect for the different methodological guidelines that are used in the different disciplines, since each of them analyzes the problem that is the object of a solution from their own perception and means. Likewise, the participatory aspects are related to social practice; the teacher must always be open to dialogue with the actors of the investigative process. That builds trust and loyalty to the project. In this sense, communicating is not only necessary, but also it is essential. By exercising communication effectively, it will set in motion a creative force that injects fluidity into activities, solves difficulties, provides solidity and understanding, and is common to all disciplines, which is why communication
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is said to be multidisciplinary. Likewise, the teacher must be able to implement strategies for teamwork. Hence the need to organize, coordinate, and share relevant information to act with the working group. In such a way that there is a fruitful dialogue, work toward consensus and negotiation with the actors in the investigative process [7].
13.4 Methodology This is a study with a quantitative, descriptive, and projective approach with a nonexperimental cross-sectional field design. Descriptive because it is intended to know and study the characteristics of a particular situation. In this sense, it was possible to know the perceptions of teachers about their investigative skills under the multidisciplinary approach. It is projective because strategic guidelines are proposed to reinforce the investigative skills of university teaching staff. Likewise, it is considered field since the data collection arose directly from the subjects under study, and it is a non-experimental trans-sectional investigation since there is no manipulation of the data, which are captured at a certain moment. The data collection techniques used were the survey and the interview. The instruments used were the questionnaire and the structured interview. The questionnaire has five response alternatives: always (S), almost always (CS), sometimes (AV), almost never (CN), and never (N). The scores for each response are as follows: S = 5, SC = 4, AV = 3, CN = 2, and N = 1. The questions dealt with the application of investigative skills under the multidisciplinary approach: pedagogical, cognitive, personal, and participatory skills. For its part, the structured interview was recorded in a notebook and was applied to three directors of research, teaching, and community outreach from the three universities. They were all asked about the same topic. It is noteworthy that 100% of managers responded to it online. Likewise, both the teachers and the principals gave their consent for the application of the corresponding instruments. The population consisted of teachers from the three selected universities. At first, six universities were invited to participate in the study, but only three responded satisfactorily. The selection criteria were due to being located in the city of Quito and being one of the oldest (most prolific in research). The selected teachers were those who, according to the research department of the universities, carry out research and add up to a total of 158, of which 112 answered the questionnaire (70.88%) online, this being the sample to be used. It is noteworthy that a scale was designed to effectively measure the tabulated information. To this end, three attributes or levels of application of the skills were established. Such levels range from low, moderate, and high and point out the trend in the perception of teachers about what was asked. When performing the respective calculations, the low attribute is in a range of 1–2.43; the moderate ranges from 2.34 to 3.68; and the high level is situated in a range of 3.69–5.00. In the same way, the
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symbologies that express the tables are highlighted to the reader: Abs = absolute values; % = relative values; and options = options or alternative answers.
13.5 Results and Discussion Regarding pedagogical aspects, teachers were asked if they reflected on their professional work in relation to their teaching practice and if they applied strategies to encourage their students toward self-learning. The answers were located around the options sometimes and almost never, with 44.6% and 25%, respectively (see Table 13.1). At this point, the scale assumes a value of 3.26, representative of a moderate level of possession of the skills. Indeed, by not reflecting on his practice, the teacher loses the opportunity to see themselves within the educational framework. How am I doing it? Do the students really understand me? What can I do to improve? This has repercussions on multidisciplinary research since it could have insufficiencies in informing students that there is not only one way to acquire knowledge but that there are other options or pathways depending on the discipline in question. The opinion of the teachers corresponds in moderate terms to what was stated by Flores et al. [5] when they express that the reflective exercise on their practice leads them to plan, design, and put into action the strategies required to solve the problems inherent to their educational work, integrating in a sequential way the theoretical base with the practice, and to evaluate, with constructive sense, the participation of the students in the social environment object of study. Concerning the cognitive aspects, when asked if they were looking for an approach with other disciplines to know their possible contributions to the content of their practices and if they were trained in information literacy, the answers turned around the option almost never with 66.1% (see Table 13.2). The scale is located at 2.49, indicating a moderate level of multidisciplinary investigative skills. That is, the teacher is not exploiting his potential to the fullest. This insufficiency in the knowledge of other disciplines could limit their ability to explore other aspects of knowledge in order to improve the educational and research context. Table 13.1 Pedagogical aspects Options
S
CS
AV
Reflexive practice
26
23.2
9
8.0
Learning strategies
21
18.8
12
Total
47
21.0
21
Source Self-made
CN
Total scale
Abs values
% abs
% abs
% abs
% abs
%
53
47.3
24
21.5
112
100
3.33
10.7
47
42.0
32
28.5
112
100
3.10
9.4
100
44.6
56
25.0
224
100
3.26
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Table 13.2 Cognitive aspects Options
S
CS
AV
CN
Total scale
Abs values
Close up other 4 disciplines
3.6
12
10.7
27
24.1
Informational literacy
5
4.5
4
3.6
24
Total
9
4.0
16
7.1
51
% abs
% abs
% abs
% abs
%
69
61.6
112
100
2.56
21.4
79
70.5
112
100
2.41
22.8
148
66.1
224
100
2.49
Source Self-made
Likewise, since he is not informationally literate, he will undoubtedly have shortcomings in the research area. Your expertise is needed on how to search for the information. What database is going to be used? Observe and assume the information with a critical sense; what opinion does the source deserve? Is the information up-to-date? The opinion of the teachers enters, relatively, into contradiction with the one emitted by Refs. [3, 9] when they maintain that an approach with other disciplines is necessary to know them and perceive how they contribute to the improvement of their practice with the purpose of influencing the student to become aware of their creative and imaginative potential. Regarding personal aspects, when the group of respondents was asked if they act in their practice based on values and principles and if they are open to change, the answers were located around the options almost always and always with values of 36.6% and 33%, respectively. The scale is located in a range of 3–63 (see Table 13.3), representative of a moderate management of investigative skills. This implies the presence of insufficiencies to face multidisciplinary studies. Acting based on values and principles guarantees being in the presence of an equanimous teacher, aware that his behavior promotes behavior in that direction in the student; in that sense, he projects himself as a credible individual. On the other hand, being open to change is important; the teacher should not be pigeonholed in cognitive dogmas; everything is changeable; and the social dynamic determines it. Hence, the didactic process must be assumed not as a straitjacket but rather as something flexible that adapts to social and, above all, technological circumstances. The opinion of the teachers fits relatively well with that expressed by Table 13.3 Personal aspects Options
S
CS
AV
CN
Total scale
Abs values
% abs
% abs
% abs
% abs
%
Act based on in values
46
41.1
51
45.5
15
13.4
…
…
112
100
4.27
Open to change
28
25.0
31
27.7
53
47.3
…
…
112
100
3.30
Source Self-made
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Table 13.4 Participatory aspects Options
S
CS
AV
CN
Total scale
Abs values
Organize and share information
3
2.7
4
3.6
43
38.4
Communicates indeed
2
1.8
3
2.7
36
Total
5
2.2
7
3.1
79
% abs
% abs
% abs
% abs
%
62
55.3
112
100
2.53
32.1
71
63.4
112
100
2.42
35.3
133
59.4
224
100
2.48
Source Self-made
Flores et al. [5] when he expresses that the teacher must be the bearer of a conduct in correspondence with inalienable principles and values, be responsible for his actions, and have a positive attitude toward listening to others. the rest. Finally, and in relation to the participatory aspects, when the surveyed group was asked if they organize and share information and if they communicate effectively, the answers were located around the options sometimes and almost never, with values of 59.4% and 35.3%, respectively (see Table 13.4). The scale assumes a value of 2.48, representative of a moderate range. Certainly, the teacher must be very careful in managing to organize and share information, because this is of vital importance for the achievement of the goals and objectives of the project in question. Everyone is interested in knowing the development of the actions leading to the achievement of the objective, which is common to the group. On the other hand, communication must be effective, without any misunderstanding, because it indicates fluidity, strength, and confidence. The opinion of the teachers agrees, in part, with that issued by Refs. [5, 7] when they point out that effective communication is not only necessary, but also it is essential; therefore, when you express your ideas, you must do so clearly, in an understandable, and coherent way. Likewise, every teacher must be able to implement strategies to work as a team. Hence the need to organize, coordinate, and share relevant information to act with the working group.
13.6 Interview with the Directors of Research, Teaching, and Community Outreach First question: Is research with a multidisciplinary approach carried out at your university? Please explain your answer. Answers. Unanimously (100%), the interviewees answered that they have been carried out, but in a very low proportion. The reasons are that teachers are more interested in conducting research in their disciplinary field since; according to them, the time is less than that required to work with multidisciplinary studies. For them, the variable time is very important.
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Second question: Do you believe that this is the fundamental reason? Answers. In 100%, they expressed that the time variable is weighted. However, for multidisciplinary research, skills such as teamwork, communication, dialogue, and knowledge beyond their discipline are required, and these conditions are not equally met by university professors. In addition, the university is not obliged to carry them out, nor does it provide the conditions for them. Third question: Do you think that if the competent bodies established policies that favor the carrying out of this type of study, it would be much more evident? Answers. He (100%) responded positively. If the teacher is trained to consolidate his investigative skills in the multidisciplinary approach, a favorable environment is created for him, he is made aware of his management, and he is provided with time, this type of research would be carried out in greater proportion. The teacher fulfills an exhausting academic load, and this limits him when it comes to research. Fourth question: Do you consider that the multidisciplinary approach is of interest to the university? Answer. He (100%) responded that this is unobjectionable; it generates new and different visions regarding any problem of a social order, which would tend to more practical and viable solutions. Even the teaching practice is enriched, and the student graduates with a comprehensive training.
13.7 Conclusions It has been possible to verify that the surveyed university professors have limitations in their multidisciplinary investigative skills. Fundamentally, they are verified in the cognitive and participatory aspects, which is why they could have a negative impact on the achievement of successful multidisciplinary research. Specifically, serious limitations are observed in the approach to other disciplines in terms of information literacy, the exercise of reflection on their teaching practice, and the management of strategies in the educational context. Other shortcomings found are related to the organization, distribution of information, and effectiveness of communication. In another order of ideas, from the interviews carried out, it is detected that the teacher presents limitations in the possession of skills for the multidisciplinary investigative approach, along with not having the necessary time since he is overloaded with hours in teaching. The importance of this type of investigative approach and the implementation of national policies that promote teacher training and create effective conditions for it are recognized. Due to all of the above, it is urgent to propose alternatives to reinforce investigative skills with a multidisciplinary approach among university teachers.
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13.8 Proposal of Strategic Guidelines to Reinforce the Investigative Skills of the University Professor, Under a Multidisciplinary Approach • Create a multidisciplinary investigative culture in the university teacher. It is necessary to understand the imbrication that exists between teaching and research. One cannot exist without the other. If a teacher is permanently dedicated to teaching classes without investigative support, he is not in the right place, nor is he doing the things that are expected of him. That has to be understood. – Link up with multidisciplinary researchers skilled in learning how to learn. – View specialized videos on multidisciplinary research. • Adequately train university teachers in multidisciplinary research. Emphasizing all the skills required for this purpose: reflection on their practice, planning, design, and application of strategies; learning about other disciplines; information literacy; epistemological training; knowledge management; organization; information analysis; effective communication; group dynamics; openness to change; leadership; teamwork; definition of objectives; motivation; and proactivity. • Create the necessary time conditions for the teacher to dedicate himself to research. Teachers cannot be required to investigate if they are overloaded with classes. • Create, through the relevant authorities, educational policies in higher education that aim to promote multidisciplinary research. • Allocate financial resources to carry out multidisciplinary research. In this way, the teacher is encouraged to participate in applicable research for the benefit of society.
References 1. Barrientos, A., Arriagada, L., Navarro, G., Troncoso, C.: Intervención multidisciplinaria como estrategia de aprendizaje en salud. Fundación Educación Médica 23(2), 69–73 (2020). https:// scielo.isciii.es/pdf/fem/v23n2/2014-9832-fem-23-2-69.pdf 2. Conferencia Mundial de Educación Superior. Informe de política sobre Educación Superior. Rev. Cubana Educación Super. 41, 3 (2022). https://revistas.uh.cu/rces/article/view/242 3. Díaz, K. La multidisciplinariedad como clave del éxito en el docente en siglo XXI. Vocetys (2019). https://www.cetys.mx/noticias/la-multidisciplinariedad-como-clave-del-exito-del-doc ente-en-el-siglo-xxi/ 4. Fernández, L., Carcausto, W., Quintana, B.: Habilidades investigativas en la educación superior universitaria de América Latina: Una revisión de la literatura. PC 7(1), 2–23 (2022). https:// doi.org/10.23857/pc.v7i1.3464 5. Flores, M., Loaiza, A., Rojas.: Rol del docente investigador desde su práctica social. INDTEC, C.A. 5(15), 106–128 (2020). https://doi.org/10.29394/Scientific.issn.2542-2987.2020.5.15.5. 106-128 6. Gómez, L., Pulido, O.: La Pedagogía y su presente: umbrales y relaciones. Prax. Saber 7(13), 9–14 (2016). https://doi.org/10.19053/22160159.4157
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7. Kiernan, L., Ledwith, A., Lynch, R.: Design teams management of conflict in reaching consensus. Int. J. Confl. Manage. 31(2), 263–285 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCMA-062019-0097 8. Pirela, J., Almarza, Y.: La inteligencia investigativa y sus posibilidades de desarrollo desde el currículo universitario en (Fontaines, T y Barrera A Coords) Inquietudes Metodológicas. Editorial Utmach (2018). file:///C:/Users/MEGAPC/Downloads/Cap.1La%20inteligencia%20investigativa%20y%20sus%20posibilidades%20de%20desarrollo%2015 9. Román, C., Hernández, Y., Andrade, D., Baculima, J., Tamayo, T.: Habilidades científico investigativas de docentes de la Universidad Católica de Cuenca. Panorama Cuba Salud 201 12(1), 32–39 (2017). https://www.medigraphic.com/pdfs/cubaysalud/pcs-2017/pcs171f.pdf 10. Yangali, V., Vásquez, M., Huaita, D., Luza, F.: Cultura de investigación y competencias investigativas de docentes universitarios del sur de Lima. Rev. Venez. Gerencia 25(91), 1159–1179 (2020). https://biblat.unam.mx/hevila/Revistavenezolanadegerencia/2020/Vol.% 2025/No.%2091/27.pdf
Chapter 14
Development of a MATLAB® MOOC to Enhance the Computational Skills of Students Vladimir Avalos-Bravo , Jorge Toro-González , and Elizabeth Velazquez-Morales
Abstract Education is one of the primary blocks for the development of any country; many technological advances have been made through applied science in branches such as engineering. These developments have allowed society a better standard of living, hence the importance of bringing students to use new tools. In Mexico, Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) is a cutting-edge educational institution that seeks to promote education and technological innovation through its majors. To improve the educational quality of students, the IPN acquired a license for MATLAB so that the community could use this powerful tool that enables a more profound and clearer understanding of concepts through advanced visualizations and simulations. Likewise, the IPN, through the Virtual Education Direction, developed a MOOC to take advantage of this resource through a self-managed, asynchronous, and flexible platform with customizable properties based on edX technology. The MOOC titled “Learn MATLAB” was developed with the students, professors of the institution, and Mexican society in mind. This MOOC complies with the requirements for elaborating digital teaching resources established by the institute. The elaboration process, as well as the instructional guide and its development, is documented in this article, as well as the conclusions of the development and testing phase of the MOOC.
V. Avalos-Bravo (B) Instituto Politécnico Nacional, CIITEC-IPN, SEPI-ESIQIE, UPIEM, SARACS Research Group ESIME Zacatenco, Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] J. Toro-González Instituto Politécnico Nacional, ESFM, Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] E. Velazquez-Morales Instituto Politécnico Nacional, SEPI-ESIQIE, Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_14
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14.1 Introduction Nowadays, there are a lot of MOOC platforms—edX, Coursera, Future Learn, Udemy, Openlearning, Standford Online, Yole, etc. [1]. The online courses are integrated into the training programs for senior students whose knowledge and skills in their specialty are high enough to comprehend the information given and do tests. Although courses are intended for continuing education of specialists, they may also be successfully used to improve language skills [2]. At Mexico-Instituto Politecnico Nacional, a platform based on edX technology was developed last year to host MOOCs that could be offered to the community, so they can start learning at their own pace [3]. It is essential to know the technical and pedagogical criteria that allow the development of an excellent academic course. With the increasing adoption of distance learning due partly to the pandemic, many universities turned to these resources to support the student community. An example of these MOOCs is Sidney University, launching the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Introduction to Calculus in December 2018 [4]. Despite these new modalities’ success, the resources developed to improve learning methodologies are insufficient. The lack of distance learning tools is evident by doing a literary review in scientific databases such as Web of Science and Scopus. With these new modalities that Education 4.0 has as a reference, universities, as well as companies, must promote the use of this learning methodology through these platforms to promote educational innovation. A Digital Didactic Resource (DDR) is defined as all educational content presented in digital format, which serves as sustenance and or pedagogical support to promote learning in their different modalities [5]. MOOCs are classified as digital teaching resources due to their nature of training and learning through educational platforms. However, to develop them, it is essential to know the stages for the design of these resources.
14.1.1 MATLAB® Software as a Learning Resource at IPN In 2019, the IPN bought a MATLAB® and Simulink® Campus-Wide License providing unlimited access to the most up-to-date suite of MATLAB® and Simulink® products to all faculty, staff, students, researchers, and collaborators, on and off campus, on any device. MATLAB® is used from all disciplines in hundreds of educational and research institutions worldwide [6]. MATLAB® is a numerical computation and programming platform that millions of engineers and scientists use to analyze data, develop algorithms, and create models [7]. With MATLAB® , engineers and experts from various sectors have deployed thousands of machine learning applications, as well as have managed to incorporate deep learning into applications, both in the design of algorithms and in the preparation and labeling of data or code generation and its deployment in integrated systems [7]. The first MATLAB® (the name is short for “Matrix Laboratory”) was not a programming language. Written
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in Fortran in the late 1970s, it was a simple interactive matrix calculator built on top of about a dozen subroutines from the LINPACK and EISPACK matrix software libraries. There were only 71 reserved words and built-in functions. It could be extended only by modifying and recompiling the Fortran source code. Still, nowadays, there are over 60 Toolboxes, many programmed in the MATLAB® language, providing extended capabilities in specialized technical fields [8].
14.1.2 Students’ Situation at Instituto Politecnico Nacional Instituto Politecnico Nacional (Mexico-IPN) is a public educational institution created to achieve the social progress of the nation, through education, economic, scientific, technological, cultural, and political independence, following the historical objectives of the Mexican Revolution, contained in the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States [9]. IPN houses 28 higher education schools, 20 higher middle technical schools, and 18 research centers, with an enrollment of 213,373 students [10]. Despite the professional training of the teachers, as well as the experience of the researchers, there is a high number of failed subjects. Many times, these types of problems arise because students cannot visualize the mathematical representations of the physical and chemical phenomena that happen around them and are essential for engineering education. MATLAB® software is a tool that serves to represent graphically and simply, the different mathematical problems that are taught in the different areas of specialization in the institute and mitigate the failed subjects’ rates in learning units such as calculus, among others. Table 14.1 shows a decrease in the dropout rate, which can be attributed to the transition to using these technologies. However, much of the relevant information for using these tools, such as manuals, tutorials, examples, exercises, and the online training suite MathWorks Inc provides [11], is primarily in English, limiting the use to only bilingual students. We conceived the creation of a MOOC in Spanish to address these challenges. Moreover, the MOOC will facilitate learning MATLAB software in schools without a MATLAB unit in their curriculum.
14.2 Instructional Design and MOOC Development Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) allow teaching and learning for everyone. People from any learning background can join any courses offered through MOOC platforms. Although learning materials are offered for free, learning retention and engagement were consistently low [15], even when well-known instructors made the MOOCS. Many recent studies tried to understand the suitable instructional design in MOOC to improve learning engagement and retention [15]. There have been many ongoing debates on the instructional design in MOOC that could support the diversity
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Table 14.1 Dropout students at Mexico-IPN in the last four years [10, 12–14] Failed students Tot.al
%
Engineering and mathematical physical sciences
22,296
32.54
Interdisciplinary
10,068
14.69
Biological medical sciences
2930
16.56
Social and administrative sciences
5929
29.16
Year 2018
Year 2019 Engineering and mathematical physical sciences
20,569
28.96
Interdisciplinary
9378
13.20
Biological medical sciences
3069
17.61
Social and administrative sciences
4998
26.15
24,746
21.70
Interdisciplinary
9378
12.35
Biological medical sciences
3038
16.15
Social and administrative sciences
3403
17.86
Year 2020* Engineering and mathematical physical sciences
Year 2021* Engineering and mathematical physical sciences
24,746
21.70
Interdisciplinary
9378
12.35
Biological medical sciences
3038
16.15
Social and administrative sciences
3403
17.86
*Data reported having the same values during those years [13, 14]
of massive learners in a course at one time [15]. This instructional design was carried out following Virtual Evaluation Directorate technical-pedagogical criteria. The steps to carry out a technical-pedagogical evaluation for a Digital Didactic Resource begin with informative advice from the Department of Research and Innovation of the Directorate of Virtual Education. This consultancy is carried out by a group of elements comprising a production cell: an Instructional Designer or Pedagogue, a Style Corrector or Graduate in Communication Sciences, a Visual Developer or Web Programmer, a Graphic Designer, and the Resource’s Author. Once the details of the development have been established, the author elaborates a script containing information about the resource and animation ideas to make the MOOC interactive. While the author carries out these activities, the second stage, called follow-up advice, is formed, in which the members of the production cell resolve the author’s doubts. The third stage consists of a consultancy before the technical-pedagogical evaluation to prepare the Digital Didactic Resource script and thematic content and thus move on to the next stage, the technical-pedagogical evaluation.
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Fig. 14.1 Technical-pedagogical evaluation procedure of a digital teaching resource [16]
The technical-pedagogical evaluation consists of a series of stages that evaluate the MOOC’s thematic content and scope. First, the members of the production cell review it to subsequently elaborate an opinion with an assessment of the resource, as shown in Fig. 14.1: 1. DEV receives the evaluation request letter with the annexes. 2. The research and innovation department reviews and validates the application and annexes, to later create a file and classify it. If the author accepts the classification given to the resource, move to point 3. Otherwise, an official notice of inadmissibility is issued. 3. Specialists made up of the members of a production cell are assigned for the technical-pedagogical evaluation of the resource based on the criteria established by DEV. 4. The evaluation report and preparation of an official response to the Academic Unit is integrated and signed with a copy for the requesting author. 5. In the trade, an evaluation is issued, and with a score that if it is less than 80, the evaluation issues recommendations for improvement. It is assigned a fair, good, or excellent rating if it is higher.
14.3 Discussion and Results Once the resource has been approved and validated, a virtual space is requested at the moocs.dev.ipn.mx platform built under an edX environment but on an alternate platform located at the URL moocs.studio.dev.ipn.mx. Here, the construction of the MOOC will be carried out with the script and the instructional design generated from the technical-pedagogical evaluation and following its structure. Author: Roberto Vladimir Avalos Bravo Resource Name: MOOC Introduction to the use of MATLAB® Type of Digital Teaching Resource: Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
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Date of elaboration: February 25, 2022 Resource Utility: This course promotes learning by integrating concepts, information analysis, problem-solving, and case studies using computational tools, such as MATLAB® software. Scheduled time to take the MOOC: 48 total hours: 12 h a week for four weeks or the equivalent of 2 h a day for 24 days. Who is it for? To everyone interested in learning MATLAB® for mathematical calculations and graphing, as well as help in solving engineering problems. Description of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that the participant must have: mastery of arithmetic operations. Management of calculation tools, knowing how to propose algorithms for solving problems, and mastery of some diagramming techniques. Discipline, Creativity, and Enthusiasm. The Objective of the MOOC: The participants will acquire basic MATLAB® programming skills. In addition, they will learn the software’s different functionalities through its toolboxes and libraries and its potential to develop solutions to engineering problems based on Computational Thinking. Form of Work and Evaluation: The introduction to MATLAB® MOOC is selfmanaging and self-evaluative since the participant, as she progresses in each module, will obtain an evaluation and be able to carry out each activity at her own pace. The participant will get a score at the end of each didactic activity. The MOOC provides screens that simulate the MATLAB® software environment. Support Resources: Software screenshots and presentation slides in PDF format are used to familiarize the student with the different libraries, toolboxes, and expected results. Didactic Sequence: Unit I, Introduction to the use of MATLAB® Software (12 h) Activity Basic Operations, Scalar and Vector Magnitudes, Matrix Operations, m files and functions, Learning Exercises on Unit I, Unit Exam. Unit II, Graphics (12 h) 2D Graphs Mathematical, 3D graphics, Animations, Learning Exercises on Unit II, Unit Exam. Unit III, Mathematics and Symbolic Mathematics (12 h) Systems of Linear Equations, interpolation, Differential, and Integral Calculus, Learning Exercises on Unit III, Unit Exam. Unit IV, Control Structures (12 h) Programming Codes, Mathematical Files Guide, Unit Exam. Activities: Learning Exercises, Unit Evaluations, and Satisfaction Survey. Final Evaluation: The average value of the topics, exercises, and evaluations will be obtained. Bibliographic References: Moore Holly. MATLAB for engineers. First Edition, Pearson Education, Mexico, 2007. 624 pages. ISBN 978-970-26-1082-3, Nieves Hurtado Antonio and Domínguez Sánchez Federico C. Numerical Methods Applied
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Fig. 14.2 Course structure on edX platform
to Engineering, 3rd. Edition, Grupo Editorial Patria, Mexico, 2007. 708 pages. ISBN 978-970-817-080-2 (Fig. 14.2). It will be easier for the student to carry out the tasks and exercises marked in the script since they will be able to work simultaneously with the contents of the MOOC and carry them out with a MATLAB® license, present in versions for smartphones such as MATLAB® . Mobile, in the case of the student community and teachers with the MATLAB® license for standalone computers or with the ease of use of the license in the web version through MATLAB® online. They can work in a simple and fast way, using the MOOC as a tool and as a learning guide, working in real time with the support of the license in the most up-to-date versions of the software (Fig. 14.3).
14.4 Conclusions MOOCs are resources intended to facilitate learning certain topics moderately. The MOOC was designed to learn the guidelines, workflows, and concepts that are handled in the MATLAB® software, which allows practicing with the program or, if it has been used before, reaffirming previous knowledge about its operation through practical examples. Furthermore, this MOOC was developed to be completed in a period of approximately 48 virtual or distance hours to take into account the student’s daily activities in such a way that they can spend enough time a week to read the content and review the examples.
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Fig. 14.3 MOOC view in Chrome browser
The lack of learning retention and engagement with the course caused students to eventually drop out, which is why the Virtual Education Directorate performed the instructional design. Mexico-IPN will have a greater reach in innovation fairs and specialized learning topics by developing MOOCs. Generating content in different languages would allow for greater adoption. In this case, developing a MATLAB® MOOC in Spanish will overcome the language barrier. Moreover, in Latin America, different universities count with the MATLAB Campus-Wide License, thus strengthening the collaborative networks. This MOOC will attract a vast audience, including teachers and other professionals who need to improve their computational skills and people of all ages worldwide who may be curious about using this tool. We design this MOOC to do so quickly and easily. Acknowledgements This project was funded under the following grants: SIP-IPN: No-20230046 and the support of CIITEC Instituto Politecnico Nacional, with the help of Cris Lapierre and Esperanza Linares Guerrero from MathWorks and Hernan Perez Flores.
References 1. Shcherbinin, M.N., Kruchinin, S.V., Ivanov, A.G.: MOOC and MOOC degrees: new learning paradigm and its specifics. Int. Trans. J. Eng. Manage. Appl. Sci. Technol. 10(19), 10A19K, 1–14 (2019) 2. Nadezhda, N. Sokolaeva et al.: Mooc-based for science of medicine teaching. Int. Trans. J. Eng. Manage. Appl. Sci. Technol. 11(9), 11A9L, 1–8 (2020)
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3. Avalos-Bravo, V., Gómez, S.C., Nogueda, I.J., Contreras, J.I.R.: Open edX as a learning remote platform for Mexico City-IPN. In: Mata-Rivera, M.F., Zagal-Flores, R., Barria-Huidobro, C. (eds.) Telematics and Computing. WITCOM 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol. 1659. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-180828_12 4. Easdown, D.: Reaching out through the MOOC introduction to calculus. In: 8th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd’22), pp. 1253–1261. (2022). https://doi. org/10.4995/HEAd22.2022.14428 5. Didactic Digital Resources at DEV IPN. https://www.ipn.mx/as-sets/files/dev/docs/DII/Clasif icacion-RDD.pdf/. Accessed 25 Feb 2023 6. Educational Software at IPN. https://www.ipn.mx/dcyc/computo/matlab.html/. Accessed 25 Feb 2023 7. Matlab in Spanish. https://la.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html?s_tid=hp_prod-ucts_m atlab/. Accessed 26 Feb 2023 8. Cleve, M., Little, J.: A history of MATLAB. Proc. ACM Program. Lang. 4(HOPL), Article 81, 67 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1145/3386331 9. Instituto Politecnico Nacional. https://www.ipn.mx/comunidad/organizacion-y-estructura/. Accessed 26 Feb 2023 10. Anuario Estadistico IPN 2018. https://www.ipn.mx/assets/files/coplaneval/docs/Evaluacion/ AnuarioGeneralEstadistico2018ok.pdf/. Accessed 26 Feb 2023 11. Matlab Courseware. https://la.mathworks.com/academia/courseware.html/. Accessed 26 Feb 2023 12. Anuario Estadistico IPN 2019. https://www.ipn.mx/assets/files/coplaneval/docs/Evaluacion/ ANUARIO_2019.pdf/. Accessed 26 Feb 2023 13. Anuario Estadistico IPN 2020. https://www.ipn.mx/assets/files/coplaneval/docs/Evaluacion/ Anuario_2020.pdf/. Accessed 27 Feb 2023 14. Anuario Estadistico IPN 2021. https://www.ipn.mx/assets/files/coplaneval/docs/Evaluacion/ ANUARIO_2021.pdf/. Accessed 27 Feb 2023 15. Shukor, N.A., Abdullah, Z.: Using learning analytics to improve MOOC instructional design. Int. J. Em. Technol. Learn. (iJET) 14(24), 6–17 (2019). https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v14i24. 12185 16. IPN-DEV Technical Pedagogical Criteria. https://www.ipn.mx/assets/files/dev/docs/Evaluacio nRDD/Criterios-RDD/Criterios-pedagogicos-curso-en-linea-polilibro.pdf/. Accessed 27 Feb 2023
Chapter 15
Asking Higher Education Students to Write Research Case Studies—A Way to Develop Engagement and Critical Thinking Laura Tallone , Sara Pascoal , and Marco Furtado
Abstract The use of case studies in some higher education programmes has been well established since the 1950s, particularly in those related to management and the health sciences. In the humanities, however, though the case study is an essential form of scientific inquiry, its introduction in the classroom is not as frequent. Moreover, the standard pedagogical use of the case study usually consists of the presentation of a case, in order to encourage creative thinking and develop solution-seeking strategies to an already concluded description of a real or hypothetical scenario. This paper discusses the potential benefits of asking higher education students to write their own case studies, a practice introduced in 2020 in the course units of French/German/ Spanish Culture for Business II, of the MA in Intercultural Studies for Business lectured at ISCAP (Porto Polytechnic). Because of its emphasis on interpretation, case study writing may help students develop their skills in data collection and analysis, powers of observation, and critical thinking. In addition, due to the characteristics of this text type, skills in storytelling and creative writing may also be enhanced. After reviewing the pertinent literature on the subject, the authors illustrate some of the advantages of this teaching method by going through some actual examples of short case studies written by their students and already published.
L. Tallone · S. Pascoal (B) · M. Furtado CEI—ISCAP-P.Porto, Porto, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] L. Tallone e-mail: [email protected] M. Furtado e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_15
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15.1 Introduction Case analysis and discussion is a well-established teaching method in practiceoriented fields [1], such as law, health sciences, management, education, and social work, as it helps develop students’ problem-solving strategies, promotes critical thinking abilities, and allows for the integration of previous theoretical knowledge in order to find possible solutions. It is also argued that the use of case studies in higher education has the potential to encourage experiential learning, as described by David Kolb [2], and “more importantly, to foster skills necessary for self-directed learning” [3]. In addition, the use of case studies in the classroom can improve students’ ability to synthesise concepts across disciplines and to establish connections with real-world issues [4]. Typically, the case study teaching method consists of the presentation of information about practical situations. The case may be an actual or hypothetical scenario, which students observe and analyse, in order to make recommendations leading to the solution of a problem or of a theoretical or conceptual issue [5]. Usually developed as a group discussion-based session, case studies also engage students in thinking and communicating in a clear and professional manner [1]. As teaching cases do not necessarily follow any specific research procedures, they usually fall within the category of non-research case studies, together with other forms of popular case studies, as they appear on the media [6]. The advantages of these sub-genres, as pointed out above, have turned them into widely used educational tools. The teaching potential of the research case study, however, particularly when produced by higher education students themselves, has not been sufficiently explored. This paper therefore deals with some advantages of asking students in postgraduate programmes to write research case studies, on the basis that, in addition to being an essential form of scientific inquiry (that should be mastered in a number of professional practices), their emphasis on observation and interpretation makes them an important tool to help students develop their skills in data collection and analysis, powers of observation, and critical thinking. In addition, due to the characteristics of this text type, skills in storytelling and creative writing may also be enhanced [7].
15.2 ISCAP’s MA in Intercultural Studies for Business The master’s programme in Intercultural Studies for Business (MaISB), lectured at ISCAP, Porto Polytechnic, provides in-depth training with a business-focused approach, to help students develop the practical, analytical, and critical thinking abilities necessary for effective cross-cultural communication as well as the financial viability of knowledge and entrepreneurship in the field of culture. This programme uses interdisciplinary techniques and the use of ICT to present a novel approach to the humanities. In line with the emerging epicentres of economic flows and their agents, it develops professionals capable of independent, efficient, and integrated performance
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in intercultural contexts. These professionals can implement initiatives for crosscultural understanding in business practise. MaISB’s goals and competencies focus on the need to create highly specialised output profiles that can meet market demands globally and be incorporated into multinational corporations, growing domestic and foreign companies, as well as the creative and cultural industries, NGOs, local and national public services, international organisations, e-business and e-commerce, educational institutions, tourism enterprises, and international marketing, with a focus on e-business and e-commerce. Finally, MaISB offers cultural training that is centred on the new paths of global economic expansion, giving equal weight to the modern postcolonial peripheries (or new centres) and the centres from which cultural matrices once emerged. MaISB is aware that centre and periphery are now interchangeable concepts that are constantly being renegotiated. MaISB recognises that knowledge of culture is a valuable resource, an asset to any firm with global aspirations, a subject for commercial and economic growth, and a means by which graduates can have a high potential for employment both domestically and internationally.
15.3 Why Give Students Written Assignments Writing has never come easy, but it seems to be a unanimously acknowledged fact that the quality of students’ writing has been falling noticeably. Organising and developing ideas organically in a text may appear as an unsurmountable difficulty. Moreover, as already pointed out by Mary Lea and Brian Street twenty-five years ago, students’ levels of academic literacy are also decreasing [8]. In spite of today’s ready availability of bibliographical sources through the internet, students’ familiarity with academic literature is still low, as well as their ability to assess its credibility. Writing, however, is one of the skills required in most higher education programmes, particularly in the humanities and the social sciences. Pointed out as effective tools to develop problem-solving strategies and creative thinking [9], written essays are also used to assess students and, although assessment criteria may vary [10], students are expected to produce clearly written, evidence-based arguments, in accordance with academic conventions. Besides, graduation from a number of BA and MA programmes depends on the successful conclusion of a fairly lengthy thesis or report. Showing their concern with this issue, most major universities across Europe and the USA publish detailed advice and numerous tips for essay writing in their websites. At ISCAP, MA programmes include a course unit on research methodology, and a regular workshop on academic essay writing has been offered since 2021. On the other hand, the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 has caused a considerable amount of anxiety in the academic community, particularly in connection with education and plagiarism detection. In spite of its, for now, limited accuracy and the lack of quotations and bibliographical references, this chatbot is capable of producing
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a coherent, sense-making text in seconds, and has successfully passed several highlevel tests [11]. As a result, several voices have risen to announce the death of the written essay as an assessment method [12]. Even if such funereal view is not adopted, it is undeniable that easy access to artificial intelligence systems calls for a careful redesign of the written assignment and probably of the entire assessment methods used in higher education institutions. In fact, some recommendations have already been made [13], including one that, in a way, has always been an essential goal in higher education, namely a paper that requires the student “to integrate multiple sources and present their own original arguments” [13], allowing for some degree of personal interpretation. Research case studies, even those relying on secondary data, lend themselves well to this purpose. Usually taking the form of qualitative research, their emphasis is on making sense of the complex relationships in the information obtained [14] as “phenomena are intricately related through many coincidental actions”, and their understanding “requires looking at a wide sweep of contexts” (idem, p. 43). Case studies therefore seek for a holistic description and understanding of the case or setting and of its relationship with its context [15], in which the analysis and interpretation of data are almost simultaneous processes.
15.4 Types of Students’ Case Studies Yin [6] defines the case study as “an empirical method that investigates a contemporary phenomenon (the “case”) in depth and within its real-world context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context may not be clearly evident”. This definition points to the case study as an “all-encompassing method of inquiry”, not limited to “a data collection tactic alone” [6]. Though case studies may incorporate a variety of sources—from documents and objects to interviews and unobtrusive observation—their main strength lies in their heuristic quality, i.e. their capacity to shed light on a general problem through the thorough examination and interpretation of a single instance [7]. Case studies are a flexible genre. They may take the form of qualitative, quantitative, or mixed research, as both qualitative and quantitative data may be used [16]. In the humanities and the social sciences, however, it is qualitative research that is usually associated with the case study, as qualitative research usually concerns itself with the comprehension of collectively constructed meaning, in order to make sense of particular events or experiences [16]. As for their objects of study, they may deal with the uniqueness of a setting or event or include multiple cases for the sake of comparison and the identification of possible patterns. As there are no specific formulas to write case study reports [16], their length may range from short vignettes (frequently found in non-research case studies or as part of larger texts) to entire volumes. Whatever their format, they are especially suitable when “(1) your main research questions are “how” or “why” questions, (2) you have little or no control over behavioural events, and (3) your focus of study is a contemporary
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(as opposed to entirely historical) phenomenon” [6]. Case studies therefore contain detailed descriptions of the case and its relevant context, allowing the reader to confirm that, given the data collected, the results and conclusions are consistent [7]. Due to time constraints (a sixteen-week term), as well as to limitations to data collection (Portugal-based students must deal with settings outside the Portuguese territory), students enrolled in Spanish/French/German Culture for Business III are required to produce a descriptive, single case study on a recently created modern museum in a small or medium-size city in a Spanish-, German-, or French-speaking country. Although the specific research questions are expected to be formulated after a preliminary examination of the sources, students are prompted to pay attention to issues concerning the relationship between the museum (the “case”) and its surroundings, namely its potential to drive social and economic development in the area, as well as its strategies to encourage community engagement and inclusion. The choice of subject matter is accounted for not only by the prominent role played by modern museums in the requalification of urban areas, but also by the growing scholarly interest in museums as objects of study, which allow for a myriad of different, but complementary, approaches coming from every corner of the social sciences.
15.5 Results In the 2021–2022 school year, a total of twenty-five 4000-word research case studies were produced by the students, eight of which were rewritten as short vignettes, in order to fit the length of a collective paper published that year [17]. The same prompt was repeated in the 2022–2023 school year, in which students handed in a total of twenty-two case studies. In addition, MISB senior students and recent graduates were invited to apply the same methodology in the production of short case studies dealing with difficult heritage memorials in Portugal. Also shortened to 1500-word vignettes, seven of those case studies are included in an upcoming volume by the authors [18]. Some of those fifteen published student texts are used in this paper to illustrate the way in which the specific characteristics of the research case study may become an important tool for students to develop research and documentation abilities, analytical and creative thinking, and writing skills, among others.
15.5.1 Sources and Documentation As already pointed out, time and geographic constraints do not allow for the use of questionnaires or direct interviews, and all the student case studies make use of secondary sources. These secondary sources, however, include a wide variety of documents, in addition to academic literature (which, in the case of small, fairly recent museums, is not abundant), such as reports and press kits produced by the museums
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themselves (and sent to the students at their request), newspaper and magazine articles, economic and demographic statistics, publications by national and regional public institutions, social media posts, and travel sites reviews. In addition, artefacts and curatorial decisions in the museums are analysed through photographs and videos available online. In Castilla y León, although tourism accounts for approximately 10% of the regional GDP, most visitors stay in rural accommodation (elEconomista.es, 2019), and tend to neglect urban areas. More specifically in Ponferrada, hotel occupancy rates are only slightly above 50% and the average length of overnight stays is approximately 1.5 days, almost half the national average (Ponferrada – la ocupación…, 2022) [17]
In this example, about Fábrica de Luz, a museum of energy in Ponferrada (Spain), the text uses statistical information to depict the regional background that accounts for the few non-local visitors to the museum and to lead the description of the case towards answering the research question, namely how Fábrica da Luz has constructed its symbolic value for the local residents.
15.5.2 Accuracy and Reliability of Sources Although documentary sources are usually considered objective sources of data, they may contain built-in biases [7] of which the researcher is unaware. This is especially true for journalistic material as well as for press kits produced by institutions, but even public records may contain inaccuracies. Identifying biased or inaccurate information usually involves painstaking work, carried out by contrasting a variety of different sources or by spotting some piece of evidence that contradicts a particular statement in the source. The museum itself, however, seems to contradict the inclusive objective as declared by its owner, Carnaval de Barranquilla, S.A.S. (Alcaldía de Barranquilla, n.d.). With no freeadmission day, tickets to the museum cost 12,000 pesos (7,000 for seniors and children under 10), roughly 2,70 EUR – considerably pricey in a country where the minimum monthly wage has been fixed in approximately 225 EUR. Its four exhibition rooms have been criticised for omitting the information about the designers and builders of the items on display (Núñez, 2020), thus neglecting the popular background of the celebrations [17].
This case study analyses the low levels of community engagement regarding Museo del Carnaval in Barranquilla (Colombia), whose visitors are mostly foreigners. By contrasting the explicit mission of the museum with its admission policy, the author manages to expose the museum’s claim of inclusivity as practically dead letter. The argument is reinforced in the following line by describing the museum’s curatorial practice.
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15.5.3 Analysis and Interpretation The emphasis on holistic treatment of the phenomena under study allows for a degree of personal interpretation [14, p. 43], albeit anchored in thorough analysis of the data collected. As argued by Merriam [7], the researcher’s analytical powers should be comparable to those of a detective, in order to collect the relevant evidence and make sense of it, whereas sensitivity and intuition are crucial traits to understand what the evidence reveals. In addition, Stake [14] claims that interpretation is a component of all research. In the case of qualitative research, though researchers should place emphasis on direct, unmediated observation, as well as on the objective record of phenomena, the extraction of meaning from the information collected can only be done after that meaning is examined and reconfigured by the researcher’s subjectivity. […] the permanent exhibition comprises photographs, as well as video testimonies by former miners and factory workers. A strategy frequently used in sites of memory all around the world to elicit feelings of empathy in the viewer, these first-person narratives provide not only a vivid description of factory life, but bring the local history closer to home, thus facilitating the process of collective memory formation. The special role played by the individual worker’s experience is further highlighted by a number of work garments suspended from the ceiling, making the visitor look up and adopt an almost reverential position [17].
In addition to establishing a parallel with other curatorial strategies (those used in sites of memory), the author offers a personal interpretation obtained from observation of the artefacts on display. She suggests that the position of the workers’ clothes translates an ideological stance that can be traced throughout the permanent exhibition in Ponferrada’s museum of energy.
15.5.4 Detailed Description and Creative Writing The case study researcher has to provide a detailed account of the case, its setting, and participants, so that the reader may share in the researcher’s interpretation. Although “thick description” [19] is not always a necessary feature of a case study, it is important to offer detailed observational evidence, which not only enriches the text and makes the reading a more vivid and pleasurable experience, but allows the reader to retrace the steps of the researcher in building up the case. On the beach of Matosinhos, five women, their bare feet on the sand, look towards the sea not far away from where they are. One is on her knees, covering her face with her hands; another holds a child against her chest; all show a whole range of emotions in the face of tragedy: anger, horror, anguish, despair, denial. Commissioned by the local city council, José João de Brito’s sculpture has been there since 2005, to remind beachgoers that the sea can be a source of sorrow as much as of life [20].
In the opening paragraph of this vignette, the author provides both a description and a reading of the image in front of us. Creating a brief moment of suspense (only the third sentence clarifies that this is not a live scene, but a sculpture), the
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tragic elements in the composition are foregrounded by detailing the positions of the women’s bodies and the expressions on their faces. Concluding the paragraph, the ambivalent nature of the sea, as both resource and threat, is highlighted, paving the way for the main argument, i.e. the complex imagery of the sea as a social construct of “dissonant heritage” [21] as emphasised by documental and literary sources.
15.5.5 Storytelling More than just a narrative, “storytelling has taken on a whole new meaning” [22] as a means for sharing and interpreting experiences in a wide variety of contexts, as well as for communicating ideas and concepts in a memorable way. As stories are used to breathe life into an otherwise still setting, storytelling may enhance the communicative power of the case study, and in order to shape the stories, data gathering, analysis, and documentation are critical [23], which are later reconfigured so as to produce a text that emotionally involves readers in events that have not occurred to them. Lisbon, 1836. An unusual number of people were dying at the aqueduct of Águas Livres, falling from the 65-metre-high top of the structure. At a time when a recent civil war still caused great political unrest and the population faced dire economic difficulties, the deaths were initially dismissed as suicides and no proper investigations were conducted. Soon, however, it became clear that something uncanny was going on, as approximately 70 people died at the aqueduct in only six months (Fernandes, 2021). Those who used its narrow sidewalk (mainly farmers and laundresses) as a shortcut in and out of Lisbon were terrified, and all sorts of supernatural explanations went around the city (Bastos, 2021). In 1837, the aqueduct was closed to the public [24].
As the setting for one of Lisbon’s most notorious serial killers, Lisbon’s aqueduct becomes the object of the case study due to its connection with that past event. Storytelling techniques allow the author to gradually unfold a plot, as well as to explore both the tangible and the intangible elements of the place simultaneously [25]. All the narrative elements are present (setting, narrator, plot, characters), which encourages the reader’s emotional engagement and a certain amount of identification with the researcher.
15.5.6 Analytical Generalisation As “investigations of singularities”, case studies lead to “generalisations on the basis of which predictions can be made” [26]. Rather than statistical generalisation, however, case studies allow for analytical generalisation, as “it refers to the generalisation from empirical observations to theory” [27]. Also known as “fuzzy generalisation” [28], analytical generalisation implies assertions in terms of probability or of degree [15]—in practice, the case study researcher does not expect the
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replication of his/her results in subsequent studies, but seeks to demonstrate that the results obtained in a particular case study are consistent with the data collected and analysed [7]. Museo Picasso is therefore one of the most important elements in an extremely successful marketing campaign designed to replace the image of sunny Málaga with the concept of cultural Malaga, by imposing its identification with Pablo Picasso, now turned into cultural icon and product for mass consumption, as proven by the thousands of tourists coming ashore from each cruise ship in search of his traces [17].
This case study describes and analyses a variety of branding initiatives undertaken by the city of Malaga to move away from a sun and sand tourism model and induce a shift in visitors’ perceptions of the city as a cultural tourism destination. As this branding strategy revolves around the figure of Picasso as cultural icon, the reader is led to acknowledge the prominent role played by Museo Picasso in operating that shift, as well as in the marketisation of Picasso’s image for tourist consumption.
15.6 Going Back to the Teaching Case Method An additional advantage in working on case studies of this kind in our course units is obtained through students’ oral presentations of their preliminary research results they had been working outside class time activities on campus – once it is also part of their assessment process. This can occur on the one hand before the classroom audience, separately in each group of students enrolled in the previously mentioned course units Spanish/French/German Culture for Business. Each one benefits from feedback and suggestions provided by others – lecturers as well as fellow students –, so that written assignments to be delivered at a later stage may be improved. With that very same objective, an alternative environment to sessions of this kind, focused as well on a cooperation between students, may take place in joint online, conferencestyle lectures using new technologies. Transversal feedback may be provided through online questionnaires previously prepared by lecturers, which are filled out in real time by fellow students and sent shortly after each individual oral presentation to authors (students) of case studies illustrated throughout this paper. Such pedagogical strategies are of the utmost relevance, according to flipped classroom models. As pointed out by Yang et al. [29], “Teachers evaluate students’ learning process through classroom observation in the flipped classroom model. […] [S]elf-orientation, selfevaluation, self-regulation and self-improvement are useful way to help students become the agents of evaluation […]. Students can be inspired to deeply understand themselves from different aspects and learn from others.” Such strategies help lecturers develop students’ interpersonal skills aimed on both collaboration and higher-level critical thinking. Students’ learning success may at a later stage be rewarded when they are encouraged to publish their research work in conferences and/or scientific journals.
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15.7 Conclusions The purpose of this paper is to offer a reflection on the pedagogical advantages of a research activity—writing individual case studies—that was suggested to master students. A case study is a type of research approach that involves a thorough, indepth examination of a specific instance, event, or case over an extended period of time. Case studies are typically employed to examine the complexity of a subject and to provide in-depth understanding of a complex phenomenon, such as a social, cultural, or psychological issue. Asking higher education students to write their own case studies has proven to be an effective tool for active learning, giving students the chance to apply their knowledge and skills to issues and circumstances that they may encounter in the real world. This teaching methodology can also foster a deeper understanding and engagement, challenging students to assess and evaluate information, spot patterns and trends, and make conclusions, and, therefore, enhance their critical thinking abilities. Case study research methodology can, finally, be valuable in the development of storytelling. Case study research can be a useful technique for crafting stories since it offers rich, in-depth information that can be used to produce compelling and meaningful narratives. Of course, all the findings presented in this paper, based on case studies produced by master students and published in peer-reviewed papers, have the limitations of not using quantitative data, resulting in a lack of generalisability. Overall, case study research without quantitative data can provide valuable insights into specific situations or contexts, but the findings should be interpreted cautiously and may not apply to other circumstances or communities. Future research includes the inclusion of quantitative approaches to case study research, in order to assess the validity and reliability of the activities suggested to master students.
References 1. Mahdi, O.R., Nassar, I.A., Almuslamani, H.A.I.: The role of using case studies method in improving students’ critical thinking skills in higher education. Int. J. Higher Educ. 9(2), 297–308 (2020) 2. Kolb, D.A.: Experiential Learning. Prentice-Press (1984) 3. Kreber. C.: Learning experientially through case studies? A conceptual analysis. Teach. Higher Educ. 6(2), 217–228 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510120045203 4. Bonney, K.M.: Case study teaching method improves student performance and perceptions of learning gains. J. Microbiol. Biol. Educ. 16(1), 21–28 (2015) 5. Columbia University: Case Method Teaching and Learning. (n.d.) Available at: https://ctl.col umbia.edu/resources-and-technology/resources/case-method/ 6. Yin, R.K.: Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods. SAGE Publications 7. Merriam, S.B.: Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education. Jossey-Bass Publishers (1998) 8. Lea, M.R., Street, B.V.: Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach. Stud. High. Educ. 23(2), 157–172 (1998)
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9. Bezanilla, M.J., Fernández-Nogueira, D., Poblete, M., Galindo-Domínguez, H.: Methodologies for teaching-learning critical thinking in higher education: the teacher’s view. Thinking Skills Creativity 33, 100584 (2019) 10. Rezaei, A.R., Lovorn, M.: Reliability and validity of rubrics for assessment through writing. Assess. Writ. 15(1), 18–39 (2010) 11. Ward, M.: These are some of the most impressive exams ChatGPT has passed. District Administration. (2023) Available at: https://districtadministration.com/these-are-some-of-the-mostimpressive-exams-chatgpt-has-passed/ 12. Marche, S.: The college essay is dead. Nobody is prepared for how AI will transform academia. The Atlantic (2022) Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/cha tgpt-ai-writing-college-student-essays/672371/ 13. Rudolph, J., Tan, S., Tan, S.: ChatGPT: bullshit spewer or the end of traditional assessments in higher education? J. Appl. Learn. Teach. 6(1) (2023) 14. Stake, R.: The Art of Case Study Research. SAGE Publications (1995) 15. Cousin, G.: Case study research. J. Geogr. High. Educ. 29(3), 421–427 (2005). https://doi.org/ 10.1080/03098260500290967 16. Yin, R.K.: Applications of Case Study Research. In: Applied Social Research Methods Series, vol. 34. SAGE Publications (2003) 17. Tallone, L., Lopes, A.R.M., Martins, C.L., Cardoso, M.S., Flores, M.E., Pinto, M.I., et al.: The roles of museums in modern societies as a learning opportunity for higher education students. E-Revista Estudos Interculturais (10) (2022) 18. Pascoal, S., Tallone, L., Furtado, M. (eds.): Dark Heritage Tourism in the Iberian Peninsula: Memories of Tragedy and Death, 312pp. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne (2023). ISBN (10): 1-5275-0096-9; ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0096-9 19. Geertz, C.: Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, pp. 3–30. Basic Books, New York (1973) 20. Pinto, M.I.: Tragedy at sea, Matosinhos. In: Pascoal, S., Tallone, L., Furtado, M. (eds.) Dark Heritage Tourism in the Iberian Peninsula: Memories of Tragedy and Death, pp. 294–296. Cambridge Scholars (2023) 21. Tunbridge, J., Ashworth, G.: Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict. Belhaven Press (1996) 22. Nielsen, J.K.: Museum communication and storytelling: articulating understandings within the museum structure. Mus. Manage. Curatorship 32(5), 440–455 (2017) 23. Moortheeswari, S.K.: Telling Stories with Museum Objects—Reflection on Interpretation. Fort Museum, Archaeological Survey of India, pp. 1–8 (n.d.) 24. Nunes Seabra, I.: Diogo Alves, Portuguese serial killer. In: Pascoal, S., Tallone, L., Furtado, M. (eds.) Dark Heritage Tourism in the Iberian Peninsula: Memories of Tragedy and Death, pp. 301–303. Cambridge Scholars (2023) 25. Johnsson, E.: Telling tales—a guide to developing effective storytelling programmes for museums. In: Adler, C. (ed.) London Museums Hub, London (2006) 26. Laviosa, S., Falco, G.: Translation pedagogy in higher education. In: Zanettin, F., Rundle, C. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Methodology, pp. 476–491. Routledge (2022) 27. Gibbert, M., Ruigrok, W., Wicki, B.: What passes as a rigorous case study? Strateg. Manag. J. 29(13), 1465–1474 (2008) 28. Bassey, M.: Case Study Research in Educational Settings. Open University Press (1999) 29. Yang, F., Lin, W. & Wang, Y.: Flipped classroom combined with case-based learning is an effective teaching modality in nephrology clerkship. BMC Med. Educ. 21, 276 (2021). https:// doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02723-7
Chapter 16
A Pedagogical Model for Teaching the Subject of Research Methodology Alejo Betty Pastora , Quintero Cordero Yolvy Javier , Bustillos Peña Mayra Alejandra , and Molina Norma
Abstract The general objective of this article is to propose a pedagogical model for teaching the subject of research methodology based on learning by doing. This particular case is aimed at new students entering higher education, most of whom are young or working people and need to learn at their own pace and needs. Among the authors consulted as theoretical references are: Pinto and Cortes 2017, Criollo et al. 2017, Pomar 2020, Sánchez and Vásquez 2021, Burgasi 2021, Hernández et al. 2022, Lamotte et al. 2009, among others of great relevance. On the other hand, the methodological process was approached through the quantitative approach under the descriptive and field design; the survey was used to collect the data in its respective content analysis that allows triangulating the information. The study sample consisted of university students who had taken the methodology course during the 2022–2023 academic year, with the purpose of measuring the following variables: previous notions in research; how to proceed in research; teaching–learning process in methodology. Among the most outstanding findings are that the students did not have basic notions in methodology; they presented deficiencies in the writing of the text; difficulties in delimiting the variables and the formulation of the objectives; which allows validating the requirement to propose a pedagogical model from the constructivist perspective and dialogic pedagogy for the development of research skills in the co-creation of an academic project.
A. B. Pastora (B) · Q. C. Y. Javier · B. P. M. Alejandra · M. Norma Department of Arts and Humanities, Universidad Tecnológica Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] Q. C. Y. Javier e-mail: [email protected] B. P. M. Alejandra e-mail: [email protected] M. Norma e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_16
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16.1 Introduction Universities include in their undergraduate and graduate curricula the teaching of the subject research methodology in the comprehensive training of university students for the development of research skills in the co-creation of research. Thus, scientific research competence allows interpreting knowledge, understanding the world, and intervening in it [1]. Therefore, universities are responsible for the scientific and research training of teachers and students. In the particular case of the Universidad Tecnológica Israel in Quito-Ecuador, the students of the new school period must take the subject of methodology to develop the preliminary research project that deserves the support of the teacher. However, as a result of the teaching of the subject of methodology, in the academic period 2022/2023, some difficulties are observed in the students regarding reading comprehension skills; writing the academic text under the logical-reflective reasoning; effectively communicating the results of the research. Likewise, the students present certain deficiencies in learning the methodology to define the problem and relate the fundamental concepts linked to each of the topics of the program of the subject. Therefore, it is necessary to promote permanent spaces for research culture to reduce these difficulties [2]. In this way, school institutions should contribute to scientific training in the construction of spaces for reflection on reality, and in the training of new generations in order to meet the needs of the present [3]. The importance of the subject of research methodology is emphasized because it promotes analytical, deductive and inductive thinking. Consequently, university education demands learning to do research. In spite of this, the contact and this practice are subject to difficulties since many finish the course load, but at the moment of facing the degree work, a kind of cognitive paralysis is created, something similar to the reaction of everything but thesis (Gascón 2008 cited in [4]). As a result of low self-efficiency, research habits and the tendency to fail in this activity (Bandura and Martinez, cited in [4]). In addition to the refusal to learn conceptually and operationally the methodological processes because they are considered difficult to understand, boring, exhausting, and stressful (Sanchez 2008 cited in [4]). These representations provoke student desertion of the tasks associated with research. In addition, students see research as a requirement to continue their professional progression rather than as a formative process (Sanchez 2008 cited in [4]). It should be noted that the situations found generate in the researcher the need to conduct a research whose objective is to propose a pedagogical model to strengthen the teaching–learning process in the subject of methodology. However, there are not enough scientific publications to help define its use [5]. However, what should the teaching of this subject be like? It should be pointed out that most of the professionals involved in university teaching have a solid scientific
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and research training and an interest in knowing how to facilitate the learning of their students in the best possible way [6]. However, concept formation in the area of research has received considerable theoretical and experimental attention, especially within what has been called cognitive psychology [5]. Therefore, five teaching–learning strategies are proposed in this pedagogical model that can be implemented in the subject of methodology for learning to investigate by doing.
16.2 Literature Review Nowadays, learning to do research requires the greatest personal disposition and time to carry out research with scientific rigor. It is necessary to think of it as a systematic process in the different stages without leaving out any of them [7]. The following are five teaching strategies in the subject of research methodology for students to develop research skills.
16.2.1 First Teaching Strategy: Brainstorming as a Tool in What to Investigate To initiate an investigation, one must observe the daily facts that lead to the formulation of hypotheses in front of that reality. Therefore, research is a process of search and inquiry to know the social reality that will produce doubts and concerns toward possible solutions [8]. However, the choice of the topic is where students present greater difficulty in its delimitation. Therefore, it is recommended to use brainstorming, a tool devised by Alex Osborn in 1954, which helps to produce ideas before an observed reality (Coletti Bonduelle and Iwakiri 2010, cited in [9]). One should not brainstorm ideas that tend to lead nowhere. It is suggested to focus on thinking of alternatives or ideas around a theme [10]. Thus, framing the research problem without a specific objective can consume an infinite amount of time to no purpose; a well-formulated research objective provides focus and frames the problem [10]. However, the following elements are required in the elaboration of a research: (a) The title of the research, which should be concrete, striking and a maximum of 12 words; (b) The object of the study, which defines what, where and when it will be carried out, being one of the frequent difficulties of students because they confuse the topic with the object of study [11].
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(c) The formulation and definition of the problem, which roughly describes the structure of the idea to be investigated in its cause-effect correlation with verifiable data; delimit a specific problem in concrete and explicit terms with scientific procedures [8]. (d) The justification and importance, arguing the reasons and benefits derived from the research; the impact of the project, the feasibility in terms of human, institutional and infrastructure resources, and the importance of solving the problem; (e) The essential questions that guide the research; the hypothesis and the objectives of the project [11].
16.2.2 Second Teaching Strategy: Cognitive Mapping as a Tool for Delimiting Information One way to concretize ideas is to use cognitive mapping, which consists of introducing in a graphic scheme what one wishes to know about the subject matter and then to present options and hierarchize the ideas; analyze each variable and the feasibility of the study; contrast the theory to refute or adhere to what is said in that theory [7]. Thus, the cognitive map is a description of the concepts to show what the student already knows [12]. It allows the hypothetical construction of the object of study that serves to correlate causes and effects. It provides a resource in the teacher that allows students to integrate symbolic elements to a fact to produce knowledge from the classroom [12].
16.2.3 Third Teaching Strategy: The Ishikawa Diagram as a Tool for Analyzing a Research Problem The Ishikawa or fishbone diagram, proposed by Kaoru, is an effective tool for analyzing a problem; identifying exactly what it is that you want to investigate; determining what the desired result is or when there is a diversity of ideas of possible problems, but the cause–effect correlation is not known in depth [13]. Then, the problem is written down and divided into six possible causes that may be causing the problem. These six aspects are a guide that includes man/machine/ environment/material/method/measurement, in their causes and subcauses, but they can vary according to the research interest [13]. Among the advantages in its application are: (a) It facilitates the analysis of trends and data distribution with the aim of analyzing future drawbacks in order to take the necessary actions in their respective analysis; it facilitates the organization and work of large amounts of information; it delimits the research process; a plan is developed to establish the solution where the results are evaluated and optimized [9].
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16.2.4 Fourth Teaching Strategy: The SWOT Matrix as a Tool for Conceptual and Procedural Analysis of Research Learning to research by doing is one of the duties that every university has to its community and country. A university that simply focuses on sharing knowledge of careers and programs in order to prepare young people to be employed has failed in its purpose for being [14]. Consequently, the SWOT matrix, a name that comes from the acronym strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT), alludes to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, for the analysis of the internal and external factors of the problem in question in a broad view of what is happening [15]. It should be noted that student’s exercises with the SWOT matrix analyze the variables that correlate the problem which is important because it leads to review of the information stored in libraries, databases, and repositories using search managers. It allows to deepen in the subject under investigation, to purify the information and to assume a reflexive critical reasoning.
16.2.5 Fifth Teaching Strategy: The CANVAS Model, a Tool to Support Research Ideas The adoption of an entrepreneurial attitude in the youth population, most of whom are university students, as a response to multiple social and economic factors leads to entrepreneurial initiatives, many of which fail in the short term, due to the absence of an innovative business model [16]. Therefore, when starting an entrepreneurial or research idea, the CANVAS model can be applied to have a clear vision in the study of the market [16]. Likewise, it is a nine-block canvas that allows describing on a canvas the analysis of the integrating elements in that research idea to promote analytical and critical thinking. Consequently, it integrates nine blocks: (a) customer segment; (b) value proposition; (c) channels; (d) customer relationships; (e) revenue stream; (f) key resources; (g) key activities; (h) key partners; and (i) cost structure. This tool makes it easier to contextualize the study; to know the needs of the population; and to determine the feasibility of the resources.
16.2.6 Pedagogical Model Based on the Cognitivist Constructivist Approach Today’s education is characterized by the technological culture that has transformed the pedagogical models linked to the new social reality. It should be noted that there
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are alternative approaches that teachers can use to help students, diverse among themselves, to achieve instructional objectives effectively. Thus, a model is a simplified representation of reality [17]. It should include the following dimensions: (a) the conception of learning; (b) the concept of man and culture that is required to be formed; (c) the strategies to achieve the instructional objectives; (d) the means or resources; (e) evaluation indicators. As a corollary, the cognitivist constructivist approach points out that students are creators and builders of knowledge in the domain of competencies-skills. This consideration implies questioning how they come to construct this knowledge and skills, so that the activities or resources presented to them activate the cognitive processes, but for this to happen, the student must actively participate in these experiences [17]. Then, the constructivist approach intends that students activate learning by doing where they relate theory with practice that generates an active subject in the reconstruction of information through the management of individual and collaborative learning in divergent thinking while promoting new values in empathy, solidarity, and respect.
16.3 Methodology The general objective of this research is to propose a pedagogical model for the teaching of the subject of research methodology aimed at new students entering university education, a particular case at the Universidad Tecnológica Israel, QuitoEcuador. However, the results of this study can be extrapolated to other institutions or investigations with similar characteristics. Hence, the quantitative paradigm was used from a descriptive research and field design that lead to formulate the following hypothesis: What strategies can be used in the teaching of the subject of methodology to develop research skills in learning by doing? Therefore, five teaching–learning strategies are analyzed that, based on the theoretical foundations explained above, can help students to process information in their reading comprehension and in the elaboration of an academic or research text [18] evidently with the direction of a pedagogical model.
16.4 Results and Discussion The statistical data are collected with the application of a survey to students who have taken the subject of methodology in the corresponding period 2022–2023, in universities in Ecuador in order to examine each of the questions which was distributed digitally where 36 responses were obtained in terms of the variables delimited for statistical analysis presented in Table 16.1.
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Table 16.1 Statistical descriptives of what is the level you consider you have in bases on the research process that you have acquired in the subject of methodology? Variable
Dimensions
Fi
F%
Total
Previous notions of research methodology
High
26
72.2
100%
Medium
10
27.8
Under
The results show that 72.2% present a high level of research knowledge acquired in the subject of methodology, while 27.8% show a medium level of knowledge. In comparison with other researches, it is observed that university training requires learning research [4] (Table 16.2). In accordance with the analysis of multiple comparisons for the co-creation of a research project, the results show that there are significant differences in the easy, Table 16.2 Statistical descriptions of what was the most difficult part of the preparation of the methodology project? Variable
Dimensions
Fi
F%
Total 100%
How to proceed in an investigation Selection of the topic
Writing the text
Easy
26
72.22
Difficult
8
22.22
Very difficult
2
5.55
Easy
19
52.77
Difficult
15
41.66
2
5.55
14
38.88
17
47.22
5
13.88
Easy
19
52.77
Difficult
14
38.88
3
8.33
Very difficult Framing of the subject with Easy existing theory Difficult Very difficult The formulation and description of the problem
Very difficult Statement of objectives
Delimit the methodology
Easy
69.44.33
8
22.22
Very difficult
3
8.33
Easy
14
38.88
Difficult
16
44.44
6
16.66
Easy
24
66. 66
Difficult
11
30.55
1
2.77
Very difficult Development of the instruments
25
Difficult
Very difficult
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very difficult, and difficult options. However, the students show the difficulties they presented in the elaboration of the pre-project in the methodology course. Regarding the significance of these findings, which show high and significant correlations between them, it can be inferred that the experiences of the mastery of the contents derived from the success or failure achieved in the development of a school activity can lead to increase learning. Otherwise, they falter which will become learning difficulties so they will need academic reinforcement to enhance the process of research [4] (Table 16.3). Regarding the teaching strategies for the development of the contents of the subject of research methodology, it is observed that students have very high preferences for the following tools: SWOT matrix 100%; brainstorming 94.4%; Ishikawa diagram 88.9%; work in the cloud 63.9%; socialization of the project 69.4%; content analysis 69.4%. Table 16.3 Which of the following criteria do you think are essential or dispensable to apply in the writing of the text? Variable
Dimensions
Fi
F%
Total
Teaching–learning strategies in methodology for the elaboration of the preliminary research project
Brainstorming and its hierarchy
34 (Yes) 2 (No)
94.4 5.5
100%
Ishikawa diagram
32 (Yes) 4 (No)
88.9 11.11
SWOT matrix
36 (Yes) 0 (No)
100 0
Consultation of databases
16 (Yes) 20 (No)
44.4 55.55
Working in the cloud
23 (Yes) 13 (No)
63.9 36.11
Socialization of project progress
25 (Yes) 11 (No)
69.4 30.55
Content analysis through the consultation of documents of research conducted
25 (Yes) 11 (No)
69.4 30.55
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These results demonstrate and validate the proposed pedagogical model, which recommends the use of dialogical pedagogy focused on cognitive, value, and praxeological development to seek improvements or solutions in the development of communities in social co-responsibility (Zubiría 2010, cited in [18]). Consequently, the accelerated evolution of the world has recently led to a vision of the role played by education in the generation of life models and a critical view of the true role that the actors of the academic community should play in order to improve the quality of life of social groups and the development of their goals [19].
16.5 Conclusions It is deduced that the subject of research methodology is very important for the formation of students specifically in higher education. Therefore, it is necessary to diagnose the previous knowledge in research and the command of comprehensive reading that will help in the writing of the academic text. In derivation, it is recommended to implement the five strategies proposed in this pedagogical model in learning by doing that develops higher cognitive processes in analytical and reflective reasoning to avoid the anything but thesis syndrome. Finally, in a prospective view of the future of society toward a sustainable and sustainable model in time, the management of transdisciplinary research is required as a transversal axis for the co-creation of projects that allow solving the unsolved problems in today’s society in the knowledge of living well.
References 1. Castellanos, F., Cruz, H., Mejía, V.: Instituto Campechano’s Pedagogical Management Model. Campechano Institute, Mexico (2019) 2. Aiello, M.: Difficulties in learning research methodology. Int. J. Res. Educ. 2(3), 141–155 (2009) 3. Pinto, A., Cortés, O.: What do university students think about research training? REDU. Rev. Docencia Universitaria 15(2), 57–76 (2017) 4. Criollo, M., Romero, M., Fontaines, T.: Self-efficacy for learning in university students Colegio oficial de psicólogos de Madrid. Psicología Educativa 12(1), 63–72 (2017) 5. Hernández, A., Busquets, P., Gafas, C.: Formative research: conceptual analysis in the context of nursing. Med. Educ. 23(6), 2–23 (2022) 6. Sánchez, B., Vázquez, M.: Teaching to research: the challenge of teachers, advisors and directors of research projects in higher education. In: Formative Processes in Educational Research: Dialogues, Reflections, Convergences and Divergences, no. 4.0, pp. 175–188. (2019) 7. Manterola, C., Otzen, T.: Why research and how to conduct research. Int. J. Morphol. 31(4), 1498–1504 (2013) 8. Hernández, R., Fernández, C., Baptista, P.: Metología de la Investigación. Mcgraw-Hill, Mexico (1997) 9. Burgasí, D., Cobo, D., Pérez, K., Pilacuan, R., Rocha, M.: The Ishikawa diagram as a quality tool in education: a review of the last 7 years. TAMBARA Electron. J. 14(84), 1212–1230 (2021)
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10. Pomar, P.: Cómo Hacer Brainstorming y no Morir en el Invento. Thinkernautas, Madrid (2018) 11. Lamotte, B., Bernal, M., López, P., Olivares, I., Valadez, F.: Guía para elaborar un anteproyecto de investigación. Rev. Educ. Desarrollo 39–46 (2009) 12. García, J., Colina, A.: Cognitive maps: a teaching-learning strategy in the social sciences, perspectives. J. Hist. Geogr. Art Culture 1(1), 65–79 (2012) 13. Godoy, J.: YouTube. Joseantonio Godoy (2019). [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=lxpzw6YTFlw. Last Accessed: 10 Oct 2022 14. Chávez, A., Maino, A.: Innovación e Investigación Científica CIIM-UIDE, 1st edn. Universidad Internacional del Ecuador, Guayaquil (2016) 15. Sarli, R., González, S., Ayres, N.: SWOT analysis. A necessary tool. J. Sch. Dent. 9(1), 17–20 (2015) 16. Chaguay, L., Flores, J., Bayas, T., Zapata, R.: The business model: canvas methodology as a strategic innovation for the design of entrepreneurial projects. J. Sci. Res. 4(CIEIS2019), 87–99 (2019) 17. Martínez, N.: Los modelos de enseñanza y la práctica de aula. In: Estudios Pedagogicos, pp. 1–19. Universidad de Murcia (2004) 18. Gómez, J., Monroy, L., Bonilla, C.: Characterization of pedagogical models and their relevance in a critical accounting education. Entramado 15(1), 164–189 (2019) 19. Vásquez, E., León, R.: Educación y modelos pedagógicos. Secretaria de educación de Boyacá, Área Misional. Tunja (2013) 20. González, M., Gallardo, L., Pozo, S.: Metodología de la Investigación. Editorial Jurídica del Ecuador, Quito (2017) 21. Delgado, P., Romero, M.: Elaboration of a research project with qualitative methodology. Intensive Nurs. 32(3), 164–169 (2021)
Chapter 17
Study to Update the Concept of Broadband According to Ecuador’s Regulatory Framework and Its Impact on the Economic, Social, and Productive Spheres José Javier De la Torre Guzmán , Martha Elizabeth Salazar Jácome , William Fernando Ortega Naranjo , and Héctor Sebastián Pérez Manosalvas
Abstract ICTs are key to the development of countries to the extent that they support all kinds of activities and needs, from entertainment to production and labor, through a number of applications in all sectors of the economy and society. Today, it is observed that the use of digital applications is becoming more relevant to address problems of all kinds, particularly those of social order, in the areas of education, health, and government management, among others. Under this approach, the implementation of high-speed Internet access networks has positive benefits for consumers, companies, academic institutions, and society in general, to the extent that it represents a service increasingly involved in the daily lives of people, impacting their ability to work, interact with friends and family, receive high-quality entertainment, interact with their government, and manage their family’s health and domestic activities. The above contextualizes the need to update the current regulations on aspects of quality and minimum speed for Internet access in Ecuador since, by resolution TEL-43113-CONATEL-2014 of May 30, 2014, the concept of broadband is not updated. It is necessary to address the technological and market advances, as determined by a J. J. De la Torre Guzmán (B) · M. E. Salazar Jácome Departamento de Ciencias de la Ingeniería, Universidad Tecnológica Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] M. E. Salazar Jácome e-mail: [email protected] W. F. Ortega Naranjo · H. S. Pérez Manosalvas Departamento de Ciencias Administrativas, Universidad Tecnológica Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] H. S. Pérez Manosalvas e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_17
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substantial increase in users who require higher Internet speeds that allow them to use new applications that meet their need.
17.1 Introduction In recent years, the Internet has revolutionized the role of telecommunications and transformed the way in which people’s daily activities are carried out by making information generation and exchange processes more efficient, which has favored the development of new applications based on information and communication technologies (ICT), creating the need for greater broadband capacity [1], allowing faster, more reliable, convenient, and economical use of ICTs. It is indisputable that ICTs are key to the development of countries to the extent that they support all types of activities and needs, from entertainment to production and labor, through countless applications in all sectors of the economy and society. Today, it is observed that the use of digital applications is becoming more relevant to addressing problems of all kinds, particularly those of social order, in the areas of education, health, and government management, among others. Under this approach, the implementation of high-speed Internet access networks has positive benefits for consumers, businesses, academic institutions, and society in general, to the extent that it represents a service increasingly involved in people’s daily lives, impacting their ability to work, interact with friends and family, receive high-quality entertainment, interact with their government, and manage their family’s health and domestic activities. The progress of telecommunications, and in particular the advances that have occurred around the provision of services through the Internet, have been appreciable. From a technological point of view, the progress made in more efficient means of transmission, such as wireless media that today better optimizes the use of the radio spectrum (an example of this is the White Space Network technology), while optical media are now more affordable to the end user [an example of this is fiber to the home (FTTH)], has been particularly notable. These advances have made it possible to achieve higher transmission speeds, which go hand in hand with new terminals. This has also led to the development of a progressive convergence between devices and machines previously unrelated to the ICT world, such as vehicles, and the growing impact of the increasingly easy and cheap interaction of things. Recent years have seen how services and applications have begun to innovate, with strong user acceptance. The pressure for greater demand for broadband is creating new innovation options; an example of this is the cloud, which is already offering entertainment content, services, and storage previously unthinkable with the availability of broadband that was available and is currently solved by the high speeds that are possessed.
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17.2 Theoretical Framework 17.2.1 Broadband Concepts and Definitions According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), broadband can be considered from a technical point of view as a set of advanced network technologies or as the engine of a radical and major transformation that revitalizes the delivery of existing services and gives rise to the emergence of new and innovative services [2]. Today, broadband has become a fundamental infrastructure that determines the national competitiveness of countries in the global digital economy. It is also a tool for achieving our common goal, social knowledge, where access to information and human creativity are vital [3]. The causal relationship determined by a cause-and-effect between infrastructure and information structure is where Web 2.0 is a modern and evolved concept of the Internet, which combines multiple user platforms, and where its development goes hand in hand with higher broadband speeds. In fact, the information structure is nothing more than a superstructure, the same one that suggests that users and objects are intimately part of the network itself [4]. In any case, the previous definitions of broadband are still valid, indicating that the constant evolution of technologies means that the concepts associated with them are constantly changing. In the last century, broadband was understood as speeds above the basic Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) access rate of 144 kbps. However, a few years ago, cable modem systems and digital subscriber lines (DSL) were considered broadband at speeds equal to or greater than 256 kbps [5]. The ITU report “Broadband Telecommunications in the Americas Region” published in 2008 states that “Broadband will be considered those, wireless or not, that in downstream direction (i.e., to the customer) provide permanent data speeds equal or greater than 256 kbps with no time limit or volume of information transmitted”. This is a changing reality, as stated by the Telecommunications Sector Analysis and Forecasting Group [4]: “Broadband is a relative concept that evolves over time toward demands for higher speeds and varies significantly from country to country”.
17.2.2 Socio-Economic Momentum During this century, broadband has played a fundamental role in society, becoming a key driver for the development of the daily activities of individuals and businesses [6]. The telecommunications sector was a fundamental protagonist in the obligation to establish communications between citizens and with the different public bodies, but this idea is no longer sufficient due to the new needs of users for new services, content, and applications. In this sense, broadband not only offers higher browsing speeds but also allows greater interaction and diversification of services, increasing productivity, competitiveness, and openness to new global markets [7].
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Finally, the development of the broadband ecosystem can have a perpendicular impact on society, with significant improvements in productivity and access to services, which can serve as an enabler of basic services [8]. Enabler of basic services—broadband can serve as an enabler to bring services such as education, health, and public services to remote locations, improving the user experience with such services and increasing efficiency in service provision. Private sector service enabler: The adoption of new services and applications through broadband significantly improves the competitiveness of companies. The applications allow for more efficient management of available resources, enabling companies to increase their productivity and develop new products and business models to provide new services. The adoption of these new broadband-based services provides the basis for the birth of new over-the-top (OTT) services, rendering obsolete the old ideas of unidirectional applications and content. Today, the new convergent terminals that are permanently connected at high speeds generate different business models. An example of this is leisure, which is no longer understood only in terms of better and more diverse domestic choices of video and audio, but the new terminals are interconnected with each other by broadband, creating new styles of inter-human relationships for future generations, with these same terminals being an access point to repositories of audiovisual entertainment content, which has led to a new business model on the part of Internet service providers [4]. In conclusion, nations with this type of network will develop faster and more efficiently, and there is little doubt that broadband is an engine of economic growth, wealth creation, and the empowerment of society within the global economy. The World Bank [9] states that broadband contributes to growth since a 10% increase in broadband connections increases a country’s economic progress by 1.3%.
17.2.3 Economic Impact (GDP) There is an increasing number of studies related to the implications of broadband on the global economy and on specific countries or groups of countries. These studies are linked to the development of broadband ICT usage and its impact on the economy. According to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) [9], an average increase of 10% in broadband penetration in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries leads to an increase of 3.19% in gross domestic product (GDP) and 2.61% in productivity, while at the same time generating more than 67,000 direct jobs [10]. Raul Katz, in his study “The Impact of Broadband on the Economy: Research to Date and Policy Issues”, outlines the impact of broadband deployment on the economy, where he simplifies that residential household penetration improves consumer surplus as well as household income, and household and business broadband penetration improves productivity, which contributes to growth and employment in countries [11].
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17.2.4 Impact on Job Creation The impact of broadband on job creation is more evident due to the investments associated with the creation of infrastructure and new OTTs. In different studies, the evidence obtained through research and analysis suggests that broadband contributes to job creation [12].
17.2.5 Impact on Productivity Broadband services enable new IoT solutions. An example is applied today in agriculture, where IoT improves the quantity and quality of crops, digital applications, and infrastructure tools through broadband, helping farmers to adjust their decisions on when to plant and which crop varieties to choose to achieve higher levels of productivity. Broadband is the main link in the value chain that seeks to improve the productive sectors of each country. The development of new services and technological applications allows improving the efficiency and quality of products, which is why the digital transformation is now tied to a greater deployment of broadband infrastructure to improve the productivity of each nation [13].
17.2.6 Consumer Surplus Consumer surplus can also be conceptualized as the benefits that broadband represents for the end user at the time of purchasing a product, since consumers buy at a lower price than they would be willing to pay, due to the benefits of faster access, information efficiency, and savings in transportation for transactions [14]. This can be seen today in the mobile applications that are used by consumers to purchase fast food over the Internet (Glovo and Uber eat).
17.3 Comparisons to Consider with Respect to Broadband in the Region The 2017 ECLAC study on the state of broadband in Latin America and the Caribbean indicates that Internet use among the region’s inhabitants increased by 56%, which represents an increase of 36% points (p.p.) compared with 2010 [15], which shows a growing effect on broadband use. In terms of affordability, the study mentions that, in 2010, it was required to spend about 18% of the average monthly income to contract a 1 Mbps fixed broadband service, while in November 2017 that figure was reduced
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to 1.2%, with all countries below the 5% threshold established as a reference for affordability by the United Nations Broadband Commission. According to data from ECLAC’s Regional Broadband Observatory (ORBA), in terms of quality of service, it points out that the two best-placed countries in our region only have 15% of their connections with speeds above 15 Mbps, and the worst-placed ones do not exceed 0.2%. As a worldwide reference, in the 10 most advanced countries in this area, 50% of their connections exceed 15 Mbps. Below are several statistics presented in the ECLAC study on access, affordability, penetration, and quality of broadband in Latin America and the Caribbean [16]. (a) Access: Efforts to expand broadband service in the region led to a significant reduction in the gap with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The penetration gap between the two regions, which was 50.8 percentage points (p.p.) in 2010, was reduced to 40.8 in 2016 [17]. (b) Penetration: In Ecuador, BAF and BAM penetration is below the average of Latin American and Caribbean countries and far from OECD countries. It should be taken into consideration that there are countries in the region, such as Uruguay where both fixed and mobile broadband penetration levels are on par or very close to those of OECD countries. This is due to the public policy of the Government of Uruguay, which is focused on generating affordable ICT services for all and promoting their adoption [3]. In 2018, the ITU highlighted that the cheapest fixed broadband Internet service in the world is in Uruguay, since it offers free of charge to users who contract new fixed telephony connections at home with the possibility of having access to the Internet with 1 gigabyte of consumption per month, which apart from increasing penetration in the country also allows to improve the affordability of users. (c) Affordability: To determine the affordability of fixed broadband service, the study measures the average price offered for 1 Mbps as a percentage of GDP per capita. This indicator is an approximation of the proportion of income that must be spent to access the service; the lower the proportion, the more affordable the service. In relation to BAM, a large number of plans, packages, and data exchanges have been commercially developed in the region, with different terms and capacities, in order to reach segments that cannot access postpaid plans. Due to the importance of the prepaid modality, for the analysis of BAM tariffs, the ECLAC study took as a reference the lowest prepaid tariff offered for two terms: 1 day and 30 days; in the latter case, the plans included are those with a capacity close to 1 GB. (d) Quality: The quality variable commonly refers to measuring the speed of the connection. However, latency or delay, understood as the time it takes for a packet of information to reach its destination and return, plays a fundamental role in the quality of service. The BAF connection speed on average increased by 115% between the end of 2013 and the first quarter of 2017. For the same period, the gap between the best and worst-placed countries increased by 170%. In the case of Ecuador, the average
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Fig. 17.1 Evolution of the effective average connection speeds through fixed broadband
connection speed increased from 2013 to the first quarter of 2017, surpassing the average for Latin America and the Caribbean, which is 5.8 Mbps (Fig. 17.1) [18]. In most countries, the growth rates of connections at speeds above 4 Mbps are lower than the rates corresponding to the fastest speeds. Despite this difference, there are still very few high-speed connections higher than 10 Mbps or 15 Mbps. Ecuador, on the other hand, has more than 60% of connections at speeds above 4 Mbps but is still deficient in high-speed connections above 15 Mbps. Table 17.1 gives the results of the analysis conducted by Akamai in 2017 and used by the ECLAC study regarding the average broadband speed in countries on the American continent, broken down into percentages of connections above 4, 10, and 15 Mbps [19].
17.4 Regulations and Considerations Regarding Broadband in Ecuador Resolution TEL-431-13-CONATEL-2014 of May 30, 2014 [20] defines the term bandwidth in the country as “bandwidth delivered to a user through a minimum effective downstream transmission speed (provider to user) equal to or greater than 1024 kbps, in permanent connections, which allows the combined provision of voice, data, and video transmission services simultaneously”. Table 17.2 summarizes the broadband concepts established by various regulators in some countries [21].
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Table 17.1 State of broadband in the Americas—2017 Global ranking
Country
Average connection speed (Mbps)
% connections higher than 4 Mbps (%)
% connections higher than 10 Mbps (%)
% connections higher than 15 Mbps (%)
10
United States
18.7
90
67
48
20
Canada
16.2
90
61
40
57
Uruguay
9.5
86
35
13
60
Chile
9.3
78
30
15
76
Mexico
7.5
78
19
6.1
79
Brazil
6.8
63
18
5.8
90
Argentina
6.3
60
16
5.1
91
Peru
6.2
64
13
4.4
92
Ecuador
6.2
63
12
4.3
94
Panama
5.9
58
12
4.4
99
Colombia
5.5
61
7.6
2.1
112
Costa Rica
4.1
36
3.3
1.0
132
Bolivia
2.7
14
1.1
0.4
144
Venezuela
1.8
3.6
0.2
0.1
148
Paraguay
1.4
2.8
0.2
0.1
Table 17.2 Broadband indicators of telecommunications regulatory bodies Country
Download speed
Upload speed
United States
25 Mbps
3 Mbps
Spain
1 Mbps
Peru
4 Mbps
Colombia
25 Mbps
Chile
Establishes the obligation of a guaranteed minimum speed for Internet access
Ecuador
1024 Mbps
5 Mbps
17.5 Current Broadband Scenario in Ecuador 17.5.1 Fixed Internet Access In Ecuador, fixed Internet accounts have grown exponentially from 2010 to 2018, and this growth has been due to technological progress and user demand for Internet access, which has led the state to implement strategies and policies that promote connectivity in society [22]. Fixed Internet access service in Ecuador is provided by telecommunication companies through wireless and wired means; as regards
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wired means, copper is still the most widely used medium, but there is a rapid growth of connections through fiber optics, which currently surpass connections through coaxial cable. In addition, these technologies have evolved, providing better performance in terms of latency and speeds, allowing speeds higher than 50 Mbps and reaching speeds of 150 Mbps depending on the transmission medium used. In Ecuador, according to ARCOTEL data [23], connections through these means account for about 8.55% of total fixed Internet connections.
17.5.2 Mobile Internet Access Mobile Internet access service accounts in Ecuador show a considerably high growth rate compared with fixed Internet. This is due to the technological evolution that mobile communication has presented in recent years: the creation of new mobile terminals and the increase of new services and applications have generated a boost in the investment of private and public companies in the country in this sector. The technological evolution of the mobile telephone network has led to the appearance of new devices and new services. Each generation of mobile network (2G, 3G, 3G+, 4G, and 5G) corresponds to a technological evolution that causes data to be transmitted faster with lower latencies and higher transmission speeds. These advances improve the quality of existing services and enable new uses such as faster mobile Internet, videoconferencing, the IoT, OTT, etc. [4].
17.5.3 Fixed Broadband Internet Subscriptions in Ecuador In order to know the fixed Internet subscribers in Ecuador broken down by speed, ARCOTEL has the information corresponding to the 2030 agenda of the United Nations Organization, which details the information of fixed broadband Internet subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, broken down by speeds between: 256 Kbps and 2 Mbps, 2 Mbps and 10 Mbps, and 10 Mbps. The largest population of fixed broadband subscribers is between 2 and 10 Mbps, with 69% of total subscribers, followed by subscribers with speeds higher than 10 Mbps with 25%, and finally, there are subscribers with speeds between 256 kbps and 2 Mbps with only 6%. In 2018, the tendency of subscribers to contract plans with transmission speeds higher than 10 Mbps is evident; on the other hand, there is a stagnation of subscribers with speeds between 2 and 10 Mbps, which indicates that this population is migrating to plans with higher broadband [4].
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17.6 Conclusions According to the study conducted, it is evident that currently users of fixed and mobile Internet access in the country have an average consumption of 6 Mbps, so the concept of broadband in Ecuador should be updated, eliminating the current resolution TEL-431-13-CONATEL-2014 as it does not fit the reality of our country. It is suggested to update the concept of broadband to: “Broadband: bandwidth delivered to a user through a minimum effective downstream transmission speed (provider to user) equal or higher than 10 Mbps in a permanent connection that allows the combined provision of voice, data, and video transmission services simultaneously”. The suggested change in the regulation will have an economic impact, since with a 10% increase in broadband, there would be a 1.53% growth in the gross domestic product, 53% of the gross domestic product (GDP), according to studies carried out by the World Bank. In the generation of employment, it would have a high impact on the creation of direct and indirect jobs, since Internet service providers would have to invest in more infrastructure to provide broadband access, which would generate more jobs in this telecommunications sector, as far as indirect employment is concerned, it would have the same impact, since it would generate jobs such as: marketing, advertising, design, which would benefit the country’s indicators in terms of employment and underemployment; and, in relation to productivity there would be new broadband technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) that would allow improving the country’s productive systems such as: agriculture, livestock, fishing, among others. Regarding the social benefit that the country would have, new services could be offered to society through Internet service providers (ISP) such as telemedicine, tele-education, online government, and e-commerce, which would benefit the most vulnerable people in the country who do not have access to these services but could have them through a broadband connection.
References 1. ASETA: Broadband in the Andean Community. Technology, Regulation and Market (2020) 2. World Telecommunication Policy Forum-ITU: Broadband (2018) 3. ITU Broadband Commission: A Leadership Imperative: The Future Built on Broadband (2018). [Online]. Available: http://www.broadbandcommission.org/Reports/Report_1.pdf 4. ASETA: Broadband in the Andean Countries: Technology, Regulation and Market-Situation Analysis and Perspecives, Geneva, pp. 263 (2015). ISBN: 978-92-61-14823-2 5. Ecuador: Norma técnica para la provisión de infraestructura física a ser usada por prestadores de servicios del régimen general de telecomunicaciones en sus redes públicas de telecomunicaciones, Registro Oficial 80, 15 de septiembre de (2017) 6. Garcia, A., Iglesias, E., Adamowicz, A.: The Impact of Digital Infrastructure on the Sustainable Development Goals. IDB (2019)
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7. Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society: Broadband internet penetration increased in Ecuador and consolidated as public policy (2022). [Online]. Available: https:// www.telecomunicaciones.gob.ec/la-penetracion-de-internet-bandaancha-aumento-en-el-ecu ador-y-se-consolida-como-politica-publica/ 8. Garcia, A., Iglesias, E.: Digital economy in Latin America and the Caribbean: Current situation and recommendations. IDB (2017) 9. World Bank: Information and Communication for Development 2015: Expanding Reach and Increasing Impact (2015) 10. García, A., Lopéz, R.: Socioeconomic impact of broadband in Latin America and the Caribbean (2017) 11. Katz, R.: The higher the broadband penetration, the lower the negative economic impact associated with the pandemic (2021). [Online]. Available: https://dplnews.com/a-mayor-penetracionde-banda-ancha-menor-el-impactoeconomico-negativo-asociado-a-la-pandemia-raul-katz/ 12. Velazco, A.: Internet rights in Ecuador. In: Regulación de Internet y derechos digitales en Ecuador, Quito, Editorial USFQ, pp. 243–248 (2016) 13. Yaulema, O., Lázaro, B.: Infocentros in Ecuador: Social Inclusion in Action in Information and Communication Technologies, no. 2, pp. 270–280. Cofín Habana (2017) 14. UIT: Broadband and the Economy: Growth, Productivity and Employment. ITU Update (2017) 15. CEPAL: State of Broadband in Latin America and the Caribbean (2017) 16. Baca, C., Luca, B., Huerta, E., Velasco, K.: Community networks in Latin America: Challenges, Regulations and Solutions. Internet Society (2018) 17. Tablado. F: Digital divide: definition, causes and consequences, Attic Group 34 (2021). [Online]. Available: https://protecciondatos-lopd.com/empresas/brecha-digital/ 18. Primicias: Digital divide, an obstacle for telework and virtual education (2020). [Online]. Available: https://www.primicias.ec/noticias/tecnologia/brecha-digitaldificulto-pandemia-internet/ 19. Akamai: Global Average Connection Speed Increases 15 Percent Year over Year, According to Akamai’s First Quarter, State of the Internet Report (2017). [Online]. Available: https:// www.akamai.com/newsroom/press-release/akamai-releases-firstquarter-2017-state-of-the-int ernet-connectivity-report 20. CONATEL: Resolución-Tel-431-13-Conatel-2014 (2014) 21. Ecuador Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society: Plan de Servicio Universal 2018–2021 (2018). [Online]. Available: https://www.telecomunicaciones.gob.ec/wpcontent/ uploads/2018/11/Plan-de-Servicio-Universal.pdf 22. Moncayo, K: El acceso a Internet Como Derecho y su garantía en Ecuador, p. 84. Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Ecuador (2022) 23. ARCOTEL: Servicio de Acceso a Internet, p. 34. Boletín Estadístico Noviembre, Ecuador (2020)
Chapter 18
3D Printer as a Resource for Didactic Development Tool for the Maker Culture—An Open-Source Design of the COREXY 3D Printer Antonio Vítor Souza Otoni , José Jean Paul Zanlucchi de Souza Tavares , and Roberto Mendes Finzi Neto
Abstract Facing a new industrial revolution which marks the era of added data and Internet facilities, manufacturing can play a very important role in the development of new skills in academics. Allied to the Maker Culture spirit, and the Do It Yourself (DIY) concept, the COREXY 3D printer was developed by the students and used by the FEMEC Maker (a laboratory of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Federal University of Uberlandia—UFU). The present document has as its main objective to disclose in detail the project and the construction of a COREXY 3D printer, introducing its concept, the mechanical and electronics, the costs, calibration, and the tests. Once the assembly and calibration are completed, the results are presented. Based on this study, it is pointed out that pedagogical possibilities are the application of such a project. With the FABLAB the developments focus on elementary, high school, and university levels.
18.1 Introduction According to Santos et al. [1], the need for innovation and educational technologies is a high topic. This can improve the teaching skills and learning process in the public educational institutions of Brazil, and as a possibility the 3D printer is a bonus manufacturing technology. This technology allows students to adopt a Maker thinking cap A. V. S. Otoni (B) · J. J. P. Z. de Souza Tavares · R. M. F. Neto Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Av. João Naves de Ávila. 2121, Bloco 1M, Uberlândia, MG 38400-902, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] J. J. P. Z. de Souza Tavares e-mail: [email protected] R. M. F. Neto e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_18
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through the construction and exploitation of materials. The Maker movement as well as the “Do It Yourself” have a proper incorporated philosophy. This encourages students creativity during apprenticeship, opening the possibilities to work on problem-solving. As described by De Paula et al. [2], the Maker and the Do It Yourself movements relates to the practice in which the student is the protagonist in the process of building a substantial knowledge, exploring subjects of interest and personal satisfaction. It can embrace the mechanical, mechatronics, aeronautics, and other engineering courses, providing an ideal platform for students to build their knowledge and develop their skills. By doing so, students not only acquire the technical knowledge and skills required for success in their chosen fields, but they also develop the creative and critical thinking skills necessary for innovation and entrepreneurship. Combining it into an academic context, researchers, professors, students, and the 3D printers, can materialize the most varied of objects and shapes through virtual models. In this direction, the Federal University of Uberlandia (UFU) and the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FEMEC), through the FEMEC Maker laboratory incite to develop 3D printers by themselves. It was evidenced that in a class with the presence of this kind of machine, the students could develop many skills while working on 3D printing projects, including 3D modeling, creativity, technology literacy, problem-solving, self-directed learning, critical thinking, and perseverance modeling [3]. As presented in the [4], Maker project can help the development and awakening of intellectual stimulus for students, improves the logical-mathematical reasoning, the planning capacity and ability to interpret text/verbal understanding, interaction/ socialization, leadership, and student motivation. Classes have become more pleasurable and were handled with shifts through projects that had no grade. Even so, the students showed interest in participating and attending classes. Another positive point is the exchanges of experiences between teachers. In mechanical engineering, as all FEMEC/UFU courses, its functionality is ideal. It produces prototypes, for projects in the testing phase or even uses them as a final product. 3D printing does not replace machining; however, it is far cheaper and more complete. In more complicated cases such as geometry complexity, machining is not possible [5]. This document has as its main purpose to present one of the FEMEC Maker result. This means the elaboration and construction of a 3D printer based on fusion and deposition modeling engineering. The purpose of this work is to detail the 3D COREXY printer design and make this result available so that other Maker space initiative can also have access to devices like this by following the DIY philosophy.
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18.2 Bibliographic Review 18.2.1 Additive Manufacturing Additive manufacturing can be defined as a manufacturing process through the successive addition of coatings and information. This process can be applied directly from a 3D computational representation of the component [6]. Additive manufacturing technologies are also classified within seven families [7] (see Fig. 18.1): • Photopolymerization in vat: Also known as stereolithography (SLA), the use of raw material such as photocurable liquid polymer, is poured into a basin in which the piece is created. Then layer by layer it is built with selective exposure to light. • Powder Bed Fusion: The raw material is supplied in the form of metallic or plastic powder, which is selectively exposed to heat (laser or electron beam) to melt the material. Then cooled, it is solidified and forms the part.
Fig. 18.1 Additive manufacturing technologies based on ABNT NBR ISO/ASTM 52900 Standard [6]
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• Binder Jetting: Photocurable liquid binder is blasted above the material in powder form to bond and solidify with exposure to UV light. Using this system is similar to inkjet printers that blast liquid binders. • Sheet Lamination: Raw material is supplied in the form of sheets of metal or paper which are cut and glued one above the other in succession. This will form three-dimensional pieces. • Material Extrusion: Technology best known and used in 3D printers are commonly known by the name of fused deposition modeling. (FDM) It consists of the deposition of molten material supplied in the form of plastic filament by which it solidifies and forms the part. • Directed Energy Deposition: These parts are created by deposition of beads of molten metal like welding technologies. Layering will eventually form the part. FDM Family. FDM is one of the most used 3D printer families in the world. It is based on the deposition of layers resulting from heating, around 200 °C, and the softening of filaments and thermoplastic materials. Simultaneously, other softened threads form the support for the suspended surfaces of the model to provide support. The layers deposit according to the final commanded design. This generates computer aided design, manufacturing stems (CAD/CAM), which monitor the coordinates line by line [8]. The affordable and versatile nature of FDM families mean that implementing an inhouse 3D printing solution does not require additional space or specialized personnel. As a bonus, the widespread use of 3D printing means there is a wealth of information and resources available for free [9]. When comparing with the other main additive manufacturing technique such as SLA, cost wise the differences between these two technologies is huge due to the quality they provide. While FDM fully satisfies internal use in companies and academic activities, SLA is a technology aimed at engineering of up most demanding products. Although the SLA manufacturing time is shorter, the objects need to undergo various treatments before being used. Because of these characteristics, the FDM technique has the best cost–benefit ratio [8]. FDM Structure Type. There are many types of FDM structures such as Cartesian, Delta, and COREXY [10]. The COREXY FDM structure has parallel kinematics which mean that the motors that provide the largest source of inertia within the system are stationary. This means rapid acceleration as the two stepper motors provide a means of moving both axes independently and simultaneously. The COREXY kinematics is a complex motion (See Fig. 18.2) system where X or Y motor moves the carriage. Moving just one motor, the print head moves in diagonal. If the two motors move opposite to each other the print head will move along the X-axis. If the two motors move in the same direction the carriage will move along the Y-axis. The long belt and pulley system used in a COREXY system eliminates excessive torque that causes faster wear on belts and gantry. The print head moves using two long timing belts, each connected to a stepper motor. While the belts are essential to
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Fig. 18.2 COREXY kinematics adapted from https://3ddistributed.com/cor exy-3d-printer/corexy-kin ematics/
the functionality of the COREXY design, they also cause problems if they are not aligned correctly or if the tension is too high or too low. Tension on the belts can cause increase wear, impairing the printer’s accuracy, and in some cases, it can cause some malfunctions. For a good printer to work in the XY plane with high printing speed, the printer must print higher parts than the Cartesian due to the Z movement of the bed [10].
18.3 Methodology The main task of this project is to serve the mechanical engineering courses at the FEMEC Maker lab, as well as to assist in the implementation of academic projects. Therefore, issues such as cost, audience, size complexity, desired materials, handling ease, maintenance, printing and timing, the qualities of these have been analyzed. Cost is usually the first attribute to be analyzed in any project. In this comparison, the COREXY is the third most expensive print type to build and buy due to its high structural stiffness. Since Cartesian has a simple structure and Delta uses less components these assets make it cheaper. In terms of print speed, both Delta and COREXY allow faster printing due to lower inertia that give less vibration in faster printing. Accuracy is all important in mechanical projects and it was found that both Delta and COREXY performed well in this regard. Moreover, the superficial quality is very important to reduce energy losses due to friction, a smooth 3D printing avoids the necessity of a superficial finish, due to less vibration it was observed that both COREXY and Delta produces smoother pieces. Looking at the size of the parts that are to be printed and the print area, COREXY provides a large area for high print volume, Cartesian has a high print area but has a weight limit and Delta has a small print area but can produce tall parts [10].
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As the desired project requires greater ease in usage with calibration and initiation, these resources were provided by the community. The combination of speed printing, precision, and quality surface finish made that COREXY printing method was chosen.
18.4 TriCLOPs-mono: COREXY 3D Printer Project The COREXY project, called TriCLOPs-mono (only one extruder) can be divided into three sections with relevant details: • Structural: Composed of plastic parts (printed by another 3D printer, which shows their replicability) and metal parts such as profiles, screws, nuts, plates, and rods. • Electronics: Composed of a controller circuit and several sensors, stepper motors, power supply, thermistors, resistors, and end of course detectors. • Firmware: Program executed by the controller, responsible for interpreting the G-Code and commanding the machine. Seeking to improve additive manufacturing and design refinement, following the open-source culture, the TriCLOPs-mono project is fully available with its CAD (see Fig. 18.3), firmware code and print profile at GrabCad (https://grabcad.com/ library/triclops-mono-1) and Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:590 7322). Along these lines, anyone can improve this project and share it with the community, helping to spread the know-how to improve this technology. Figure 18.4 presents the implemented TriCLOPS-mono COREXY 3D Printer.
18.4.1 TriCLOPs-mono Costs With all the mechanical and electronic components of the printer presented, it is also possible to show the cost to reproduce the TriCLOPs-mono (see Table 18.1). The total cost of about $800.00 is lower when compared with a similar COREXY 3D Printer, which averages $2500.00.
18.5 TriCLOPs-mono Calibration and Tests The calibration of a 3D printer is an important and a labor-intensive step to achieve highly accurate products. The mechanical equipment and the moving parts need calibration to function correctly. For the calibration process, some tools were opened and used. Tests were performed to calibrate the calculations made that are necessary due to dimensional mechanical uncertainties.
18 3D Printer as a Resource for Didactic Development Tool for the Maker … Fig. 18.3 TriCLOPs-mono COREXY 3D printer CAD project
Fig. 18.4 TriCLOPs-mono COREXY 3D printer
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Table 18.1 TriCLOPs-mono costs Items
Quantity
Costs (US$)
Aluminum profiles + linear guides
1 set
$156.50
Belt + 12 pulleys + bearing
1 set
$40.00
Cooling fan
10 un
$75.00
Filament
1 kg
$15.00
Flanged linear guide LMK 10UU
4 un
$18.00
Heated bed in aluminum MK3
1 un
$31.50
Heated blanket in silicone 220 V × 750 W
1 un
$22.50
Heater 50W24V + thermistor B3950
4 un
$6.00
Hot end diamond full kit
1 un
$35.00
Magnetic plate BIQU SSS
1 un
$28.50
Linear guideway MGN12H-450
3 un
$60.00
Motherboard 32bit BTT octopus PRO
1 un
$60.00
Nema 17 motor
7 un
$72.00
Relay v1.2 automatic shutdown module
1 un
$11.50
Rolled ball screws SFU1024-450
2 un
$51.00
Screen TFT LCD
1 un
$13.00
Screws + washers + nuts
1 set
$10.00
Silent driver for stepper motors TMC2209
8 un
$32.00
Smart filament sensor
3 un
$38.50
Solid state relay 25 DA
2 un
$10.50
Teflon tube 2 × 4
10 m
$13.00
Total cost
$ 799.50
Here are some of the tools that were used in this process: • Prusa Printer’s Calculator: This tool helps to define the amount of motor steps per millimeter of filament from design information [11]. • REPRAP Calibration Guide: Calibration procedures are used after setting up the electronics and mechanics [12]. • Pronterface: This is tool to perform functional tests on the newly assembled printer. It features and facilitates calibration and testing of the printer’s sensors. • Marlin Reference Page: Presents various calibration information and know-how tools to calibrate the printer [13]. The tests occur by printing parts as main classic test models; the Beachy (see Fig. 18.5), the Calibration Cube and the Pyramid obtained from Thingiverse. Such aspects like details, diameter, temperature, extrusion, surface finish, vibration, symmetry, printer behavior with rounded surfaces were all evaluated. This information is considered in the printer profiling process: it may need increased top layers.
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Fig. 18.5 TriCLOPs-mono Benchy tests
The need for supports or lower layers, and higher print volume, have different layers of resolution and many depend on the machine/firmware and the application. The results so far have been satisfactory. The printer can produce high-quality prints with good layer resolution, good print speed, high precision and can print with volume. The printer also incorporates several new features such as automatic leveling, automatic shutdown, calibration process of the mechanical error after each print, among others that are of great importance and are in full operation. As the profile depends on the application and the type of part wanted, there is still room for improvement: in some printing styles, the surface finish was worse; in others, there were some burrs. However, with careful consideration and attention to detail, these issues can be minimized, trying to find the better print profile. The printer has already been made available to students doing academic projects and receives positive feedback. The machine can handle the needs very well in a short period of time. To help build a Cartesian robot, one-off parts have already been made by TriCLOPs-mono (see Fig. 18.6).
18.6 Final Considerations The implementing of rapid prototype machines in the undergraduate program in mechanical engineering stimulates the academic production of students and faculty members. Determined to learn more about the technology, it contributes to the development of additive manufacturing and its technologies in the institution.
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Fig. 18.6 TriCLOPS-mono 3D pieces examples
In this context, promoting the use of a 3D printer in the academic environment is of great importance, since it can contribute to the education process of students, as well as helping teachers in research projects. Teaching is an extension and serves to create material apparatus to be used in classrooms. The TriCLOPs-mono project fully embodies the DIY philosophy since the proper student developed it under supervision of FEMEC/UFU teacher. The printer attends academic projects at the university. The machine is already calibrated and prints with remarkable precision. Even so, it completes prints in a short period of time, and because it is practically all automated, it doesn’t require much time to teach new people how to use it. In conclusion, spreading the word about how this kind of technology is accessible and replicable for all interested parties, may in the future contribute to research, exploring, and developing knowledge and techniques.
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For the future, a new COREXY 3D printer, with the option to print in three colors will be implemented. Additionally, a new 3D printer project is in the works to handle different materials and higher temperatures than what is possible with the TriCLOPs-mono. Furthermore, it is mandatory to conduct an analysis of the usage of 3D printers in FEMEC disciplines, with a specific focus on the impact of this technology on education.
References 1. Santos, J.T.G., De Andrade, A.F.: Impressão 3D como Recurso para o Desenvolvimento de Material Didático: Associando a Cultura Maker à Resolução de Problemas. RENOTE, Porto Alegre 18(1) (2020). https://doi.org/10.22456/1679-1916.106014. Available at: https://seer. ufrgs.br/index.php/renote/article/view/106014. Accessed in: 5 Mar 2023 2. De Paula, B.B., De Oliveira, T., Martins, C.B.: Análise do Uso da Cultura Maker em Contextos Educacionais: Revisão Sistemática da Literatura. RENOTE, Porto Alegre. 17(3), 447–457 (2019). https://doi.org/10.22456/1679-1916.99528. Available at: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index. php/renote/article/view/99528. Accessed in:5 Mar 2023 3. Trust, T., Maloy, R.W.: Why 3D print? The 21st-century skills students develop while engaging in 3D printing projects. Comput. Sch. 34(4), 253–266 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1080/073 80569.2017.1384684 4. Rafalski, J.P., Da Silva, M.A.F., Vieira Júnior, R.R.M.: Relato de experiências em espaços makers nas escolas do ensino fundamental. RENOTE, Porto Alegre. 17(1), 276–285 (2019). https://doi.org/10.22456/1679-1916.95793. Available at: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index. php/re-note/article/view/95793. Accessed in: 5 Mar 2023 5. Leonel, R.: A impressão 3D na indústria e engenharia: Nova forma de produzir protótipos reduz tempo e custo de manufatura. CIMM (2011). Available at: https://www.cimm.com.br/portal/not icia/exibir_noticia/8623-a-impressao-3d-na-industria-e-engenharia. Accessed in: 5 Mar 2023 6. ASTM F2792-12A, Standard Terminology for Additive Manufacturing Technologies. ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA (2012) 7. Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas: ABNT NBR ISO/ASTM 52900: Manufatura Aditiva—Princípios Gerais—Terminologia. ABNT, Rio de Janeiro (2018) 8. Raulino, B.R.: Manufatura aditiva: desenvolvimento de uma máquina de prototipagem rápida baseada na tecnologia FDM (modelagem por fusão e deposição) (2011). x, 142 f., il. Monografia (Bacharelado em Engenharia Mecatrônica). Universidade de Brasília, Brasília (2011). Available at: https://bdm.unb.br/bitstream/10483/15472/1/2011_BrunoRibei-roRaul ino_tcc.pdf. Accessed in: 5 Mar 2023 9. Wishbox Technologies: Manufatura Aditiva: Entenda o que é e como ela funciona (2015). Available at https://www.wishbox.net.br/blog/o-que-e-manufatura-aditiva/#:~:text=A%20m anufatura%20aditiva%20per-mite%20a,pela%20pe%C3%A7a%20na%20foto%20abaixo. Accessed in: 5 Mar 2023 10. Carneiro, L.R.R., Tavares, J.J.P.Z.S.: Design and implementation of 3D printer for mechanical engineering courses. Int. J. Innov. Educ. Res. 9(3), 293–312 (2021). Available at: https://doi. org/10.31686/ijier.vol9.iss3.3001. Accessed in: 5 Mar 2023 11. RepRap Calculator—Original Prusa 3D Printers. Available at: https://blog.prusa3d.com/calcul ator_3416/. Accessed in: 9 Mar 2023 12. Calibration—RepRap. Available at: https://reprap.org/wiki/Calibration. Accessed in: 9 Mar 2023 13. Configuring Marlin. Marlin Firmware. Available at: https://marlinfw.org/docs/configuration/ configuration.html. Accessed in: 9 Mar 2023
Chapter 19
Open-Source Web System to Improve Eating Styles Accompanied by Exercises: HealthLife Alba Miranda , Stalin Carreño , and Jordan Vera
Abstract Nowadays, dietary and physical health is as important as general health problems. Several web and mobile applications try to cover health care to provide better food and physical conditions for users, but approximately 90% of these are paid. The objective of this research was to develop HealthLife. This open-source web system makes it easier for users to obtain meal and exercise plans, complemented with the help of professionals in each of these areas. The methodology was divided into two parts: on the one hand, a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) was used for the bibliographic study; on the other hand, a novel software development methodology called OSCRUM was used to carry out the development tasks in an orderly and rigorous manner, facilitating the speed of these tasks and thus obtaining a quality web system. The result was the development of an open-source web system focused on controlling food and physical health. This web system is designed responsively so that it can be used correctly from any device such as a laptop, tablet and/or cell phone, thus helping the user to visualize their progress in health control from any electronic device. In addition, this web system offers users attention via chat with the professionals in charge of their subscribed plan.
A. Miranda (B) Facultad de Ingeniería, Industria y Producción, Carrera de Ingeniería en Tecnologías de la Información, Universidad Indoamérica, Ambato 180103, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] S. Carreño · J. Vera Quevedo State Technical University, Quevedo, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] J. Vera e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_19
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19.1 Introduction The origin of open-source software (OSS) is due to the development of software to bring computer hardware to life. Professional users provided support for exchanging programs with free source code [1]. In recent years, companies have become interested in the benefits of open source, such as: economic cost, there is no limit to the number of licenses, and modifications can be made to suit the needs of each company [1]. Therefore, the main reason to use open source is that any user makes his software available for various collaborators to work with and adapt to their needs. The creation of software allows for solving problems and speeding up the execution of various functions and activities that are performed manually, and that require more resources and effort [2]. Quality software is important in every business to optimize the processes that are carried out at the lowest possible cost and improve their operability. To obtain user-friendly quality software, a methodology must be used to help manage software development processes and techniques. Therefore, a literature search and analysis are carried out on the development methodologies used for the creation of web systems. For this search, the Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) methodology has been used. In the literature analyzed, some studies report on open-source web applications in the health area. On the one hand, a study on open-source web applications has been CoxBase [1], which is a web platform for the surveillance of infectious diseases such as Q fever. This platform has been developed with the help of open-source resources available on the Internet. In addition, the code is freely provided to all users, providing a characteristic complement to open-source systems. On the other hand, Llerena’s work reports the creation of a web system for the control of vaccination processes in health centers or institutions in Ecuador [3]. This web system has been developed with a variant of the agile SCRUM methodology. This is how, for the development of our investigative work, a variant of the SCRUM methodology has been selected to create a web OSS system. This methodology is called OSCRUM. Therefore, the objective of our investigative work consisted in applying the OSCRUM methodology for the development of an open-source web system in the field of health, specifically in the food and physical area of people. This web system provides diet and exercise plans to users who wish to improve their health, complemented by the help of professionals in both areas. This investigative work presents the development of an open-source web system that will help the majority of the population to achieve a better lifestyle in terms of food and physical condition. This system is free and has been called HealthLife. This open-source web system provides various options to users, such as nutrition and exercise plans that are established by professionals. The main difference between our research work with other reported works is that HealthLife is free and its source code can be downloaded to make improvements. These characteristics are not present in the majority of software systems in the area of health in the area of nutrition and physical exercise, since those found on the Internet are paid. HealthLife will help users to know the diet that can be followed and the
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exercises that can be done. HealthLife has a form where information on the state of general and physical health is collected, this can be useful for users who want to maintain a healthy diet if they want to lose weight or maintain their weight. This study presents the following important contributions. First, for the OSS community, problems in open-source software development are identified and solutions are proposed through specific activities in the open-source development process. Second, in the area of health, it provides a tool to improve the nutritional and physical health of people free. Third, it serves as a guide for educational institutions, software development companies, or open-source development enthusiasts. This document is organized as follows: Sect. 19.2 describes the related works. Section 19.3 describes the development method followed for the implementation of the open-source web system. Section 19.4 describes the case study. Section 19.5 describes the results of the case study. Section 19.6 discusses the results and the limitations found. Finally, Sect. 19.7 describes the conclusions and future research.
19.2 Related Works This section presents the works that are considered to contribute significantly to the research. In the work carried out by Dandekar and Vergnaud [1], details the process of designing and developing an open-source web-based application called CoxBase for epidemic control. This study includes a database containing genotyping information for more than 400 Coxiella isolates. This study details the components such as the Front-End, Back-End, the use of the MySQL database, Apache server, and routing routes, however, it does not report a software development methodology. In the work presented by Dolin et al. [4], the stages for the development of a web application are presented. This tool is used for the conversion of digital visiting cards or documents, to the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) type, where medical information is obtained that helps doctors make decisions about the results. Converting the file type to a more understandable one, makes the job easier since VFC type files are often difficult to memorize. This study does not report a methodology for software development. According to the research by Ndzimakekhwe et al. [5] applying development methodologies helps to improve the quality of a software product. This document details the use of the blockchain-based methodology which prioritizes users for an EMR storage method. It focuses on the health sector and what it intends to transform medical care by putting the patient at the center of the system and improving the protection and interoperability of health data. The work presented by Solayman et al. [6] describes the development process of an intelligent web application to automatically detect COVID-19. For this process, open-source tools are used accompanied by artificial intelligence. In this study, a methodology is used that is based on machine learning techniques and data processing.
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In the study by Llerena et al. [3] the OSS All Vaccinated system is developed with the application of the OSCRUM development methodology. This web system allows the control of vaccination processes to benefit health centers or institutions dedicated to vaccination. Finally, no research has been found that reports the development of open-source web systems to improve people’s lifestyles through diet and exercise plans. However, only the study by Llerena et al. [3] reports the application of the OSCRUM methodology to create an open-source web system that controls vaccination in health centers. Therefore, more research efforts are required in this line, such as the one reported in the present work.
19.3 Description of the Proposed Methodology In this section, the selected OSCRUM methodology, its activities, and the technology used for the development of the open-source web system [7] are described. OSCRUM is a methodology that follows almost the same guidelines established by the original SCRUM methodology. This methodology helps make the requirements gathering and software development process even easier and faster to implement. For this reason, the need to use OSCRUM for the development of an open-source web system arises [7]. Among the actors that interact in this methodology, two can be mentioned: (i) The Main Maintainer and Core-Contributor (Major contributors): who is responsible for directing and controlling the decisions made for the development of the project. (ii) The Community: is the one that will provide us with the characteristics, requirements, functionalities, and designs or interfaces that they want the platform to have. For the development of an open-source web system, the OSCRUM methodology is considered through the 11 activities proposed according to Rahman et al. [7]. Discovery of the problem and search for volunteers. To identify the problem, it is proposed to use elicitation techniques such as: brainstorming, competitive analysis, and the Joint Application Design (JAD) technique. In addition, the use of a web artifact (blog) is proposed for the community to propose the characteristics to be implemented in the open-source web system. Communication. With the information collected in the web artifact and the other techniques used to gather requirements, a meeting is held with the development team to obtain the functional and non-functional requirements that the open-source web system will have. Initial launch planning meeting. A meeting is held to plan the sprint to be followed in the development of the web system through the following tasks: (i) obtain the characteristics that the web system will have (Sprint Backlog). (ii) make the design of the interfaces of the web system. (iii) identify roles within the web system. (iv) create the first sprints (work cycle) to follow the development of the web system at a predetermined time. Release plan and product status. Once the features sprint backlog is complete, the activities are listed in the release plan, with their respective status. In the blog,
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the functionalities of the system in production are presented and suggestions are published. Feature Update. Sprints are updated with input from community users. The best contributions will be selected to improve the functionalities of the open-source web system. Test the source code. A version control repository is created on the GitHub platform to improve workflow among community contributors and provide access to the source code of the open-source web system. Report bugs. Errors reported by the community are recorded once the source code of the web system has been tested to discuss them among developers and find the best solution in a “Bug Log” template. Contributions from external members to the project. New collaborators are accepted for the development of the project once they are approved by the main maintainer. Repair. Reported bugs are fixed in collaboration with the community and the development team responsible for the project. Approval. The project is uploaded to the repository with the corrected characteristics. Community revisits open-source system with new features. Iteration. The process is repeated until the specified sprints are completed. There is a wide variety of open-source tools for the development of a software project. For this case, the tools used in the implementation of the open-source web system are detailed. These tools are free to use, and their use does not require much effort. Videezy: The use of this page is used to implement multimedia content (Images and videos) in the web system, the reason why this tool was taken into account is that there is a wide variety of content, it is free and all its content is free of rights from author [8]. Framework Angular with NodeJS: For the development of the web system, this framework will be used, to speed up development and present good interfaces to the user. It is Open-Source and multiplatform; the documentation that uses this framework will be taken as a guide [9]. Framework NestJS with NodeJS: For the development of the backend and the communication with the database manager. This framework is based on another framework such as express. With this framework, we can carry out scalable and progressive projects [10]. PostgreSQL: To store all the information of the web system, the PostgreSQL database manager will be used, and the documentation used by this database manager will also be taken as a guide [11]. MongoDB: We will use this database, which is of a non-relational type, to store data that does not have a strong relationship with other entities and that provides us with greater speed in the implemented features [12].
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19.4 Case Study HealthLife is a web system that follows an open-source development process, based on the OSCRUM methodology. Each activity carried out for the development of the “HealthLife” web system is detailed below: Discovery of the Problem and Search for Volunteers: Most of the applications that are in the market on diets and exercises are few and paid. To satisfy users in these aspects, a free web system has been developed to help users to have a good diet accompanied by exercise. Under this problem, the compilation of the functional and non-functional requirements of the web system has been focused. For this, a web artifact was created (blog: https://n9.cl/jjviq), in which the collaborators published their opinions about the system’s functionalities. This blog was created to collect information from the open-source community (regular users of open-source tools). In addition to this, Brainstorming and competitive analysis were carried out, to obtain the requirements of the team of researchers. Communication: This activity details the functional and non-functional requirements for the implementation of the project that are the result of the application of information-gathering techniques (Brainstorming, JAD, Web Artifacts, and Questionnaires). With the application of these techniques, results are obtained in a short time and of great importance for the development of the project. These results are presented at the following link: https://n9.cl/0so26. The full use case of the open-source web system is presented at the following link: https://n9.cl/2duqx. Initial Launch Planning Meeting: Once the first two activities were carried out, they were carried out to determine the system interfaces, the identification of roles within the web system and the way to use the functionalities to propose the first highfidelity prototypes of the system. Some of the main features that were established for development were user registration, subscriptions to food and exercise plans: as well as registration of plans by professionals. For planning, meetings are held in which agreements on software development are established, according to the tasks that are assigned and the time that is established for each of these. The planning phase is managed by the repository where the source code of HealthLife’s open-source web system is hosted, which is presented at the following link (https://github.com/Iva nM9/HealthLife.git). Release Plan and Status: Once the implementation of the main functionalities of the “HealthLife” system is completed, the system is submitted for evaluation with the participation of external users. In our case, we have considered the participation of three external users as evaluators. External users (evaluators) are recruited through an invitation posted on the blog. Those interested in participating published their comments with the desire to participate along with their email to be contacted. Feature Update: In this activity, the latest updates of the functionalities of the “HealthLife” web system were made, which were determined by the community, after the evaluation of external users. Test Source Code: The evaluation of the “HealthLife” web system was carried out with external users, to test the code of the web system and find out if there are
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any errors. To deploy the web system, the free Heroku server was used. The system can be used by the user at the following link: https://healthlifeuteq.herokuapp.com/ inicio. This link was sent via email to the evaluators who expressed their desire to participate in evaluating the web system and reporting any errors or inconveniences found. Error Reporting: The open-source community after testing the source code has determined that there are various errors and inconsistencies on the part of the system. Therefore, the evaluators were asked to fill out a template with the errors found. Mentioned below are some of the errors found during the evaluation of the “HealthLife” system and which were considered to be of high priority: (i) the subscription button is not disabled after subscription, (ii) a save button is missing each time the profile is modified, (iii) incorrect loading of resources such as images and/or videos. An example of the bug report is shown in Fig. 19.1. To consult all the bug reports made by external testers, you can visit the following link: https://n9.cl/o4vjx. Contributions of External Members to the Project: External collaborators are expected to help with the development of the “HealthLife” system, through the following link: https://github.com/IvanM9/HealthLife.git. These collaborators can contribute with new functionalities or corrections of errors in the source code, in turn, the person in charge of the repository must provide the necessary permissions.
Fig. 19.1 Bug report from an external tester
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Repair: Once the problems in the previous steps were detected, the respective corrections and updates of the web system were carried out so that it meets the needs of the user. Approval (Validation): Once the errors presented during the evaluation of the web system have been solved, another review must be done to find out if the features that were corrected do not have any errors. Once the second review is done and the web system no longer has any errors, then the web system is approved. Iteration: This entire process is repeated as many times as deemed necessary in conjunction with the community of collaborators to improve the functionalities of the web system.
19.5 Case Study Results In the web device that we used to collect information, suggestions, and opinions from the community for the development of the “HealthLife” system, we obtained several proposals, among them are: (i) the plans can be aimed at different types of people, such as those who they have illnesses, bad eating habits, allergies, etc.; (ii) users can receive plan recommendations and/or select plans manually; (iii) review the graph of the progress of the completed activities; (iv) manage plan subscriptions. In the communication and planning of the software structure, a general use case diagram of the “HealthLife” web system was made, as well as the documentation of the analysis of the information obtained through brainstorming, the JAD technique, and web artifacts. In the planning meeting for the initial release, we did high-fidelity prototyping, which helped us to make the software design attractive and with usability characteristics. Also, the organization of tasks has reduced failures and errors when developing the software. The release plan helped us make the deployment of our web system smooth and with few bugs. This helped the testers to comply with the bug report without any inconvenience. System testing by third-party testers helped us identify bugs we had in this version of the software, as well as other features needed to make the software most useful to users. With the repair of the errors, all the problems found by the external evaluators were corrected and they were also documented to have evidence of the process carried out, if similar problems occur in the future, and to know how to solve them. Before starting a new sprint, the open-source web system is tested and validated internally with the main development team. Then the next iteration (sprint) is planned to continue with the development of the web system. Below are some interfaces of the “HealthLife” web system. Figure 19.2 shows the login interface where users or professionals can enter the system. In addition, this interface has a registration section to create an account, whether a user or professional, just by entering the required information. Figure 19.3 shows how the home dashboard of the professional type profile is displayed, which consists of the home, plans, profile, and subscribed clients sections. In the professional user profile you can register the nutrition or exercises plans, manage the users and the multimedia content of the plans.
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Fig. 19.2 HealthLife login and registration options
Fig. 19.3 Dashboard and professional home page with your options in HealthLife
HealthLife is an open-source web system, therefore its source code is available to all users who wish to use it, as well as to those who wish to implement new features. For the hosting of this source code, an open-source repository has been used, called GitHub, you can view all the source code, at the following link: https://github.com/ IvanM9/HealthLife.git.
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19.6 Discussion of Results The open-source web system “HealthLife” was developed so that users can achieve better health and lifestyle, whether in the part of food or exercise. Most of the applications that help you follow a good diet or have a good exercise routine, whether it is to lose weight, or maintain your body or health, are paid; however, the “HealthLife” web system is completely free for users who wish to try it. Users can use the web system, on the one hand, if they want to have a good diet without having to access the exercise plan, or, on the other hand, if the user wants to lose weight. Once the user registers, they are required to enter certain physical user information so that the web system provides them with the plans they can access. The web system is designed responsively so that it can be opened on a laptop, tablet, or cell phone. It adjusts to the device you are using, this helps the user to visualize their progress through any electronic device. One of the most important aspects is that the user will have chat attention with the professionals in charge of the plan to which they are subscribed. The web artifact that we used to obtain the requirements, characteristics, or functionalities was very important for the development of the web system. That is, thanks to the web artifact, the main functionalities for the implementation of the open-source web system were obtained. The main limitation was the number of databases that were used for the Systematic Mapping Study, in this case, it was only one. Therefore, the lack of documents related to the research topic was scarce, most of the documents only reported examples, but did not delve into the development of the software.
19.7 Conclusion and Future Work The objective of this research has been to develop an open-source web system applying the OSCRUM methodology. This methodology consists of 11 steps to follow for the agile, organized and effective development of an open-source web system. These steps and guidelines must be followed to have quality software. In the evaluation carried out on the “HealthLife” web system, several errors were detected that have been corrected. Once the errors were corrected, the evaluation was carried out with the OSS community, to verify that the errors were corrected within the web system and that they do not affect the use that the user can give to the system. Using the OSCRUM development methodology for the creation of the HealthLife web system helped significantly both in the development and in the quality of the software product since the errors found during the evaluation were easily understood by the development team. Additionally, it was demonstrated that the methodology can be adapted to the changes that occur during the implementation of the web system. The result is the web system centered on the OSS development environment to work collaboratively with new developers. Finally, as future work, the implementation of new sections in the web system is proposed, applying the steps of the OSCRUM methodology.
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References 1. Dandekar, T., Vergnaud, G.: CoxBase: an online platform for epidemiological surveillance. 6, 10 (2021) 2. Fuggetta, A.: Open source software—an evaluation. J. Syst. Softw. 66, 77–90 (2003). https:// doi.org/10.1016/S0164-1212(02)00065-1 3. Llerena, L., Rodríguez, N., Osorio, A., Arias, R., Castro, J.W.: All vaccinated: open-source web system for the control of vaccination processes in health centers. In: 8th International Congress on Information and Communication Technology. Reino Unido, Londres (2023) 4. Dolin, R.H., Gothi, S.R., Boxwala, A., Heale, B.S.E., Husami, A., Jones, J., Khangar, H., Londhe, S., Naeymi-Rad, F., Rao, S., Rapchak, B., Shalaby, J., Suraj, V., Xie, N., Chamala, S., Alterovitz, G.: vcf2fhir: a utility to convert VCF files into HL7 FHIR format for genomics-EHR integration. BMC Bioinform. 22, 1–11 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-021-04039-1 5. Ndzimakhwe, M., Telukdarie, A., Munien, I., Vermeulen, A., Chude-Okonkwo, U.K., Philbin, S.P.: A framework for user-focused electronic health record system leveraging hyperledger fabric 4 (2023) 6. Solayman, S., Aumi, S.A., Mery, C.S., Mubassir, M., Khan, R.: Automatic COVID-19 prediction using explainable machine learning techniques. 4 (2023) 7. Rahman, S., Mollah, S.A., Anirban, S., Rahman, M.H., Rahman, M.M., Hassan, M.M., Sharif, M.H.: OSCRUM : a modified scrum for open source software development. 1–7. https://doi. org/10.5013/IJSSST.a.19.03.20 8. Videezy: Videezy (2022). https://es.videezy.com 9. Gómez Gutiérrez, J.A., Boada Oriols, M.: El gran libro de Angular. (2018) 10. Nestjs: Nestjs (2022). https://nestjs.com/ 11. Ordóñez, M.P.Z., Ríos, J.R.M., Castillo, F.F.R.: Administración de base de datos con PostgreSQL (2017). https://www.3ciencias.com/libros/libro/administracion-bases-datos-pos tgresql/ 12. Mongo, D.B.: (2022). https://www.mongodb.com/
Chapter 20
Pandemic Reflections on Higher Education: A Theoretical Examination of Work-Related Stress in the Teaching Role Kevin Mario Laura-De La Cruz , Gabriela Manzur-Vera , Cynthia Karín Rodriguez-Palumbo , Miliam Quispe-Vargas , Luz Anabella Mendoza-Del Valle , and Silverio Fausto Torres-Mamani
Abstract The pandemic offered proof of the inadequate quality of the educational system in Peru and the consequences of stress on teachers’ mental and physical health in the setting of online higher education. This paper’s purpose was to examine the major theoretical contributions of teacher stress in the context of a pandemic. For the analysis, a qualitative approach and a documentary-style layout were utilized to collect and evaluate scientific literature pertaining to the topic during the confinement time. This enabled us to recognize that the most important theoretical contributions related to job stress in distant education, internal and external variables that cause stress, burnout syndrome, and technostress, which instructors were not prepared for. In response, the absence of connectivity and the adoption of cutting-edge digital technology were implemented. It was able to deduce from this study the significance K. M. Laura-De La Cruz (B) Universidad Privada de Tacna, Tacna, Peru e-mail: [email protected] G. Manzur-Vera · C. K. Rodriguez-Palumbo · M. Quispe-Vargas · L. A. Mendoza-Del Valle · S. F. Torres-Mamani Universidad Nacional Jorge Basadre Grohmann, Tacna, Peru e-mail: [email protected] C. K. Rodriguez-Palumbo e-mail: [email protected] M. Quispe-Vargas e-mail: [email protected] L. A. Mendoza-Del Valle e-mail: [email protected] S. F. Torres-Mamani e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_20
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of a teacher’s holistic well-being and the balance of internal and external elements that influence stress in ensuring their proper work performance in the context of the pandemic’s virtuality.
20.1 Introduction The COVID-2019 pandemic did not stop at international and national borders, it affected everyone regardless of their nationality, educational level, income or gender [1]. Education is no exception, being one of the most affected sectors; all educational institutions and higher education centers had to close their facilities, switching to the virtual teaching modality. Thus, distance education became the center of efforts of every educational community. Initially, it was mistakenly understood that teaching lessons online was enough to achieve the proper teaching–learning process goals [2]. However, this new modality uses other strategies and tools to obtain optimal achievements. Thus, facing new challenges in a confinement environment, which strengthened and made stress visible among the agents of the educational communities, especially teachers [3]. The COVID-19 pandemic created radical changes in society beginning from the isolation measures adopted, especially in the face-to-face education system, teachers were forced to carry out the teaching and learning process virtually, which made their workload heavier, neglecting their family and physical and mental aspects [4], triggering increasingly noticeable pressure and stress situations [5]. Confinement from its first stage made many people victims of an existential crisis, producing changes in affectivity and emotion; as a consequence, it led to instability and anxiety, causing an increase in bad habits and even addictions that are harmful to good health [6]. In the teaching field, specifically at the university level, it was noticed that within an environment of prolonged confinement, there were cases of diseases such as overweight, obesity, and diabetes [7]. Thus, if a person is in constant stress, they have higher levels of anxiety, irritability, and anger; if the situation is not dealt with in a timely manner, symptoms of depression may appear as a result of emotional exhaustion [4]. In addition to stress, they will have a greater chance of developing burnout syndrome, as well as emotional exhaustion and lack of personal motivation during virtual teaching due to the pandemic [3]. Burnout syndrome is understood as a constant condition of being mentally and professionally “burned out”, of not supporting the work to be done [8]. Confinement imposed by the authorities’ brought consequences for an important risk group of the population, people who work remotely in education [9]. The demands of the pandemic have revealed the chronic exhaustion of a considerable number of professionals, such as teachers, who eventually manifested symptoms of a syndrome known as burnout, which manifests itself as an indicator of mental health and teacher self-efficacy [10]. Consequently, the virtual context is constituted as a stress factor for teaching workers [11].
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In the teaching context of the pandemic, specific patterns emerged from special demands, such as time management, technology literacy, balancing home and remote work, as well as a lack of various resources [12]. University and non-university education was forced to be developed completely online, regardless of direct teacher– student contact. The improvisation that teachers had to resort to subjected them to a level of stress that is not recommended for an adequate level of performance [13]. For all of the things said above, it is necessary to analyze the different theoretical contributions of stress present in teachers in the context of the pandemic and the virtuality of education through the analysis of existing theoretical evidence related to this topic.
20.2 Method 20.2.1 Design The qualitative research methodology was used with a documentary type design, because the process was based on the search, recovery, analysis, criticism, and interpretation of data, which were obtained and recorded by other researchers in documentary sources [14].
20.2.2 Data Collection To start the research process, the scientific literature was collected, carrying out the search with the following keywords: teacher stress in a pandemic, technological stress of teachers in a pandemic, work stress in education in a pandemic, teaching in times of a pandemic, teacher stressors in pandemic, virtual and/or distance education and teacher stress, mental health and anxiety of teachers in a pandemic, stress factors for teachers in a pandemic, among others. Web platforms from the main research repositories such as Redalyc, Scielo, Science Direct, Ebsco, Google Scholar, and specialized journals in education and university teaching were used. For this research, the following questions were considered: Main Question: According to the collection and analysis on the subject, what are the main contributions of teacher stress theories in the context of the pandemic? Secondary Questions: What are the contributions related to teacher stress in the distance learning modality? What are the new theories related to teacher stress in the context of the pandemic? To select the studies, the following inclusion and exclusion criteria were taken into account within the meta-analysis:
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Inclusion criteria: Scientific paper on teacher stress and related theories within the period from 2020 to 2022. Exclusion criteria: Scientific papers on teacher work stress that are not developed in the pandemic context caused by COVID-19. The scientific documents that are part of the references of this research have been validated by their title, abstract, methodological quality, authors, results and main contributions, of which more than 150 documents were collected and 87 were discarded due to lack of scientific rigor and connection to the main subject of this study.
20.3 Results 20.3.1 Teacher Stress and Distance Learning Work stress is understood as a maladjustment, considered a subjective experience, produced by the perception of the existence of excessive or threatening demands, which are difficult to control and can have negative consequences, which in turn, are called tension or stress, whose sources or factors are called stressors. The identification of stressors makes it possible to prevent and control work stress since these trigger stress-tension experiences [15]. Work stress also includes a group of emotional, cognitive, physiological, and behavioral reactions of the worker to certain adverse or harmful aspects of the content, environment or work organization [16]; reactions that affect a teacher’s daily routine, often generating states of anger, depression and irritability that in turn hurt the professional, personal, and family environment of the worker. This scenario becomes more difficult and with greater challenges for the remote work carried out by teachers, during the pandemic; who are scared and pressured by the use of new and necessary technology to transmit knowledge to students eager to learn and make the most of this teaching in a positive way. Therefore, this whole situation becomes a burden that for teacher in this virtual scenario, since it represents a great challenge to manage significant knowledge in this new reality [17]. The virtualization of teaching in the context of the pandemic has been led by teachers, regardless of their difficulties, uncertainties, fears, anxiety, depression, and workload [18]. To this was added the great doubt of whether face-to-face education and distance education could work in the same way; it was a matter of building learning strategies with a new and innovative structure where the great tool was technology from the context of each of the forms of teaching, in this way we discovered that the teaching profession in pandemic has been transformed and resignified its exercise with creativity, commitment, and responsibility [2]. We must understand and empathize with the idea that the elements of distance education, referring to internal factors such as fears, uncertainty, and lack of knowledge; and external factors such as turning the home into a classroom, the economy, and household chores; make a big
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difference from face-to-face education, impact on the teaching performance and this affects student learning and the consequence of the programmed and institutional objectives [18]. Teachers are a fundamental part of education; and, in a distance education environment, they felt the increased workload, privacy risks, as well as the difficulty of educational integration of students with different abilities [19], which leads to also raise the rate of teacher job stress during the pandemic.
20.3.2 Teacher Stress and Physical and Mental Health Stress is a factor that affects the overall health of teachers and was more evident during the pandemic. Thus, exhaustion of physical and mental energy are causes that affected the health of teachers in general. Internal and external stimuli such as the environment, perception of threats, alteration of physiological functions, and diseases; besides producing isolation, blockage of interests and motivations, a departure from social groups, and frustration are observable factors in society, but they were particularly observed during the prolonged confinements of the pandemic [4]. As a result, teachers experience high levels of stress and burnout due to the routine demands inherent in their work. The pandemic raised the level of demand, accelerating the transition to digital teaching. Teachers face several technical and practical challenges that negatively affected their emotional well-being and job performance [20]. The academic load, stress, and excessive demands are triggers that affect physical and mental health, the consequence of being in a virtual stage causes an uncontrolled level of anxiety causing overweight, sedentary lifestyle, in addition to the high cardiovascular and metabolic risk [7]. Stress produces negative effects when faced with unfavorable results, but it also produces positive emotions due to the effort done to achieve the objectives. In both situations, physiological changes occur and have consequences for physical health. When a person is subjected to constant stress, he/she becomes more active, producing anxiety and irritability; if this persists, it can become depression and emotional fatigue, which leads to physical illnesses [4]. One of the diseases caused by stress is Burnout syndrome, which consists of burnout and a chronic adaptive disorder. It is manifested by an excessive degree of demand and scarcity of resources. This syndrome not only affects health professionals but also affects teachers in a way that they face situations of chronic stress caused by the daily tasks of their jobs [21]. Thus, Burnout syndrome also leads to low job satisfaction and has an impact on the quality of teaching–learning [17]. Teachers’ burnout during their work in the pandemic is an indicator of mental health that in turn affects self-efficacy. This highly relevant resource affects and changes burnout levels [10]. Therefore, during the pandemic, work stress was evidenced as a major consequence, affecting the physical and mental health of teachers, and presenting high levels of emotional exhaustion, indifference, lack of
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empathy, detriment of their professional capabilities, and feeling of failure, thus causing high levels of job dissatisfaction [8].
20.3.3 Factors of Teacher Job Stress The factors that condition the level of teaching stress are grouped into internal and external, the former include factors more related to personal characteristics, such as personal fulfillment [17], which includes elements such as individual organization and self-motivation; teaching self-efficacy [10], which takes into account the way in which the teacher, making use of his or her own technical and emotional resources, copes with the stressful situation in distance education. To these factors are added other internal factors such as uncertainty and fear [22] that come from the reality of the health crisis as well as the future of jobs; also including anxiety, which is characterized by fatigue and over-worry, representative signs of remote activity during the COVID-19 pandemic [18]. Concern for the teacher’s own health in a pandemic environment, which is reflected in the fear of contracting the virus, is also a factor that promotes stress at the internal level [10]; added to this, physical inactivity, decreased energy expenditure as well as excessive consumption of hypercaloric food in a confined environment are part of the internal factors in the field of physical health [7]. Likewise, the non-flexible nature of the teacher comes to represent a threat to stress [23], since it will depend largely on how the traits and qualities within their way of thinking and acting in various circumstances can facilitate or hinder the development of their profession within a virtual environment. One of the factors that perhaps could not be placed between internal or external is the teacher’s gender since there is evidence that teaching stress occurs to a greater extent in women since in most cases it is they who carry the domestic burden individually and without any support [24], dealing not only with the responsibilities of remote work but also with personal responsibilities in domestic work that end up increasing. Likewise, it is also the assistance and training of teachers to work in virtuality one more external factor that conditions stress in them [2], it is not enough just to assist them and give them support for access and use of digital platforms but especially the methodology and strategies to adapt the courses to the virtual environment. Within the group of external factors that determine teacher stress in distance education, the most prominent is access to technology, including both connectivity and the tools available to the teacher when developing virtual classes [4]. This represents for the teacher an opportunity and at the same time a threat because although it is true that it could facilitate the proper development of virtual classes, it could also represent an attenuator of teacher stress, due to the wide range of tools that are available and that without proper guidance end up being difficult to organize and manage.
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20.3.4 Technostress and the University Teacher One of the consequences derived from the pandemic was the management and mandatory use of technology within university teaching. In this sense, the essential nature of ICTs in universities has meant the emergence of situations in which great benefits for education can be observed, as well as negative effects on the emotional stability of the teacher. This is the origin of the term technostress, which is used to explain the stress derived from working with computers, which is an adaptive disease generated by the inability of people to cope with new technologies successfully and healthily in everyday life [23]. The effects and limitations of the health emergency generated by the pandemic made people resort to the constant use of technology as an option to continue with their academic and professional work, which in turn, generated a new focus on disorders caused by remote learning, including technostress. Among other dimensions of technostress, we can find creators and inhibitors. Creators are situations that favor the creation of the disorder, such as technological overload, techno-invasion, techno-complexity, techno-insecurity, and technouncertainty. Techno-invasion refers to situations in which technology invades the teacher’s personal space, generating in him an emotional imbalance due to the lack of identification and free availability of recreational spaces. Likewise, technological overload and techno-invasion affect women more than men. With respect to inhibitors, which are factors that block technostress, we have the facilitation of literacy, provision of technical support, and facilitation of participation. The facilitation of participation is that in which women feel more confident than men. These elements of technostress are the promoters of the teacher’s difficulty in delimiting the use of ICTs as work tools and thus facilitating their transfer to other contexts, thus avoiding blurred boundaries between personal and work life [24]. Despite the challenges presented by the remote education situation, technostress is not stationary and can change over time. The perception of individual stressors changes through the training and upgrading of teachers’ knowledge and skills, as there is greater self-confidence due to the skills achieved. While at the beginning stressors are perceived as prominent, later other stressors become more dominant, mainly supported by the learning curve teachers go through over time. On the other hand, there is a temporal interplay between technostress and emotional management techniques that changes and adapts progressively [22]. Technology has become ubiquitous and is constantly and naturally coexisting in our environment, silently injecting itself into our daily activities, relationships, economy, culture, important decisions, quality of life, health, and among others. Therefore, the teacher’s skills with respect to the use of technology do not necessarily contribute to reducing technostress, since technology is not only present in the work environment during the confinement caused by the pandemic, but also in the personal life of the teacher in a counterproductive way. This creates difficulties in delimiting the time of exposure to the use of technology for teaching, respecting teacher access restrictions to address work issues related to the use of technology, following effective guidelines for technology use, as well as being concerned about their emotional stability [25].
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20.4 Discussion Through the theoretical analysis of teacher work stress in the pandemic environment, the main contributions have been identified, first, in relation to stress and distance education, the categorization of the teaching profession as one of the most affected by prolonged confinements due to the pandemic by COVID-19 [21], as well as the change represented by virtual education, which brought as a consequence the responsibility of designing a new systematic work structure in the educational field [2], which modified the workday by reducing interactivity, but at the same time increased the teacher’s work and did not ensure his or her disconnection for personal and family spaces [14]. Second, at the health level, depression is considered a consequence of stress patterns not being addressed in a timely manner in teachers [20]; on the other hand, it not only brings mental health problems but also leads to alteration of physiological functions that produce diseases in different body systems [4], thus altering the capacity for self-efficacy in the development of their profession in a virtual environment [13]. Third, the concept of technostress is relatively recent, it brings the possibility of fluctuating over time as teachers adapt to the different challenges presented by virtuality [26], but in turn suggests that having knowledge and skills in the management of technology does not necessarily minimize or disappear technostress in the virtual education environment [27], much will depend on the individual ability of each teacher to manage their work and balance personal lifetime. Fourth, the factors that determine teacher stress are grouped into external and internal. The former is mainly represented by the personal traits of the teacher, his/ her competencies and skills developed before the pandemic, the way he/she handles the situation, as well as the care of his/her own health and social relationships; and, within the external ones, there are those linked to the family and work environment, in addition to the access and efficient use of the available technology. Thus, the analysis of these contributions also reveals two important things: firstly, the need to change the face-to-face environment to a virtual one forced teachers to learn and use new technologies and methodologies, the latter being the least strengthened and did not allow the educational curriculum to be adequately implemented in the virtual environment. Secondly, the need to see the mental health of teachers as a priority at the level of studies and practical initiatives, since it can lead to depression, anxiety, and other types of extreme disorders, but as it is carried internally and often silent and invisible, it is not addressed in a timely manner, and can lead to even more serious problems. In turn, this allows us to deduce new questions in this field of study, as a result of the limitations of this research, such as: what would be the determining factors to promote a hybrid educational model (virtual-presential) for the mitigation of teacher work stress? How the incorporation of technology can influence, positively or negatively, the level of technostress in teachers? What are those factors, internal or external, that most impact on teacher work stress? And finally, what are the most effective
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initiatives regarding mental health, by the educational community, that can mitigate the levels of teacher work stress?
20.5 Conclusions It is concluded that work stress is closely related to the deterioration of physical and mental health, mainly affecting the workplace, as well as family and personal environment. Where challenges were identified such as adaptation to the use of technologies for education, the conditioning of a physical space and infrastructure, as well as technological and connectivity equipment in a domestic environment; in addition to the additional budget that teachers had to incur for these adaptations. Although teacher work stress represents a problem to be overcome in educational communities at different levels, the solution does not mean eliminating it completely, since that would be impossible, but rather managing stress levels and overcoming them through strategies and tools at educational, personal and institutional levels. In fact, it is natural and more common than it is thought that episodes of stress occur in teaching; what is crucial is not to reach high levels that lead to the presence of complicated episodes of anxiety, burnout syndrome, and depression. Thus, teachers with better stress management can easily deal with the effects of their physical and mental health, while others with different characteristics from the above can make stress a chronic factor that deteriorates overall health. On the other hand, technological progress has meant a great disadvantage for the majority of teachers, since not having digital skills caused a mismatch in professional development, generating emotional exhaustion and undermining the confidence and security of individual performance in the teaching work. Lastly, teachers, especially at the higher education level, are invited to reflect on the importance of timely care and attention to mental health as an effective way to balance work-related stress that may occur in a face-to-face or virtual setting given the fact that, to date there is no certainty about the modality that will prevail, the hybrid model being a solution to honor. Therefore, the teacher must acquire a constant preparation for the prevention and care of mental health and the development of digital and organizational skills; on their own initiative or through the proposals of the institutions where they work, which leads to adequate development in both modalities of education and thus opportunely deal with the levels of stress that may arise.
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References 1. OECD: https://www.oecd.org/centrodemexico/medios/EAG2020_COVID%20Brochure% 20ES.pdf. Last accessed 2022/03/09 2. Castillo, L.: Lo que la pandemia nos enseñó sobre la educación a distancia. Rev. Latinoam. Estud. Educativos 50, 343–352 (2020). https://rlee.ibero.mx/index.php/rlee/article/view/ 119/492 3. Vílchez, J., Humpire, D., Pérez, G.: Estrés laboral y síndrome de burnout durante la pandemia en docentes de una asociación educativa peruana. Rev. Inv. Cultura-Universidad César Vallejo 10(4), 1–8 (2021). https://revistas.ucv.edu.pe/index.php/ucv-hacer/article/view/1998/1750 4. Casali, A., Torres, D.: Impacto del COVID 19 en docentes universitarios argentinos: cambio de prácticas, dificultades y aumento del estrés. Rev. Iberoamericana Tecnología Educación Educación Tecnología 1(28), 423–431 (2021). https://teyet-revista.info.unlp.edu.ar/TEyET/ article/view/1531/1408 5. Cevallos, A., Mena, P., Reyes, E.: Salud Mental Docente En Tiempos De Pandemia Por Covid19. Rev. Inv. Desarrollo 14(1), 132–138 (2021). https://revistas.uta.edu.ec/erevista/index.php/ dide/article/view/1334/1110 6. Andrade, W.: El estrés y el consumo de alcohol durante la pandemia de la Covid-19. Rev. Científica Retos Cienc. 5(11), 13–24 (2021). https://retosdelacienciaec.com/Revistas/index. php/retos/article/view/352/387 7. Flores, A., Coila, D., Ccopa, S., Yapuchura, C., Pino, Y.: Actividad física, estrés y su relación con el índice de masa corporal en docentes universitarios en pandemia. Rev. Inv. Comunicación Desarrollo 12(3), 175–185 (2021). https://doi.org/10.33595/2226-1478.12.3.528 8. Mena, L.: El desgaste profesional en profesores universitarios: un modelo predictivo, 124p [Doctoral thesis]. University of Granada, Granada (2010). https://digibug.ugr.es/handle/10481/ 5531 9. Ozamiz, N., Dosil, M., Picaza, M., Idoiaga, N.: Stress, anxiety, and depression levels in the initial stage of the COVID-19 outbreak in a population sample in the northern Spain. Cad. Saúde Pública 36(4), 7 (2020). https://www.scielo.br/j/csp/a/bnNQf4rdcMNpPjgfnpWPQzr/? lang=en&format=html 10. Weibenfels, M., Klopp, E., Perels, F.: Changes in teacher burnout and self-efficacy during the covid-19 pandemic: interrelations and e-learning variables related to change. Front. Educ. 6 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.736992/full 11. Shlenskaya, N., Karnaukhova, A.: Teachers’ burnout in online university courses in the time of pandemic. In: 4th International Conference on Education and Multimedia Technology, pp. 95– 99. ICEMT, Kyoto (2020). https://doi.org/10.1145/3416797.3416841 12. Sokal, L., Eblie, L., Babb, J.: Supporting teachers in times of change: the job demands-resources model and teacher burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. Int. J. Contemp. Educ. 3(2), 70–72 (2020). https://winnspace.uwinnipeg.ca/handle/10680/1823 13. Penado, M., Rodicio, M., Ríos, M., Mosquera, M.: Technostress in Spanish university teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Front. Educ. 12(617650), 8 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3389/ fpsyg.2021.617650 14. Arias, F.: El Proyecto de Investigación, 6th edn. Episteme, La Paz (2012) 15. Rodríguez, J.: Estrés laboral, liderazgo y salud ocupacional. Papeles Psicólogo 29(1), 68–82 (2008). https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/778/77829109.pdf 16. Serpa, A., Álvarez, M.: Estrés laboral, síndrome de Burnout y técnicas de afrontamiento en docentes de educación general básica de un colegio privado de Quito en el periodo Marzo a Julio del 2013, 113p [Bachelor tesis]. Repositorio de la Universidad Internacional SEK Ecuador, Ecuador (2014). https://repositorio.uisek.edu.ec/handle/123456789/894 17. Vilchez, J., Humire, D., Gabriel, T.: Estrés laboral y síndrome de burnout durante la pandemia en docentes de una asociación educativa peruana. Rev. Inv. Cultura—Universidad César Vallejo 10(4), 45–52 (2021). https://revistas.ucv.edu.pe/index.php/ucv-hacer/article/view/1998/1750
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Chapter 21
Technology and Tax Culture. An Evolutionary Perspective Lorena Muquis, Carolina Jaramillo, and William Ortega
Abstract Nowadays, the management of information technologies is no longer an unknown domain and therefore has allowed the versatility of opportunities in the various fields in which it is applied. The Ecuadorian state has considered its development pertinent in an important area such as taxation, since it is directly linked to obtaining resources for the budget and thus meeting the needs of the population. Thus, the tax administration, considering its faculties, as well as the strategic objectives proposed and designed to fulfill its collection task, has generated the application of digital platforms to achieve effective and efficient controls to avoid evasion. It is therefore important to review in detail the characteristics of each of the digital elements proposed in this evolution, as well as to understand the experience generated in the taxpayers from the interaction and finally achieve an adequate tax culture that benefits the main actors, for which a descriptive research scope is used, as well as the inductive method addressed to the entity in charge of collecting taxes in Ecuador SRI, considering information from the periods 2022 and 2023.
21.1 Introduction Currently, taxation is considered a transcendental element at the international level since its manifestation influences the economic impact of each territory; therefore, it is necessary to have variables that allow an adequate development for its management and compliance. This is the reason why the object of our study is focused on determining the technological application instruments implemented by the Internal Revenue Service, which is the entity in charge on the one hand of managing the state revenue in Ecuador, and on the other hand, of establishing control guidelines to reduce tax evasion.
L. Muquis (B) · C. Jaramillo · W. Ortega Universidad Tecnológica Israel, Marieta de Veintimilla y Fco, 4-142 Pizarro, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_21
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Each country has a government agency responsible for the timely control of the taxpayers’ tax obligations, as well as for the direction, monitoring, supervision, and management of the provisions issued by law, i.e., the tax administrations. A modern tax administration that intends to be efficient and effective needs to work on a risk management platform defined as a systematic process in the course of which people and resources are deployed, based on a risk analysis in order to achieve an optimal result [1]. The process must therefore consider and understand the tax system and its constituent elements, so as to achieve the established mission. The tax system is considered as that which, through rules established in a defined territory and resources, makes it possible to determine the taxable value of the various transactions carried out by the citizen, in which the state actively participates in the stable, fair, and sustainable construction [2]. When mentioning the state, we mention the relationship with the general budget of the state constituted by revenues and expenditures to cover public needs. Tax revenues are considered an important factor within the budget since they are closely related to the power exercised by tax administrations, as well as the levels of corruption and the morale of taxpayers, which are closely related to their willingness to pay [3]. This is not isolated to the Ecuadorian case in which the importance of the fiscal aspect in public finances generates great expectations for the fulfillment of state requirements, which are reflected in the conformation of the General State Budget in which taxes represent approximately 60% of total revenues (Ministry of Economy and Finance 2023). Thus, the tax manifestation is of utmost importance in Ecuador, and therefore, it is necessary to comply with an adequate and timely management of the system, in which the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is in charge of these processes and to ensure timely compliance with the obligations and to generate changes. These allow therefore to generate tax culture to create awareness in each of the members of a society, i.e., to consider that compliance with the established obligations generates a gain for both parties since the fiscal resources obtained allow the development of the nation’s project [4]. On the other hand, it is important to mention that this improvement process has also been established at the international level, which is based on a model to achieve digital transformation considering six basic components such as digital identity, taxpayer service points, data management and standards, management and application of tax rules, new sets of competencies, and governance frameworks. We speak then that each administration according to this proposal would already have a model for the evaluation and application of technology, and thus take corrective or implementation measures for each of the requirements presented. And it is important to mention that Ecuador as of 2017 is part of the Global Forum, and is in the process of adapting this model to its technological guidelines since at the moment it has accepted some commitments to achieve the task (Fig. 21.1). As mentioned, several tools are needed to achieve process efficiency, so the Ecuadorian administration has taken the initiative to manifest it in a digital transformation to streamline them and meet the requirements established in its current legal regulations, and has already taken a benchmark.
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Fig. 21.1 Model of basic components of Tax Administration 3.0. Note The model for a Tax Administration 3.0 establishes six basic components, each with a global maturity descriptor and two or three indicative attributes that cover both strategic and practical aspects. Taken from OECD [3]
21.1.1 ICTs as a Tool for Continuous Improvement Considering the reality that we present after the COVID-19 pandemic, the management of technology has evolved and therefore the processes are anchored with it to generate results of efficiency, effectiveness, control, performance, and compliance with established regulations. This change is also manifested in the tax perception, in which the state and taxpayers must adapt to achieve a tax culture. In addition, the tax administrations in the last two decades have in most cases established the use of information technologies to transform the various tax collection and settlement processes in order to take advantage of the significant benefits that can be generated, such as the greater speed and accuracy of the exchange of relevant data of the subjects of the obligation, in addition to the provision of a series of services
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that facilitate taxpayers to better manage their own tax affairs (Center for Tax Policy and Administration (CPAT) 2011). We can also mention that administrations seek to permanently apply the use of new technologies to be efficient and strategic in order to increase taxpayers’ compliance on a voluntary basis, considering two lines of action, the first one providing facilities to those who want to comply and the other one fighting against fraud. This digitalization thus produces dizzying changes not only in the structure but also in the main functions of collection, control, information, and assistance in information systems and in internal and international cooperation [5]. So we can indicate that technology has become a determining factor in each of the administrations at the international level, and therefore, Ecuador is aiming at this new era that will allow a timely control of the various activities proposed to achieve its strategic objectives. Also note that according to statistical data of the ICTs indicator issued by the INEC (2022), households that have internet access represent 60.4%, people who use the internet amounted to 69.7%, people who have a smartphone is manifested in 52.2%, so it can be interpreted that most taxpayers of tax obligations can use the various tools generated by the IRS.
21.1.2 The Internal Revenue Service and Its Use of ICTs The Internal Revenue Service has strategic objectives focused on the voluntary compliance of taxpayers with their obligations, effectiveness in control and collection processes, increase of knowledge and capabilities of citizens, and strengthening of institutional capacities. In order to achieve this, it has focused on the application of technology in different areas, starting with the issuance of the DIMM program, which was remotely accessible, until a complete reengineering was carried out in 2020, in compliance with the challenges derived from the country’s inclusion in the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes. What is sought with this transcendental change is the optimization of the institution’s processes and information systems in order to direct the management and control of taxes, as well as their benefits, thus increasing tax collection and generating citizen awareness. In addition, according to the NAC-DGERCGC20-00000009 [6] issued by the SRI in its art, 1 mentions: Obligation to use online services: Taxpayers are obliged to use exclusively the virtual channel to carry out the following services available on the SRI online transactional portal of the Internal Revenue Service (...) When taxpayers for any reason require assistance in carrying out the procedures established in this article, they may use the other service channels enabled for this purpose, such as SRI telephone, SRI Mobile and the institutional web portal.
Thus, the administration has several virtual means to comply with the established requirements, among which we can mention: • Information entry channels: SRI online, mobile application, Quipux, Gob.ec. • Electronic invoicing: SRI Y YO.
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• Consultation of services and procedures: SRI services and procedures, regulations. • Trainings: virtual self-study trainings and tutorial videos. • DIMM Forms: download of software for the elaboration of annexes.
21.2 Methodology The research focuses on determining the characteristics, as well as the management of the digital tools provided by the SRI tax administration to taxpayers, so that it becomes a control instrument to avoid tax evasion considered as a latent problem to world level. It is important to mention that he was directed to the entity in charge of collecting taxes in Ecuador SRI, considering the study information for the periods 2022 and 2023. Regarding the methodology to be applied, this research considers the inductive method as the basis for obtaining sufficient and relevant information to obtain the desired results. Likewise, it will allow us to obtain general knowledge considering specific features, giving rise to a trend perspective of each taxpayer and to understand the transcendence that the digital transformation has generated in the tax field. In addition, we consider the scope of the research as descriptive since it allows us to identify each of the characteristics of the virtual media used by the IRS to promote tax culture and thus manage the proposed digital change. On the other hand, the research method is not experimental since the study variables cannot be modified, since its base is statistical data established by the tax administration according to the use of digital platforms. So we are talking about using it to determine how taxpayers handle technology. As an application technique, we consider documentary review because it will allow us to collect most of the written information that exists on the subject, such as current legal basis, analysis of specialists in the field, reports of international organizations, statistics, among other written sources. Observation is also considered to delimit the relationship between the phenomenon of change and the development of the behavior of those involved.
21.3 Results and Discussion 21.3.1 Data Entry Channels According to the IRS’s perspectives and in the direction of process improvement, it is important to review the various instruments it has implemented for direct and indirect benefit. That is to say to verify their operation and use by taxpayers and to establish their efficiency and direction according to the guidelines established in the regulations issued in Ecuador (Fig. 21.2; Table 21.1).
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Fig. 21.2 Representativeness of electronic channels. Note The SRI procedures are available in the following channels: in the SRI online corresponds to 90.77% of the universe of activities carried out, in the case of Quipux it amounts to 90.77% of the universe of activities carried out 2.21% of the total activities carried out and the Gob.ec platform handles 8.12% of the universe of activities carried out. Taken from SRI [7]
Table 21.1 Procedures carried out by the SRI (electronic channel)
Electronic channels
Procedures
SRI ONLINE
246
GOB.EC
22
QUIPUX
6
It is relevant to mention the importance of the SRI online channel since it allows taxpayers to perform activities directly related to information, tax administration guidelines and compliance with current regulations. Next, the accesses to the portal during the period 2021 and 2022 will be presented, showing the latent growth (Fig. 21.3).
21.3.2 Electronic Invoicing: SRI Y YO Electronic invoicing is considered as that automatic integration that seeks to reflect the information of the transactions carried out by taxpayers in order to generate an adequate tax control [9], and thus avoid tax evasion that could be generated by ghost companies or inadequate practices. Considering the obligatory nature established in the Organic Law for Economic Development and Fiscal Sustainability after the COVID-19 Pandemic, in Ecuador as of November 30, 2022, all taxpayers are obliged to use electronic invoicing except taxpayers belonging to the Popular RIMPE Regime. The invoicing management trend to the year 2023 can be validated (Table 21.2). It is also important to mention that in order to take this big step, the SRI has officially catalogued the taxpayers that must integrate this computerized process
21 Technology and Tax Culture. An Evolutionary Perspective 116.000.000
217
113.509.555
114.000.000 112.000.000 110.000.000 108.000.000 106.000.000 104.000.000
103.235.266
102.000.000 100.000.000 98.000.000 2021
2022
Fig. 21.3 Access to the SRI online platform. Note The growth in the use of the platform during the year 2022 is 9.95% compared to the year 2021, which shows the ease and agility of the processes that the taxpayer can perform. Taken from Department of Citizen Assistance SRI [8]
Table 21.2 Taxpayers with electronic invoicing Electronic invoicing Taxpayers who are already in electronic invoicing
1,333,943
Taxpayers about to enter electronic invoicing and that are in the testing phase
12,581
and transformation for the use of vouchers that allow supporting the activities of an economic entity, during the year 2022 and 2023. On the other hand, it is relevant to review how the process of issuing electronic invoicing has taken place. Figure 21.4 shows the growth trend between 2021 and 2022, despite the fact that this process was mandatory as of November 30 of the current year. In the case of individuals, it increases by 15% and in the case of companies by 12.18%. Therefore, we can see that the management of digital platforms will allow control both for the administration and for taxpayers (Fig. 21.5). In order to contribute to this transformation, the SRI Y YO platform is implemented free of charge for all taxpayers except those classified as large taxpayers, which has versatile options for issuing sales, withholding, and complementary documents. Its technological environment is user-friendly since it has defined fields for a quick process such as configuration, issuance, receipts, and help. On the other hand, the issuance of documents is immediate and, since it is directly linked to the tax administration’s platform, it avoids the generation of evasion processes and an adequate control.
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9671
816171
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2022
2023
Fig. 21.4 Taxpayers authorized ex officio electronic vouchers. Note Taxpayers as of 2022 were assigned ex officio in order to comply with current regulations and avoid tax evasion, considering the type of taxpayer. Taken from SRI Datasets [10]
Fig. 21.5 Variation in electronic invoicing. Note The growth in the use of the platform during the year 2022 is 9.95% compared to the year 2021, which shows the ease and agility of the processes that the taxpayer can perform. Taken from Tax Management Department SRI [8]
21.3.3 Consultation of Services and Formalities: SRI Services and Formalities, Regulations In order to carry out the different procedures, it is necessary to know the information on its applicability; for this reason, the administration has considered to show in its institutional page an element of help such as the access to services and procedures in which we can find requirements, formats, guides, legal basis, frequently asked questions, among other current aspects of each tax of national character. In addition,
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Table 21.3 Virtual self-study trainings year 2022 Virtual course Electronic invoicing
Access 1.260
Formal duties
19.424
Income tax
18.443
Value added tax (IVA)
15.195
Value added tax refund (IVA) to people with disabilities Income tax on income from inheritances and bequests
4.805 4.382
Sales receipts
30.826
Total
94.335
Note Number of accesses to virtual trainings in which those who have or have not requested a certificate of participation are considered. Taken from Department of Citizen Assistance SRI [8]
it presents a section in which we find the reference norms such as codes, laws, resolutions, circulars, extracts of formal tax consultations.
21.3.4 Training One of the strategies to promote tax culture refers to taxpayers’ learning management [11], and this is how virtual self-study trainings and video tutorials have been implemented (Table 21.3). As regards video tutorials, it has a channel on the YouTube platform, which has reached 36,900 subscribers, and currently has 23 videos on tax matters. The visits to the site amount to 384,781 and the topics of the videos are diverse according to the regulatory changes that are being generated (Fig. 21.6; Table 21.4).
21.3.5 DIMM The DIMM is the Magnetic Information Declaration System, which allows the creation of XML files containing the validation information of a taxpayer. Therefore, the SRI facilitates the download of 19 components through which the taxpayer can make their attachments remotely and then upload them to the SRI online platform; this type of tool allows for comprehensive controls to proceed to comply with one of the powers called tax assessment.
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250.000 200.000 150.000 100.000 50.000 0 BILLING
INCOME TAX
OTHER
IVA
PERSONAL EXPENSES
VISITS Fig. 21.6 YouTube video themes. Note The 23 videos that are on the platform have been grouped into 5 topics for analysis, and also the topic that has a tendency of visits by users is Electronic Invoicing since this is new due to the regulatory changes stipulated in Ecuador. Taken from ISR ECUADOR—YouTube [12]
Table 21.4 ISR Ecuador visits—YouTube
Topics
Visits
Billing
206.796
Income tax
65.484
Other
14.052
Personal EXPENSES
66.158
IVA
32.291
21.3.6 Relationship Between Effective Collection and Digital Transformation One of the powers of the tax administration refers to collection, the emphasis of which is attributed to the collection of taxes from taxpayers in accordance with the activities carried out in a given period. Of the taxes established, the most representatives are income tax and IVA. In Table 21.5, we will review the evolution of these taxes during the last 5 years (Fig. 21.7). By considering the statistics issued by the SRI, we can denote the growth trend generated in the last two years in which the digital reengineering is applied to comply Table 21.5 Collection performance Tax
Year 2018
Year 2019
Year 2020
Year 2021
Year 2022
IVA
4,789,148
4,769,906
4,406,689
4,330,621
5,784,461
Income tax
4,368,872
4,884,902
4,093,035
4,765,111
5,336,969
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7.000.000 6.000.000 5.000.000 4.000.000 3.000.000 2.000.000 1.000.000 0 YEAR 2018
YEAR 2019 IVA
YEAR 2020
YEAR 2021
YEAR 2022
INCOME TAX
Fig. 21.7 Actual collections. Note Taxes collected have increased over the last 5 years. Taken from IRS Statistics [13]
with the commitments made to the Global Forum to which Ecuador belongs since 2017. In relation to IVA, there is an increase of 33.57% from 2021 to 2022, and in the case of income tax, there is an increase of 12% from 2021 to 2022.
21.4 Conclusion Digital transformation is a strategic way to improve processes since it allows to optimize the activities performed and thus meet the objectives or parameters set by an entity. We speak then that it has become a tool of application in all fields of study for its versatility and easy handling according to the established requirements. In Ecuador, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as the administration in charge of tax collection, in order to comply with its faculties and being part of the global forum, has established digital platforms so that all taxpayers comply with their obligations in full and to be able to control tax evasion, since this bad practice would affect the General Budget of the State in which it is a direct participant in approximately 60%. The technological means used by the ISR are information entry channels such as the SRI online, mobile application, Quipux, Gob.ec, electronic invoicing, consultation of services and procedures, online training and video tutorials, DIMM Forms, which have specific characteristics and which users can access to perform the various activities they provide. According to statistics, the number of users that use these technological sites is increasing and it is understood that this has generated an effect that allows the IRS
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to collect a greater proportion, i.e., it increased from 2021 to 2022 in the case of IVA by 33.57%, and in the case of income tax it generates an increase of 12%. Knowledge of the characteristics of the digital tools provided by the administration allows the taxpayer proper and efficient management so that they can comply with their obligations and avoid tax evasion. In other words, timely controls are generated, and the tax culture in Ecuador improves.
References 1. CIAT. (2021). La necesidad de mejorar la eficiencia de las Administraciones Tributarias. Obtenido de https://www.ciat.org/la-necesidad-de-mejorar-la-eficiencia-de-las-admini straciones-tributarias/ 2. Armijos González, P.O.: La importancia del principio de capacidad contributiva en el régimen tributario ecuatoriano. FORO. Revista de Derecho, 149–168 (2021). https://doi.org/10.32719/ 26312484.2021.36.8 3. OECD (2020). Tax Administration 3.0: The Digital Transformation of Tax Administration, https://www.oecd.org/tax/forum-on-tax-administration/publications-and-products/tax-admini stration-3-0-the-digitaltransformation-of-tax-administration.htm 4. Sánchez Muñoz, C.: Blockchain y cultura tributaria en Colombia. Revista de Derecho Fiscal Universidad Externado de Colombia 20, 57–71 (2021). https://doi.org/10.18601/16926722. N20.02 5. CIAT. (2019). Digitalización de las Administraciones Tributarias y cambios en sus Estructuras Organizativas. Obtenido de https://www.ciat.org/digitalizacion-de-las-administraciones-tri butarias-y-cambios-en-sus-estructurasorganizativas/?utm_source=web&utm_medium=CIA TBlog&utm_campaign=digitalizacion-de-las-administracionestributarias-y-derechos-de-loscontribuyentes&utm_content=febrero-2020 6. NAC-DGERCGC20-00000009 (1). (n.d.). 7. SRI Trámites Electrónicos intersri Servicio de Rentas Internas. (n.d.). Retrieved 8 March 2023, from https://www.sri.gob.ec/de/sri-tramites-electronicos 8. Tax Management Department SRI. Variación Facturación Electrónica – intersri - Servicio de Rentas Internas. (2022). Retrieved 8 March 2023, from https://www.sri.gob.ec/nl/comproban tes-electronicos 9. Ramírez, J., Oliva, N., & Mauro, A. (2021). Cumplimiento tributario y facturación electrónica en ecuador: evaluación de impacto. Problemas del Desarrollo 10. SRI Datasets - intersri- Servicio de Rentas Internas. (2023). Retrieved 8 March, 2023, from https://www.sri.gob.ec/de/datasets 11. Yaguache, F. M., Pardo Cueva, M., & Espejo Jaramillo, L. (2018). Estrategias para fomentar la cultura tributaria desde la academia. Caso UTPL - Dialnet. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2023, DIALNET. from https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=6584520 12. ISR ECUADOR YouTube. (2023). Retrieved 5 March, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/ @SRIECUADORinforma 13. IRS Statistics-intersri- Servicio de Rentas Internas. (2022). Retrieved 8 March, 2023, from https://www.sri.gob.ec/de/estadisticas-generales-de-recaudacion-sri 14. Ángel Játiva Coronel, M., Daniel Flores Gallardo, R., Adrián Briones Rugel, F. (n.d.). Página 2 de 305 MIGUEL ANGEL JATIVA CORONEL 15. Cumplimiento tributario y facturación electrónica en ecuador: evaluación de impacto. (n.d.). Retrieved 8 March, 2023, from https://www.redalyc.org/ar-ticulo.oa?id=11871339004 16. Digitalización de las Administraciones Tributarias y Derechos de los Contribuyentes | Centro Interamericano de Administraciones Tributarias. (n.d.). Retrieved 8 March, 2023, from https://www.ciat.org/digitalizacion-de-las-administraciones-tribu-tarias-y-derechos-delos-contribuyentes/
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17. Facturación Electrónica intersri Servicio de Rentas Internas. (n.d.). Retrieved 8 March, 2023, from https://www.sri.gob.ec/de/facturacion-electronica 18. Informe de labores intersri Servicio de Rentas Internas. (n.d.). Retrieved 8 March, 2023, from https://www.sri.gob.ec/de/informe-de-labores 19. Ocde-sehyp. (n.d.). La Administración Tributaria en los países de la OCDE y en determinados países no miembros: Serie “Información comparada” (2010) 20. Perspectivas económicas de América Latina 2020 TRANSFORMACIÓN DIGITAL PARA UNA MEJOR RECONSTRUCCIÓN. (n.d.) 21. Proforma 2023 (31 de octubre de 2022)—Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas. (n.d.). Retrieved 6 March, 2023, from https://www.finanzas.gob.ec/oficio-recepcion-asamblea-proforma-202330-de-octubre-oficio-no-t-109-sgj-21-0152/ 22. Reingeniería digital del SRI: Un hito histórico para la institución | Centro Interamericano de Administraciones Tributarias. (n.d.). Retrieved 6 March, 2023, from https://www.ciat.org/cia tblog-reingenieria-digital-del-sri-un-hito-historico-para-la-institucion/ 23. Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2... | OPAC CIAT. (n.d.). Retrieved 6 March, 2023, from https://biblioteca.ciat.org/opac/book/5805 24. Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación-TIC | (n.d.). Retrieved 8 March, 2023, from https://www.ecuadorencifras.gob.ec/tecnologias-de-la-infor-macion-y-comunicacion-tic 25. OCDE (2021). Modelo de madurez de la transformación digital, OCDE, París. https://www. oecd.org/tax/forum-on-tax-administration/publications-and-products/digital-transformationmaturity-model.htm
Chapter 22
An Exploration of the Skills and Knowledge of the Accounting Profession Andrés Palacio-Fierro , Tatiana Valle Alvarez , Ximena Morales-Urrutia , and Marcelo Mantilla Falcón
Abstract At present, the business sector has introduced significant changes in its structure that require qualified personnel in every area of knowledge. In this sense, professionals need to develop certain types of skills and knowledge that make them suitable candidates for their assigned roles. In this regard, the accounting profession within organizations has reached a significant level of importance, since it is responsible for the proper care and management of their finances. The aim of the present study is to analyze the perception that accountants show regarding the competencies and knowledge that a professional accountant needs. To achieve this goal, crosssectional descriptive-explanatory research was applied with non-probabilistic and non-experimental sampling. The main results show that values are a highly relevant aspect for the development of the accounting profession, since it encompasses aspects related to work responsibility and ethics. In conclusion, an accountant must have a comprehensive training that allows them to respond to any assigned function and, above all, to efficiently respond to the different requirements demanded by their profession.
22.1 Introduction Overview Currently, one of the aspects considered relevant to achieve business efficiency is to have trained personnel who can face the challenges and demands that society requires [1]. In this sense, professionals from different areas seek to have adequate training in both knowledge and competencies that allow them to perform within the A. Palacio-Fierro (B) Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica, Ambato EC 180103, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] T. Valle Alvarez · X. Morales-Urrutia · M. Mantilla Falcón Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ambato EC 180104, Ecuador © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_22
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job position they hold. The accounting area is no exception, as it is one of the areas that requires greater care within the organization due to the responsibilities it entails [2]. In this context, the functions performed by an accountant not only focus on promoting the development of sustainable accounting practices, but also on providing strategic direction and leadership [3]. Likewise, the workload and responsibility of professionals within the organization have led managers to demand higher requirements when hiring new professionals [4]. Regarding the latter, they need to adapt more quickly, that is, to shorten the learning curve between the knowledge from books and the application of practical skills in business [5]. In general, the training of accountants in different Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has been focused on a structure in which the basic and professional knowledge that he must have prevails. However, the business reality is different since hiring requirements are more demanding in the sense that not only knowledge is measured, but also significant weight is given to the skills acquired by candidates. This is with the ultimate goal of ensuring that the hired personnel achieves optimal performance in the assigned functions [6]. Competencies and Skills of the Accountant Nowadays, the functions performed by the accounting professional within the organization are being analyzed by the management level, since they seek for them to perform tasks and activities that not only require specific knowledge but also develop certain skills required for the job position [7]. The competencies that a graduate from the area handles encompass a series of knowledge and skills acquired by fulfilling the study plans. On the one hand, technical competencies are highlighted, also known as professional competencies [8, 9], which include mathematics, decision models and risk analysis, report preparation, compliance with legal requirements, among others [10, 11], which in turn serve to fulfill activities, tasks, or job functions. On the other hand, the authors mention generic competencies, which are considered as attributes that are more related to personality, such as leadership, communication, adaptability to change, creative thinking, teamwork, etc. [12–14]. In this regard, companies consider this type of skills as employability or distinctive factors when hiring, that is, the accountant’s ability to adapt and perform their functions efficiently through the application of different actions not related to theoretical knowledge [15]. In this context, the determination of the attributes, skills, abilities, and knowledge that accounting professionals must possess requires the participation of three interested parties: professional organizations, academic programs, and employers [1]. In this sense, professional organizations are responsible for determining the competencies and skills that are expected of future professionals at the end of the academic period. Accounting education is responsible for ensuring compliance with the study plan based on the desired competencies, and employers express the different skills and knowledge that are necessary for the performance of a job position in the accounting area [16].
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22.2 Methodology This is a descriptive-explanatory cross-sectional study with non-probabilistic and non-experimental sampling. The study involved 22 teachers from the central region of the country whose academic degree is related to accounting and auditing. Specifically, 68% hold a doctoral degree (not a Ph.D.), 14% are engineers, 14% are bachelor’s degree holders, and the remaining is only referred to as Certified Public Accountant (CPA). In terms of gender, 54.5% are male and the rest (45.5%) are female. Most of the participating teachers are between the ages of 46 and 55 (50%), followed by 36.4% below this age range and 13.6% above it. In terms of experience, the data is distributed as follows: 45.5% have between 11 and 20 years of experience, immediately followed by 18.2% with less experience, and 36.4% with more than 20 years of experience. The data was collected through a survey sent by electronic means with three wellmarked blocks: the academic and labor data of the teachers; qualification of values and competencies of the professional accountant, and the importance they assign to the modules covered by the curriculum of an accounting and auditing career. The questionnaire was designed using a Likert scale where 1 is not important and 5 is very important. For its analysis, Pearson correlation (r) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used for values and competencies. For the block of curricular modules, descriptive and percentage statistics were applied, in addition to the classification method as cluster analysis using the Ward methodology and the squared Euclidean distance interval. The attributes have an internal consistency index of Cronbach’s alpha of 0.952, which is at a very acceptable level [17].
22.3 Results The preliminary analysis consisted of dividing the 20 attributes under evaluation into two clearly defined blocks: values and skills. The first group includes honesty, work ethic, ethical consciousness, and loyalty to the institution (4 attributes); on the other hand, the second group is made up of (1) teamwork, (2) continuous learning, (3) analytical thinking, (4) interpersonal communication skills, (5) time management, (6) problem-solving ability, (7) understanding of responsibilities, (8) oral communication skills, (9) critical thinking, (10) stress management, (11) written communication skills, (12) decision making, (13) self-motivation, (14) flexibility, (15) presentation skills, and (16) mastery of accounting programs (16 attributes). Initially, the most relevant values in the accounting profession are analyzed, whose descriptions represent the weight and importance that academia assigns to them in their training. For example, honesty and work ethic have an average rating of 5 out of 5 points on the Likert scale, which means that everyone considers them “very important”. Ethical consciousness follows with a rating of 4.91, and finally loyalty to the institution with 4.73. These ratings faithfully demonstrate that ethics in the
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profession is the fundamental axis within the actions of the finance and business economy official or responsible person. However, in academic spaces, there is still a gap between ethical training, theory, and practice [18]. Nevertheless, ethical competence guarantees the faithful fulfillment of responsibilities and obligations entrusted by society to the accountant as a public trust in the development of their professional role [19]. Next, a correlation analysis is performed for the 16 attributes or skills discussed as the main factors that the academic world demands from professionals in the field of accounting, whose results are detailed in Table 22.1. The correlational information shows very important results when it comes to putting the skills of the professional accountant into play. From an academic (teaching) standpoint, it is considered that the attributes of greatest significance are, for example, critical thinking (9) and understanding of responsibilities (7), whose Pearson’s r reaches 0.957, placing them as a perfect positive correlation which in terms of the coefficient of determination R2 , is equivalent to 91.58% of the variance. Similarly, interpersonal communication skills (4) and oral communication skills (8) are highly significant (0.950), demonstrating that communication is an important factor in job and professional performance in all disciplinary areas, since it is a capacity to thrive in society [20]. Finally, to assess the highest correlation scores, another pair of skills is found between analytical thinking (3) and problem-solving skills (6) (0.944), which demonstrates that they are highly valued skills for performing a job with suitability, for example, critical thinking is understood as “intellectually disciplined thinking that conceptualizes, applies, analyzes, synthesizes, and evaluates the information gathered from observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication” [21]. On the other hand, the attributes with lower correlation and that in some cases present negative, or inverse, correlation are: continuous learning (2) with mastery of accounting software (16) (0.065), which in other words, practically has no correlation. This could be due to the fact that if someone has reached a level of mastery (often mechanical) of accounting software, they are little or not interested in lifelong learning, a counterproductive condition in an increasingly competitive job market. Likewise, mastery of accounting software does not correlate with teamwork (1) and analytical thinking (3), which would confirm that accounting or the accounting profession is a highly normative and mechanical activity that does not involve reflexivity and reasoning when making decisions [22]. The statistical model would be as follows: y = bx + c, where skills = 1.95(values)– 4.84. With an r of 0.8910 and an R2 of 0.794, which means 79.4% of the variance explained. Comparatively speaking, the skill with the highest score corresponds to “analytical thinking” and “continuous learning” (4.91/5), and the one with the lowest rating is “flexibility” with 4.41/5. To delve deeper into the dynamics of the skills of the accounting professional, they are classified through multivariate techniques such as principal component analysis (PCA), to verify the level of interdependence and variance loads that each one represents. Objectively, the attributes behave as follows (Table 22.2).
0.890**
1
2
0.598**
0.782**
0.605**
0.461*
0.774**
S.bil 0.000
11 r
S.bil 0.000
0.725**
S.bil 0.031
r
S.bil 0.003
r
S.bil 0.008
r
0.552**
S.bil 0.000
r
S.bil 0.003
0.000
0.701**
0.001
0.661**
0.008
0.549**
0.007
0.555**
0.001
0.647**
0.000
0.890**
0.007
0.555**
0.228
0.605**
S.bil 0.093
r
0.268
0.000
0.690**
3
0.367
r
S.bil 0.003
r
S.bil 0.000
r
S.bil
r
1
10 r
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0.000
0.722**
0.074
0.389
0.000
0.796**
0.000
0.805**
0.000
0.938**
0.000
0.944**
0.000
0.805**
0.001
0.674**
4
7
0.000
0.000
0.849** 0.885**
0.000
6
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.695**
0.000 0.009
0.546**
0.000
0.000
0.000
0,000
0.775** 0.896** 0.774**
0.007
0.557**
0.000
0.727** 0.805** 0.751**
0.000
0.950** 0.890** 0.760**
0.000
0.741**
0.009
0.546**
0.000
0.823**
5
Table 22.1 Correlations of the skills of the professional accountant
0.000
0.797**
0.028
0.467*
0.000
0.957**
0.000
0.849**
8
10
0.021 0.000
0.000
0.896** 0.784**
0.000
0.695** 0.488*
0.000
0.805**
9
0.000
0.775**
11
12
13
14
15
(continued)
16
22 An Exploration of the Skills and Knowledge of the Accounting Profession 229
0.768**
0.789**
0.637**
0.765**
0.420
0.181
0.003
0.403
0.532
0.001
0.655**
0.435
0.175
0.190
0.693
0.615
10
0.000
0.765**
0.121
0.341
0.018
0.499*
0.003
0.532
0.599
12 0.000
13
0.002
0.623**
0.403
0.328
0.219
0.000
0.843**
0.135
0.329
0.449* 0.036
0.000
0.000
15
0.098
0.001
0.011
0.013 0.637** 0.362
0.000
0.815** 0.520*
0.025
0.476*
14
0.528*
0.000
0.897**
0.011
0.529*
0.000
0.749** 0.681** 0.923**
0.000
0.728** 0.787**
11
− 0.119 0.187
0.010
0.537**
0.414
0.183
0.327
0.219
0.104
0.599** 0.356
9
− 0.089 − 0.113 0.141
0.000
0.774**
0.262
0.250
0.024
0.290
0.040
0.440*
8
Note **The correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed); *The correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)
0.676
0.001
0.611** 0.480*
0.003
0.141
0.773
7
0.599** 0.659**
6
0.000
0.000
0.623**
0.234
0.264
0.100
0.360
0.061
0.406
5
0.002
0.000
0.722**
0.517
0.146
0.120
0.341
0.020
0.490*
4
− 0.089 − 0.065 − 0.094 0.187
S.bil 0.693
16 r
S.bil 0.000
15 r
0.701**
0.114
S.bil 0.098
0.774**
0.347
0.005
0.581**
0.362
14 r
S.bil 0.001
13 r
0.000
3
2
S.bil 0.000
12 r
1
Table 22.1 (continued)
0.062
0.404
16
230 A. Palacio-Fierro et al.
22 An Exploration of the Skills and Knowledge of the Accounting Profession Table 22.2 ACP
Attributes
231
Component 1
Team work
2
Continuous learning
0.903
Analytical thinking
0.806
Interpersonal communication skills
0.911
Time management
0.852
Problem-solving ability
0.649
Understanding of responsibilities
0.899
Oral communication skills
0.888
Critical thinking
0.891
0.710
Stress management Written communication skills
0.553 0.735
Decision making
0.561
Self-motivation
Mastery of accounting programs
0.766 0.862
Flexibility Presentation ability
3
0.854
0.618 0.527
0.624 0.869
Basically, the three components formed (by default) indicate that the first contributes with 63% of the variance, the second with 15%, the third with approximately 9%, totaling approximately 87%. The first component could be called thinking and communication skills, the second would be related to socialization and labor relations, and the third social and psychological skills. Regarding the modules developed in the accounting career in universities (in a generic way), the perception from the academic point of view is detailed in Table 22.3. The data shows that all the modules studied are “very important” and necessary for a good performance in practical life, with cost accounting being the one that reaches a rating of 5/5 and could be due to the fact that the central region of the country it is highly productive and industrial (manufacturing) where it is necessary to apply this knowledge in the manufacturing processes of the different items that are made there. It is followed in order of importance by “Command in accounting and auditing programs” (4.95) and finally with the same value (4.91) are financial accounting, analysis of financial statements, and Accounting Standards and Financial Information (NIIF-NIC). On the other hand, the module with the lowest perception is the Securities and Insurance Market (80%) of valuation and then statistics applied to finance. Certain subjects received very low scores, up to 2 (less important) and at the other extreme, depending on the level of appreciation of the teacher, all reached scores of 5 (Very important). Regarding the shape and pointing of the information, in all cases its symmetry is negative asymmetric with a bias to the left in different
232
A. Palacio-Fierro et al.
Table 22.3 Descriptive statistics Módulos
Media Mediana Desv. Min Max Asimetría Curstosis Est
Management accounting
4.86
5.00
0.468 3
5
− 3.621
Commercial and labor law
4.64
5.00
0.727 2
5
− 2.572
7.750
Taxation
4.86
5.00
0.468 3
5
− 3.621
13.270
Finance and financial models
4.55
5.00
0.671 3
5
− 1.221
0.441
Financial statement analysis
4.91
5.00
0.294 4
5
− 3.059
8.085
Stock market and insurance
4.00
4.00
0.873 2
5
− 0.473
− 0.423
Statistics applied to finance
13.270
4.09
4.00
0.811 2
5
− 0.764
0.640
Accounting and financial 4.91 reporting standards (IFRS-NIC)
5.00
0.426 3
5
− 4.690
22.000
Financial accounting
4.91
5.00
0.294 4
5
− 3.059
8.085
Cost accounting
5.00
5.00
0.000 5
5
Accounting in other industries and services
4.82
5.00
0.501 3
5
− 2.911
8.432
Public sector accounting
4.41
5.00
0.908 2
5
− 1.382
0.931
Mastery of accounting and auditing programs
4.95
5.00
0.213 4
5
− 4.690
22.000
Financial audit
4.73
5.00
0.550 3
5
− 1.993
3.502
Management audit
4.73
5.00
0.550 3
5
− 1.993
3.502
Comprehensive audit
4.59
5.00
0.666 3
5
− 1.428
0.976
Audit of accounting computer systems
4.59
5.00
0.734 3
5
− 1.536
0.891
Note Main descriptions of the modules developed in the accounting and auditing career
magnitudes and with a “leptokurtic” kurtosis, except for the stock market, which is “platykurtic”.
22.4 Conclusion Values are extremely important attributes in the accounting profession because their work contains a strong commitment and responsibility to pre-protect the material, economic, and financial assets of companies. The labor market is becoming more and more demanding, which means that the accounting professional (and in other fields) must be constantly updating knowledge, acquiring new skills, and mastering increasingly higher skills; this means that a characteristic basic must be continuous learning, that is, throughout life. It is a mandatory condition to put soft skills into play for a correct job performance that guarantees suitability and efficiency in your professional role. The specific skills
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make you a capable and highly qualified entity for the performance of your position, attributes that are achieved with daily practice and continuous learning. Acknowledgements This article is derived from the research project entitled “Skills and knowledge in the labor field of professionals in Accounting and Auditing”, approved through resolution No UTA-CONIN-2023-0137-R by the DIDE of the Technical University of Ambato, Ecuador. Likewise, thanks to the Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica for its support to the scientific production process.
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Chapter 23
The Impact of Affective Behavior on Co-creation and Customer Satisfaction Odette Pantoja-Diaz , Ana Lucía Tulcán , and Andrés Ramos-Alvarez
Abstract The present study analyzes the impact that affective behavior has on cocreation and customer satisfaction. Co-creation is a marketing modality applied principally in the business context, where customers play an important role in the definition, configuration, and design of products, in order to create and offer a value proposition in correspondence with the real necessities and client specifications. There are several studies that analyze the impacts of co-creative environments on customer perception, but this paper seeks to validate a model, which includes the entity’s affective behavior toward clients, and the influence on their co-creation levels and satisfaction. Based primarily on a literature review that reinforces the relationships between the three elements studied (affective behavior, co-creation, and satisfaction), a co-creation model is proposed. A questionnaire was applied to clients of an IT service company with the objective to collect information. The main statistical techniques used were exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis and structural equation modeling. The principal findings verified the solid influences that affective behavior has on co-creation and satisfaction. These results reinforce the necessity to consider customer ideas and comments and to involve customers in all the processes where their opinions and participation are relevant to increase service satisfaction.
23.1 Introduction One of the latest trends related to marketing is the co-creation of services and products, where the active collaboration of the different stakeholders is contemplated, encouraging high participation of the clients through solid communication channels [1, 2]. This approach confers a high variety of knowledge to companies about what
O. Pantoja-Diaz (B) · A. L. Tulcán · A. Ramos-Alvarez Universidad Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_23
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the consumer really considers valuable [3]. Co-creation is a difficult vision to establish; however, it provides entities with a competitive advantage, allowing them to lead the market. The main purpose of co-creation is to connect and immerse consumers from the early stages of idea generation [4, 5]. With this approach, the client plays a decisive role in being connected, informed, and with a predominantly active part face to face with companies [6]. The co-creation value focuses on the consumption phase, and co-production is related to production processes [7]. The benefits of co-creation are several, such as the communication development between the parties involved, as well as the marked productivity increase [8]. Other positive impacts of this trend are the reduction of costs in organizations and the client’s expectation of a price reduction due to their involvement in various processes [9]. The marketing traditional methods consider the client only in the last phase of prototype testing, contrary to the co-creation approach, where the client becomes an active agent with an important role from the first phases of ideation [10]. Some authors have investigated this approach, such as [11], which refers to the servicedominant logic where co-creation becomes the cornerstone of the value defined and created by customers. Berthon et al. [12] also comments about the importance of communications management among the stakeholders and mutual knowledge, where the essential understanding of the user interests becomes a necessity. The study developed by Bolton and Saxena-Iyer [1] and Muñiz and Schau [2] delves into the collaboration of customers in interactive services, highlighting two measures: the consumer participation level and the technology level used in service creation and delivery. This study also reflects the client interaction with companies’ technology and the positive impact on service quality. It is a reality that co-creation changes stakeholders’ roles due to the urgency of new types of design environments. With this antecedent, the present research analyzes the impacts that affective behavior has on co-creation and satisfaction levels. In this way, it can be corroborated the importance of developing collaborative environments, where the affective commitment of the entity to its clients is one of the foregoing elements of an adequate co-creation process, which will imply in the medium- and long-term higher levels of customer satisfaction. The rest of the article is organized as follows. The following section describes the literature review which confirms theoretically the relationship between the addressed elements and shows the proposed hypothesis and model. In Sect. 23.3, the research methodology is presented, and the statistical tools are applied. The results are illustrated in Sect. 23.4. The results discussion and conclusions are included in Sect. 23.5, where the main findings and implications of the study are reflected.
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23.2 Literature Review: Relationships Between Affective Behavior, Co-creation, and Satisfaction In this section, each of the relationships studied is theoretically addressed, with the aim of verifying the current theories related to them.
23.2.1 Affective Behavior Versus Co-creation Affective behavior is defined as the relationship and identification that a client has with a company [9]. Similarly, affective behavior is based on feeling comfortable, and in a relationship between a customer and the company is to feel like being part of a family. Affective behavior is clearly related to the client’s desire to establish solid bonds with a company, more than a mere work relationship. This component is important in a client, and it is difficult to obtain because it is only achieved with a deep relationship between the company and the customer; even though is very positive in order to take advantage of mutual growth. Moreover, co-creation usually refers to the interaction between a company and its customers for the purpose of creating value [13]. It is therefore co-creation of value is an interactive process where stakeholders work together to create value for each other [14]. The relationship of affective behavior with co-creation is high because the client is seen as a “partial employee” which means that each of the suggestions or comments that the client gives is an important component for the improvements of a company’s services development. The greater the consideration or participation that the client has with a company, the more the client consciously and unconsciously creates ties of affective and closeness to the company, making their feeling of belonging to it, achieving participation and a tendency to perform business as a whole, despite, having the power to choose other competitors. Regarding the relationship between affective behavior and co-creation, it is hypothesized that: H1: Affective behavior has a direct, positive impact on co-creation.
23.2.2 Affective Behavior Versus Satisfaction Satisfaction includes a positive reaction to the compliance state and the client’s judgment about this state [15]. Taylor [16] comments that satisfaction judgments contain two main elements (emotional and cognitive). There are several benefits of satisfaction, among which is that it encourages customer loyalty, decreases the loss thereof, and the consumer sensitivity to limit prices.
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The importance of customer satisfaction is linked to efforts to improve customer loyalty and retention, helping to increase company revenues [17]. As Auh et al. [9] had determined previously, developing affective behavior with a client is very difficult, but it is not impossible. Affective behavior has a positive impact on satisfaction, making customers achieve a much stronger approach to the company, receiving products or services that meet beyond their expectations. Affective behavior and satisfaction are linked directly because unconsciously create the bond of belonging when service is delivered, but at the same time, it is very susceptible to change in case a service or product does not meet expectations. Based on the findings obtained, it is hypothesized that: H2: Affective behavior has a direct, positive impact on satisfaction.
23.2.3 Co-creation Versus Satisfaction Satisfaction is the main attitude or variable that a customer demonstrates to a company when a product or service is received. However, satisfaction can be translated as an acceptance of what is delivered by the company. For [18], within a company, whatever its size, the variables of co-creation and satisfaction play an important role in it, because of the relationship that occurs, that is, the greater the co-creation, the greater the satisfaction of the client. On the relationship between co-creation and satisfaction, it is hypothesized that: H3: Co-creation has a direct, positive impact on satisfaction.
23.2.4 The Proposed Model Once analyzed the theoretical interrelations between the factors to be analyzed (affective behavior, co-creation, and satisfaction), it is proposed a co-creation model according to Fig. 23.1. The objective of this proposed model (Fig. 23.1) is to verify whether the affective behavior influences the co-creation and customer satisfaction so that a company can position itself in front of its clients. Fig. 23.1 Proposed model
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Table 23.1 Proposed hypothesis, construct analysis, and survey items Hypothesis
Construct
Items
H1: Affective behavior has a direct, positive impact on co-creation
Affective behavior
affecbehav1, affecbehav2, affecbehav3, affecbehav4
Co-creation
cocreation1, cocreation2, cocreation3
Affective behavior
affecbehav1, affecbehav2, affecbehav3, affecbehav4
Satisfaction
sat1, sat2
Co-creation
cocre1, co-cre2, cocre3
Satisfaction
sat1, sat2
H2: Affective behavior has a direct, positive impact on satisfaction H3: Co-creation has a direct, positive impact on satisfaction
The three hypotheses to be analyzed are reflected in Table 23.1. Likewise, the constructs used in the survey are related to their respective items (variables).
23.3 Methodology, Data Collection, and Techniques The tool applied during the research was a questionnaire. It was applied to clients of an IT service company through two channels: through a digital way using a Google Form, where 20 responses were digitally entered by clients; and by telephone calls made to 114 clients, forming a total of 134 responses. The target segment involved was the most representative clients of a local IT company. The questionnaire was based on 40 questions with a Likert measurement scale, covering from the lowest 1 (completely disagree) to the highest 7 (totally agree). These 40 questions collected information on 8 variables, but during the quantitative analysis, only 3 variables contributed significantly to the proposed model, causing the other 5 variables to be discarded.
23.3.1 Measures The applied questionnaire was based on previous studies developed by Auh et al. [9], Devasirvatham [18], and Chen et al. [19]; with the objective to measure the three constructs (affective behavior, co-creation, and satisfaction). Affective behavior was extracted from [9], including 4 items to measure this construct. Co-creation was adapted from Chen et al. [19], compiling 3 items; and satisfaction was extracted from Ribes-Giner and Peralt Rillo [20], involving 2 satisfaction items. All questions were originally in English; they were translated into Spanish for this study.
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23.4 Results The statistical tools applied were Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The three aforementioned techniques helped to validate the proposed model. The programs used for the statistical processing were SPSS V21 and Amos.
23.4.1 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) EFA allows exploring accurately the underlying dimensions, constructs or latent variables. This technique analyzes together all the factors determined in the investigation, exploring the possible existing association between them. EFA granted the validity of each construct through the principal components method [21]. The results (Table 23.2) showed that there are three principal components, as established in the proposed model (affective behavior, co-creation, and satisfaction). It was considering a varimax rotation and a maximum likelihood extraction method, with three principal components. All items had loading differences larger than 0.3 and correspond with their respective construct as the theory confirms. The Cronbach’s alpha shows the homogeneity in the instrument’s consistency [22], having the instrument applied an excellent value of 0.885 (> 0.7). Likewise, the explained variance was 61.26, KMO was 0.890 (> 0.7), and the Bartlett test returned a p-value of p < 0.001. Table 23.2 Exploratory factor analysis results
Components
1
2
3
affecbehav1
0.719
0.363
0.204
affecbehav2
0.781
0.095
0.196
affecbehav3
0.664
0.334
0.241
affecbehav4
0.534
0.426
0.140
cocreation1
0.302
0.665
0.138
cocreation2
0.380
0.658
0.170
cocreation3
0.124
0.729
0.341
satisfaction1
0.268
0.208
0.773
satisfaction2
0.228
0.407
0.512
Cronbach’s alpha
0.838
0.803
0.710
Cronbach’s alpha (General)
0.885
KMO
0.890
Barlett test
544.307 (p-value = 0.000)
Explained variance
61.26
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23.4.2 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) CFA evaluates the extent to which a set of theoretically organized factors fits the data. The principal test that CFA includes is convergent and discriminant analysis. The convergent validity covers composite reliability (CR), where the lambda value must exceed 0.5, average variance extracted (AVE), AVE must be greater than the shared variance of each element, [21], and the factor loading of each item. Discriminant validity is based on the square roots of the AVEs, which must be higher than the correlations among the constructs. The factorial loadings of the variables affecbehav4 and satisfaction1 have weights of 0.69. Despite this weight being above the minimum value to be considered, it can be verified that they are low values in comparison with the resting items (< 0.7), so it was decided to eliminate the variable affecbehav4. With respect to item satisfaction1, the final decisions were to not eliminate it, because the satisfaction factor would be left with only one variable, which would be inappropriate to perform the remaining statistical analysis. Convergent validity is confirmed as all CRs are over 0.7 (Affective behavior = 0.834, Co-creation = 0.805, and Satisfaction = 0.718), AVE is higher than MSV (Affective behavior: 0.834 > 0.564, Co-creation: 0.805 > 0.490, and Satisfaction: 0.718 > 0.490) and factor loadings are higher. With respect to the discriminant validity, all the constructs have square roots of the AVEs higher than the correlations with the other construct (Affective behavior: 0.792 > 0.7 and 0.7, Co-creation: 0.761 > 0.7 and 0.7, and Satisfaction: 0.749 > 0.7 and 0.7).
23.4.3 Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) SEM analysis allows us to confirm if the proposed model is valid or not, allowing us to explore the robustness of the relationship between the construct. Table 23.3 illustrates the principal fit indicators. The proposed model fits the data well, having all the indicator’s good values. The CMIN/DF is 1.482 (< 2), the comparative fit index (CFI) is 0.982 (> 0.95), the goodness-of-fit index (GFI) is 0.956 (> 0.95), the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI) is 0.906 (> 0.9), root means square residual (RMR) is 0.079 (< 0.08), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) is 0.060 (< 0.08). Figure 23.2 shows the SEM model, which reflects that the three relationships have significant and positive impacts, such as affective behavior under co-creation with a value of γ = 0.72 (p < 0.001), as authors like [9] confirm. Affective behavior had a lesser impact on satisfaction (γ = 0.22, p-value = 0.04) [9] and co-creation had a positive effect on satisfaction (β = 0.62, p-value < 0.001), supporting the relationship established by authors like [16]. The obtained results allow concluding that the three raised hypotheses in the initial phase of the research are accepted. Affective behavior had a positive and significant
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Table 23.3 Structural model results Hypothesis
Standardized coefficients (β, γ )
S.E
p-value
Affective behavior → Co-creation (γ 1 )
H1
0.721
0.109
< 0.001
Affective behavior → Satisfaction (γ 2 )
H2
0.221
0.140
0.04
Co-creation → Satisfaction (β 1 )
H3
0.615
0.157
< 0.001
Direct effects
Model fit indices CMIN/DF
1.482 < 2
CFI
0.982 > 0.95
GFI
0.956 ~> 0.95
AGFI
0.906 > 0.9
RMR
0.079 < 0.08
RMSEA
0.060 < 0.08
Estimates and model fit
Fig. 23.2 SEM model
impact on co-creation (0.72), with the highest regression coefficient indicating that this relationship was the strongest of all analyzed. Affective behavior and co-creation also affected significantly and positively satisfaction (0.22 and 0.62 respectively).
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23.5 Discussion and Conclusions After model validation, it was verified the solid influences that affective behavior has under co-creation and satisfaction. Co-creation also has a direct and positive influence on customer satisfaction. That is, the model confirms the importance to consolidated the co-creation vision in the business world, given that a co-creative perspective is a key precursor in the perception that the client has about a company. It is interesting the fact that co-creation has a higher impact on satisfaction than affective behavior. In this sense, it is important to consider that although the affective behavior that companies must develop with their clients is an important input for them (clients), the companies also must guarantee to develop processes in parallel, such as value co-creation in order to improve client satisfaction. Although effective behavior is a valuable element to establish affectionate ties with the consumer, and making him feel like part of the corporate family, it is also essential to offer a different value proposition to generate sustainable competitive advantages over time for the entities. Business success is not only achieved by making the consumer feel comfortable but also by making a difference with innovative and consolidated proposals for products and services. The integration of several elements such as affective behavior and cocreation of value in a more holistic offer will generate trust, loyalty, and satisfaction to such an important stakeholder which is the customer. Taking into account these findings is important to remark that enterprises need to consider customer ideas and comments and involve them in all the processes in which their opinion is relevant.
References 1. Bolton, R., Saxena-Iyer, S.: Interactive services: a framework, synthesis, and research directions. J. Interact. Mark. 23(1), 91–104 (2009) 2. Muñiz, A.M., Jr., Schau, H.J.: How to inspire value-laden collaborative consumer-generated content. Bus. Horiz. 54, 209–217 (2011) 3. Bettencourt, L.A., Brown, S.W., Sirianni, N.J.: The secret to true service innovation. Bus. Horiz. 56, 13–22 (2013) 4. Galvagno, M., Dalli, D.: Theory of value co-creation: a systematic literature review. Manag. Serv. Qual. 24(6), 643–683 (2014) 5. Gustafsson, A., Kristensson, P., Witell, L.: Customer co-creation in service innovation: a matter of communication? J. Serv. Manag. 23, 311–327 (2012) 6. Prahalad, C., Ramaswamy, V.: Co-creating unique value with customers. Strat. Leadership 32, 4–9 (2004) 7. Etgar, M.: A descriptive model of the consumer co-production process. J. Acad. Mark. Sci. 36, 97–108 (2008) 8. Rexfelt, O., Almefelt, L., Zackrisson, D., Hallman, T., Malmqvist, J., Karlsson, M.: A proposal for a structured approach for cross-company teamwork: a case study of involving the customer in service innovation. Res. Eng. Design 22(3), 153–171 (2011) 9. Auh, S., Bell, S.J., McLeod, C.S., Shih, E.: Co-production and customer loyalty in financial services. J. Retail. 83, 359–370 (2007)
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10. Witell, L., Kristensson, P., Gustafsson, A., Löfgren, M.: Idea generation: customer co-creation versus traditional market research techniques. J. Serv. Manag. 22(2), 140–159 (2011) 11. Vargo, S.L., Lusch, R.F.: Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing. J. Mark. 68(1), 1–17 (2004) 12. Berthon, P., Pitt, L.F., Campbell, C.: Does brand meaning exist in similarity or singularity? J. Bus. Res. 62(3), 356–361 (2009) 13. Sarasvuo, S., Rindell, A., Kovalchuk, M.: Toward a conceptual understanding of co-creation in branding. J. Bus. Res. 139, 543–563 (2022) 14. Saha, V., Goyal, P., Jebarajakirthy, C.: Value co-creation: a review of literature and future research agenda. J. Bus. Indus. Mark. 37(3), 612–628 (2022) 15. Kim, M.K., Park, M.C., Jeong, D.H.: The effects of customer satisfaction and switching barrier on customer loyalty in Korean mobile telecommunication services. Telecommun. Policy 28(2), 145–159 (2004) 16. Taylor, S.A.: Consumer satisfaction with marketing education: extending services theory to academic practice. J. Cons. Satisf. Dissatisf. Complain. Behav. 9, 207–220 (1996) 17. Stauss, B., Neuhaus, P.: The qualitative satisfaction model. Int. J. Serv. Ind. Manag. 8(3), 236–249 (1997) 18. Devasirvatham, E.R.: Modelling co-creation and its consequences: one step closer to customercentric marketing. Ph.D. thesis, Auckland University of Technology (2012) 19. Chen, J.S., Tsou, H.T., Ching, R.K.: Co-production and its effects on service innovation. Ind. Mark. Manage. 40(8), 1331–1346 (2011) 20. Ribes-Giner, G., Peralt Rillo, A.: Structural equation modeling of co-creation and its influence on the student’s satisfaction and loyalty towards university. J. Comput. Appl. Math. (2016) 21. Fornell, C., Larcker, D.F.: Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. J. Mark. Res., 39–50 (1981) 22. Cronbach, L.J.: Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika 16, 297–334 (1951) 23. Hinkin, T.R.: A brief tutorial on the development of measures for use in survey questionnaires. Organ. Res. Methods 1, 104–121 (1998)
Chapter 24
Active Methodologies: An Approach to Virtual Teaching in Natural Sciences Eulalia Becerra-García, David Castillo-Salazar, and Fernanda Viera Muñoz
Abstract During the training process on Natural Science subject in elementary school, it is important for the student to know, understand, respect, conserve, care for and value nature, the benefits it receives, interact with the environment, recognize the characteristics of each element of nature, its cycles, risks and care. The main objective of this work was to implement active methodologies in the science teaching-learning process. The methodology is based on quantitative methods, nonexperimental designs, cross-sectional studies, theoretical, empirical and statistical methods. The technique used was a survey as an instrument and a questionnaire for data collection. A survey was applied to 40 people (students, teachers) of eighth grade, to obtain information on the interventions implemented by teachers. As a result of the survey analysis, the need to renew the essential methodological strategies to improve the teaching-learning process was identified, for which three active methodological strategies were developed for Natural Sciences’ teaching associated with the environment (physical, chemical and environmental). The strategies were designed with creativity, the use of environmental and recycling materials together with technology, each with the following elements: title, materials to be used, procedure, graphic representations and application examples. These active methodological strategies allow students to learn through the development of processes and skills that can be used in a variety of emerging situations and also allow teachers to provide a comprehensive and quality education. Based on the experience of the application of strategies in the area of Natural Sciences as future work in the educational context, it is intended to identify a set of abilities and skills in students in various subjects in E. Becerra-García (B) Science Education Faculty, Indoamérica University, Quito, Ambato, Bolívar, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] D. Castillo-Salazar Human Science Education Faculty, Indoamérica University, Quito, Ambato, Bolívar, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] F. Viera Muñoz Master of Education, Innovation and Educational Leadership Mention, Indoamérica University, Manuelita Saenz Ave., Ambato, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_24
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order to strengthen teaching methodologies in teachers with the application of new technologies and digital resources that generate a new vision in the field of research.
24.1 Introduction This research article is based on the use of active strategies: I draw my thought, autonomous transposition, virtual laboratories on Natural Sciences’ teaching for elementary students in Ecuador. Educators manifest themselves as guides and facilitators of the teaching-learning process, which must apply active methodological strategies to develop meaningful and functional learning, science and cognitive skills, with the use of evaluation methods and tools, with the use of a constructivist approach and adapting teaching methods to the different indicators of student learning. According to the context, the main characteristics of active methodological strategies are enablers and facilitators of critical thinking, which promote efficiency and confidence in the communication [1]. The strategies are systematic, because they follow a procedure with a specific objective, they have order and discipline that seek to guarantee significant learning; they have an empirical base since it uses direct observation, exploration and experimentation; they are circular because there is continuous interaction between experience and theory; they consider the student as the center of the educational process that reflects is autonomous with critical thinking and are adapted to the different rhythms and styles of learning according to the weaknesses and potentialities of the students [2]. Below is an analysis of the causes of this problem. One of the reasons is that some teachers still apply traditional pedagogy, which leads students to be receptive and rote. The ignorance of the active methodologies for the teaching-learning process of Natural Sciences and the little use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) make classes monotonous and traditionalist. The teaching processes are based only on theory and not in practice, so significant learning is not achieved as a result of the lack of adequate teaching resources that causes disinterest and demotivation in students to learn and create science [3]. Deepening the bibliographic scope of this subject was of academic interest because it allows unveiling a set of investigations related to the study object, with the contribution of important data, aimed at meeting the objectives set, all scientific investigations contributed with relevant essential elements to design the proposal of this research. In the article developed by Ferira [4], aspects related to ICT are deepened with a constructivist approach to strengthen Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) from the qualitative documentary approach, where related aspects are identified with projectbased learning. Martínez, the author [5], states that the conceptual mastery and basic competencies of pedagogical strategies in virtual contexts are essential in the learning process of students. At present, educational processes use important strategies, one of these is Problem-Based Learning (PBL) that is based on constructivism where the student must be the builder of his own knowledge, the teacher must select strategies that allow
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reflection and research, so that students select the best learning strategies based on their needs and contexts [6]. On the other hand, Domingo [7] explains the impact of virtual environments in education in the sense that the knowledge and progress of science is available to everyone, contributes to the quality of teaching and facilitates the internalization of learning through the use of audio, videos, visualizations of educational videos, contributions from blogs, admission to conferences and master classes, among others. The futuristic innovation of technology is directly related to the culture and educational innovations that teachers should use in their classes with the intention of contributing to the formation of active, investigative, autonomous and collaborative students. This implies that gradual changes in the pedagogical field must be supported by methods, tools and technologies that have been used for years [8]. In the research developed by Méndez-Giménez [9], he manifests two important criteria related to classes and active breaks, the first is oriented to academic content directly related to physical activities, while in active rest one of the best strategies is the application of recreational activities, such as recuperation and relaxation, here it is about integrating activities into academic classes will generate potential, not only to increase the levels of moderate and vigorous physical activity of students during school, but also to increase the techniques of learning enhancement, such as attention, cognition, and task time. Another related article is the one presented by Paiva [10] which emphasizes that active teaching-learning methodologies stimulate the student, so that he or she can apply active techniques for their learning, these active methodologies should be constituted as alternative solutions against educational problems. A study carried out by Gallardo and Vázquez [11] state that for the elaboration of teaching strategies they are very enriching if one starts from four fundamental phases such as: focus, exploration, reflection and application, these phases allow developing in students creativity, research and care for the environment. An investigation on active strategies carried out by Colorado Ordoñez and Gutiérrez Gamboa [12] states that the best strategies are based on: projects, information representations such as mental and conceptual maps, infographics and facts of thought and case studies to analyze information and knowledge. The newest digital collaborative networks’ strategies facilitate the development of disciplinary knowledge transfer processes not only in this area but also in different areas. The objective of investigating this social problem is to develop active methodological strategies to improve the learning processes of Natural Sciences, using the value of nature as an environment to related fields. The proper implementation of ICTs in education, to design virtual laboratories through inquiry, investigation, experimentation, exploration; and strengthen the knowledge of educators to guide the teaching-learning process in an active, participatory manner with a scientific culture, to develop attitudes and skills related to the environment [13]. In this article, the theme was first established based on the detections of the problem, to promote active strategies that teacher can use with their students to
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strengthen Natural Sciences learning, for which an exhaustive bibliographical investigation on the subject was carried out, with the selection of three active strategies, which were selected based on the needs of the students and the reality of the educational contexts.
24.2 Methodology This research work starts from a quantitative approach, with a non-experimental design. The methods used were: inductive—deductive, bibliographic, dialectical and mixed method, as shown in Table 24.1. A survey was prepared and applied to 32 eighth grade students of elementary school to find out what strategies teachers use to teach Natural Sciences, an interview with three teachers in the area of Natural Sciences and five authorities. When performing the analysis and interpretation of the results, it was observed that educators do not apply active strategies to teach Natural Sciences, so there is a need to renew these strategies; three active methodological strategies called: I draw my thought, autonomy transposition and virtual laboratories were designed. For the evaluation of the proposal, it had the support of three teachers from other specialized institutions in the area of Natural Sciences, who were given the writing of the design of the strategies and a scale of critical evaluation of the work that contained four criteria for systematically evaluate and assess the research and determine its quality and validity, these criteria were: validity in order to affirm that the results of this research are valid, relevance to highlight the importance of the information according to the needs of the students and contexts, viability to demonstrate that the strategies can be carried out in the institution and other institutions and transferability with the possibility of extending the results of the study to other populations. The results of the specialist’s assessment are shown in Table 24.3. Table 24.1 is presented with the methods used and their characteristics:
24.2.1 Participants In this investigation, 32 students of the eighth grade of elementary school participated, aged between 12 and 13 years, 60% are women and 40% are men, three teachers specializing in Natural Sciences and five authorities, rector, a vice-rector and three people from the academic board for a total of 40 people.
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Table 24.1 Research methods Bibliographic
This type of research allowed access to relevant information, for the comparison, expansion, clarification and derivation of different theoretical approaches, conceptualizations and standards of different authors on teaching process [14]
Historic method
This method contributed to know the background of the studied problem, from a safe and reliable source, to obtain important previous data in the development of the investigation [15]. Espinoza [16] maintains that it is very important in teaching process the creation of a story to achieve a particular objective in this case to encourage creativity with the use of technology now widely used. Problems or phenomena do not occur by chance; rather, they are the result of long-term processes that arise from, inspire, or create their existence. On the other hand, this development is not rigid nor is it repeated in a similar way, but according to certain tendencies, variables or expressions [17]
Dialectical method
This method emphasizes studying all the phenomena in their relationship with others and in their changing state, this will serve as a guide to describe and refine the development of the investigation, along with the proposed solution to the problem [18]. In addition, in this method the main idea or concept, called thesis, is presented with different arguments and ideas in opposition to the so-called antithesis, and to resolve this opposition of ideas, the synthesis arises, a new way of understanding the subject [19]
Mixed method It provides the opportunity to broaden questions and theories to address reality and influence significant advances that contribute to the understanding of educational phenomena, thus allowing the discovery of varied strategies and finding the solution to the research problem [20] considers that this method often with good intentions in education, it can contribute to the context, to understand a phenomenon or expand a topic previously discussed. In mixed method, it is possible to analyze research questions from different angles, and clarify unexpected findings and/or possible contradictions for the understanding of a theme in various contexts [21]
24.2.2 Materials/Resource Used The materials and resources that were used in the investigation are shown in Table 24.2 where they are detailed.
24.2.3 Procedure For the development of the research, Fig. 24.1 shows the four procedural stages to follow in building educational strategies process, they are identified in organizational and strategic axes. Planning: It is the first step of the research, it was the detection of the problem, after the formulation of the problem question and the objectives that will guide
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Table 24.2 Resources and materials Strategy
Materials
I draw my thought
Notes, eraser, color Word document to capture the ideas sheet, paints, crayons, among others
Resources
Autonomous transposition
Notebooks, posters, triptychs
Videos on various topics of Natural Sciences, to extract ideas and highlight the information to prepare the works such as essays, triptychs, among others
Virtual laboratories
Workbook and guide
Virtual lab, personal devices or computer lab
Table 24.3 Results of specialist assessment Assessment criteria
Specialist 1
Specialist 2
Specialist 3
Score obtained by criterion
Percentage (%)
Validity
5
4
4
13/15
86.7
Relevance
5
4
4
13/15
86.7
Viability
5
4
4
13/15
86.7
Transferability
5
5
5
15/15
100
Score obtained by specialist
20/20
17/20
17/20
Percentage (%)
100
85
85
1. Planning Diagnostic or Preparatory
Organizational axis
2. Proceding Design and implementation
3. Observation Redesign and verification
Strategic axis
4. Reflection Results presentation
Fig. 24.1 Stages of the strategy procedure taken [2]
the methodology of work based on the diagnosis, three strategies designed for the area of sciences were chosen, chosen according to the needs and context of the students. Action: In this phase, a search was carried out for activities that allow to improve Natural Sciences’ teaching, of the ten strategies found, three were selected based on the teachers’ needs and the context, the design of each strategy was elaborated by the researchers. The stages for the elaboration of the strategies were carried out based on the state of the art and with the changes subject to the reality of the institutions.
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Observation: For the implementation of the three strategies, 32 eighth grade students of A parallel from elementary school participated, in this phase the teacher must use continuous strategies during the points, concepts or ideas’ development in the classroom where students should focus on, coding and learning process. Each strategy was applied in three work sessions, for which the students were previously asked to bring the necessary resources and materials and with different topics, at the end of each session, evaluations were carried out to determine the degree of incidence of the strategy in the students learning. Reflection: In this phase the information was organized in order to carry out an analysis of the strategies used by teachers for teaching Natural Sciences, as a result of the survey it was observed that teachers do not use active strategies in the area of science. They do not have laboratories, nor do they use natural resources from the environment. An evaluation rubric was applied for each strategy in order to measure the effectiveness of each strategy. With the purpose of enhancing student learning by learning procedures and skills that can be applied in a variety of situations and facilitating teaching in a holistic and effective manner, therefore, three active methodological strategies were designed, which are: I draw my thought, autonomous transposition and virtual laboratories, each one with the following structure: title, introduction, procedure, an application example and evaluation exercise.
24.3 Active Strategies Design The theoretical inquiry process and the diagnosis of the real world provide data and evidence to suggest proactive strategies that can be part of the solution to the problems facing science teaching in current challenges where teachers are trapped in traditional practices. The new changes and new social demands of education allow to improve the quality of learning for current and new generations, which influence their personal, social, professional and cultural life. Therefore, current teachers need to be innovators and facilitators of learning. For this, three active methodological strategies are proposed to improve the learning process in Natural Sciences related to creativity, organization of ideas and care for the environment, strategies that force teachers to use new methods and pedagogical resources, which guide planning, execution and evaluation of educational processes. The three active methodological strategies were structured as follows, as detailed in Fig. 24.2.
24.3.1 I Draw My Thought The strategy allows portray reflections on nature in drawings, manuals or figures and thus presenting the personal perception of nature and thus systematizing the
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Evaluation
Introduction
Application Exercise
Procedure
Fig. 24.2 Procedure to develop strategies
1.Use motivational strategies for participation
Student: guide students to draw aspects of nature
2. Select the theme of the drawing
. .
Characterize an object, person or space Narrate facts or events in a creative or attractive way to draw them
3. Socialize in the classroom and the institution
Participate in drawing contests created for the purpose
Fig. 24.3 Procedure to elaborate the strategy: I draw my thought
various contents that will be discussed in the classroom and using them creatively for the benefit of society. Students are free to paint and share competitions organized by institutions and others to share their knowledge and love for nature. Figure 24.3 details the procedure for applying the strategy.
24.3.2 Autonomous Transposition This strategy refers to the transfer of knowledge learned in Natural Sciences to texts that allow presenting the personal vision of reality or of a group, allowing the systematization of various contents learned in the lessons and creative use for the benefit of society. Students can write articles, create audiovisual materials, posters, brochures, etc. to share their knowledge or promote care for the environment. Figure 24.4 details the process for applying this strategy.
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Fig. 24.4 Procedure for preparing the strategy: autonomous transposition
1. Actual experience
2. Virtual experience
3. Simulation activities
4. Preparation of a report
5. Evaluation
Fig. 24.5 Procedure to elaborate the strategy: virtual laboratories strategy
24.3.3 Virtual Labs They are useful virtual environments for teaching subjects that would avoid or replace experiments in school laboratories. Virtual labs are useful for science activities because teachers can use them to simulate activities on the computer, thus promoting the development of science skills. They facilitate virtual interaction with the contents and between students organized in pairs or teams. They must be accompanied by somebody that guides their application. Next, in Fig. 24.5, the procedure to apply the strategy is shown.
24.4 Results’ Discussion In the current context, society faces a great challenge for educators since educational proposals based on teacher-centered strategies contribute to the development of research and innovation. The role of teachers in this transition should be emphasized, who are involved in the creation of formative experiences based on the characteristics, needs and interests of the students. Teachers who engage students, connect learning to their interests, create learning networks, and help select teaching methods are creative teachers [16]. There is another criterion [9] that agree with the last great step forward in education which is the use of learning skills, and because the work programs are based on planning, execution and evaluation, the success of the students and teachers is guaranteed and increase student learning by 80%. Maldonado and Landarzàbal [23] recommend that teachers use active methods in their research, taking into account factors such as the type of content to be addressed and cognitive abilities. Another opinion from [24] mentions that innovative methodologies when used by teachers provide better results in student learning, raising these learning by
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Fig. 24.6 Students working in virtual laboratories
90% compared to traditional methodologies. The results of the strategy evaluation are presented below with the following evaluation criteria: Validity: It has scientific and pedagogical validity derived from the percentage of overlap between users, relevance and feasibility appear equally. Relevance: It allowed the selection of relevant information that contributed with new ideas for the selection of strategies in a certain educational context. Viability: With the strategies proposed in the research, was the application possible with optimal results as evidenced in Table 24.3 shown at the bottom? Transferability: Readers were provided with teaching strategies that could be applicable to other contexts, situations, times, and populations. Finally, evidence of the work carried out with the students is shown (Fig. 24.6).
24.5 Conclusion Three strategies were designed to improve the teaching process, for which four phases began, the first stage was the planning that allowed the elaboration of the phases that were used for the development of the investigation, as a second phase the action that allowed knowing and select the active strategies to teach Natural Sciences, the third phase was the observation, here the strategies were applied and the last phase the reflection, it was proceeded to evaluate each strategy from a rating scale to measure the validity and quality of the strategies. Active methodological strategies were designed to improve the teaching process of Natural Sciences for eighth-year students, the same ones that followed an established scheme, in order to improve knowledge and these are put into practice through experimentation and creativity.
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The proposed active strategies have scientific and didactic validity, as demonstrated by the percentage of the assessment of the proposal it threw an 85% acceptance, which follows that the strategies designed are relevant and applicable with social relevance, due to the result achieved in this research, for which it is necessary to constantly update the active methodological strategies for the teaching process in order to diversify the use of basic and essential techniques and procedures in the educational process.
References 1. Nono, J.: Estrategia metodológica para el desarrollo del aprendizaje basado en problemas en la asignatura de ciencias naturales del octavo año de educación básica. In: Congreso de Ciencia y Tecnología, Ambato, 2018 2. Chacon, M.: Estrategia didáctica para fortalecer la competencia resolución de problemas en estudiantes de ingeniería de un curso de ecuaciones diferenciales de una universidad privada. In: Congresos y disertaciones, Bucaramanga, 2021 3. Martínez, R.: Concepción de aprendizaje y estrategias metacognitivas en estudiantes de educación básica. Anales de Psicologia 23(1), 7–16 (2017) 4. Molina, M.: Argumentar en clases de ciencias naturales: una revisión bibliográfica. In: III Jornadas de enseñanza e investigación, La Plata (2012) 5. Arango, V.: El método estudio de casos en la enseñanza de ciencias naturales. Praxis—Saber 12(31), 18–28 (2021) 6. Espinoza, E.: La dimensión ambiental en la enseñanza de ciencias naturales en la educación básica. Agroecosistemas 7(1), 3–7 (2019) 7. Zambrano, A.: Método histórico e investigación social. Teoria y Praxis 18(37), 23–44 (2020) 8. Lazar, I.: Adoption of digital storytelling tool in natural sciences and technology education by pre-service teachers using the technology acceptance model. LOURNAL 19(3), 4–8 (2020) 9. Arango, A.: El método de estudio de casos en la enseñanza de ciencias naturales. Praxis & Saber 12(31), 4–8 (2021) 10. Jimenez, I.: Es posible el cambio. Interuniversitaria 10(4), 89–95 (2013) 11. López, G.y.J.O.: Las TIC en la enseñanza de la Biología en la educación secundaria: los laboratorios virtuales. Revista electrónica de la Enseñanza de Ciencias Naturales 6(3), 562–576 (2017) 12. Ayil, J.: Entorno Virtual de Aprendizaje: Una Herramienta de Apoyo para la Enseñanza de las Matemáticas Virtual learning environment: a support tool for teaching of mathematics. RITI J. 6(11), 34–39 (2018) 13. Mendez, L.: Resultados academicos, cognitivos y físicos de dos estrategias para integrar movimiento en el aula: clases activas y descansos activos. Ecuamericana 9(1), 34–56 (2019) 14. Greca, I., Jerez, E.: Propuesta para la enseñanza de ciencias naturales en la educación primaria en un aula inclusiva. Revista Eureka Sobre Enseñanza y Divulgación de Las Ciencias 14(2), 355–397 (2017) 15. Ferreira, M., Feijão, J., Rocha, I., Bomfim, A.: Sobral. SANARE 15(2), 145–153 (2016) 16. Madelin, J., Steffens, E., Hernández, H.: Estrategias Pedagógicas en Procesos de Enseñanza y Aprendizaje en la Educación Superior incluyendo Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones. Informacion de la Tecnología 30(3), 277–286 (2019) 17. Ferreira, M., Feijao, P., Rocha, B., Banjin, Q.: Metodologias Ativas de ensino aprendizagem:revisao integrativa. SANARE 15(2), 145–149 (2016) 18. Vázquez, G., Gallardo, L.: Teorias sobre el juego y su importancia como recurso educativo para el desarrollo integral infantil. Hekademos 3(4), 9–12 (2018)
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19. Gamboa, C., Gutiérrez, F.: Estrategias didácticas para la enseñanza de las ciencias naturales en la educación superior. Logos, Ciencia & tecnología 8(1), 34–38 (2016) 20. Torres, Á., Estrada, A.: La Enseñanza De Las Ciencias Naturales Y Educación Ambiental En Las Instituciones Educativas. NARIÑO 3(1), 143–166 (2019) 21. Garcés, A., Álvarez, G., Melo, E., Heredia, J.: Enseñanza de Ciencias Naturales para la iniciación del método científico en Educación Infantil. Vínculos 5(2), 31–41 (2020) 22. Solòrzano, J., Lituma, L.: Estrategias de enseñanza en estudiantes de educaciòn bàsica. Metropolitana de Ciencias aplicadas 3(3), 3–9 (2020) 23. Maldonado, I., Landarzàbal, D.: Visibilidad y formaciòn en investigaciòn. Studiositas 2(2), 5–8 (2017) 24. Bartau, I., Aspillaga, V., Joarasti, L.: Metodología de enseñanza en centros eficaces de la Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco. Investigaciòn educativa 35(1), 6–14 (2017)
Chapter 25
Articulation of Environmental Education in the Curricula of Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Review Mónica Acuña-Rodríguez, Liliana Canquiz Rincón, Alicia Inciarte González, Yeferson Gómez López, Samir F. Umaña-Ibáñez, Jairo R. Coronado-Hernández, and Gustavo Gatica
Abstract The objective of this study was to characterize environmental education from the articulation in the curricula of Higher Education Institutions. For this, a qualitative descriptive systematic review was carried out. For the search, collection, and analysis of data, the Web of science database was taken into account as a specialized search engine, and 25 articles were chosen. The results produced make it evident that the way in which universities decide to face their responsibility for the achievement of the sustainable development goals may vary due to the autonomy that they have in the organization of their study plans, however, many are choosing for taking into account the transversality of environmental education in all professional fields considering comprehensive training and the role that each individual can play to achieve a sustainable and ecological country.
25.1 Introduction Currently, the planet continues to face a major environmental crisis that puts the survival of all species and especially human life at risk. According to the United Nations Organization (2022), the aggressive relationship of the individual with the environment has generated alarming consequences, and climate change continues to directly affect the lives of millions of people worldwide. “Today, there is talk of a triple planetary emergency, climate change, the loss of biodiversity and pollution. Ambitious measures to adapt to climate change are M. Acuña-Rodríguez (B) · L. C. Rincón · A. I. González · Y. G. López · S. F. Umaña-Ibáñez · J. R. Coronado-Hernández Universidad de la Costa CUC, Barranquilla, Colombia e-mail: [email protected] G. Gatica Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_25
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urgently needed, while achieving rapid and steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions”. “In 2021, 17 million tons of plastic entered the ocean and the volume of plastic pollution in the sea would triple by 2040”. This indicates that the global call toward ecological care and conservation is increasingly becoming a priority. Some highly significant data exposed by the World Meteorological Organization affirm that in the year 2022, there were extreme heat waves, droughts, and devastating floods affecting millions of people and generating losses guaranteed in billions. “In 2021, the concentrations of the main greenhouse gases once again reached unprecedented levels. The annual increase in methane concentration was the highest ever recorded. According to data from the main monitoring stations, the atmospheric levels of the three greenhouse gases continued to increase in 2022” (p. 1). Taking this panorama into consideration, various disciplines of the Educational Sciences, the Social Sciences, and especially Psychology have seen the need to land and accentuate the investigative interest and, therefore, the consolidation of new scientific knowledge in the analysis of the individual-nature relationship, the realities of the different formation scenarios, as well as the strategies to achieve the much-desired environmental harmony [20, 37]. Therefore, education as a powerful tool for social transformation is the path that branches such as Environmental Psychology have used to achieve the sustainability of the planet, the construction of responsible ecology, the consolidation and implementation of programs and projects with a responsible look toward the conservation of resources, achieve the reduction of aggressive consequences in the social, economic, political, environmental sphere, and that finally the construction of sustainability principles is achieved, encourages and promotes social progress and green growth. It should be noted then, that, to achieve such a broad vision, environmental psychology has had to go through various concepts and theories that manage to respond to the prevailing need for a responsible relationship of the human being with the environment; the reason for this was the emergence of the concept of proecological behavior, described by Corral et al. [16] who allude to caring for the environment and the reduction of aversive behaviors toward it. Subsequently, the definition of pro-environmental behavior described by Corral (2001), which assumes it as the care that human beings give to the environment through individual and collective actions. Consequently, it is important to take into account the reasoned action approach exposed by Fishbein and Ajzen [22], to respond to certain determinants of behavior. The theory infers that human social behavior is assumed in a reasonable way, and these come from the information or belief that human beings have of their own behavior and that finally are the beliefs, in this case, the attitude, the perceived norm and behavior control those that form a behavioral intention and willingness to perform the behavior [22]. In the particular case of the study of pro-environmental behaviors, according to Saza-Quintero et al. [37] supported by the theory of reasoned action, affirm that both knowledge and context must be elements to take into account when analyzing behavioral intention. However, what some do agree on is that the attitude, the perceived
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norm and behavioral control turn out to be effective predictors of the intention of pro-environmental behavior [40]. Regarding the studies related to pro-environmental behaviors as variables to be taken into account in the curricula of Higher Education institutions, it is important to highlight that although the 70s became a hopeful bet with the creation of the United Nations Program United Nations for the Environment (UNEP) and with the different summits subsequently carried out by the UN that strongly ratified the need for Universities to promote the development of skills that would allow the population to face environmental problems through training in different areas of knowledge, there are still gaps and many challenges to face within the universities [6]. It is the concept of sustainability and not that of pro-environmental behavior, which has turned out to be a protagonist in the advances that universities have shown within the curricula. Research such as that of Calderón et al. [14], point out that there is little implementation of the competencies for environmental sustainability, and that it is a completely coherent element to be transversal in many subjects, although what is observable are the differences according to the areas of knowledge. The lack of government initiative and support from the Institutions is also highlighted [2]. Finally, the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development, set out by the UN according to the approach of the 17 objectives and in correspondence with objective 4, to guarantee quality education, is a key factor that calls on the university to assimilate the educational process in a holistic way through the introduction of new curricular views from the indicators of pro-environmental behavior, which design elements of training and research thought of sustainability [36]. According to the above, this study aimed to characterize environmental education from the articulation in the curricula of Higher Education Institutions.
25.2 Methodology The present systematic review was of a descriptive qualitative type, taking into account that, since it is not an investigation of an experimental nature, it is called a secondary research source [3]. For the search, collection and analysis of data, the Web of science database was taken into account as a specialized search engine, the selected articles were 25, since only these met the inclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria were the following: that they exhibited research publications between the years 2020– 2023 and that would be in the Web of science database, that would have the words: “environmental education in university” in their keywords, abstract or title., “curriculum”, “environmental education in universities”, “curriculum”, and finally, only those articles where the research cleanly addressed environmental education immersed in the higher education curriculum were sectioned. The data was processed through an Excel matrix, where they were classified by each of the previously described inclusion criteria and the country in which the investigation was undertaken. The authors performed the analysis and interpretation of the data from this respective matrix.
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25.3 Results Environmental education is becoming increasingly popular at the international level in higher education institutions, leading them to be more aware of the social responsibility they have in the comprehensive training of future professionals, where, from their role, they will be able to contribute to the restoration and preservation of the various ecosystems of the environment regardless of the field of action in which they are found, taking into account that all citizens should have a sustainable behavior toward the environment [10]. According to some authors [29], research on environmental education has increased in recent years, especially in higher education contexts, and this was possible to show in this study, where it is highlighted that universities from different parts of the world are directing concrete actions from professional training, taking environmental education to learning spaces as a transversal axis (and mandatory in many cases) within their study plan. In addition, the progress in research that has been implemented in recent years is notorious (see Fig. 25.1), going from 5 articles for the year 2020 to 12 articles in the year 2022. In addition, this investigative growth may vary according to each country, as this study shows, where a greater number of publications was found in Colombia with a total of 12%, while China, Venezuela, Brazil, USA, and Cuba occupied 8% of the surveys reviewed (see Fig. 25.2). But beyond the countries where it is investigated, it is important to point out that the way in which the institutions implemented environmental education within the curriculum was diverse, taking this element in some of them to areas such as engineering or the degree in education, and others, to transversal courses for each of the careers that the university offered at that time (see Fig. 25.3). It is evident that the way in which universities decide to face their responsibility for the achievement of the sustainable development goals can vary due to the autonomy that they have in the organization of their study plans, as mentioned by Babalola and Olawuyi [7]. However, many are choosing to take into account the transversality of environmental education in all professional fields [21], considering integral training and the role that each individual can play to achieve a sustainable and sustainable country. Fig. 25.1 Year of publication of the analyzed articles. Own Source. Note the years correspond to the articles that were analyzed for this research taking into account the inclusion and exclusion criteria embodied in the methodology
15 10 5 0
Year of Publication 2020
2021
2022
2023
25 Articulation of Environmental Education in the Curricula of Higher … Philippines Spain 4% Vietnam 4% 4% EE.UU 8%
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Colombia 12% China 8%
Pakistán Venezuela 4% África 8% 4% Germany Brasil 4% Italy 8% 4% New England Cuba 4% England Italy Finland Iceland 8% 4% 4% 4% 4%
Fig. 25.2 Articles found in each country according to the search criteria
14 13 12 11
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
In a specific area
Transversal to all areas
Fig. 25.3 Method of applying environmental education to the curriculum
In Fig. 25.3, it can be seen that from the investigations that analyzed the way in which some universities worked on environmental education, they showed an inclination toward the transversal development of environmental education in their undergraduate and postgraduate students, allowing a greater scope of the aspects concepts of sustainability to its student body, as well as other universities have proposed to implement it. Finally, a summary of the reviewed articles is presented for possible tracking and identification as a reader (see Table 25.1).
25.4 Discussion and Conclusion Environmental training in universities has become an essential element that requires the acquisition of skills and abilities for present and future generations of professionals, citizens, scientists, and world leaders, strengthening their skills and abilities to face the challenges that climate change continues to present, hence it must be approached in an interdisciplinary way, and that it be integrated into the curricula of all careers, starting from the arts, basic sciences, to the humanities, and many more areas.
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Table 25.1 Summary of analyzed articles Year of publication
Authors
2020 [13]
Cáceres, M. A. M., Andrade, C., y Freire, L.
2020 [30]
Ma, Y., Men, J., y Cui, W.
2020 [1]
Acosta Castellanos, P. M., Queiruga-Dios, A., Hernández Encinas, A., y Acosta, L. C.
2020 [27]
Kirsop-Taylor, N., Appiah, D., Steadman, A., y Huggett, M.
2020 [26]
Kinyota, M.
2021 [17]
De Oliveira, D. B., Becker, R. W., Sirtori, C., y Passos, C. G.
2021 [39]
Seikkula-Leino, J., Jónsdóttir, S. R., Håkansson-Lindqvist, M., Westerberg, M., y Eriksson-Bergström, S.
2021 [28]
Lee, S. A., Mork, J., Vo´ca, N., Voronova, V., Virsta, A., Daraban, A. E., Pohlmann, J., Filho, W., Ribic, B., y Banks, C. E.
2021 [19]
Denham, D., Rozance, M. A., Malone, M., y Goodling, E.
2021 [9]
Begum, A., Jingwei, L., Marwat, I. U. K., Khan, S., Han, H., & Ariza-Montes, A.
2021 [5]
Avilés Contreras, Y., Contreras Moya, A. M., y Nodarse González, N. M.
2021 [34]
Pálsdóttir, A., y Jóhannsdóttir, L.
2021 [24]
Gil-Doménech, D., Magomedova, N., Sánchez-Alcázar, E. J., y Lafuente-Lechuga, M.
2022 [11]
Blanco, M. A., Blanco, M. E., y Vila Hinojo, B. T.
2022 [43]
Winter, J., Zhai, J., y Cotton, D. R. E.
2022 [15]
Corpuz, A. M., San Andres, T. C., y Lagasca, J. M.
2022 [41]
Tran Ho, U., Lepage, B. A., y Fang, W. T.
2022 [31]
Marcella, V., y Samofalova, Y.
2022 [23]
Gibbs, A. J., Henderson, K., Luckett, M., Luks, L., y Walton, A. L.
2022 [38]
Schmitt, L., y Kitzmann, D. I. S.
Note The table includes the publication date and the authors of each manuscript in order to make it easy to identify them in the references Source own elaboration (2023)
This need and responsibility that is being talked about is what has recently led universities to start implementing environmental issues from their study plans [2, 8, 12], allowing students to develop a more holistic understanding of the different ecological challenges [4], in order to understand the proper way to apply knowledge and skills in solving specific environmental problems. However, each university has been able, from its autonomy, to choose the way in which environmental training is taught in its academic space, which is why this systematic review had the objective of analyzing which were those most used strategies during the last 4 years, which led, on the one hand, to show a constant increase in research that details the interest of these institutions in making environmental education part of their study plans, being
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consistent with what was expressed by authors such as Zapater [43] and Grosseck et al. [25] who document this growth over the years. Now, it is clear that there are multiple tools or strategies to implement environmental education in educational settings [32], however, universities have in some way leaned toward the transversality of this education [18, 21, 33, 35], being evident how in the systematic review it accounts for a greater number of universities that have established mandatory or optional environmental education, but for all training fields, taking into consideration that from each interdisciplinary approach, there will be a significant contribution for the results that the planet hopes to achieve in terms of sustainability and ecological restoration. It is also important to note that including the ecological issue in Higher Education Institutions, in addition to being a call to fulfill the 2030 agenda to tend toward a more sustainable world and that the individual-nature relationship is more harmonious, has been a scenario complex, since the universities have been close to an education toward sustainability; however, work must continue in a robust way in the production of knowledge also oriented to the specific inclusion of environmental competences transversally in all academic programs and much less in their study plans. Finally, it can be affirmed that in order to achieve comprehensive training from the inclusion of skills that allow care for ecology, environmental education is a relevant tool that fosters the development of skills to act responsibly with the environment as well as being a complement in academic scenarios facing the reality and social need that nature demands, promoting the search for practical solutions from interdisciplinary guidelines.
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Chapter 26
The New Educational Models Based on Information and Communication Technology and Education 4.0 Javier Guaña-Moya , Tamara Ballesteros-Casco , Yamileth Arteaga-Alcívar , Jaime Antamba-Guasgua , Eduardo Vladimir Azanza Lutsak , and Jessica Carvajal Morales
Abstract Technological advancement has had a positive impact on many industrial areas and various service sectors. Education is among these benefited sectors, due to the innovative processes that have been implemented in recent years, the technologies combined with the pedagogical, have taken an important turn in the way of teaching and learning. Information and communication technology (ICT) and Education 4.0 have had their repercussions on the educational system, which has allowed in recent years to see the transformation and development of innovative educational models using technological tools and resources to contribute to the teaching processlearning. In this research, a systematic review of the literature was carried out, to know the new educational models that have emerged based on ICT and Education 4.0, as dynamic resources within the educational system, which come to innovate J. Guaña-Moya (B) Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] T. Ballesteros-Casco Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ambato, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] Y. Arteaga-Alcívar Instituto Superior Tecnológico Japón, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] J. Antamba-Guasgua Instituto Tecnológico Universitario Rumiñahui, Sangolquí, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] E. V. A. Lutsak Universidad Internacional del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] J. C. Morales Universidad Estatal de Milagro, Milagro, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_26
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the way of learning, understand, order, and undertake the processes necessary to achieve meaningful learning. These new models respond to the social and educational demands and transformations, such as what was experienced in the pandemic, where confinement opened the way for technology to provide school continuity, generating new challenges and challenges, but allowing digital tools to respond to the existing need.
26.1 Introduction Technological evolution in recent years has had relevant repercussions in the educational field, which has allowed teaching models, learning methods, information sources, and the roles of educators and students to be readjusted and innovated to nurture the teaching process and achieve meaningful learning [1]. For this, methodologies are applied that allow a specification of the process to generate knowledge and the transmission of information in a more efficient, accessible, effective, and flexible way. Using educational innovation projects that achieve challenges in the area [2], which must be applied by all the actors involved (educational institutions, education departments, research centers, and universities), in line with the needs of social realities [3, 4]. The new innovative proposals will allow improvements in management and teaching–learning processes, creating the scenarios to apply essential procedures in the pedagogical field. Therefore, these proposals have been used for continuing education, distance education, with digitization, connectivity, and virtualization platforms [5]. For the benefit of these developments and their implementation in the field of education, it is necessary to build a reference framework to guide the design; therefore, this article proposes new educational models based on TIC and Education 4.0, with the purpose of establishing the corresponding adjustments and according to the needs of the student population, to achieve highly qualified professionals, with the ability to use physical and digital resources able to provide solutions to today’s society [1, 6].
26.2 Methodology The present research was based on the systematic literature review guidelines established by Kitchenham et al. [7], with the purpose of obtaining information related to the study questions posed to develop it. This standard formulates the following stages: • Planning the review. • Conducting the review. • Analysis of results.
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26.2.1 Planning the Review The objective of the research is to know the new educational models based on ICT and Education 4.0, to develop the topic, the following research questions were raised: Q1: What is TIC? Q2: What is Education 4.0? Q3: What are the new educational models based on TIC and Education 4.0? Information was accessed through digital databases such as: Science, ACM Digital Library, Google Scholar, IEEE, Scopus, Direct Elsevier, eXplorer, and Springer Link, to search for topics related to new educational models, ICT, Education 4.0, modes of application, definitions, research conducted on the subject. Scientific research in academic journals and technical publications, between 2010 and 2022, was identified among the sources found, with a search plan based on elements linked to the research questions. The inclusion criteria considered in the selection of documents are articles that develop the theme of new educational models, ICT and Education 4.0, conceptualization, and application of models based on ICT and Education 4.0; while the exclusion criteria considered are information published in broad and general Websites and blogs, with documents that do not make relevant contributions to the researched topic.
26.2.2 Conducting the Review In this phase, all the articles were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, reviewing the titles of the articles, the content, and the conclusions reached, to determine whether they contribute to the questions posed in this research. As a result of the search, 64 documents were identified, of which 36 were selected that met the established criteria.
26.2.3 Analysis of Results To understand what is meant by ICTs, it was possible to obtain answers to Q1: What are ICTs? Defined as the technological tools necessary for the management and transformation of information, which facilitate the creation, modification, storage, protection, and retrieval of information in computers and programs, of relevance in different areas of action, such as the educational field [8]. Other authors consider them as a set of resources that transmit, process and store digitally all the information that will be
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learned, to develop intellectual and technological skills. ICTs are used as an ally to form and train individuals today [9]. In recent years, the didactic use of ICT has been implemented in educational institutions by different governmental entities. Although the results are still not encouraging in many sectors, since it has been difficult to adapt to the novelty [10], however, in recent years motivated by the pandemic, it has had a boom, although many did not know how to use some resources, the situation warranted it to give school continuity to the population. Therefore, currently, the implementation of ICTs has importance in the educational and training process. UNESCO has a Teacher ICT Competencies Framework with the purpose of assisting countries in the development of comprehensive ICT competencies regulations for teachers, to be incorporated into general plans in the education system. In addition, this framework reiterates the acquisition of these competencies by teachers and the ability for students to also develop them so that they can be transformed into individuals who exercise collaboration, creativity, with the ability to solve problems, participants of innovation, and exercise in society all that they have learned [11, 12]. In a study conducted to determine the impact on pedagogical practices of digital media in the classroom, it was determined that school texts were the most frequently used resources, ICT did not completely replace traditional materials, technological resources were used to a minimal extent, and there were few teachers who used them, as a complement to the class. However, the new digital media, the Interactive Digital Whiteboards (PDI), replaced the traditional audiovisual media [13]. Q2: What is Education 4.0? In the transition from Education 1.0 to Education 4.0, the corresponding adjustments have been made since the first industrial revolution that took place at the end of the eighteenth century, which began with the mechanization of processes, through typewriters, printing presses, among others, based on the philosophy of behaviorism, essentialism, and instructive [1]. For the second industrial revolution at the beginning of the twentieth century, Education 2.0 arose, which was characterized by electricity, industrialization, and mass production, the teaching process had as its main source of information the existing material in libraries, and resources such as computers, printers, and calculators appeared. This period had a constructivist and andragogic philosophy, the role of the teacher changed and was considered as a source of reference and information, which helped to implement the use of the tools and resources available, and the role of the student remained passive, although having a more active role, as owners of knowledge [1]. In the third industrial revolution at the end of the twentieth century, Education 3.0 emerged, characterized by the presence of automation, computerization, and control. This allowed that both the teacher and the student did not need to participate in a simultaneous session for learning to take place, but new resources such as online tools, virtual laboratories, and multimedia were incorporated in the teaching–learning process; with a heutagogy and connectivism philosophy. Where the role of the teacher
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was that of a collaborator and the student possessed empowerment to participate in the construction of their knowledge [1, 5, 14]. Currently, the fourth industrial revolution and new technologies with innovative pedagogical procedures, which improve educational practices, are known as the period of Education 4.0, which has allowed teachers and students to take advantage of modern infrastructure and emerging technologies, to improve pedagogical procedures, with an evolution and reorientation of paradigms toward the innovation of training processes, to meet the needs of today’s society [1]. The philosophy of this period transcends pedagogy and andragogy, to make a combination of: • Heutagogy: Promotes self-learning, based on humanistic criteria and with constructivist principles that focus on the student, as a being who learns and teaches, as well as who reflects and understands his own learning process. • Peeragogy: Promotes collaborative learning, using teaching techniques that favor learning among peers [15]. • Cybergogy: Promoted by the boom in technological advances and the evolution of the Internet that has had an impact on the educational field. They are the tools and strategies that promote ICT to achieve learning that goes beyond the limits of space and time [16]. Technological advances, combined with approaches facilitate responding to the needs and challenges that currently arise in terms of creating programs and environments that incorporate these procedures. For this, teachers must create enablers, which allow the approach to respond to the demands of reality so that the implementation of digital resources is effective. For their part, students can immerse themselves in the most appropriate learning at a personal level that facilitates and reinforces learning apart from developing the competencies that give them a timely preparation [1]. Some authors propose four main components to enrich the proposal of Education 4.0: • Competencies They refer to the development and formation of the critical competencies expected in today’s students. In recent years, these competencies have been presented to design educational models that facilitate facing the challenges to develop knowledge efficiently, and to be used in everyday life from the personal, social, and labor [17]. Therefore, some organizations and institutions have defined critical competencies to be promoted in education, so that new methods, resources, and activities emerge to enable learning using training and development of these competencies [18]. Among the critical competencies are transversal and disciplinary competencies, defined critical, as they encompass emotional, personal, social, intellectual, and professional areas. Transversal competencies: Identifies five core competencies that are basic to be fostered in the educational field [1, 19]: (a) critical thinking; (b) cooperation; (c) collaboration; (d) communication; (e) creativity and innovation.
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Disciplinary competencies: They refer to the knowledge of specific techniques and skills, which lead to the performance of the task in a particular way. They are linked to developing and implementing technological systems. They present three characteristics [20]: (a) The development and formation of functional, technological, and technical knowledge and skills of a successful performance in the labor field. (b) The capacity for design, research, creation, and implementation of new technologies. (c) The use of emerging technologies and the corresponding adjustments that respond to the resolution of conflicts in the technological field. • Learning Methods: Incorporation of new learning methods In Education 4.0, traditional methods have undergone some changes that are in line with the inclusion of technologies, strategies, and activities that make it easier for students to learn by accessing the appropriate programs. The service provided through Education 4.0 tends to be more efficient and flexible, allowing new teaching methods that generate knowledge and transmit information and tools. To this end, there are new face-to-face, distance, and hybrid learning programs. Distance learning programs involve the use of the Internet, which has contributed to the increase of learning programs. These methods have two central characteristics: Learning delivery modality: Teaching processes have had a positive change, since through technological advances, it is possible to deliver programs in various formats, which facilitates that deliveries are made from different modalities, ensuring accessibility and flexibility [1]. Learning method: This involves pedagogical principles, strategies, and procedures that respond to reality and are student-centered. Methods arise that are based on cooperative and collaborative activities, that have educational approaches based on conflict resolution, challenges, hands-on learning, and play [1]. • Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs): Implementation of current and emerging ones ICTs are technological resources and tools that allow accessibility, distribution, and collection of information. They have become an indispensable instrument for the establishment of new forms of teaching, due to their use and the way of working that facilitates teachers and students the collaboration of knowledge at any time and from anywhere [21]. Education 4.0 has an ICT component considered in two ways: Technology-driven: The solutions offered are technology-driven, the principles, and techniques respond from that ground, with both current and emerging technologies, to provide robust capabilities on existing tools and platforms. Modern IoT-driven techniques such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, high data processing applying data science, data analytics and cloud computing and virtual image processing for experiential and virtual environments [22, 23].
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Tools and Platforms: The implementation of working principles and techniques has allowed the tools and platforms to be robust, improving the teaching–learning process. Technologies that have their bases on the Web have data processing and offer various services, such as blogs, emails, wikis, and virtual learning environments [24]. ICTs, because of the capabilities they possess, allow new possibilities for innovation to achieve improvements in learning formal processes. In addition, learning programs for virtual classrooms and collaborative platforms have emerged, which complement or act independently of traditional modalities of education [25]. Learning platforms provide synchronous online sessions that support student learning through Web conferencing technologies, such as ZOOM, M-Teams, Meets, and Webex; which has the incorporation of text, voice, video, images, which facilitates active participation [26]. Furthermore, that learning management systems (LMS) can complement by providing spaces for teachers and students to work in a hybrid way, both synchronous and asynchronous, nurturing collaborative learning; some of the most used are CANVAS, Moodle, Blackboard, Google Classroom, Sakai, and Edmodo. Other of the most important implementations used are mixed reality labs [27], educational robotics [28] based on the learning Web, M-learning, intelligent tutoring systems, robotic teaching assistant [29], experiential and virtual environments [23], Hologram-Teacher formats [30], among others. • Infrastructure Learning areas in Education 4.0 are supported by adequate infrastructures, both virtual and physical, according to current needs. There are two levels to make a description of the infrastructure used in education: At the classroom level: Its purpose is to have the appropriate equipment for the classroom, with connected tools, innovative furniture, and all the didactic and educational resources necessary to condition the environment properly, using collaborative spaces such as learning commons and libraries, with the adaptation that facilitates learning, considering the colors, sounds, lighting, temperature, and architecture of the environment [31]. These classrooms can have technologies that allow interaction with virtual and digital tools, such as hologram systems, virtual, and augmented reality. All this to stimulate collaboration, recreation and comfort for students, teachers, and all staff involved in the learning process [1]. At the institutional level: It involves the use of the educational institution’s facilities that facilitate the service, management, and teaching process. All these adaptations help to improve the educational environment and all the actors that make life in the institution. In the pandemic, this situation was interrupted, and virtual and digital environments came to ensure school continuity, from ICT platforms that ensured connectivity, virtuality, and digitization, in support of virtual classrooms with the Web and LMS, in addition to online libraries, instant messaging system and remote laboratories that were enabled and widely used [1].
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Q3: What are the new educational models based on ICT and Education 4.0? There are new educational models based on ICT and Education 4.0, which can be grouped into seven categories [32]: • Learning Management Systems: mapped technologies that constitute: adaptive learning system, Edmodo, kahoot!, Moodle, Android-based learning application, Twine, Schoology, smart hybrid learning system, technology-based learning system, mathematics, Confirm-A web-based e-learning tool, Edikits 4.0 smartphone applications, Padlet, Quizizz, virtual learning environment supported by a remote laboratory, Ku mobile learning application, learning system structure. • Labs and factories: Comprise learning factory, digital fabrication lab, teaching factory, remote lab in virtual reality environments, training lab, 3D factory simulation, industry 4.0 technologies lab, power electronics experiment lab, remote lab, electro-pneumatics lab, virtual learning factory, Web-based virtual lab, remote, and virtual lab. • Simulation-related technology: Comprises Minecraft, simulation game, augmented reality application [33], 3D simulation application, integrated simulation system, virtual reality-based training methods, 360-degree videos for virtual reality simulation, 3D animation-based augmented reality technology, digital learning environments in virtual and augmented reality, tools for developing digital twin technology, dual version of an RFID measurement camera. • Artificial Intelligence: Comprises machine learning techniques, decision support system, adaptive user interface, model for graduation course evaluation, conversational bot, oral application, advanced correction, and validation system, and learning analytics technology. Internet of Things: Comprises IoT system, framework for wearable devices, ontology for an intelligent system architecture based on the Internet of things. • Robotics: Comprises collaborative robots, automated guided vehicle, and LEGO Mindstorms [34]. There are also other technologies, which do not belong to the above categories: programming tool, workbench scale system, cloud platform, virtual enterprise project models, Testlet computer tool, computer programs on molecular modeling and visualization, engine for virtual electrical engineering equipment, software curriculum, instructional model for meeting integration, framework for a manufacturing system, CATIA software, Procast software, and 3D printing technology [32]. There are other ICTs that have an impact on the educational process and are not only used in the context of Education 4.0, such as Moodle [35], Kahoot! [36], and Edmodo. In addition, there are other technologies such as ALMo-DML, which poses an adaptive learning approach, which takes into consideration the cognitive states and engagement of students for automatic learning intervention and Confirm-A, which is a Web-based e-learning for primary and secondary students to have additional practice for subjects that require it [32].
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All these models that are used in the educational system at different stages are technological tools that continue to be relevant for the preparation of all the actors involved, especially the students, since they enable meaningful learning that will allow them to face the demands of society, in the different scenarios in which they develop.
26.3 Conclusion The existence of new educational models based on ICT and Education 4.0 has given an important opening to the way learning takes place and the scope it has in the lives of students, for the preparation in the workplace. There are still many challenges in the implementation of these innovations in all educational stages. As experienced in the pandemic, when there was only the digital path to continue schooling, it was possible to observe the limitations that exist in the subject and the preparation that lies ahead to take better advantage of these technological tools to facilitate meaningful and effective learning. Having these resources allows to glimpse a promising future with the way teaching and learning can continue to be nurtured and the quality of education that can be consolidated seeing the result of individuals trained to continue the professional challenges, responding to the needs and social demands can be of benefit to the cognitive-behavioral processes and for the socio-affective behaviors, which facilitate an adequate execution of the assigned activities. The adequate use of these tools and technological resources in the educational environment will guarantee the growth and development of individuals who will make future contributions to society.
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Chapter 27
Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model: A Proposal for Next Generation Classroom Ignacio Salamanca Garay and Emilio Sagredo Lillo
Abstract This study aimed to propose an innovative educational model based on Scrum philosophy for the stimulation of twenty-first century skills through the development of machine learning projects in school contexts. The methodology used was composed of three phases: (1) design, construction, and validation; (2) implementation in the classroom; and (3) evaluation. The results obtained in Phase 1 demonstrated that it is possible to design and construct a didactic innovation methodology based on Scrum philosophy; furthermore, experts positively validated the model at a qualitative level through Delphi and at a quantitative level through Aiken’s V = 0.78. In Phase 2, the implementation was carried out in a real educational context with a group of N = 16 students aged 12 and 13 from a public elementary school in the Ñuble Region, Chile. The model was developed through 6 sprints that follow the structure of (a) planning, (b) developing, (c) checking, and (d) reflection. In Phase 3, two aspects of the model were evaluated: its ability to promote teamwork and the perceived satisfaction with this methodology, which obtained an average percentage of 70% and 86.7%, respectively. In conclusion, the Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model is proposed as a didactic innovation methodology that has the ability to promote the development of twenty-first century skills, especially high-level digital literacy, and to promote educational change and bring teachers and students closer to the classrooms of the future.
I. S. Garay (B) Centro de Investigación en Educación, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins, 8370993 Santiago, Chile e-mail: [email protected] E. S. Lillo Universidad San Sebastián, 4080871 Concepción, Chile e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_27
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27.1 Introduction Currently, twenty-first century skills such as adaptability, creativity, and collaboration are becoming increasingly important in the global workforce [25]. In order to prepare students for the future, educators are seeking new ways to teach these skills, including project-based learning and collaboration in the classroom [9]. One methodology that has gained popularity in recent years is Eduscrum, which combines the agile philosophy of Scrum with education [22]. Eduscrum focuses on teamwork, collaboration, and problem-solving, making it ideal for teaching twenty-first century skills [28]. In addition, technology is transforming education in many ways, including the use of machine learning to personalize student learning [11]. Machine learning uses algorithms to analyze data and provide personalized feedback to students [15]. It can also help educators identify problem areas in learning and offer personalized solutions [31], presenting itself as one of the fundamental pillars of twenty-first century digital literacy. The objective of this article is to propose an innovative educational model based on the Scrum philosophy for stimulating twenty-first century skills through the development of machine learning projects in school contexts. The proposal has been called the Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model and is presented as a didactic alternative for the twenty-first century classroom and education. The first section will describe how future education is evolving to meet the demands of the twenty-first century and how Scrum and Machine Learning can be valuable tools for educators and students. The second section will describe the process of designing, validating, and implementing the model. Finally, various reflections on the application of the model and its impact on the twenty-first century classroom will be presented. With this innovative didactic proposal, we hope to contribute to accelerating the educational revolution and bringing educators and students closer to twenty-first century skills.
27.1.1 Education Future and the Demands of the Twenty-First Century Currently, the education of the future is evolving to meet the demands of the twentyfirst century and prepare students to face the challenges of the labor and social world. According to [18], education should focus on the development of practical and creative skills, as well as the ability to adapt to change and solve complex problems. In this sense, new educational models are being implemented that promote collaboration, innovation, critical and creative thinking in students. Some of these new models include project-based learning (PBL) which focuses on solving practical problems through the completion of concrete projects. According to [35], PBL allows students to apply knowledge acquired in real situations, increasing
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their motivation and commitment to learning. Another model is problem-based learning, which is characterized as a pedagogical strategy that focuses on developing problem-solving skills, teamwork, and critical thinking in students. According to [20], the model has been successfully implemented in higher education. PBL consists of several stages, such as problem identification and definition, research, analysis, and evaluation of possible solutions. According to [12], the model also fosters self-learning and student autonomy, as they are given the responsibility of researching and finding solutions to the problem presented. Another model is challenge-based learning [34], which is characterized by being student-centered and using authentic challenges and real-world situations to motivate learning. Students work in groups to develop creative and viable solutions to complex problems and apply multidisciplinary skills and knowledge. In general, these innovative educational models promote active learning, teamwork, collaboration, communication, critical, and creative problem-solving skills among students, essential skills for the twenty-first century [26]. In summary, the education of the future is evolving toward more collaborative, flexible, and personalized models, allowing for the development of practical and creative skills in students. It is in this context that a new educational methodology based on the principles of Scrum philosophy emerges, combined with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, presented as a robust tool for promoting and developing twenty-first century skills.
27.1.2 Scrum in Educative Context Scrum is an agile framework used in the management and development of complex projects that originated in the software world but is currently applied in different contexts, including education. According to [27], Scrum is based on collaboration, feedback, and continuous improvement, which focuses on delivering value iteratively and incrementally and is supported by three fundamental pillars: transparency, inspection, and adaptation. According to these authors, Scrum is defined as “a framework for the development, delivery, and maintenance of complex adaptive products, while delivering products efficiently and creatively with maximum value” [30, p. 3]. Among the main characteristics of Scrum are the division of work into short sprints or iterations, daily progress monitoring meetings, the definition of a set of clear roles and responsibilities, and the implementation of a series of artifacts to ensure transparency and collaboration in the team [27]. In the educational field, the application of Scrum has been proposed as a projectbased learning model to encourage teamwork, active learning, and problem-solving in the classroom [14]. Likewise, its use has been explored for planning and managing educational projects in higher education institutions [24]. In the implementation of Scrum in the educational context, teachers can act as “Teacher Owner,” facilitating and guiding the learning process, while students assume the role of “Scrum Master and Scrum Team,” responsible for planning and executing tasks [32]. This
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approach allows students to learn autonomously, set realistic goals and objectives, and collaborate effectively with their peers to achieve them. Additionally, the use of Scrum in the classroom can help foster creativity and innovation in students by allowing them to experiment with different approaches and solutions to problem-solving [19]. Likewise, the use of technological tools such as Jira or Trello can facilitate project management in the educational setting, allowing students to constantly track and evaluate the progress of their work. In conclusion, the application of Scrum in the educational field can be an innovative and effective tool for teaching and learning key skills for the twenty-first century, promoting collaboration, problem-solving, and creativity in students.
27.1.3 Machine Learning in Educative Context Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence that focuses on designing and developing algorithms and mathematical models that allow computer systems to learn and improve their performance through experience and data processing. According to [3], machine learning is based on the idea that machines can learn patterns and relationships in data and use that information to make decisions or predictions without being specifically programmed to perform those tasks. The main characteristics of machine learning include the ability to learn autonomously through experience, the ability to adapt to different situations and contexts, and the ability to process large amounts of data quickly and effectively. According to [10], machine learning is based on the use of techniques and algorithms that allow machines to recognize patterns and relationships in data, adjust and improve their models as they are exposed to more information, and make accurate and reliable predictions or decisions. In the educational context, machine learning has several applications that aim to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of learning. One of the main applications of machine learning in education is personalized learning. According to [4], the use of machine learning models allows educational systems to adapt content, difficulty, and teaching speed to the individual needs and characteristics of each student. In this way, learning and information retention of each student can be maximized. Another application of machine learning in education is early detection of learning problems. According to [8], the use of machine learning models allows educational systems to detect patterns in student behavior and performance that may indicate learning problems. This way, early measures can be taken to correct these problems and prevent them from affecting the student’s academic performance. Furthermore, machine learning also has applications in learning assessment. According to [13], machine learning models can be used to analyze and evaluate student performance in specific tasks. In this way, more precise and detailed assessments of student performance can be obtained. In conclusion, the education of the future presents a series of challenges that must be addressed to ensure that students are prepared to face the technological and social
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changes of the twenty-first century. Among these challenges are the need to develop innovative educational models that foster creativity, teamwork, problem-solving, and critical thinking. One of these innovative educational models is Eduscrum, which combines the principles of the agile Scrum framework with education to improve the way students learn and teachers teach. Eduscrum is a didactic alternative that can improve twentyfirst century education and help students develop essential skills for the current job market. Additionally, digital literacy is an important aspect of future education, and machine learning is one of the key technologies that can help students acquire these skills. Machine learning can be used in education to personalize learning, improve the efficiency of educational processes, and provide fast and accurate feedback. In conclusion, future education must be innovative and adaptive to the technological and social changes of the twenty-first century, and Eduscrum and machine learning are two tools that can help achieve this goal. However, sustained commitment from all educational stakeholders is required to effectively implement these approaches and ensure that students are prepared to face future challenges.
27.2 Methodology 27.2.1 Aim and Investigation Questions This paper aims to propose an innovative educational model based on the Scrum philosophy to stimulate twenty-first century skills through the development of machine learning projects in school contexts. The research question is: Is it possible to design, validate, and implement the Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model in school contexts?
27.2.2 Procedure The research was organized through 3 phases: (a) Phase 1: Design, Construction, and Validation For the design and construction of the Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model, a content analysis was carried out based on the methodological recommendations of [33] on didactic strategies for the implementation of active methodologies in the classroom. In addition, didactic recommendations for the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) projects in school contexts from The International Society for Technology in Education and General Motors [29], the Ministry of Education of Chile and Foundation Chile [21], and the principles of Scrum philosophy were used.
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For validation, a complementary approach [5] was used. In its qualitative aspect, expert validation was applied, and in its quantitative aspect, Aiken’s V statistic [1] was used. The V coefficient measures the level of agreement among two or more judges, allowing for processes of change and improvement in the evaluated items. The value of V ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 represents (no agreement) and 1 (perfect agreement). The coefficient is determined using the following formula: V = ((X-) l)/ k, where X ¯ is the mean of the judges’ scores in the sample, l is the lowest possible score, and k is the range of possible values on the rating scale. (b) Phase 2: Implementation For the implementation of the Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model, the proposal by Albaladejo and Albaladejo [2] was used. To carry out the construction of the projects created by the students, the free artificial intelligence platform Teachable Machine1 was used. The sessions were held in person in the educational informatics laboratory of the educational institution, guided by the responsible researcher and technical support from the educational unit’s computer engineer. The activity consisted of 6 sessions of approximately 60 min each, and the students worked in teams of 4. (c) Phase 3: Evaluation The evaluation of the Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model was carried out through 2 instruments: (c.1) Teamwork evaluation rubric [7] and (c.2) Satisfaction survey on the methodology used [6].
27.2.3 Sample The sample was N = 16 students, N = 8 (50%) boys, and N = 8 (50%) girls between the ages of 12 and 14, belonging to the seventh and eighth-grade educational levels of a public educational institution in the city of Chillán, Ñuble Region, Chile.
27.3 Results Next, the results obtained are presented organized through the different phases of the research.
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https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/.
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27.3.1 Phase 1 Results The first prototype of the Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model was designed and constructed. It underwent qualitative and quantitative validation by N = 6 Scrum methodology experts from different Latin American countries. In general, from a qualitative perspective, the experts agreed with prototype 1, but they pointed out that it was necessary to specify in more detail what the sprints that the students would develop would consist of, as they considered it ambiguous and general. Additionally, it was noted that the organization of the different elements that composed the model needed improvement, as it needed to be more explicit to be applied in an educational context. To quantitatively validate prototype 1 of the model, N = 9 indicators were taken into consideration: Clarity, Organization, Up-to-dateness, Sufficiency, Intentionality, Consistency, Coherence, Methodology, and Applicability. Then, the Aiken’ V statistical test was applied, where an inter-judge agreement of V = 0.78 was achieved, meaning that the judges had a considerable agreement for each of the evaluative indicators of the model. With all the considerations proposed by the experts, the prototype of the model was improved, and a definitive version was reached, which can be seen in Fig. 27.1.
27.3.2 Phase 2 Results After the qualitative and quantitative validation carried out by experts, the implementation of the Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model in a school context was carried out. First, work teams were formed, and then, different sprints were developed. The Scrum Scholar team was composed of (a) The Teacher Owner, who decides what work should be done, the learning outcomes, the twenty-first century skills to be developed in students, and guides the Scrum Scholar Master and Scrum Scholar Team to unblock problems that prevent progress in the project. (b) The Scrum Scholar Master, a student who acts as a servant leader, helps the team and the organization to achieve sprints, and (c) The Scrum Scholar Team, a group of students who build the product incrementally through a series of sprints. Under this model, a sprint is defined as a defined and specific activity that is developed in a certain period. In each sprint, the Scrum Scholar Team works together to build and deliver a completed part of the project at the end of the established period of time. To develop a sprint, the Scrum Scholar Team follows 4 basic steps: (a) planning, (b) developing, (c) checking, and (d) reflection. Next, the work carried out by the students in each sprint is described.2
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To see the projects developed by the students, you can access the following link: https://bit.ly/3L8 2omx.
Fig. 27.1 Scrum scholar machine learning model (own preparation)
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Sprint 1: Problem Detection
(a) Planning: Identify, reflect on, and determine different issues in the school and/ or community. Choose one to be solved through a machine learning model. (b) Developing: As a team, decide what type of data will be used to generate the machine learning model (images, sounds, movements, text, or numbers). (c) Checking: The Scrum Scholar Team determines the feasibility of collecting data. There is a possibility of changing the main idea and therefore the type of data. (d) Reflection: The Scrum Scholar Team determines the main difficulties and facilitators to develop sprint 1. (The Scrum Scholar Master records the findings and takes photos of the process). 27.3.2.2
Sprint 2: Data Collection
(a) Planning: Determine how data will be collected for the machine learning project. The Scrum Scholar Master assigns roles to each team member. (b) Developing: The Scrum Scholar Team collects data and stores it securely. (c) Checking: The Scrum Scholar Master verifies that the necessary data has been collected to generate the model. They ensure the quantity and quality of the data. (d) Reflection: The Scrum Scholar Team identifies the main challenges and facilitators to develop Sprint 2. (The Scrum Scholar Master records findings and takes photos of the process). 27.3.2.3
Sprint 3: Database Construction
(a) Planning: The Scrum Scholar Team determines how to build the database. They establish the categories in which the data will be grouped, their hierarchy, and the storage location. (b) Developing: The Scrum Scholar Team builds the database grouped into categories. (c) Checking: The Scrum Scholar Team determines if the different categories are balanced in terms of quantity and quality of the data. (d) Reflection: The Scrum Scholar Team determines the main difficulties and facilitators to develop sprint 3. (The Scrum Scholar Master records the findings and takes photos of the process). 27.3.2.4
Sprint 4: Training Model
(a) Planning: The Scrum Scholar Team researches how to train the machine learning model they have created. They also investigate the concept of accuracy in machine learning.
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(b) Developing: The Scrum Scholar Team trains the model with the database and determines the accuracy of the model’s predictions. (Accuracy > 90%) (c) Checking: If the accuracy is less than 90%, the Scrum Scholar Team must rethink the model and collect more data for each category to improve the model (retest). The Scrum Scholar Master must ensure that the model achieves an accuracy of over 90%. (d) Reflection: The Scrum Scholar Team determines the main difficulties and facilitators for developing sprint 4. (The Scrum Scholar Master records the findings and takes photos of the process). 27.3.2.5
Sprint 5: Evaluation Model
(a) Planning: The Scrum Scholar Team determines how they will evaluate the previously trained model. (b) Developing: The Scrum Scholar Team will collect new sets of data and subject each category to evaluation to establish the final machine learning model. (c) Checking: The Scrum Scholar Master ensures that the model achieves an accuracy of > 90%, if not they will have to go back to Sprint 4 and resolve the issue. (d) Reflection: The Scrum Scholar Team identifies the main difficulties and facilitators to develop Sprint 5. (The Scrum Scholar Master records the findings and takes photos of the process. 27.3.2.6
Sprint 6: Prediction and Communication
(a) Planning: The Scrum Scholar Team prepares a presentation that summarizes the process of designing, building, and evaluating the machine learning algorithm. (b) Developing: They present the presentation to the audience and make predictions with new datasets. They answer questions and comments. (c) Checking: The Scrum Scholar Master ensures that the presentation has an excellent presentation quality. It should include (project title, team name, team members, addressed problem, how data was collected, how the database was constructed, how the model was trained and evaluated, the main difficulties of the process, and feedback on the methodology). Additionally, the Scrum Scholar Master ensures that all Scrum Scholar Team members participate. (d) Reflection: The Scrum Scholar Team evaluates the methodology performed as a group. The Scrum Scholar Master ensures that the generated models are downloaded and handed over to the Teacher Owner for future projects.
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27.3.3 Phase 3 Results Finally, in order to verify the impact of the Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model, two instruments were applied to measure: (a) teamwork [7] and (b) satisfaction with the use of an innovative methodology [6].
27.3.3.1
Teamwork Evaluation
The Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model is an inherently collaborative methodology, which is why the perceived impact on students was evaluated when they executed the different sprints throughout the workshop. The instrument measures five indicators related to teamwork in school classrooms: (a) contribution and participation in activities, (b) attitude toward other team members, (c) responsibility in team activities, (d) attendance and punctuality in team activities, and (e) ability to solve problems in the team. Most participants in the Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model evaluated teamwork as excellent, obtaining an average percentage of over 70%. This demonstrates that the model is highly effective in promoting teamwork in school contexts and the development of complex products through the use of machine learning.
27.3.3.2
Satisfaction with the Innovation Methodology Used
It is relevant to evaluate the degree of satisfaction of students when implementing new methodologies, especially if they are disruptive to traditional teaching systems that are taught in educational systems. That is why a satisfaction survey was applied to show how the didactic process was perceived. The instrument measures 6 indicators: (a) the project seemed interesting to me, (b) the development of the project helped me understand didactic contents, (c) the methodology seemed appropriate to me, (d) the teamwork seemed rewarding to me, (e) the teacher got involved in my work and guided me correctly, and (f) overall satisfaction with the methodology used. The satisfaction percentage in all evaluated indicators exceeds 80% and on average reaches 86.7%. This means that 8 out of 10 students who participated in the methodology demonstrated a high degree of satisfaction.
27.4 Conclusion and Discussion This study proposed an innovative educational model based on the Scrum philosophy to stimulate twenty-first century skills through the development of machine learning projects in school contexts. The results obtained are in line with the studies and
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proposals of [2, 14, 16, 17, 19, 22–24, 27, 28, 30, 32], among others, that actively promote the use of agile methodologies in educational contexts, especially the Scrum philosophy. However, the proposal presented here is characterized by bringing this type of methodology to basic education students aged 12 to 13. This is an important differential factor, as early ages are suitable for developing twenty-first century skills and high-level digital literacy such as artificial intelligence through machine learning projects. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that it is possible to design, build, validate, implement, and evaluate a pedagogical innovation model called Scrum Scholar Machine Learning Model that is fully functional at the didactic level and has a relevant impact on the classroom, its teachers, and students. Students achieve high levels of satisfaction when carrying out collaborative activities and develop various twentyfirst century skills, where the most relevant ones are related to high-level digital literacy. With these types of proposals, it is hoped to contribute to changing educational paradigms and bringing educational systems closer to building the classrooms of the future.
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34. Van den Beemt, A., Vázquez-Villegas, P., Gómez Puente, S., O’Riordan, F., Gormley, C., Chiang, F.-K., Leng, C., Caratozzolo, P., Zavala, G., Membrillo-Hernández, J.: Taking the challenge: an exploratory study of the challenge-based learning context in higher education institutions across three different continents. Educ. Sci. 13, 234 (2023). https://doi.org/10.3390/ educsci13030234 35. Zakaria, M., Maat, S., Khalid, F.: A Systematic review of problem-based learning in education. Creat. Educ. 10, 2671–2688 (2019). https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2019.1012194
Chapter 28
Blogging as a Tool for Andragogical Learning Karen Stephany Córdova Vera , Nancy Cristina Uquillas Jaramillo , Milton Patricio Altamirano Paredes , and José Alejandro Velasco Jaramillo
Abstract Adult education being considered “digital immigrants” should consider the use of tools that facilitate access to material and are friendly considering cognitive, socio-affective, and motivational aspects. One of these tools that enables access to information breaking the barrier of space and time with technological support is the blog. The blog, also known as a “Web blog”, organizes the information chronologically, respecting andragogic aspects such as the diversity of contexts in which the adult functions as part of a family, worker, the active entity in a community, etc., and at the same time a student. It has been proven in similar investigations that a blog is a tool in which adults, without the need for extensive technological knowledge, feel comfortable managing their own contributions and accessing the varied resources that the tool provides uploaded by the teacher or by other students. The information collected is of a descriptive-bibliographic nature that allows an understanding of various academic points of view on the use of the blog in the educational field and its contribution to adult education.
28.1 Introduction The evolution of technology, hand in hand with the Internet, makes human beings change not only their way of communicating but also their way of living. Currently, it is argued that technological evolution accelerates human evolution, as it expands its knowledge to levels never before conceived, breaking gaps of space, time, language, K. S. Córdova Vera (B) Universidad Tecnológica Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] N. C. Uquillas Jaramillo · M. P. Altamirano Paredes Universidad de Las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE, Sangolquí, Ecuador J. A. Velasco Jaramillo Policía Nacional del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_28
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religion, etc., and when talking about evolution, it is important to consider evolution in education as a fundamental part in life; it is education along with the social environment the main factors that can shape the personality and life vision of people [9], point out that personality is dependent on the environment and the internal constructions that each individual develops under parameters of individual reflection, these reflections are malleable and will change throughout life responding to each evolutionary stage as human beings. The life stages of human beings have been classified into five: infancy, which in turn is subdivided into early childhood, which goes from birth to five years old, and childhood from six years old to eleven years old; adolescence, which starts from twelve years old to eighteen years old; youth, which starts from fourteen years old to twenty-six years old; adulthood, which starts at twenty-seven years old and ends at fifty-nine years old, and finally the last stage, which is that of older adulthood from sixty years old. The stage of adulthood is the one that deals with andragogy and is the group on which this research is focused on. When an adult decides to begin or resume his or her studies, he or she finds a totally different reality from the one he or she was used to in a classroom when attending primary and high school. First of all, he must break this first impact of assimilative, unreflective, behaviorist habits, in which his role was passive and focused only on the attention to the teacher’s master class, who was the holder of the knowledge. There is even a teacher’s vision that indicates that when teaching adults who have left formal education for more than ten years, they must be taught to think critically and to manage their own learning process, not only transmitting theories to form their culture but also considering first hand that what they have learned is focused on their interests and work needs. Second, the organization of the classroom and learning environments has changed, going from long lines with desks lined up to group and/ or virtual environments in the case of distance education, since in spaces developed with virtual support, there may not be a time when they can meet their classmates in person, but throughout the educational process, they must share cooperative and collaborative activities, forums, and debates and in this same sense the contact with the teacher. Hernández (n.d.) quoted by [7] analyzed this change and said: “Entering the school is like entering the tunnel of time, and now, it is already a problem for training” (p. 1). In order to solve this problem, it is necessary for the teacher and the student himself to be aware of the particularities of the adult, who is the main beneficiary in the andragogic process since due to his adult condition the activities between family, and work can be perfectly coupled to e-learning and more easily to m-learning [13]. In recent years, virtual and online education has proliferated in an unprecedented way in terms of universities and institutes of higher education. This would indicate that adults prefer to study in modalities that allow them to develop responsibilities that come with adulthood such as working and leading the family, among others. According to the above, andragogy is not a new term since it was first introduced by Malcom Knowles in 1984. The process of educating adults is not new either, since human beings, in their need for survival and adaptation, need to learn throughout their lives. When we talk about andragogy, it is not only a process focused on teaching
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adults, it focuses more on teaching these adults to learn [3]. Andragogy is cataloged as the development of methodological processes that focus on adult education and the principles it pursues are based on participation, flexibility, and horizontality. As for participation, this is based on the wide range of experiences that adults have, making it easier for them to make relationships between what they have learned and what they have experienced, focusing on meaningful learning. Flexibility refers to the need for adults to organize educational activities with extra-educational activities, and finally, horizontality, since both the teacher and the learners are adults and leadership, interaction, organization, and agreements are presented as a result of consensus. In addition, the use of technological tools facilitates the resumption of studies and their successful completion, since space and time problems do not have to be solved on a daily basis. Currently, there are several tools that facilitate class planning, development, and evaluation. Among the most user-friendly technological tools are blogs. These can be used in various ways to facilitate the teaching–learning process since they allow sharing of information back and forth between teacher–student, student–teacher, and student–student. The scope of the use of this tool is difficult to determine, since, being a tool easily accessible through the Internet, it is a long-term benefit and without distance limits. It is important to mention that the conception that the expansion of distance education is aimed at saving costs or increasing the number of students who can access the same class without the limitation of physical space with the participation of a single teacher is erroneous. Virtual and distance education have allowed coverage and propagation of opportunities in remote places and in response to the limited time of some people, this being the main objective and achievement of virtuality.
28.1.1 Virtual Education as an Option for Adult Learning Technology has been conceptualized in several ways, one of the most appropriate may be the one established by the International Business E Corporation “IBEC” (2012) which states that “technology is defined as the set of knowledge and techniques that, applied in a logical and orderly manner, allow human beings to modify their material or virtual environment to meet their needs and create useful solutions” (p. 1). This concept is perfectly adapted to andragogic praxis since the characteristics of virtual education make it possible to solve the major problems that adults have when they wish to resume their studies, but do not have the time to attend a traditional classroom with strictly planned times for class development. E-learning offers adults the possibility of being the organizer and self-regulator of their studies based on a set of tools, services, connections, material, and others that are available only with a “click” through the computer. Personal Learning Environments (“PLEs”) provide the freedom with which adults are accustomed to performing their work, but always with responsibility and considering or abiding by the times set for the completion of tasks or forums that can be performed from their homes or workplaces [5].
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Virtual learning, in spite of not having a specific space, which is an advantage that makes any space suitable for learning as long as there is a technological tool and Internet connection, nor a teacher who develops the class in person, since the contact with the teacher can be virtual synchronous through videoconferences or asynchronous through pre-recorded videos, offers the possibility of acquiring a level equal or in some cases superior to face-to-face learning. This will depend mostly on the student as the main actor and regulator of his learning process, thus [8] indicates that “some characteristics of the role of the virtual student that allow the generation of knowledge are directly related to the capacity for self-management, expressed in selfdiscipline, self-learning, critical, and reflective analysis, as well as in collaborative work, fundamental to contribute to the development of the self in its interaction and contribution with and for others from an ethical perspective that allows him to be aware of the consequences that his own actions can generate”. (p. 1). Reinforcing this concept, [10] an interview with Jordi Adell indicates that successfully completing distance studies determines and demonstrates a responsible and constant personality of the student. Along with the facilities offered by virtual education, it also has certain limitations that can generate problems within the educational process. For example, the lack of daily contact with the teacher can become a greater demand for the student, who must resolve concerns and solve technical problems that arise in order to continue with the learning process.
28.1.2 Connectivism; The Effect of Technology on Andragogy Connectivism is an approach that aims to respond to the educational needs of today’s society, within this approach, open educational resources that facilitate access and interactive assimilation of information are highlighted [4]. These resources facilitated through the network are friendly to students even with the so-called “digital immigrants” which refers exclusively to adults, thus Prensky [6] cited by Castro and Sánchez [2] conceptualizes that, “immigrants “settled” later in the process of technological penetration and appropriation, and participated in a different socialization process; they gradually adapted to the environment so as not to be left behind and tried to avoid the digital divide that appears among these “generations” as a new form of social inequality” (p. 9). This general view of what it has cost adults to integrate into the technological world can be extrapolated to the educational field. An adult who decides to study virtually does not know the technological tools beforehand in the educational field and perhaps in no other field beyond having a cell phone used for communication purposes but uses and learns them empirically as needed. Connectivism is considered the bridge that tries to close the gap that exists between the current teaching–learning approaches and the use of technology not only as a tool but also as a complex process of adaptation of students in a digital era with
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cognitive and sensory processes developed and/or adapted to the use of technology for the acquisition of knowledge and activities in all areas of life. An important pillar in connectivism is the access to information, because in the infinite network of information provided by the Internet, not all of it is reliable, therefore, when talking about academic information acquired through the Internet, it is important the proper selection, processing, and management of information.
28.1.3 Use of the Blog as an Educational Tool Integrating the use of a specific technological tool such as the blog makes it easier for students to find information in an organized and specific way, since it is a friendly and technologically lightweight tool, depending on the material that the teacher includes, which facilitates access through any device, including a cell phone from any place and at any time the adult so determines. This tool can be used by anyone, even if they do not yet have technological skills or if it is the first time they are going to carry out a virtual study. Villalobos [14] points out that “the production of blogs for educational purposes makes it possible to publish notes related to a specific topic, as well as to recreate knowledge, experiences, and share data based on teaching and learning situations” (p. 118). It is a flexible and cooperative tool that allows its manipulation and enrichment in terms of the information to be published not only by the teacher but also by the students, at the same time, it is a safe tool because the teacher can control what is publishable or not. As a technological tool, it offers a wide range of possibilities for the development of educational work, motivating students to develop their own study material, to organizing the material in such a way that it interconnects with other subjects, efficiently manages the links and tasks carried out and to be carried out, among others.
28.1.4 Factors to Consider for the Use of BLOGS in Andragogical Learning It is important to differentiate between the use of technology as part of the learner’s daily life and the use of the blog for educational purposes. Using a blog for the development of a class, a topic, a subject, an activity, etc., must have the same academic and pedagogical considerations as any other, i.e., it requires planning and teacher management for its successful use. Among the factors that this planning must contain, in addition to the general factors for academic development, cognitive factors, socio-affective factors, and motivational factors must be taken into account.
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Cognitive factors When talking about teaching adults, it is necessary to take into account a didactic that responds to adult needs; it is not possible to apply or pretend that the adult responds in the same way as a child or an adolescent since he/she is in a different stage of development and life. Uriarte [12] indicates that “it is known that the onset of adulthood is determined not so much by chronological age but by the social events and challenges faced by young people in their 20s: completion of studies, first job, life as a couple, marriage, parenthood, developmental tasks that imply a high degree of independence and responsibility on the part of the individual” (p.145). Starting from this point, the tools that are developed for adults must respond to the needs of an adult world, i.e., they must be concrete and objective so as not to digress or waste time on unimportant information that the adult already has the ability to discern. Each activity should be focused on a specific purpose from which the objective or goal is assimilated, i.e., meaningful learning should be taken into account. The teacher–student interaction takes place on a horizontal level and with respect for each other’s experiences as a contribution to the pedagogical process, which is permanently enriching since both the teacher and the student learn and teach. Socio-affective factors As far as adult education is concerned, these variables must be taken into account in a thorough manner, since the adult already has a vision of human nature and of the interpersonal relationships he/she would like to establish with his/her peers. Another important factor is that in some cases, adults enter or resume their studies in order to expand their social connections, i.e., they are more interested in meeting people and realities than in obtaining a degree or academic diploma. Likewise, the positive factor of adults who opt for virtual education is that they can discern and not lose their humanity in front of an electronic device. In view of this, it is important to quote Sydney [11] who said: “The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers”. However, the adult can be exempted from this fear since, being a digital immigrant, he/she clearly establishes the usefulness of the tool and determines the time he/she will spend with it. Motivational factors Motivation has two factors or determinants that are intrinsic or extrinsic. Adults can be motivated to study intrinsically, extrinsically, or both. When the motivation is intrinsic, it is determined by the desire to continue, start, or conclude a career, develop skills, or know a specific academic area. As for extrinsic motivation, this is perceived in various ways as their adult environment makes it possible. For example, to receive a promotion at work, to obtain a job in a specific position or place, to improve their salary, to obtain greater expertise in their work environment, because their social or family environment demands it, or to set an example for their children,
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among others. At the same time, the adult may feel motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors [1].
28.1.5 Putting into Practice the Use of Blogs in Andragogic Education To integrate the use of a BLOG: A blog is a free personalized web page that has several collaborative tools in chronological order and can be easily edited by both the teacher who regulates the content and the students who can access it to access the information or to contribute. How to create a blog: 1. Using a search engine like Google, type create a blog and several options will appear one of the most visited is Wix.com which is a platform that allows the creation of pages as blogs for free with the option to be updated by a collaborative work of users, another option to create blogs is WordPress. 2. To use wix.com you need to register using Facebook or an email account. Once you have this registration, you can log in every time you need to review, manage, or edit your blog information, you can also create other blogs using the same account. 3. It is necessary to look for a domain that is not already used by someone else, by domain, we mean the name that the blog will have and through which it can be located by means of any search engine or student. It is necessary to check if there is availability for the domain you choose, if there is not, you can add extra words to customize it or you can choose another option. Non-alphanumeric characters are not allowed, except for the hyphen (-).
28.1.6 Process for the Development of the Class There are several types of blogs, mainly determined by their content, these are versatile, for example: • Photo Blogs. They allow the permanent publication of photographs and images with the particularity that they can be commented on by people subscribed to the blog. • Audioblogs. To publish all types of audio files, they can also be commented on. • Videoblogs. To publish all types of videos, as well as access to comment on them. • Among others. Although for our purpose, which is educational, we can combine each of these options in a single blog, thus enriching the material for the understanding of a topic.
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1. With the blog already created, there are several options to upload texts with or without images, planning, schedules, timelines, videos, links to YouTube, links to other blogs, hyperlinks, graphic organizers, and others depending on the needs of the teacher and students. 2. Within the blog, you can work with a page called quiz-builder to create assessments and post them on the blog. This tool is easy to access and allows students, in this case, adults, to solve the quiz without the need to download software or have advanced technological knowledge. 3. A variety of information can be uploaded with different entries (information), which are organized in chronological order, which is why blogs are also known as weblogs. Process for making a blog entry As the blog is a user-friendly site, it leads the author to step by step to organize his information to make his entry. First, each entry needs a title and the text to be published. The author must be registered and always has the possibility to edit or delete information, even delete the entire entry if desired, the date and time of publication will be automatically recorded. Once a publication is made, the URL is automatically created, that is to say, the unique address of that publication. Blogs offer the possibility of registering to post comments. Evaluation process by means of a blog Blogs allow the teacher to constantly and in detail evaluate the pedagogical evolution of each student, since each entry is saved with date and time. It also facilitates collaborative work, since subscribers can add information. By creating evaluations, it allows a permanent and individual monitoring of each student, and the number of times he/she has published, accessed, or reviewed the information published. The student, as an adult, can also be an evaluator of his peers and his teacher in terms of progress and knowledge.
28.1.7 Usefulness of the Blog for the Actors in the Teaching–Learning Process Teacher use The teacher can perform all of the above activities, and, in addition: • Give personalized follow-up to each student by means of the entries or comments they add. • You will have a class and participation record. • You can use the blog as extra-class support to expand on the explanation given in case the classes are face-to-face.
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• It will be a means to publish a bibliography and recommended readings. Allows the creation of forums with the teaching administration. • It is a global reference source. • Publish class-related information such as timelines and schedules. Student use • • • • • • •
Record your progress by means of entries or comments made to entries. Efficient access to published information. Have permanent contact with their teacher and classmates. Consult bibliography and resources. Develop evaluations and record them on an ongoing basis. Keep a log of the issues and their progress. To be in synchronous and asynchronous contact with the teacher.
28.2 Methodology The research focused on the search for bibliographic documentation of academic studies on the subject that meet the inclusion criteria defined in scientific databases and proven documents. These academic documents, mostly from digital databases, provide the necessary support to explain the use of blogs as educational tools in adult education. In addition, academic papers from digital databases such as SCIELO, Redalyc, and indexed journals were used. The keywords “online learning”, “adult learning”, “pedagogical support”, “technological tools” were based on specialized dictionaries such as the UNESCO Thesaurus and others at the Pedagogical level. For the selection of studies, the exclusion criteria applied were oriented to: I. Studies on andragogy and adult education II. Studies in specialized books in the areas of pedagogy, academic repertoires, pedagogical repositories, and technological support. The following were excluded: texts that do not allow complete visualization, documents that do not contain the author, and also unreliable or non-academic Websites.
28.3 Results Adult education should be a process of utmost importance for educators and government authorities, however, it is an area that has not yet reached levels of development that influence and motivate the majority of the adult population to study or be motivated to continue or complete their studies. Technology has made education accessible on a large scale to people who previously saw the possibility of attending an educational institution on a daily basis as a
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utopia due to time or space limitations. Today, virtual and distance education have opened the door to a flexible and friendly educational process that combines the development of personal activities with academic activities, without one taking time away from the other.
28.3.1 Use of Blogs in Adult Education Years ago adults were considered distant to the use of technology and some were even reluctant to enter the network-dominated and wirelessly connected world, however, today adults also live in this networked world and the vast majority use telephones, computers and have at least one social network. In the educational field, paradoxically, it is adults who benefit most from the use of technology to acquire knowledge and even to obtain a career, since it is adults who, due to their different work and family occupations, do not have the time to attend face-to-face institutions. Therefore, the use of blogs to develop educational topics, perform knowledge acquisition or reinforcement tasks, communicate with peers and the teacher, exhibit their work, and collaborate among peers proves to be an appropriate and valuable option.
28.4 Conclusion A decisive point when analyzing the process of using technological tools in adult education is to understand that in addition to the development of academic subjects, they are at the same time developing digital competencies that up to that moment may be totally unknown and/or never used in the past. For this reason, the teaching–learning process must take into account the particularities of the adult stage, highlighting the contribution that the adult student can provide based on his or her experience, and thus understanding and respecting the educational process in a horizontal manner. The main components of andragogy point out that participation, horizontality, and flexibility will facilitate the student’s educational achievement while combining it with his or her work and family responsibilities. Among the products that can be used through the blog to develop the planning, development, and evaluation of the class are the creation of documents, posting of videos, contributions from members in the form of comments or debates, creation or posting of graphic organizers, among others. In conclusion, it is emphasized that adults have the same educational rights as children or adolescents, to whom most of the research has been focused and even governmental and international institutions have cataloged them as obligatory. Adults, being
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responsible for their own lives and mostly for a home, need to find opportunities that understand their reality and facilitate their education.
References 1. Alemán, B., Navarro O., Suárez, R., Izquierdo Y., Encinas T.: Motivation in the context of the teaching-learning process in careers in the Medical Sciences. Electron. Med. J. (2018) 2. Castro, D., Sánchez, A.: Bridging the gap between digital natives and immigrants through computer and information literacy skills. ISSN: 1665-6180 (2013) 3. Fasce, E.: Andragogy. Educ. J. Health Sci. Trends Perspec. 3(2), 69–70 (2006) 4. Ortiz, J., Correa, T.: Pedagogical aspects of connectivism and its relationship with social networks and learning ecologies. Revista Brasileira de Educação (2020). https://doi.org/10. 1590/S1413-24782020250026.ISSN1809-449X 5. Paz-Florio, M.: Virtual teacher training program 2015: “expanding and enriching teaching and learning through ICT”. Buenos Aires-Argentina: Centro de Innovaciones en Tecnología y Pedagogía (Citep). University of Buenos Aires (2015) 6. Prensky, M.: Enseñar a Nativos digitales. Biblioteca Innovación EDUCATIVA. Ediciones SM (2001) 7. Rieg, D.: Robinson, the global education forum and the cotton society. PLANUBA (2012) 8. Rizo, M.: Role of the teacher and student in virtual education. Revista Multiensayos. 6(12) (2020). https://doi.org/10.5377/multiensayos.v6i12.10117. https://www.lamjol. info/index.php/multiensayos/article/download/10117/11796?inline=1 9. Rosas, C., Zuloeta, J., Urbina, C., Zuñe, L.: Relationship between personality factors and learning styles in Peruvian university students. UCV-HACER. J. Res. Culture. 8(4), 41–55 (2019) 10. Sierra, J.: Interview to Jordi Adell by Josi Sierra for the project “El blog CC-Conocity” (2011) 11. Sydney, H.: Popular quote about computers and men. (1980). http://www.kibin.com/essay-exa mples/an-analysis-of-sydney-g-harris-popular-quote-about-computers-and-men-KL7Ipush 12. Uriarte, J.: In the transition to adulthood. Emerging adults. Int. J. Dev. Educ. Psychol. ISSN: 0214-9877 (2005) 13. Veytia, M.: Andragogical strategies for graduate students from technological mediation processes. Athens (2015) 14. Villalobos, E.: Use of the educational blog in environmental education learning processes. Res. J. ISSN: 0798-0329 (2015)
Chapter 29
Environmental Management of the Ecuadorian Public Sector in the Fight Against Climate Change Miguel Aizaga , Marcelo Ramírez Terán , Carlos Arias , and Renato M. Toasa
Abstract The objective of this article is to present Ecuador’s government efforts in the fight against climate change. In this case, the regulations, entities, and programs are identified accordingly. Regarding the methodology, it is framed as a documentary study, of descriptive scope, and with a mixed approach. The main sources of information are official pages and documents. The main conclusion is that there is an almost universal commitment to fight climate change through the 2030 Agenda and the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) program. In Ecuador, the current national constitution, the national development plan 2021–2025 (ecological transition axis,) the National Plan for adaptation to climate change PNACC, the REDD + Action Plan Reduction of emissions due to deforestation and forest degradation, Ecuador’s Zero Carbon Program (PECC), the National Transition Plan toward Decarbonization, are channeled through the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAAT). In 2019 it presented its first contribution to the NDC 2020–2025. The Fourth National Communication and the Second Biennial Update Report of Ecuador (2022) specify the progress made toward the fulfillment of objectives and principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At the provincial level, the Consortium of Provincial Autonomous Governments of Ecuador (CONGOPE), has been developing the “Provincial Action against Climate Change” project since November 2016.
M. Aizaga (B) · M. R. Terán · C. Arias · R. M. Toasa Universidad Tecnológica Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] M. R. Terán e-mail: [email protected] C. Arias e-mail: [email protected] R. M. Toasa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_29
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29.1 Introduction Climate change is defined as the existing variation in the meteorological patterns of the planet’s climate. Climate variations on earth are natural factors, however, the current change is different because of its precipitous increase, mainly due to human activity, which increases average temperatures, the acidification of the sea, the presence of extreme meteorological phenomena, and the speed at which they occur. The consequences of climate change are becoming increasingly noticeable and worrying as it can cause irreparable damage to life on the planet. According to studies, if there is an increase in temperature greater than 1.50 °C, the planet would suffer drastic temperature changes, ranging from extreme heat to periods of prolonged rain, causing droughts, floods, or much more catastrophic phenomena. Biodiversity would be endangered, flora and fauna that might become extinct would be exposed, there would be a loss of habitats and consequently the survival of various species would be endangered since such drastic changes in the planet make it impossible for animals to adapt to new forms of life [1]. Hence, climate change is considered to be the greatest threat that humanity will face in the coming years. The consequences of climate change are remarkable, starting with the increase in the concentration of polluting gases in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, usually known as the “greenhouse effect,” which is essentially the result of human activities. Climate change is, nowadays, an obligatory topic in the concerns of every responsible being and in the agenda of any government. The degradation of the environment with the consequent climate change is a time bomb that must be defused if we do not want to disappear as a species from planet earth. Measures to reverse the deterioration must begin with permanent education on the subject and greater political efforts. Ecuador is also suffering the consequences of these strong environmental changes. According to [1], “Already 40% of glaciers have been lost in the last 30 years. In addition, 2 of the 7 glacier coverages with which the country counts are at imminent risk.” There is a great debate about the measures that all the governments of the world should take. Ecuador as well as other nations participate in defining international agreements and rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main cause of the global problem of climate change. Studies are also being carried out to establish regulations about the global temperature of the planet [2]. According to the analyses made in the Second National Communication on Climate Change in Ecuador, the most significant impacts are: The intensification of climatic events such as the “Southern Oscillation El Niño” phenomenon, together with the increase in sea level; the retreat of glaciers; the increase of diseases and blood transmission; the expansion of invasive species populations in Galapagos and other sensitive ecosystems that are considered wonders of the world, this could lead to the extinction of unique species that only exist in Ecuador. Ecuador’s public sector recognizes that climate change is a challenge that can negatively affect the population, so the government is making efforts to reduce its
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consequences and identify the sectors of the economy where programs can be applied to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the national level. Social problems are increasing, such as the increased transmission of dengue fever and other tropical diseases, in addition to the negative impact on the economy, food security, and the general welfare of the population. In response to these problems, Ecuador joined the NDC in order to contribute to the planning and implementation of strategies to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, in accordance with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which entered into force in 1994. Hence the importance of analyzing the role of the public sector in the fight against climate change in Ecuador in order to learn about the plans, programs, and measures that are being implemented to align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
29.1.1 SDGs “On September 25, 2015, world leaders adopted a set of global goals to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda.” [3] These goals have delimited targets to be achieved in the next 15 years. Sustainable development was created to alert and raise awareness of the negative consequences of environmental degradation and its impact on global economies, which seeks to provide possible solutions to address climate change. The United Nations approved the 2030 agenda, which contains the 17 objectives of sustainable development and seeks to reach a series of goals that aim to protect and ensure the welfare of the population in general. This involves the active support of individuals, public and private companies, organizations, and the rest of the world. Urgent action is needed to mobilize, redirect and leverage trillions of dollars of private resources to generate a transformational change to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Long-term investments, such as direct foreign investment, are needed in key sectors, particularly in developing countries. These sectors include sustainable energy, infrastructure, and transport, as well as information and communication technologies [4]. Hence, the public sector must reformulate regulations to strengthen sustainable development. “At the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) held in Katowice, Poland, 15 international organizations have jointly announced that they are committed to operating in a climate-neutral manner.” In this regard, organizations will be required to measure their greenhouse gas emissions, with the aim of reducing them as much as possible.
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29.1.2 Nationally Determined Contributions NDC Is a global initiative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), with the purpose of promoting the generation of fair commitments for the Ministry of Environment, taking into account the responsibilities it has as a governing body and these same responsibilities must be met for the benefit of the country. It also urges all nations to independently establish their contribution to the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [5].
29.2 Methodology The research is of the documentary type, with a mixed approach (qualitative and quantitative) and descriptive scope. The research aims to describe the plans, programs, and actions carried out in the fight against climate change from the public sector in Ecuador. The main sources of data collection are documents from official sources, essentially the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAAT). The qualitative information is processed by reducing the data, essentially through categorization, “this process consists of identifying regularities, outstanding themes, recurrent events and patterns of ideas in the data from places, events or people selected for a study” [6]. Categories are understood as epistemological computers, fields of thematic grouping, implicit assumptions in the problem and analytical resources as significant units that give meaning to the data and allow them to be reduced, compared, and related. To categorize is to put together things that go together. It is to group data that carry similar meanings. It is to classify information by categories according to thematic criteria referred to the search for meanings. It is to conceptualize with a term or expression that is clear and unequivocal, the content of each thematic unit in order to classify, contrast, interpret, analyze, and theorize [7]. Based on the reading of official documents, an integrated holistic vision of the components of public sector management is presented, structuring in a clear and systematized way the compilation and schematization of the qualitative data collected, in order to classify and summarize them. While the quantitative information, referring to data obtained from the Ministry of the Environment, the Fourth National Communication and the Second Biennial Update Report of Ecuador, is processed through descriptive statistics, mainly using percentages and variations, for the latter indicator the following formula is used. Variation =
Final value − Initial value ∗ 100 Initial value
This method is a strategy to adjust the general trend of the data by means of a line that minimizes the sum of the squares of the vertical distances of the points to the line. “Linear regression allows a prediction of the behavior of one variable (dependent or predicted) from another (independent or predictor)” [8]. This line is basically used
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with GHG emissions figures to visualize the trend and make projections, in order to evaluate the results of environmental management implemented by the public sector.
29.3 Results 29.3.1 Management at the National Level Regulations According to the Ministry [9] Constitution (2008): Art. 414 The State will adopt adequate and cross-cutting measures to mitigate climate change by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and atmospheric pollution; it will take measures to conserve forests and vegetation, and protect the population at risk. Government Plan 2021–2025 The Plan for the Creation of Opportunities 2021–2025 is the political and administrative guideline for the application of public policies, with the associated goals that will make possible the permanent monitoring and evaluation for its fulfillment [10]. It consists of 5 axes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Economic and Employment Generation Social Axis Integral Security Axis Ecological Transition Axis Institutional Axis.
Ecological Transition Axis It is the axis linked to the environment, conservation of natural resources, forestry, water, etc., ecosystems, natural heritage, climate change, and environmental practices. Objectives of the Ecological Transition Axis Objective 11. “To conserve, restore, protect, and make sustainable use of natural resources.” Objective 12. “To promote sustainable development models by applying measures to adapt to and mitigate climate change.” Objective 13. “Promote integrated water resources management.” Under Secretariat of Climate Change—SCC (October 2009): The Ministry of Environment will be in charge of “the formulation and execution of the national strategy and the plan that will allow the generation and implementation of actions
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Fig. 29.1 National climate change plan National Climate Change Adaptation Plan PNACC
REDD+ Action Plan Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest degradation
National Plan for the Transition to Decarbonization developed by the National Plan for Climate Change Mitigation PLANMICC
Ecuador Zero Carbon Program (PECC)
and measures tending to raise awareness in the country of the importance of the fight against this natural and anthropogenic process and that to include inter-institutional coordination and articulation mechanisms.” Ministerial Agreements: N° 095. “Establishes the National Climate Change Strategy as a State Policy.” Plans The plans and programs put forward by the public sector are summarized in Fig. 29.1 [11]. • National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change PNACC. It is a long-term plan that will define the guidelines for directing the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in various areas of the economy in order to promote the transition. “The project is led by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition, with the financial administration of the Sustainable Environmental Investment Fund (FIAS), and the technical cooperation of the French Development Agency (AFD) [12].” • The REDD + Action Plan is composed of four strategic components and five operational components. The strategic components frame the measures and actions needed to address deforestation, while the operational components support the implementation of the Plan through monitoring and reference levels, social and environmental safeguards, capacity building, and knowledge management [13]. • The objective of the Zero Carbon Ecuador Program—PECC—is to “promote and encourage, in the country’s productive and services sector, the implementation of measures and actions for the quantification, reduction, and neutralization of
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greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced in its different processes and activities (…).” It also aims to guide the transformation of current production and consumption patterns, which contribute to other new ways of generating and using goods and services that are more sustainable [14]. • National Transition Plan for Decarbonization—whose objective is planning to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions “to conserve and increase carbon sinks, in accordance with national capacities and circumstances, without harming the competitiveness and development of the different sectors prioritized for climate change mitigation and to promote a just, ecological and sustainable transition” [15]. NDCs in Ecuador See Fig. 29.2. First Nationally Determined Contribution Although GHG emissions are projected to increase, an increase of 9% is projected conditional on international assistance, while unconditional, i.e., with national means alone, an increase of 21% is estimated, see Fig. 29.3. For the sector of Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry, a decrease is projected, which conditional on international aid would represent 16%, while unconditional, i.e., with own resources, would be only 4%, which represents a difference of 12%. See Fig. 29.4. Table 29.1 show Country approaches by sector. The Fourth National Communication and the Second Biennial Update Report of Ecuador They report the progress achieved by the country in complying with the objectives and principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This document covers the reporting period 2016–2020 and includes the update of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (INGEI) as of 2018 and its historical series 1994–2018, thus giving continuity to what was previously reported in the First Biennial Update Report and the Third National Communication, presented in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Both national reports were prepared on this occasion as a joint publication in accordance with UNFCCC requirements and guidelines established for this purpose. This process was led by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAATE) with implementation support from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and financial support from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The following is a brief description of the content of the ten chapters that make up this publication, which includes the following sections: (a) Chapter 1 describes Ecuador’s 2020 national circumstances; (b) Chapter 2 includes the results of national greenhouse gas emissions; (c) Chapter 3 reports on climate change mitigation initiatives implemented by Ecuador on a voluntary basis; (d) Chapter 4 details progress made in adaptation and reduction of vulnerability to climate change; (e) Chapter 5 presents an initial approximation on losses and damages potentially associated with climate change; (f) Chapter 6 addresses
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Fig. 29.2 Evolution of actions on climate change [16]
progress on the First Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC); (g) Chapter 7 details progress made by the country linked to the future establishment of the National Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification System (MRV); (h) Chapter 8 reports on funding received and needed for climate change management; (i) Chapter 9 documents the barriers, needs, and opportunities identified for the country in the context of climate change; and (j) Chapter 10 contains other information relevant to the
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ENERGY, AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, WASTE
Fig. 29.3 NDC 2020–2025 various sectors [16]
60824 56038
CONDICIONAL
67774
INCONDICIONAL
56038 0
20000
40000
2025
60000
80000
2020
USCUSS
Fig. 29.4 NDC 2020–2025: USCUSS sector [16] 35
CONDICIONAL
41.7
40
INCONDICIONAL
41.7 30
32
34 2025
36
38
40
42
44
2020
achievement of the objectives of the UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) [17]. Table 29.2 shows that there is a considerable decrease in GHG emissions between 2010 and 2018, which represents a decrease of almost 6% in 8 years of measurements. It can be noticed that in slight increases from the year 2010 to 2016, it is from the year 2018, when there is a considerable decrease of almost 11%. Figure 29.5 shows that the highest volume of gas emissions is from the Energy sector and the lowest volume is from the Industrial Processes and Waste sector. Figure 29.6 shows that there is a slightly decreasing trend in GHG emissions, which can be projected to decrease by 2030; however, demographic figures should also be taken into account, as these do have an increasing trend.
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Table 29.1 Country approaches by sector Sector
What does the country propose?
What can we achieve by working hand in hand with international cooperation?
Energy
• Development of hydroelectric power plants • Energy efficiency: reduction of associated gas flaring • Renewable energy: enhancement of wind, solar, and biogas from landfills. Efficient cooking: Replacement of LPG cookstoves with induction cookstoves • Promote efficient public transportation
• National energy efficiency plan • Optimization of electricity generation and energy efficiency (OGE&EE) • Non-conventional renewable energy projects, geothermal and hydropower • Freight and passenger transportation NAMAs • Energy efficiency in the hydrocarbon sector
Agriculture
• Climate-smart animal husbandry: sustainable livestock practices
• National sustainable livestock project • Implementation Plan for REDD + Measures and Actions to reduce deforestation and forest degradation around sustainable cattle ranching
Waste
Active methane capture and landfill electricity generation through biogas flaring
Expansion of the methane capture program in municipal landfills. Composting with forced aeration
USCUSS
Sustainable forest management and conservation of the natural heritage through the Amazonian Integral Program for Forest Conservation and Sustainable Production (PROAmazon)
REDD + Action Plan of Ecuador “Forests for Good Living” 2016–2025
Industrial processes
Reduction of GHG emissions in the cement sector through clinker substitution and its amplification in the conditional scenario
Table 29.2 GHG emissions trend and variations [17] Sector
2010
Energy
33,616 35,425 39,802 37,906 38,400
Industrial processes
2205
Agriculture
16,408 16,462 16,628 16,029 15,699
− 4.321
UTCUTS
26,478 24,287 20,282 25,880 16,283
− 38.504
Waste
1407
Total
80,114 80,523 81,395 84,601 75,327
Biannual variation (%) –
2012
2409
1940
2014
2403
2280
2016
2294
2492
2018
2404
2541
0.5105 1.0829 3.9388 − 10.9620
Change by sector (%) 2018/2010 14.231 9.025
80.597 − 5.975
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Fig. 29.5 GHG emissions by sector (2010–2018) [17] Fig. 29.6 GHG emissions trend
86000 84601
84000 82000 80000
80114
80523
81395
78000 76000 74000 2008
75327 2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
29.3.2 Management at the Provincial Level The Consortium of Autonomous Provincial Governments of Ecuador (CONGOPE), is an institution that associates the 23 Provincial GADs, with funding from the European Union, which develops since November 2016 the project “Acción Provincial frente al Cambio Climático” (APROCC), whose purpose is to promote the sustainable development of the Provincial GADs, through the generation and implementation of local public policies for adaptation and mitigation to climate change [18]. The project has three specific objectives, which in turn constitute the three components of the action, which are: 1. Generate or update Provincial Climate Change Strategies (EPCC)—Result: Provincial Climate Change Diagnoses (DPCC) were prepared, which are composed of a climate risk analysis conducted at the parish (or hydrographic
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unit) level and the state of the art of mitigation sectors; with a focus on intermediate government. In the case of the provinces of Azuay and Guayas, roadmaps have been generated to strengthen the participatory spaces of the MAR Strategy of Azuay and inputs have been provided for the updating of the Provincial Climate Change Strategy of Guayas. 2. Support the implementation of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures. Result: four climate change adaptation and/or mitigation measures were designed and implemented with the participation of consortiums and/or commonwealths of Ecuador through a cooperation agreement in order to ensure their continuity. • Conservation of carbon sinks of the Puyango Petrified Forest through forest fire prevention in agreement with the Puyango Petrified Forest Consortium. • Design and implementation of a program to strengthen the capacity of the Provincial GADs focused on real-time geographic monitoring of the expansion of the agricultural area in agreement with the Commonwealth of Autonomous Provincial Governments of the Amazon Region of Ecuador. • Reforestation of 3 sensitive areas to improve water catchment and reduce erosion in the Las Negras River micro-watershed under an agreement with the Consortium to confront climate change in the Chongon-Colonche mountain range. • Sensitization of the inhabitants of the Mancomunidad del Norte for adaptation to climate change with a gender and intercultural approach in agreement with the Mancomunidad del Norte Ecuador. 3. Promote knowledge management, exchange of experiences, and dissemination of good environmental practices of Provincial Governments in local, national, and international spaces. As a result, the virtual course “Public policy and local responses to climate change” was carried out, which served to enhance knowledge, skills, and abilities to generate local public policy and access to financing related to climate change of the Autonomous Decentralized Provincial Governments and other actors at the local level, through coordinated action between CONGOPE and FLACSO. In addition, a series of virtual events “Instruments for local climate change management” were held to explain the methodological approach and results of the DPCCs, their connection with the EPCCs, the elements and potential of these as instruments for territorial management and how the inputs generated by the APROCC Project can support the incorporation of climate change in the Territorial Development and Management Plans—PDOT. Finally, within the framework of the exchange of experiences and dissemination of best practices, as well as the closing of the APROCC project, the event “The contribution of local governments to climate change management” was held, which was a space for discussion on the contribution of local governments to national commitments and goals on climate change. The APROCC project, in addition to leaving the DPCC and EPCC, which are open access instruments that contribute to public policy in the field of climate change,
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also leaves additional and complementary documents and instruments such as the following: • Methodological report and interpretation guide of the Provincial Climate Change Diagnoses. • Methodological Guide for the Provincial Climate Change Strategies. • Complementary instrument to the guidelines for incorporating climate change in the updating of the Development and Land Management Plans (PDOT). • Climate risk atlas. • Climate change through the lens of territory. The categories that emerge, given that the study is to analyze the management of the public sector in terms of the fight against climate change, are three: INTERNATIONAL LEVEL FRAMEWORK, NATIONAL LEVEL FRAMEWORK AND PROVINCIAL LEVEL FRAMEWORK, from which the subcategories that comprise the regulations, plans, and programs that are currently in force are contemplated, see Fig. 29.7.
29.4 Discussion In Ecuador, considering 2025 in relation to 2020, the NDC projections from the unconditional perspective (only with the country’s own resources, without international assistance) are of a 21% increase in the energy, agriculture, industry, and waste sectors. This situation can be offset by the fact that the projections for 2025 in relation to 2020 in the USCUSS sector (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) are a decrease of 4%. Cross-checking this with figures from the latest NDC synthesis report projected 2022, the projected GHG emission levels without considering the USCUSS, are 1.6% higher in 2025 than in 2019 [19]. This implies that Ecuador’s projected levels are well above global projections, which implies redoubling efforts in plans and programs to achieve alignment with the common global purpose in terms of the fight against climate change. In this regard, states should keep in mind that “In early April (2022), 29 countries pledged more than $5 billion to the UN-backed Global Environment Facility.” “To curb the threats of climate change, plastics and toxic chemicals.” [20]. This multilateral fund is constituted as a financial mechanism for several conventions, for example the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to which Ecuador is a party, in addition to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.
29.5 Conclusion To combat climate change, government management at all levels revolves around sustainable development, essentially in the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG).
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Fig. 29.7 Categorization of the data
In the global context, 197 countries have ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which has been in force since 1994. In addition, the 2030 Agenda sets out 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that focus on sustainable development and are mostly linked to the fight against climate change. In Ecuador there is a regulatory platform to combat climate change: the current national constitution, and the national development plan 2021–2025 in its axis of ecological transition, to meet long-term goals there is the National Plan for adaptation
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to climate change PNACC, REDD + Action Plan Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, Zero Carbon Ecuador Program (PECC), National Plan for Transition to Decarbonization developed by the National Plan for Mitigation of climate change PLANMICC, whose governing body from the public sector is the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAAT), which has a sub-secretariat for climate change. Since 1994 when Ecuador ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in 2019 it presents its first contribution to the NDC 2020–2025, considering the sectors of energy, agriculture, industry, waste and USCUSS Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry, which is done considering only the country’s own resources (unconditional) and also with international support (conditional). Showing better results with the latter, since with international support there is a 12% difference in the NDC projection. The Fourth National Communication and the Second Biennial Update Report of Ecuador reports the progress made by the country in complying with the objectives and principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), revealing the circumstances, results and initiatives from 2016 to 2020 in Ecuador. At the provincial level The Consortium of Autonomous Provincial Governments of Ecuador (CONGOPE), has been developing since November 2016 the project “Provincial Action against Climate Change” (APROCC) to generate or update Provincial Climate Change Strategies, support the implementation of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures and promote knowledge management, exchange of experiences and dissemination of good environmental practices of provincial GADs in local, national, and international spaces.
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7. Galeano, M.: «Diseño de proyectos de investigación cualitativa,» 2004. [En línea]. Available: https://idoc.pub/documents/idocpub-6klzw0536vlg 8. Kiernan, D.: «Regresión lineal simple,» 30 10 2022. [En línea]. Available: https://espanol.lib retexts.org/Estadisticas/Estad%C3%ADstica_Aplicada/Libro%3A_Biometr%C3%ADa_de_ Recursos_Naturales_(Kiernan)/07%3A_Correlaci%C3%B3n_y_Regresi%C3%B3n_Lineal_ Simple/7.02%3A_Regresi%C3%B3n_lineal_simple 9. Ministerio del Ambiente, Agua y Transición ecológica, «Ecuador cuenta con Normativa sobre Cambio Climático,» s.f.b. [En línea]. Available: https://www.ambiente.gob.ec/ecuador-cuentacon-normativa-sobre-cambio-climatico/ 10. Secretaria Nacional de Planificación, «Plan de Creación de Oportunidades 2021–2025,» s.f.. [En línea]. Available: https://www.planificacion.gob.ec/plan-de-creacion-de-oportunidades2021-2025/ 11. Ministerio del Ambiente, Agua y Transición ecológica, «Ministerio fortalece la gestión del cambio climático en las 24 provincias del país,» 31 agosto 2021. [En línea]. Available: https:// www.ambiente.gob.ec/ministerio-fortalece-la-gestion-del-cambio-climatico-en-las-24-pro vincias-del-pais/#:~:text=Ecuador%20trabaja%20en%20la%20implementaci%C3%B3n% 20de%20diferentes%20acciones,plazo%20en%20la%20lucha%20contra%20el%20cambio% 20clim%C3 12. Secretaria General de la comunicación de la presidencia, «La transición ecológica es un hecho en el Ecuador del Encuentro,» 28 septiembre 2021. [En línea]. Available: https://www.comuni cacion.gob.ec/la-transicion-ecologica-es-un-hecho-en-el-ecuador-del-encuentro/ 13. Ministerio del ambiente, Agua y transición ecológica, «Plan de acción REDD+Ecuador,» s.f.c. [En línea]. Available: http://reddecuador.ambiente.gob.ec/redd/?page_id=380 14. Carbono neutral, «Ministerio poine en marcha el programa Ecuador Carbono Cero,» s.f.. [En línea]. Available: https://carbononeutral.com.ec/programa-ecuador-carbono-cero/#:~:text= El%20%E2%80%9CPrograma%20Ecuador%20Carbono%20Cero%20%E2%80%93%20P ECC%E2%80%9D%20surge,adem%C3%A1s%20del%20acceso%20a%20otros%20incenti vos%20y%20beneficios 15. Ministerio del Ambiente, Agua y transición ecológica, «Ministerio del Ambiente inició la construcción del Plan Nacional de Transición hacia la Descarbonización,» 10 agosto 2022. [En línea]. Available: https://www.ambiente.gob.ec/ministerio-del-ambiente-inicio-la-constr uccion-del-plan-nacional-de-transicion-hacia-la-descarbonizacion/#:~:text=El%20proyecto% 20PLANMICC%20es%20el%20encargado%20de%20la,financiamiento%20de%20la%20A gencia%20Francesa%20de%20Des 16. Ministerio del Ambiente, «Contribución Determinada a Nivel Nacional Ecuador,» 2019. [En línea]. Available: https://www.ambiente.gob.ec/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2022/02/ Folleto-NDC-2020-2025.pdf 17. Ministerio del ambiente, Agua y Transicion ecológica, «Cuarta Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático y Segundo Informe Bienal de Actualización del Ecuador,» s.f.a. [En línea]. Available: https://www.ambiente.gob.ec/cuarta-comunicacion-nacional-sobre-cambioclimatico-y-segundo-informe-bienal-de-actualizacion-del-ecuador/ 18. CONGOPE. Consorcio de Gobiernos Autónomos Provinciales del Ecuador, «Acción Provincial Frente al Cambio Climático,» s.f. [En línea]. Available: http://www.congope.gob.ec/? page_id=15105#:~:text=El%20Consorcio%20de%20Gobiernos%20Aut%C3%B3nomos% 20Provinciales%20del%20Ecuador,cambio%20clim%C3%A1tico%20en%20las%2023% 20provincias%20del%20Ecuador 19. United Nationes Climatic Chage, «Informe de síntesis de NDC 2022,» 12 octubre 2021. [En línea]. Available: https://unfccc.int/ndc-synthesis-report-2022#Projected-GHG-Emissionlevels 20. Naciones Unidas, «Cambio climático: cinco pequeños proyectos ayudan a restaurar el medio ambiente,» 01 mayo 2022. [En línea]. Available: https://news.un.org/es/story/2022/05/1507922
Chapter 30
Cognitive Performance and Use of Digital Tools as Predictors of Academic Success in University Students Alexandra Yakeline Meneses Meneses , Ana Victoria Poenitz , and Jorge Edmundo Gordón Rogel
Abstract Quality education is one of the sustainable development goals (SDG-4), which in the context of the pandemic has undergone several transformations; for this reason, this study aims to assess the cognitive profile and digital tools that enhance learning in the classroom, as facilitators of academic success in university students. A qualitative-quantitative methodology was used, with a non-experimental design, with a descriptive and correlational scope. Cognitive tests, a comprehensive academic evaluation, observation records, and surveys were applied to 100 students from Israel University, from 18 to 45 years of age, in online, blended, and hybrid modalities. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between the scores of the attentional tests and the cognitive tasks that included visuospatial rationing (p = 0.016), resistance to fatigue (0.002), and the academic average of the university students (p = 0.000). A high positive correlation (0.724) was also found between the TOT and the academic average, and a moderate positive correlation (0.598) between the CON and the academic average. No significant differences were observed between gender and age groups. The majority of students (43.2%) reported that the digital tools that enhance their learning that contributed to their academic achievement achieved were mainly H5P and flipped classroom.
A. Y. M. Meneses (B) · A. V. Poenitz · J. E. G. Rogel Israel University, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] A. V. Poenitz e-mail: [email protected] J. E. G. Rogel e-mail: [email protected] J. E. G. Rogel Technical University of the North, Ibarra, Ecuador © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_30
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Acronyms CON EVA H5P NART PACIE TLK TEPs ICTs TOT VAR
Concentration index Virtual learning environment HTML-5 package moodle tool National adult reading test Presence, scope, training, interaction, e-learning Technologies of learning and knowledge Technologies for empowerment and participation Information and communication technologies Total effectiveness of the test Variation index
30.1 Introduction According to data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), by mid-May 2020, more than 1.2 billion students of all levels of education, worldwide, had stopped having face-to-face classes at school; this is due to the confinement measures associated with COVID-19 [1]. Educational technologies have contributed to the training of university students, facilitating the teaching–learning processes and their participation [2]. Well, traditional teaching has considered the inclusion of Digital Learning Environments (DLE) to provide new tools to students in their learning process, contributing to the construction of student knowledge. Thus, learning supported by new technologies is becoming commonplace in universities and constantly undergoes design changes to adapt to the varied learning environments of higher institutions [3]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities had to adopt online learning, since the confinement measures do not allow face-to-face contact. Some studies show the advantages and disadvantages that these changes show for quality learning in university students [4, 5].
30.1.1 Role of Neurocognitive Functions in Learning It is known that cognitive factors predict academic performance in university students [6]. In recent years, it has been studied that performance in frontal lobe neuropsychological tests and intelligence tests may be some predictors of academic performance in higher education [7–10]. College students show differences among themselves in several neurobehavioral traits, which may have implications for understanding academic performance [11].
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In the same direction, it has been found that the attention, working memory, mood, motivation, and self-control of learners are the most important abilities in the learning process [12–18].
30.1.2 Educational Technology and Student Performance One of the fundamental components of the United Nations 2030 sustainable development agenda is quality education [19]. The Internet has allowed new means of communication and interaction to emerge, improving transmission alternatives and access to educational information, becoming facilitation means for new learning [20– 22]. Digital technologies have become an essential tool to achieve the objectives of current education, showing an impact on the educational system [23]. During the confinement measures by COVID-19, educational technologies are a new paradigm that has been installed in most higher education institutions, making it possible to face the barriers of confinement [24–31]. Educational technologies are a source of information, but also work as a mentor, an instructor, co-creator, and evaluators. In this way, manual execution instruments have been replaced, and various digital tools have been positioned through platforms and learning environments, with the use of enriching content and facilitators of the teaching–learning process. These new e-learning methodologies have shown an increase in student interest, increasing and motivating their interaction in the digital classroom [32–37]. As described by Haleem et al. [38], a digital classroom has some characteristics: collaborative, affordable, easy in the teaching process, flexible learning, accessibility, interactive, innovative content, and quality learning, which affect the academic success of students [39–42]. Digital Technologies in the Classroom According to the data reported in the round table held within the framework of the CMES [43], there are many repercussions of COVID-19 in higher education and the alteration of university teaching and student learning. Such is the complexity that the impact of COVID-19 on Higher Education will be seen in 20 years. To deal with this problem, higher education institutions have done their best to implement virtual learning environments, in which various technologies have been included to support the teaching–learning process, in order to give continuity to the educational process. In the case of higher education institutions in South America, they have been strengthened through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), Technologies for Learning and Knowledge (TACs), and Technologies for Empowerment and Participation (TEPs) [44]. In Table 30.1, a description of the various technologies used in the educational process is shown based on studies by Mayorga [45].
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Table 30.1 Digital technologies in the classroom Information and communication technologies—create
Learning and knowledge technologies—build
Technologies for empowerment and participation—cooperate
Information and communication technologies
Learning technologies and knowledge
Technologies for empowerment and participation
NLP: Personal learning networks
PLE: Personal learning environments
PLEP: Personal learning environments participation
Learning about technology (Tool)
Learn with technology
Engage with technology
Google
MOOCs E-Learning
Learning Social networks
Note Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
30.2 Method The study was based on the qualitative-quantitative method, with a non-experimental design, with a descriptive and correlational scope.
30.2.1 Population and Sample The identified population is all the undergraduate students of Israel University, located in the City of Quito—Ecuador. The sample corresponded to all the undergraduate students of the Online, Blended and Hybrid modalities who agreed to participate in the study, during the 2022-B semester. The following inclusion criteria were considered: (1) sign the informed consent, (2) being enrolled in the Israel University, and (3) not having adaptation to the curriculum, associated with disability; and exclusion: (1) Present some type of sensory disability. (2) Present intellectual or mental disability that affects the development of the tests. (3) Be older than 45 years. (4) Obtain a score on the NART test of less than 7.
30.2.2 Instruments National Adult Reading Test (NART). The original version of NART was created by Nelson and Willison [46], and it is the most widely used test to estimate premorbid intelligence capacity. In this research, the version adapted to Spanish was used according to Pluck et al. [47], such as TAP Test (Word Stress Test). It consists of a test of reading unstressed words, which correlates with the QI index of the WAIS intelligence test [48].
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D2 test. The original version was created by Brickenkamp [49]. It measures sustained attention, selective attention, and mental concentration. The test contains 14 lines with 47 characters, totaling 658 elements. These stimuli contain the letters “d” or “p” which may be accompanied by one or two small lines located, individually or in pairs, at the top or bottom of each letter. The subject’s task consists of carefully reviewing the content of each line from left to right, then marking every letter “d” that has the assigned slogan or key, discriminating the relevant elements from the irrelevant ones. Cognitive tests based on Ci-Training. Free portal for training and improving the intelligence quotient (IQ) based on the periodic performance of intelligence and psycho-technical tests [50]. The following tests were used: Visuospatial intelligence area: Maze of lines, fitting a key in a lock, Counting cubes. Logical-mathematical area: Compare series. Memory and attention are: Resistance to fatigue. Integrated knowledge assessment. The average obtained by the students in the academic semester 2022-B was considered. Survey on digital tools used in the EVA platform (Virtual Learning Environment). A questionnaire was applied to determine the degree of satisfaction with the use of digital tools in the classroom, based on the EVA virtual learning environment, from the Israel University (Rebound section).
30.2.3 Procedure To carry out this research, first of all, good research practices were followed, in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki [51] and the approval of the scientific committee of the Israel University. Informed consent was applied to each student, and the principles of confidentiality and privacy of the data evaluated were maintained. Secondly, the theoretical and methodological design for the implementation of the study was selected. After the approval of the study, we proceeded to select the participating sample and the application of the methods, techniques, and procedures proposed in the design. Finally, the results were analyzed, the findings were discussed, and the conclusions were determined.
30.2.4 Analysis of Data Descriptive and inference statistics were used for data analysis. First, the bimodal test was used to measure the difference between the groups of sociodemographic variables. The Mann–Whitney U test was used to analyze the differences between the scores of the cognitive tests, with respect to the gender and age of the participating groups. Finally, Spearman’s Rho was applied to determine the relationship between the D2 attention test scores and cognitive tests.
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30.3 Results 30.3.1 Sociodemographic Profile of the Sample A total of 100 students participated, 73% female. The predicted IQ average (NART) for the overall sample was (102.5). No significant differences were observed regarding gender. The average age of the students was 27.67, divided by different quotas in higher education levels, fifth (n = 25), sixth level (n = 22), seventh (n = 25), and eighth (n = 28), which belong to the online, blended, and hybrid study modalities.
30.3.2 Differences Between the Scores Obtained in the Tests Regarding the Male and Female Gender According to what is observed in Table 30.2, no significant differences are observed between the D2 attention test, and the cognitive tests, compared by gender. Table 30.2 Differences in the averages obtained in the tests applied according to gender Male X¯
TOT CON VAR
Variable
SD
Female X¯
Statisticians SD
U for Mann Whitney
345.81
90.63
353.47
66.16
916.0
115.85
52.61
123.05
51.05
916.0
0.589
21.56
8.33
22.89
10.34
942.5
0.738
p-value
TEST D2 0.589
Visuospatial intelligence Line maze
109.31
11.48
112.18
18.36
891.0
Keys
121.50
22.59
121.59
17.03
982.5
96.26
13.20
101.08
14.65
818.5
123.81
14.12
126.34
13.11
970.0
0.904
92.46
13.29
96.09
19.94
877.5
0.402
9.24
0.69
9.41
0.52
866.5
Count cubes
0.463 0.981 0.195
Mathematical logician Series of numbers Other aspects Fatigue resistance Grade point average
0.353
Note SD: Standard Deviation; TOT: Total effectiveness of the test; CON: Concentration index; VAR: Index of variation or difference
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Table 30.3 Differences between the tests applied and the age groups 18 to 25 years old X¯ SD
26 years or older X¯ SD
Statisticians U for Mann Whitney
p-value
TOT
364.67
77.17
338.65
67.38
1037.5
0.144
CON
128.92
56.36
113.61
45.24
1010.0
0.099
VAR
22.57
8.28
22.49
11.18
1157.5
0.525
Variable TEST D2
Visuospatial intelligence Line maze
109.57
15.33
113.17
18.03
1136.5
0.436
Keys
121.85
17.90
121.30
19.37
1242.0
0.959
97.69
2.20
101.79
14.38
1201.0
0.738
128.10
11.46
123.31
14.70
1012.0
0.101
97.27
18.24
93.04
18.48
1194.0
0.702
9.44
0.58
9.30
0.57
1007.5
0.093
Count cubes
Mathematical logician Series of numbers Other aspects Fatigue resistance Grade point average
Note SD: Standard Deviation; TOT: Total effectiveness of the test; CON: Concentration index; VAR: Index of variation or difference
30.3.3 Differences Between the Scores Obtained in the Tests with Respect to the Age Groups Table 30.3 shows that there are no significant differences between the D2 attention test and the cognitive tests, with respect to the groups by age range.
30.3.4 Relationship Between the Scores Obtained in the D2 Test and the Scores Obtained in Each Cognitive Test As given in Table 30.4, the correlation scores using Spearman’s Rho show representative correlations between the averages obtained in the D2 attention test and the general academic average of the students, so the greater the attention capacity, the greater the success in performance school. On the other hand, an inverse relationship is observed between the variation or difference index (VAR) and academic performance, the less variability in sustained attention, the greater the success in school performance.
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Table 30.4 Relationship between the scores obtained in the D2 test and the scores obtained in each cognitive test Variables
Relationship
Correlations, Spearman’s Rho Line maze
TOT
CON
VAR
Keys
Count cubes
Series of numbers
Fatigue resistance
Grade point average
Correlation coefficient
0.325
0.057
0.241
0.112
0.300
0.724
Next (bilateral)
0.001
0.573
0.016
0.267
0.002
0.000
Correlation coefficient
0.304
0.195
0.253
0.093
0.284
0.598
Next (bilateral)
0.002
0.052
0.011
0.356
0.004
0.000
− 0.096
− 0.105
− 0.084
0.012
− 0.166
− 0.347
0.342
0.298
0.405
0.905
0.099
0.000
Correlation coefficient Next (bilateral)
Note TOT: Total effectiveness of the test; CON: Concentration index; VAR: Index of variation or difference
30.3.5 Survey on Digital Tools that Facilitate Attention and Learning Figure 30.1 shows that the H5P tool, which is used in the EVA virtual learning environment, within the techno-pedagogical process of the Israel University, is the one that most facilitates the attention and learning process, according to the perceptions of the students consulted, according to their academic average. Discussion forum
Quizzes
50
H5P
Flipped Classroom
Gamification
43.2
40 29.5
30
18.2
20 10
6.8 2.3
0 Fig. 30.1 Percentage of students who prefer digital tools that they consider facilitate the attention and learning of contents in the virtual learning environment (EVA)
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30.4 Discussion This research presents the role played by cognitive functioning and the use of digital tools in the classroom as predictors of academic performance in university students. In accordance with this line of research achieved in our study, it has been possible to verify that school performance has a direct relationship with functioning in different cognitive tasks, and in a representative way with attentional capacity. Several preliminary studies showed that cognitive factors predict academic performance in university students [6]. In addition, the neuropsychological profile of students, including intelligence tests, maybe some predictor of academic performance in higher education [7–10]. It is important to mention that, within university environments, the learning process is complex and involves various neurocognitive, cognitive, and selfregulation abilities and skills, which allow students to obtain the competencies for successful learning. The functions that are implicit in favoring these achievements are attention, working memory, mood, motivation, and self-control [12–18]. On the other hand, from the perspectives of university students, digital tools in the classroom help to stimulate cognitive processes and play an important role in knowledge management, since they allow them to remember previous learning, associate it with new ones, and give it meaning, through the materialization of the contents learned in the context of its practical reality [20–30]. Thus, at the Israel University, from the context of the pandemic, learning was strengthened in an online modality, which uses the EVA virtual learning system, in which virtual classrooms are created, enriched with various multifunctional tools such as H5P, flipped classroom; anchored with the potential of the PACIE methodology (Presence, Scope, Training, Interaction, E-learning), which has shown success in virtual learning environments [52]. As reflected in the applied online survey (Fig. 30.1), the tools that university students select as innovative facilitators of learning are firstly the H5P tool, followed by flipped classroom and gamification. These tools have already been shown to enhance learning [53].
30.5 Conclusion The results of this study proved that the level of cognitive performance is a predictor of academic success of university students, especially associated with attentional functioning mediated by digital tools. It was found that there are no significant differences with respect to gender or age groups in the variables studied. In addition, the analysis carried out in the academic course showed that the use of digital tools facilitates the learning process, influencing the academic achievement of the students. Among the digital tools that, according to most students, facilitated the process of attention and learning was the H5P. These predictors of academic success should be considered by universities to promote quality education through the use
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of innovative technologies that promote communication, participation, and cooperation, contributing to the improvement of the teaching–learning process, in line with the objectives of sustainable development.
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Chapter 31
SOLL as an Auxiliary Teaching and Learning Tool—Case Study in Higher Education Andreia Magalhães, António Andrade, José Matias Alves, Pedro Miguel Rodrigues, and Patrícia Batista
Abstract The Internet of Things (IoT) is essentially made up of a network of physical objects, capable of capturing and transmitting data. It is an extension of the current Internet that allows everyday objects to have computational and communication capacity via WEB. This type of technology has been used in telemedicine and patient monitoring remote systems. Thus, in this concept test, of a mixed nature, a group of students from the Bioengineering course at the Catholic University of Portugal—Regional Center of Porto, through the integration of the acquired knowledge and skills, developed an electronic device, controlled by a microcontroller from the arduino type, for monitoring vital signs, heart rate and oximeter, with the SOLL platform, Smart Objects Linked to Learnings, serving as an interface WEB. From the data collected, it appears that most students did not know the tool and those who knew only a few had already used it. The students were unanimous in considering the tool versatile, innovative, intuitive, with potential for the practical and useful application of the contents taught in the classroom. In short, the IoT has potential to promote active learning of an interdisciplinary nature that promotes teamwork, project development and scientific communication skills in higher education.
A. Magalhães (B) · J. M. Alves Centro de Investigação em Desenvolvimento Humano, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] A. Andrade Centro de Estudos em Gestão e Economia, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal P. M. Rodrigues CBQF—Centro de Biotecnologia e Química Fina—Laboratório Associado, Escola Superior de Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal P. Batista Research Centre for Human Development, Human Neurobehavioural Laboratory, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_31
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31.1 Introduction The Internet of Things (IoT) is a tool capable of providing global networks, from which devices and objects can be connected to the Internet, making it possible to obtain data at any time and in any place. This presents itself capable of promoting a disruptive change through the metamorphosis of pedagogical and organizational practices at the level of Higher Education, due to the fact that it is intended to increase conventional interactions between people, to question knowledge in a broader context [1] and provide learning support and inspiration [2]. In this scenario, as the IoT makes it possible to create a network of objects connected to the Internet and from which data can be collected via a wireless network, students have the ability to monitor their own surrounding environment with the possibility to access data, in real time, for analysis [3] and eventual automatic alerts that can trigger immediate intervention, motivating them in the conception of this process to the application, in the context of simulated reality, of interdisciplinary knowledge. Throughout this process, teachers have the possibility to evaluate the student’s evolution in real time [4]. Therefore, this interactive learning allows students to share data in an open way to investigate and address real-world challenges, and thus improve their problemsolving skills and enhance their critical thinking skills [5]. Thus, given that these devices give the opportunity to provide data anywhere and anytime through remote access [2], with benefits such as flexibility, knowledge communication, improved thinking skills, interaction and sharing of educational content, to list just a few [6], leads to recognize in IoT a relevance at the teaching– learning level due to its ability to monitor and record data and promotes research opportunities, improving teacher–student involvement and monitoring during the entire process. In this sense, new opportunities arise for the application of active teaching methodologies such as: Problem-Based Learning, Team-Based Learning, and SimulationBased Learning, responding to the need to reformulate teaching predominantly based on lectures and memorization and to improve the learning process, allowing greater interaction between physical and virtual objects [7]. Problem-Based Learning (PBL), was developed in the 1960s at the Faculty of Medicine at McMaster University, by Howard Barrows and Robert Norman, as they considered that professional practice required skills in problem solving [8], this pedagogical approach allowed the development of problem-solving skills through real and contextualized situations in an autonomous way, in addition to encouraging collaboration and teamwork. Team-Based Learning (TBL), developed by Larry Michaelsen in the 1970s, is a collaborative and interactive teaching methodology that emphasizes active student participation and shared responsibility for learning through group activities, discussions and immediate feedback in the application of theoretical concepts and decision making related to practical situations, helping to develop skills such as communication, leadership and problem solving. This methodology is fundamental to improve
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the students’ ability to apply the content to be explored, the vast majority of class time is used for group work and the tasks are designed to improve learning and promote the development of autonomous learning teams [9]. Simulation-Based Learning (SBL) is a teaching methodology that uses simulations to reproduce real-life situations, allowing students to experiment, and they prefer to test their knowledge and skills in new scenarios or in real life [10] and, thus, learn to deal with problems and challenges without risk of damage or losses. While there is no single SBL creator, the most influential names include Kurt Lewin, Frederick Hertzberg, and David Kolb. The intersection of these methodologies allows adapting the learning process to the needs of each student and improving their skills [11], as teachers have the possibility to collect data on the provision and development of students’ abilities and assess which of them needs more of their attention at each moment [12]. This embodied view of human cognition, that directly appealing to multi-sensory processing [13], provides data for teachers to develop learning contexts that facilitate learning. Thus leading to an “expansion of teaching options in the classroom, through access to resources from around the world” [14, p. 43]. In this way, it allows education actors to find an easier way to transform collected data into valuable information [15] and take meaningful actions based on this information [16]. Which brings countless benefits, such as: the creation of intelligent interactive classrooms; the possibility of customizing interactive models through which students are proactive actors in the learning process; the stimulation of creativity; real-time reports on students’ cognitive activities [17], which will result in an increase in the quality of the educational process, as students will learn faster and teachers will be able to carry out their teaching activities [18]. Based on the above, the IoT could be an added value for “the creation of a learning environment in the classroom that goes through teaching activities, task characteristics, validation of students’ thinking and formative feedback teacher–student and students–students” [19, p. 104], helping in the process of evaluating the individual in the collective classroom and facilitating the triple feed relationship: feedback, feedup, and feedforward [20, p. 6]. Allowing to investigate the students’ knowledge, the way they understand, their skills and learning styles. As mentioned by Aldowah et al. [12], “the new ways of exchanging information lay the groundwork for more interactive and personalized learning” and the data collected in real time “are useful for analyzing actions, interactions, preference trends and changes in skill levels of students” [12]. The teacher remains “essential to guide students to and through learning objects” and “must also take students away from the variety of disconnected experiences to develop meaning and assimilate their new knowledge, skills, and emotions” [14]. Indeed, evaluation is of real importance, as it “requires inclusive and complex thinking that, beyond paralyzing tensions, finds ways to complement the potential of internal and external evaluation under the common sign of a formative logic” [21] and with the possibility to analyze the students’ progress. Thus, for the teacher to take advantage of the use of IoT in the classroom, he needs to master the content, pedagogy and technology, which “coexist and influence each other” [22, p. 7], model named TPACK. This model, according to Cox
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[23, p. 65], consists of “the appropriate use of technology, in a given curriculum area, integrated into a specific pedagogical strategy, in a given educational context, to develop students’ knowledge about a given subject, topic or to reach a previously identified educational objective” and involved in an innovative Organizational Culture that emerges a learning community that, from a pedagogy of metamorphosis [24] and the maker, which allows the carrying out of activities using the IoT and the generated data are saved and analyzed from a pedagogical platform. In this way, the entire school community “assumes an active and central role, in which the teacher emerges as the architect of situations that makes students work with meaning, and if possible with pleasure, in challenges that question and mobilize them for action relatively creative” [20, p. 6]. Given that the IoT presents itself as a tool with organizational and pedagogical value that is based on the principles of adequacy, diversity, relative homogeneity, training in action, flexibility, involvement, decision making [25], the investigation question arises: What is the role of the Internet of Things in active learning of an interdisciplinary nature in Higher Education?
31.2 Methodology Since it is a concept test, developed by Lorraine Olszewski Walker and Kay Coalson Avant in 1983, it aims to explore and define a concept or abstract idea, in order to identify the main characteristics and attributes of the concept, as well as the relations between these characteristics, being able to determine their practical implications. Thus, given that it focuses on emancipatory knowledge, where it is intended to put into practice new methods of learning and student evaluation and to support the teacher in the development of these new methods, we position ourselves in a sociocritical paradigm using the Research-Action, of mixed nature. Especially because the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods makes possible to cover a larger field of research possibilities by raising the public’s ideas at the same time that it quantifies the opinions. This occurs, according to Teddlie and Tashakkori [26], in a parallel mixed project, in which the use of qualitative and quantitative methods occurs simultaneously. Data collection techniques were chosen among the options proposed by Teddlie and Tashakkori [26]: observation techniques and questionnaire survey. To this, the students responded at the end of the proposed activity, with responses on a Likert scale and open responses. Within this sampling, a random sampling was chosen, in which all subjects have an equal probability of belonging to the sample. Thus, based on the words of Charles [27], who states that the sample is directly related to the type of problem to be investigated, the sample consists of a group of undergraduate students in bioengineering. These students built a prototype, controlled by an arduino-type microcontroller connected to two sensors—oximeter and heart rate—with the objective of measuring,
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in real time, these two magnitudes in bedridden patients without the need for hospitalization. A communication channel with the SOLL platform was established and in real time the data were sent and stored in the platform’s domain—website www. soll.pt. For the critical appreciation of the data, the ISTE Standards model developed by the International Society for Technology in Education in 1998 was used for reflection. This maintains the focus on students and promotes the use of technology in education, given that in the vast team of specialists that collaborated on creating the standards for this model include, but are not limited to, educators, educational technology leaders, and curriculum developers. This model has undergone several updates, the most current version of the ISTE Standards for Students 2016, last updated in 2007, defines the skills and competencies that students need to become effective and successful digital citizens in the twenty-first century. This is organized into seven areas: student empowerment; learning and creative thinking; communication and collaboration; digital citizenship; information management; operation of technological systems and concepts, operations and applications of technology. Standards used to guide the integration of technology in education and provide a solid foundation for teaching and learning with technology. For the analysis of this concept test, Excel software was used, which is a tool for studying and visualizing data, in order to allow a descriptive statistical analysis. However, given that this is a concept test, the results can be presented as a conceptual model, generally used to help understand, analyze and design complex systems, which allows the visualization of a clear picture of the system without worrying about technical details.
31.3 Results From this concept test, the following results were obtained. From Table 31.1, it can be seen that 57.14% of the students in this sample did not know about, and therefore had not used IoT. However, of the students who knew it, 28.57%, had never used it. After using this IoT prototype for study in the bioengineering course, it was possible to record the opinions expressed by the group of students, Fig. 31.1, in which the most mentioned words to define the learning context were: versatile tool, innovative, intuitive, in real time and practice. When the students were questioned about the educational platform, where the data collected by the prototype was stored and allowed its analysis for the achievement Table 31.1 Knowledge of IoT and its use
IoT knowledge?
Have you used it?
Percentage (%)
No
No
57.14
Yes
No
28.57
Yes
Yes
14.29
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Fig. 31.1 Word map that summarizes the students’ opinion after using the IoT prototype
of the previously defined learning objectives, this was considered, by the majority of the students, 87.72%, to be adequate or very adequate, as shown in Fig. 31.2. It should be noted that 14, 29% considered it extremely adequate. After achieving the objectives defined for this activity, it was possible to record the students’ comments about this learning scenario. Table 31.2 shows some of the comments mentioned by the students.
Fig. 31.2 Results related to students’ opinion about the SOLL platform
Table 31.2 Student comments about the learning scenario Student comments “A good innovation” “An admirable idea” “With applications in several areas and very useful” “An interesting and innovative work” “This technology is the future” “Very positive. Excited to have a society more impacted by these IoT devices” “A good innovation”
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From the analysis of the data presented, it can be verified that the creation of an intelligent learning context involves the student in practical projects, with the obtaining of real data in real time, a fact that students appreciate and it is useful for obtaining learning objectives, previously defined. In this way, it is possible to expand the student’s experience and make teaching more adapted to the individual needs of each one.
31.4 Conclusion IoT has the potential to bring relevant advantages to higher education, improving the student experience and making teaching more efficient and personalized. One of the ways to take advantage of the IoT is through the creation of intelligent and personalized environments that adapt to the individual needs of students. For example, classrooms equipped with sensors can monitor temperature, air humidity, lighting and noise level, adjusting these factors according to students’ preferences. In addition, universities can use IoT to create immersive and interactive learning experiences, engaging students in hands-on projects and connecting them to external resources in real time. The IoT can allow students to experience real-time practical experiences, with controlled and safe environments, such as the bioengineering course, where they can use sensors and connected devices to monitor the functioning of machines or equipment, or to evaluate the structures performance. Data collection related to the student’s involvement with the pedagogical activity is another advantage of IoT in higher education. Effectively, IoT can be used to collect and analyze data on student performance, allowing teachers to adjust their teaching methodologies according to individual student needs. In addition, universities can use IoT to collect data on the use of resources and infrastructure, allowing for more efficient management of these. This meets the standards used to guide the integration of technology in education and provide a solid foundation for teaching and learning with technology mentioned by the ISTE Standards model. From the above, it is possible to verify that the integration of technology in a pedagogical strategy for the exploration of contents of a curricular area and in a determined educational context, increases the appropriation of knowledge by the students in the fulfillment of a previously identified educational objective. This is in line with what was explained in the TPACK model, which exposes that the knowledge resulting from the three core dimensions—technology, pedagogy, and content—that compose it, goes beyond the benefits of each isolated dimension, allowing a true integration of technology in the process of teaching and learning [28]. And in this way, putting into practice the Design of Learning Contexts [29] and building learning from contexts culturally rich in activity and interaction that technologies made possible [30], which made reflection, research and application of new pedagogical practices, in higher education, in order to connect, using IoT, natural, built and virtual learning places, taking advantage of the potential of each one of them [31].
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In short, in this concept test, based on the joint work between the Faculty of Education and Psychology and the Higher School of Biotechnology, both from the Catholic University of Portugal—Porto Regional Center, it was possible to verify that the IoT—Internet of Things—has the potential to promote active learning of an interdisciplinary nature that promotes teamwork, project development and scientific communication skills in higher education.
References 1. Adnan, H.M.: From interactive teaching to immersive learning: higher education 4.0 via 360degree videos and virtual reality in Malaysia. In: International Conference on Technology, Engineering and Sciences (ICTES), pp. 012023. IOP Publishing, Penang, Malaysia (2020) 2. Abbasi, M.R.K.M.: Efficient resource management and workload allocation in fog–cloud computing paradigm in IoT using learning classifier systems. Comput. Commun. 153, 217–228 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2020.02.017 3. Selwyn, N., Nemorin, N., Bulfin, S., Johnson, S.: Everyday schooling in the digital age—high school, high tech? Taylor and Francis (2018) 4. Al-Turjman, F., Alturjman, S.: 5G/IoT-enabled UAVs for multimedia delivery in industryoriented applications. Multimed. Tools Appl. 79, 8627–8648 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11042-018-6288-7 5. Gandhi, S.K.U.D: HIoTPOT: surveillance on IoT devices against recent threats. Wireless Pers. Commun. 103, 1179–1194 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-018-5307-3 6. Tiwari, S.: Improving teaching-learning through smart classes. SGVUJ. Eng. Technol. 3(2), 40–44 (2017) 7. Marquez, A., Villanueva, J., Solarte, J., Garcia, Z.: IoT in education: integration of objects with virtual academic communities. Springer International Publishing, Switzerland (2016) 8. Barrows, T.R.M.: Problem-based learning. Springer, New York (1980) 9. Michaelsen, L.S.M.: The essential elements of team-based learning. New directions for teaching and learning, no. 116, Winter 2008 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) (2008). https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.330 10. Kolb, D.A.: Experiential learning: experiences as a source of learning and development. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1984) 11. Connected Living, Understanding the Internet of Things (Io), GSM Association (2014) 12. Aldowah, I., Ghazal, H., Rehman, S. Umar, S.: Internet of things in higher education: a study on future learning. J. Phys. Conf. Ser. (2017) 13. Skulmowski, A., Rey, G.D.: Embodied learning: introducing a taxonomy based on bodily engagement and task integration. Cogn. Research 3, 6 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235018-0092-9 14. Slimp, R., Bartels, M.: How the internet of things is changing our colleges, our classroom, and our students. Foreword by Fred Lokken. British Library of Cataloguing in Publication Information Available (2019) 15. Shrinath, S.B.: IOT application in education. Int. J. Adv. Res. Develop. 2(6), 20–24 (2017) 16. Bagheri, M.S.H.: The effect of the Internet of Things (IoT) on education business model, pp. 435–441. Proceedings of SITIS, Naples, Italy (2016) 17. Ilieva, Y.T.: IoT in distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. TEM J. 9(4), 1669–1674 (2020) 18. Mohanty, D.: Smart learning using Io. Int. Res. J. Eng. Tech. 6(6), 1032–1037 (2019) 19. Lopes, E., Silva, J., Morais, H.: Avaliação formal e informal do pensamento crítico, In Educar para o pensamento crítico na sala de aula - Planificação, estratégias e avaliação; PACTOR (2019)
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20. Alves, J.M.: A Centralidade da Pedagogia, Desafios 29 – Cadernos de Trans_formação. Junho 2020. Porto: Faculdade de Educação e Psicologia. pp. 4–7 (2020) 21. Flores, M., Machado, M., Alves, E.: Avaliação das Aprendizagens e Sucesso Escolar Perspetivas Internacionais, 2a Edicação, DE FACTO EDITORES (2018) 22. Sampaio, C., Coutinho, P., Ensinar com tecnologia, pedagogia e conteúdo, Revista Paidéi 5(8) (2013) 23. Cox, M.: A conceptual analysis of technological pedagogical content knowledge (2008) 24. Morin, E.: Eloge de la métamorphose, Le Monde (2010) 25. Alves, J.M.: O Projecto Fénix e as condições de sucesso. In: J. Azevedo & J.M. Alves (Org.), Projecto Fénix – Mais Sucesso para todos. Memórias e dinâmicas de construção do sucesso escolar., Porto: Faculdade de Educação e Psicologia da Universidade Católica Portuguesa, pp. 37–66 (2010) 26. Teddlie, A., Tashakkori, C.: Foundations of mixed methods research: integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches in the social and behavioral sciences. Sage, Thousand Oaks (2009) 27. Charles, C.: Introduction to educational research, 3.a edn. Longman, New York (1998) 28. Mishra, M., Koehler, P.: Technological pedagogical content knowledge: a framework for teacher knowledge, in teachers college record (2006) 29. Figueiredo, A.D.: A Pedagogia dos Contextos de Aprendizagem, Revista eCurriculum. São Paulo. v.14, no3, Jul/Set 2016, pp. 809–836 (2016) 30. Figueiredo, A.D.: Context and learning: a philosophical framework. In: Figueiredo, A.D., Afonso, A.P. (org.). Managing learning in virtual settings: the role of context. Idea Group Publishing, PLC, Hershey (2006) 31. UNESCO: Reimaginar Nossos Futuros Juntos - Um novo contrato social para a educação, Fundación SM (2022)
Chapter 32
Mindfulness in the Advanced Human Capital: A Theoretical Proposal of a Training Program at the University Bernardo O’Higgins, Assemblies, and Definitions Roberto Cortés Cancino , Macarena Dehnhardt , Claudio Ruff , Marcelo Ruiz , and Alexis Matheu Pérez
Abstract One of the groups that are at risk of suffering from stress, anxiety, and reduction of their mental health are Ph.D. students, as international and national research has demonstrated. On the other hand, research supports that mindfulness reduces stress levels and allows to generate a context of reflection in individuals that helps counteract the effect of anxiety, stress, and pain. The paper aims to describe a theoretical project to implement a mindfulness program directed to the students of Ph.D. programs at the University Bernardo O’Higgins. To achieve this aim, a review of national and international experiences oriented to the practice of mindfulness in tertiary educational contexts was carried out. The methodology of this study is based on a literature review and seeks to develop, in the future, a proposal to implement mindfulness at the university. As a hypothesis, it is stated that a way to implement the practice of mindfulness in Ph.D. programs is by linking the Vice Rectory of postgraduate degrees and the Psychological Attention Center. This process could allow the creation of a project based on a participatory action research methodology within the University Bernardo O’Higgins. Being exploratory and theoretical research, the R. C. Cancino (B) · M. Dehnhardt · C. Ruff · M. Ruiz · A. M. Pérez Center for Institucional Research, University Bernardo O´Higgins, (2) 24774110, Av. 1497 Viel, 830993 Santiago, Chile e-mail: [email protected] M. Dehnhardt e-mail: [email protected] C. Ruff e-mail: [email protected] M. Ruiz e-mail: [email protected] A. M. Pérez e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_32
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results remain latent, as defined by the sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso. However, it is feasible to project that the introduction of a project of systematic practice of mindfulness would allow reducing the academic and work stress of students conducting their Ph.D. programs.
32.1 Introduction The goal established by the strategic policy of the Chilean State and the universities regarding advanced human capital formation in the country has increased exponentially the enrollment of students to Ph.D. programs, both national and international [1]. For a student, starting a doctoral program implies assuming an academic responsibility that completes his/her university education, adopting a specialized role in research and teaching. Enrolling in a Ph.D. introduces students to a highly demanding professional and cognitive program. In this regard, recent research has evidenced that Ph.D. students are particularly exposed to suffering from anxiety, stress, or mental illness. In fact, national and international studies have demonstrated that university students have a greater risk of depression than the general population [2]. This risk is aggravated if we consider the heavy work and cognitive load that students have to bear, even more so if we think that many Ph.D. students work at the university, either in teaching or administrative tasks. The increment of the work and academic load that Ph.D. students bear as future teachers has been condemned by scholars, who observe the risk of well-being decrease and mental illness of doctoral candidates as an indicator of precariousness and crisis of the traditional role that contemporary universities have within the society [3]. From other perspectives, it has been considered that high levels of stress and anxiety in the university population are not a sole risk factor for students and teachers, but for contemporary society in general since people have been exposed to suffer from the chronic effects of stress and fatigue of the intensification and deregulation of work logics [4]. Hence, high rates of anxiety observed in higher education institutions would be only a reflex of the background social dynamics of the so-called optimization society [5]. University Bernardo O’Higgins (UBO), through its Department of Health, has addressed the new challenges of the twenty-first century in relation to therapeutic methods of care, aimed at ensuring the welfare of the educational community. Thus, the yoga and meditation workshops open to the student community have enabled the dissemination of new holistic therapies that have transversally involved careers linked to the humanities and health. In this context, our paper proposes the theoretical design of the project “Mindfulness en la UBO” [Mindfulness at the UBO], which is housed in the Center for Institutional Research of the university. The project is in its initial implementation phase and, therefore, it is expected to achieve results within the next months.
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However, a number of academic experiences, both national and international, related to the application of mindfulness in university contexts were analyzed. It was concluded that Chilean university contexts do promote mindfulness activities and training courses. Nevertheless, its development focused specifically on advanced human capital formation is marginal. Having established the above, this theoretical project proposal aims ultimately to find a way to counteract the harmful effect of academic stress on doctoral students since the excessive academic workload is a breeding ground for mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety. In order to achieve this objective, a literature review about mindfulness was carried out. Afterward, a review of national and international experiences of adapting mindfulness to advanced human capital formation programs was conducted. It is argued that introducing mindfulness in Ph.D. programs, through courses or workshops, could have clear benefits both in academic performance and mental health of Ph.D. students. Furthermore, it could be an institutional measure to reduce attrition levels in the doctoral programs of the university.
32.2 Literature Review The practice of mindfulness was originated with the scientific and phenomenological study of meditation exercises. In fact, mindfulness has roots in traditional Brahminic meditation, Taoist yoga, and Buddhist spiritual traditions [6]. Likewise, it is considered that the procedural features of mindfulness practices are present in the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian culture, through the penetration of Eastern Gnostic traditions (based on the knowledge of gnosis), which would later be adopted by mystic and ascetic European traditions, mainly, by St. Teresa of Ávila, St. John of the Cross, and St. Ignatius of Loyola. The approach of contemporary neurosciences to the study of meditation began in the early 1980s. It was developed by the neuroscientist from Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, Jon Kabat-Zinn, who systematized traditional meditation practices in a scientific method after practicing meditation in Tibet during his youth [7]. Experimental works in neurophenomenology accompanied the contributions of Kabat-Zinn carried out by Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana. They have evidenced the connection between the phenomena of the conscience and the experience regarding modifying the organic structure of the human brain, the so-called neuroplasticity [8, 9]. Thus, the relationships among individuals and their exterior context are mediated by their own subjective experiences [10].
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Fig. 32.1 Phenomenological relation between environment and subjectivity [5]
32.2.1 On the Concept of Experience According to phenomenology, the dichotomy imposed by the cartesian paradigm between the subject (conscience) and object (exterior world) is overcome by the concept of experience since this concept connotes “empirical knowledge and experimentation. [At the same time, the word experience] could suggest what happens when we are passive, and we are opened to new stimuli, and what we obtain when we integrate those stimuli in the accumulated knowledge given by our past; it can also connotate a journey, sometimes dangerous and difficult” (the translation is ours) [11]. Critical thinkers of modernity, such as Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, have proposed reflections about the place of experience in contemporary societies [12]. For them, the technified, monotonous, overwhelming life of the people in big cities has thrown individuals into a life deprived of significant experiences (as Benjamin says, the poverty of experience) [12]. Moreover, Benjamin also argues that the limiting and traumatic experiences that individuals suffer imply that everyday life events cannot become meaningful, narratable experiences, as a powerful and constitutive event that determines the identity of people. Although the critics of Benjamin are not absolute nor determinist of the contemporary human condition, it does illuminate a facet of the life of men, children, and women in modern society: the loss of meaning in our acts. Thus, the popularization of meditation technics and Eastern wisdom has filled this vacuum and has allowed us to reconstitute the link between consciousness and the exterior world, giving meaning to the constitutive acts of our life (Fig. 32.1).
32.2.2 The Practice of Mindfulness The development of mindfulness practices would take action in the subjective perception of individuals regarding their environment, which allows the self-control of disruptive feelings that could appear because of the stressful contexts where they
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are immersed. From neurosciences studies, it has been found that mindfulness also allows to “activate the left prefrontal cortex, where positive nature emotions operate,” along with strengthening “the thickness of the cerebral cortex, in the insula of the right hemisphere, which is mainly responsible for sustained attention” (the translation is ours) [4]. The conscious experience has a prominent place in the human body’s biological processes related to well-being and health. For example, it has been demonstrated that the systematic practice of mindfulness reduces cortisol and lactate secretion levels in the blood: These benefits help both in sports and academic activities. Likewise, the benefits of mindfulness in the control of anxiety, depression prevention and treatment, and the increment of empathy in interpersonal relationships have been demonstrated. Therefore, scientific findings in neurosciences have given scientific status in millenary meditation practices, mainly their benefits linked to well-being and mental health. At the national level, the precursors of meditation and its relationship with science were Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana. Both scientists were pioneers in the empirical study of the effects of meditation on daily life and founded the Buddhist meditation group Dharmadhatu at the end of the 1980s [7]. For many years, meditation teaching was limited to small groups of followers and religious people. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the psychiatrist Gonzalo Brito introduced the practice and teaching of mindfulness in the Bio-Bio Hospital, an experience that will later be replicated in the hospitals in the Metropolitan Region [7].
32.2.3 Mindfulness in Educational Contexts Advances in neurosciences and the clear benefits to health and concentration of mindfulness have led the leading European and North American universities to create programs of teaching and research on mindfulness. In fact, the patent benefits of mindfulness in reducing stress and anxiety have popularized this ancient practice in different educative and work contexts. Considering the adaptation of mindfulness in an educative context, empirical data show that the systematic practice of mindfulness positively impacts the levels of concentration, empathy, and self-esteem of students. According to Cárcamo and Fuentes [7], the practice of mindfulness in educative contexts has two main goals. First, to increment the performance and concentration of students. Second, to decrease the levels of anxiety and stress in students. The first goal of the mindfulness practice could be linked to the rationalist teaching curriculum based on efficiency and the achievement of objectives. The second aim of mindfulness would be focused on the mental health of individuals. Combining both objectives (based on the rationality of education and mental health) in one method is essential to achieve a responsible mindfulness practice, in line with the doctrinal and philosophical underpinnings that justify it.
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The teaching of mindfulness focused on purely commercial purposes, in the words of its precursors, would distort the original purposes of mindfulness. In this sense, the ethical precautions regarding introducing mindfulness in an educative context must be considered. These precautions are related to the idea that mindfulness is not only a technique that allows enhancing the performance of students but also to preserve their mental health from the burden and stress that the excessive work and academic load can cause. In the Chilean case, the experience of mindfulness learning has been applied to school contexts, specifically, primary education [7]. Regarding the international context, the program mindfulness research of the University of Oxford [13] and the mindfulness research program developed by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona [14] can be found. Considering the experience of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Ph.D. students can participate in the course Research Yourself® , which is part of the formative actions of the area of Wellbeing and Personal Development. The course has four sessions in which the trainers, Elvira Reche, and Albert Feliu, provide theoretical and useful tools to understand and practice mindfulness focused on Ph.D. students [15]. The course sessions are developed according to the following topics: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Improving emotional regulation and stress. Pillars of good pre-doctoral health. Improving communication with the work team. Time management for the dissertation defense and preparation for life after the Ph.D.
All the classes are complemented by instances of mindfulness practice guided by the trainers. In these practices, the students learn techniques to exercise mindfulness and periods of the day in which these practices can be applied. This section describes mindfulness practice, its benefits, and its application in educational contexts. It has also described the implementation of a mindfulness workshop in university contexts, specifically at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Thus, it provides a base to propose a project to develop mindfulness training at University Bernardo O’Higgins in doctoral programs.
32.3 Materials and Methods This research aims to develop a theoretical mindfulness program project to be applied at the Ph.D. level at the University Bernardo O’Higgins (UBO). A literature review about mindfulness, its benefits, and its development in educational contexts (primary and university levels) has been conducted to achieve this goal. Also, since it is a context-based project that will be implemented in the following academic periods, the divisions, departments, and professionals that can apply the proposal should be determined. In summary, the literature review is the main method to approach this project, which is in its first stage.
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Furthermore, this theoretical proposal started from the researchers, who, along with other Ph.D. students at UBO, detected the need to reduce stress and anxiety. The topic of mindfulness practice emerged from informal conversations between these students and some trainers since they attended the workshop conducted at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Hence, the research object (mindfulness at Ph.D. programs) has emerged from the community needs, i.e., Ph.D. students and their teachers. That is why this theoretical proposal considers its implementation at UBO through methods of participatory action research (PAR), as will be explained in the following subsections. Complementary objectives in this research are (1) to reduce the levels of stress and anxiety suffered by the university population in the Ph.D. programs of University Bernardo O’Higgins. (2) To construct a pedagogical methodology to introduce students to the practice of mindfulness. The constructivist paradigm defines the research approach in social sciences and the subject-researcher considered are the doctoral students of the Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins.
32.3.1 A Project Based on PAR Considering the research objectives, this mindfulness theoretical project proposal is based on participatory action research (PAR), which means that it seeks to build a teaching methodology that allows transmitting meaningful knowledge about mindfulness to university doctoral students. Hence, through a methodology inspired by PAR, the proposal has the purpose of building an instance that contemplates relevant knowledge that enables doctoral students in mechanism to counteract the pernicious effects of anxiety and stress, along with facilitating their personal self-exploration. As Fals Borda has stated, any participatory action research (PAR) requires a quasiexperimental design because the stage of a PAR corresponds to the following stages: (1) Observation-participation: The scientist’s attitude is eminently “sympathetic” and active; (2) Observation-intervention: It implies experimenting with cultural elements within a situation; (3) Observation-insertion: It involves the researcher as an agent within the research process. Thus, commitment-action is essentially a personal attitude of the scientist in the face of the realities of the social, economic, and political crisis of his historical context. In consequence, the “commitment-action is ideological and implies a vision within the sciences. This vision is conditioned by social patterns and transcendental political changes that lead scientists to an evaluation of their discipline” [16]. Thus, action research would be defined by the following characteristics: the choice of action research topics, the possibilities of creation and originality, and the determination of those key groups that deserved to be served by science, and the identification with them. Likewise, Fals Borda states that action research must have a prior commitment to the group studied and an ideal of service. In summary, the action research approach defines that the knowledge built by the researcher and the group under investigation allows the transformation of reality as a whole.
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32.3.2 The Organizational Structure of UBO UBO has two Ph.D. programs (Education and Science with a specialization in Functional Materials) pertaining to the Vice Rectory of Academic Affairs, Department of Postgraduate Degrees of the University. On the other hand, the UBO developed and recently opened a Psychological Attention Center (by its Spanish acronym, CAPUBO) directed to the university community, which is in charge of the Psychology Department (Faculty of Human Sciences) and the Vice Rectory of Outreach. As stated by a document of CAPUBO: [CAPUBO] provides an opportunity for psychology students’ training by enabling them to approach the clinical-community practice within the context of a program that differs itself from other intervention proposals in mental health, focused on adaptive conditioning and generalized medicalization. The psychological intervention proposal of CAPUBO prioritizes the history and subject responsibility and the process of social insertion (the translation is ours) [17].
The goals of CAPUBO are linked to the proposal of developing a program of mindfulness directed to Ph.D. students since CAPUBO aims to develop individuals and their potentials and “privileges history and subjective responsibility” [17]. Furthermore, as stated by the Department of Psychology of UBO in its dissemination documents, the profile of the psychology student is to work on empathy and mindfulness as a means of “alleviating one’s own suffering and that of others” (the translation is ours) [17]. Therefore, both Vice Rectories (Academic Affairs and Outreach) and the Department of Psychology will be the main divisions that can be in charge of implement the mindfulness project proposal.
32.4 Theoretical Proposal: Mindfulness at UBO The PAR project proposed in this paper is to link CAPUBO with the Vice Rectory of Postgraduate degrees in order for the Psychological Attention Center to expand its mentoring functions to Ph.D. programs. The first stage starts with a formal dialogue process with Ph.D. students, who can explore and communicate their primary needs related to anxiety and stress when considering the programs in which they are immersed. In this phase, the Vice Rectory of Academic Affairs and the professionals of CAPUBO should be present to detect and summarize the critical issues that affect the student’s health, which could be approached through the mindfulness program. The project considers a second stage. Since its first implementation period is initially designed for psychologists certified in mindfulness, the experts will train other members of the Department of Psychology in this matter to conduct mindfulness practices during the subsequent periods. To do so, the Vice Rectory of Outreach is the principal authority that can allow the training of the psychology members of CAPUBO.
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Fig. 32.2 PAR program in mindfulness applied at UBO. Source own elaboration
Fig. 32.3 Benefits of a mindfulness program at the University. Source own elaboration
Consequently, the third stage consists of the training psychologists provide doctoral students to practice mindfulness in their homes or leisure time. This experience could be similar to the one observed in Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where psychologists who are mindfulness experts teach students the main features of this practice. Figure 32.2 provides a visual representation of the divisions of UBO that are implied in the implementation of the mindfulness proposal project. Furthermore, this proposal considers the benefits of implementing a mindfulness program at the university, which can be seen in Fig. 32.3.
32.5 Discussion The members of the Department of Psychology are the unit with the greatest training to provide a mindfulness workshop within the university, which means that it is natural and logical for them to take responsibility for a mindfulness program aimed at doctoral students, as can be inferred from [17]. Considering the context-based proposal, all the actors of the university that participate in this project can benefit: the Ph.D. students, who receive support from
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CAPUBO members, and the professionals in CAPUBO who can access continuous education in mindfulness. In this sense, an environment that is aware of the well-being and mental health of its members could generate a positive effect in the university community. As described by the specialized literature, the practice of mindfulness in Chile has been used mainly in psychotherapy, and, to a lesser extent, it has been introduced at the school level [7, 14, 15]. This is why the introduction of mindfulness in advanced human capital training could become a measure that can prevent student attrition— similar to sports and artistic practices—since mindfulness can help in retention rates, considering the high attrition levels that doctoral programs have in Chile. Regarding the proposed methodology to approach a mindfulness practice in tertiary education, it is important to highlight the PAR methodology, which stems from the “crisis of sociology” that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, in that period, the classical methods of sociological validation were questioned, and the classical American functionalist school. In this respect, Fals Borda states that the crisis of sociology seems to demand an integral science of man without distinguishing artificial or accommodating frontiers between disciplines [16]. The second objective proposed in this research is to construct a participatory action research methodology at the educational level, which allows the development of a PAR initiative, which could be an innovative methodology to implement at the University Bernardo O’Higgins. Action research was constituted as a methodology committed to Marxist theory and criticism of the classical functionalist paradigm. Specifically, its critique of functionalism was defined by attacking the presupposed “search for objectivity” that related sociology to the natural sciences and its method of constructing static and immutable theoretical models in time and reality. Although its critique is methodological (to the determinism of the formalist school), it also has a political component because the classical functionalist school is identified as a set of theories and knowledge imperialist and exogenous to the Latin American reality. Thus, action research was born as a methodology that has the purpose of representing Latin American reality in a clearer and closer way, which to date has significantly surpassed the functionalist concepts of sociology, as well as its validation methods. As stated by the author, action research seeks to produce facts and translate ideas into practice [16]. In such a way that theory allows itself to be carried by reality so that it can be enriched [16]. In contrast to the scientistic knowledge that does not allow itself to be questioned by social contingency, in which science appears as a separate entity, disconnected from reality, the PAR would be defined as an alternative methodology that allows itself to be questioned by reality. Thus, the process of nomotechnics is expanded by social contingency to link environmental reality with thought and action. In this sense, action research starts from the premise that ideas can determine and transform reality and vice versa. Thus, linking sociological theory to specific social issues and problems (related to decolonization, agrarian or workers’ movements) would transform both the material (or real) situation and the theory itself.
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A mindfulness practice implemented through the methodology and ideas described above in the context of a Ph.D. program could be an appropriate approach to include all the individuals who intervene in the development of community-based research. Moreover, it can be a community-based solution to mental health problems that are a concern in university environments nowadays. It is both: a research subject and a practical response that can include students, teachers, and even the departments and Vice rectories in order to achieve better well-being in the whole community.
32.6 Conclusions The systematical application of mindfulness in university programs would diversify the functions of the university, integrating new aspects in the training of an academic community, which is empathic and compromised with the well-being of the university community and society. It should be noted that the institutionalized practice of mindfulness in work and academic contexts has its detractors, who criticize the loss of the original meaning of mindfulness. It has also been criticized that its benefits could be at the service of increment productivity in workers to increase profits, to the detriment of seeking the health and welfare of the population. Its detractors define its benefits as difficult to achieve in the short and medium term, making it a sterile practice. From other perspectives, mindfulness is considered a medical-psychological practice that would have no place in socio-occupational and academic contexts since its practice should be anchored in intimate or purely therapeutic contexts. In fact, some perspectives consider that mindfulness cannot be done without a prior psychological assessment. Hence, more research needs to be conducted to understand the subjective perspectives of practicing mindfulness and to assess the results obtained with this approach regarding mental health and the reduction of anxiety, stress, and pain. This study proposes an innovative practice for Ph.D. students at UBO. Nevertheless, our proposal has several limitations since it is based on a theoretical framework that has yet to obtain empirical results. Moreover, this theoretical proposal is based on the researcher’s and other students’ experiences, but it does not consider ethnographic exploratory techniques, such as participant observation or in-depth interviews. However, we argue that this proposal finds its validity from a PAR perspective since it begins with the primary needs of the community, in this case, the Ph.D. students. Regarding future works, this theoretical proposal will be applied in a pilot study conducted at UBO to determine the consequences of mindfulness on Ph.D. students. The main actors of the project will remain the same, but the Center for Institutional Research will lead the investigation. A mixed methodology that considers semi-structured interviews and questionaries will be implemented in students, psychology professionals, and Vice Rectory authorities to describe mindfulness’s impact on Ph.D. students. Additionally, a longitudinal study will allow us to determine the academic and health effects of this practice.
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In conclusion, mindfulness could remedy and protect people, in this case, students, from the inherent problems of life in contemporary society, especially considering that stress and high workload have become one of the problems that a large part of the population suffers nowadays. Hence, mindfulness and other practices as physical exercise can effectively counteract this contemporary situation.
References 1. González, A.: Panorama de la Educación 2019. Indicadores de la OCDE, Madrid (2019) 2. Rossi, J.L., Jiménez, J.P., Barros, P., Assar, R., Jaramillo, K., Herrera, L., Quevedo, Y., Botto, A., Leighton, C., Martínez, F.: Sintomatología depresiva y bienestar psicológico en estudiantes universitarios chilenos. Rev Med Chile. 147, 579–588 (2019) 3. Rodriguez, R.: La condición intelectual. Informa para una academia. mimesis, Santiago (2020) 4. Bauman, Z., Lyon, D.: Vigilancia Liquida. Paidos, Buenos Aires (2014) 5. Han, B.-C.: La sociedad paliativa. Herber, Barcelona (2020) 6. Rodski, S.: La neurociencia del mindfulness. Obelisco, Madrid (2021) 7. Cárcamo, J., Curin, I., Fuentes, R., Navarrete, I.: Mindfulness y educación: beneficios afectivos, interpersonales e intrapersonales en estudiantes de segundo ciclo básico de un colegio particular de Santiago (2020) 8. Varela, F.: El fenómeno de la vida. Comunicaciones Noreste Ltda, Santiago (2010) 9. Arnold, M., Osorio, F.: Introducción a los Conceptos Básicos de la Teoría General de Sistemas. Universitaria, Santiago (1998) 10. Maturana, H.: Emociones y lenguaje en educación y política. Planeta, Santiago (2020) 11. Jay, M.: La crisis de la experiencia en la era pos-subjetiva. In: Goethe Institut. pp. 9–20, Buenos Aires (2002) 12. Benjamín, W.: Experiencia y pobreza. In: Iluminaciones. pp. 123–128. Prometeo, Buenos Aires (2007) 13. Kuyken, W., Hayes, R., Barrett, B., Byng, R., Dalgleish, T., Kessler, D., Lewis, G., Watkins, E., Brejcha, C., Cardy, J., Causley, A., Cowderoy, S., Evans, A., Gradinger, F., Kaur, S., Lanham, P., Morant, N., Richards, J., Shah, P., Sutton, H., Vicary, R., Weaver, A., Wilks, J., Williams, M., Taylor, R.S., Byford, S.: Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy compared with maintenance antidepressant treatment in the prevention of depressive relapse or recurrence (PREVENT): a randomised controlled trial. Lancet 386, 63–73 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62222-4 14. Moix, J., Cladellas, M., Gayete, S., Guarch, M., Heredia, I., Parpal, G., Toledo, A., Torrent, D., Trujillo, A., Moix, J., Cladellas, M., Gayete, S., Guarch, M., Heredia, I., Parpal, G., Toledo, A., Torrent, D., Trujillo, A.: Los efectos de un programa de mindfulness en estudiantes universitarios. Clínica y Salud. 32, 23–28 (2021). https://doi.org/10.5093/CLYSA2020A24 15. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona webpage, Bienestar y desarrollo personal. https://www. uab.cat/web/investigacion/hr-excellence-in-research/bienestar-y-desarrollo-personal-134582 4064241.html. Last accessed 20 March 2023 16. Fals Borda O (1971) Ciencia propia y colonialismo intelectual. Nuevo Tiempo, Mexico DF 17. UBO: prácticas de estudiante en CAP UBO: un servicio a la comunidad. Boletín la Esc. Psicol. 1–10 (2016)
Chapter 33
Student Satisfaction in Polytechnic Higher Education: Assessment Model Based on the ECSI Index Joaquim Antunes , Adriano Costa , and Clarinda Almeida
Abstract The assessment of student satisfaction is an integral part of the concerns of those responsible for Higher Education Institutions. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to identify the determinants of students’ satisfaction in Polytechnic Higher Education. The study was based on European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI). The methodology was based on the application of a survey with a sample of 361 Polytechnic students, in order to understand which attributes students most value in a higher education institution. The results show that the attributes that most contribute to the students’ satisfaction are, in order of importance, the expectations, the quality and perceived values and the image, all presenting statistically significant values. In turn, satisfaction is the variable that most influences loyalty, which is also influenced by image and complaint resolution. The levels of global satisfaction towards the Higher Education Institutions analysed are significantly lower than the levels of other sectors, also studied in Portugal through this same methodology.
33.1 Introduction The assessment of student satisfaction is an integral part of the concerns of those responsible for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) is one of the main indicators used in different countries to study Customer Satisfaction in various sectors of activity. J. Antunes (B) CISeD—Research Centre in Digital Services, Instituto Politécnico de Viseu, Viseu, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] A. Costa CITUR/UDI/Instituto Politécnico da Guarda, Guarda, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] C. Almeida ESTGV/Instituto Politécnico de Viseu, Viseu, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_33
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In 1999, the European Organisation for Quality (EOQ), the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and Customer Satisfaction Index University Network (CSI), with the support of the European Commission, defined the bases for launching the European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) project. Portugal was one of the countries to join this European Project in 1999, but currently only 18 activity sectors are analysed using this methodology. However, none of them focuses on the higher education area as it happens in other countries [1, 2], so it will be important to assess how the level of student satisfaction is an inducer for the management of this activity sector, so relevant in the development of Portugal. However, there have been some investigations that have studied this sector, such as Eurico et al. [3] and other studies in other sectors, such as in the study of Antunes et al. [4] where that methodology was applied to the restaurant sector in Portugal. Thus, the main objective of this study is to identify the determinants of students’ satisfaction in attending the Polytechnic Higher Education (PHE) sector. The study was based on the European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI). This model integrates Customer Satisfaction as a central objective in the management of organisations, providing them with instruments to act in this field and also defends the interests of consumers, giving them the opportunity to evaluate and be heard in quality improvement processes. Although it may seem paradoxical, since the aim of this work is not to defend the commercialisation of higher education, however, there is no denying that higher education institutions compete in a market that is beginning to show signs of some decline in demand, and it is therefore necessary to develop organisational efforts to attract new students and keep the current ones. There are multiple factors that condition and transform the relationships between higher education institutions and their students. Meeting students’ needs has become a complex and urgent task for many HEIs [5]. Thus, this study aims to constitute a detailed analysis of the issue of student satisfaction regarding the service provided in educational institutions. Through the measurement of particular aspects of this problem, it will be sought to develop a structured research that allows adding scientific value to the area of knowledge of satisfaction, applied to the higher education sector. The choice of this theme is justified by its relevance as a recurring problem that has been assuming significant visibility in the framework of the quality of service provided in this sector, a sector that is considered of great importance for the development of the Portuguese economy. On the other hand, with the growing competition, the quality of the services offered has been revealed as a critical factor in the choice of institutions by the students.
33.2 Literature Review In the present research, the literature review will focus predominantly on the concept of satisfaction and the ECSI and its evolution.
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33.2.1 Satisfaction Concepts Consumer satisfaction is a concept widely discussed in the literature and on which several definitions have been proposed, without it being possible to gather consensus [6]. Given this difficulty, it is intended to outline the main definitions of satisfaction, delimiting its main characteristics. For Kotler and Keller [7], consumer satisfaction can be seen as the feeling of pleasure or disappointment resulting from the comparison of the perceived performance of a product/service in relation to customer expectations. Thus, satisfaction can be seen as the assessment made that the experience was at least as good as it was expected to be [8]. On the other hand, dissatisfaction is related to the customer’s expectations being higher than the organisations’ ability to fulfil them [9]. Thus, customers with a low level of satisfaction may jeopardise the relationship with the organisation. Conversely, customers with high levels of satisfaction usually do not look for alternatives and tend to repeat the purchase and recommend it to friends, as identified in some studies [10–12]. In recent years, several authors have dedicated themselves to the study of Customer Satisfaction of public services. Since the end of the last century and the beginning of this century, researchers have tried to model the concept of satisfaction in public services through some indicators however without much success [13–15]. Portuguese public higher education institutions are part of the public services. Therefore, the study of satisfaction in them is fundamental. In Portugal, studies such as Magalhães and Machado-Taylor [16] seek to identify the perceptions of Portuguese students about the factors of their satisfaction with higher education institutions. However, there is no Portuguese study that uses the ECSI model applied to polytechnic education. Some studies have appeared [1, 3, 17–22] in which some authors use the aforementioned model and others use an approximation to the model, seeking to measure student satisfaction at universities.
33.2.2 The European Consumer Satisfaction Index (ECSI) The ECSI model is derived from several models, namely the Swedish Customer Satisfaction Index (SCSI), introduced in 1989 [23], which was the first Customer Satisfaction Index originating in Sweden, the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) in 1994 [24] and the Norway Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSB) [25]. The Swedish model presents two antecedent factors to satisfaction: the consumer’s perceived performance of a good or service and the consumer’s expectation of the performance. In turn, consumers’ expectations are said to positively influence their satisfaction as pillar elements in the evaluation process. The ASCI was introduced in 1994 by the National Centre for Quality Research, Michigan Business School [26]. This model and its substitutes present two important
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properties: they are generic models, which can be used and applied to different organisations and sectors, and they assess satisfaction within a nomological network, which incorporates the antecedents and the subsequent ones of Customer Satisfaction [1]. ACSI defines perceived quality as the result of customers’ experiences with the product/service, and as antecedents of satisfaction. Thus, expectations are customer predictions regarding service quality, which derive from previous experiences, information received through word-of-mouth and communication made through advertising, public relations, social networks, among others. In 1996, the European Commission creates a European Customer Satisfaction Index. In 1998, the project took shape under the name ECSI—European Consumer Satisfaction Index—and gathered the adhesion of twelve European countries: Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, UK, Sweden and Switzerland. This European Customer Satisfaction Index was created with the objective of providing companies with the means to analyse annually their customers’ perception of the products/services supplied, making it a performance measurement indicator for national and European economies. In Portugal, in order to guarantee the necessary impartiality, credibility and rigour, the National Customer Satisfaction Index was developed by a team made up of representatives of the following entities: Portuguese Association for Quality (APQ); Portuguese Quality Institute (IPQ) and Higher Institute of Statistics and Information Management of the New University of Lisbon (ISEGI-UNL). Thus, the European Customer Satisfaction Index—Portugal (ECSI Portugal), is the system for measuring the quality of products and services available on the national market, to evaluate Customer Satisfaction. The indices obtained through the structural approach have a set of quite interesting properties, which we mention below [27]: • Predictive capacity—the Customer Satisfaction and customer loyalty indices are strongly correlated with the profitability of the companies and their listing on the stock exchanges, constituting as advanced indicators of that profitability; • Diagnostic capacity—this approach allows not only estimating Customer Satisfaction rates, but also diagnosing the reasons for the values assumed and the consequences on customer loyalty; • Aggregation possibility—satisfaction indices are calculated at company level, then, by successive aggregations, it is possible to calculate indices at activity sector level (company aggregation), country level (sector aggregation) and even at European level (country aggregation); • Comparability—this is a very interesting property since it not only enables satisfaction indices of different companies, industries, sectors or even countries to be compared, but also offers the possibility of making temporal comparisons, providing information on company improvement/decline as well as general trends;
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• Accuracy—the Customer Satisfaction indices obtained through the ECSI approach, in addition to having the aforementioned properties, are also estimated with an accuracy around 20% higher than the indices obtained through the traditional market research approach, which do not have such properties. The ECSI Portugal—National Customer Satisfaction Index is, therefore, a system to measure the quality of goods and services available on the national market, to evaluate Customer Satisfaction. It is developed annually by the Project Team and covers various sectors of economic activity [28]. Thus, the Customer Satisfaction model, according to ECSI Portugal, can be expressed according to Fig. 33.1. The Customer Satisfaction Index is explained by four determinants or antecedents: image; customer expectations; perceived quality and perceived value or price/quality ratio. Image intends to integrate all types of associations that customers make with the company. Expectations include not only the information that customers had in the past about the products and services offered by the company (based on their own experience, on information from third parties or on advertising and promotion campaigns), but also the anticipation they had about the company’s capacity to offer quality products and services in future. Perceived quality is defined as the customer’s judgement on the superiority or excellence of the products and/or services made available by the company. In addition to a global judgement, the perceived quality integrates the evaluation of a set of dimensions.
Fig. 33.1 Base structure of the ECSI model—Portugal. Source ECSI Portugal [28]
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Perceived value represents the quality/price relationship and is measured through two indicators: the customers’ evaluation of the quality of the company’s products and services, given the price paid for these products and services, and the evaluation of the price paid, given the quality of the company’s products and services. The model considers two consequences or performance indicators of the Satisfaction Index: loyalty and complaints. Loyalty is one of the most important indicators, given its character as a leading indicator in relation to the company’s profitability. Thus, the increase in the loyalty index constitutes the central objective of the entire strategy aimed at Customer Satisfaction. In addition to satisfaction, customer loyalty is also explained by image and complaint handling. The other consequence of satisfaction is complaint handling, admitting that unsatisfied customers tend to present more complaints than satisfied customers. This study will be based on a Consumer Satisfaction Index, the ECSI, which will allow us to analyse the quality of the services provided at the level of Polytechnic Education, highlighting its importance for HEIs to become more competitive and to project this sector towards desirable levels for Portuguese education.
33.3 Methodology The methodology used was based on a literature review on the concepts of Satisfaction and the Satisfaction Index. A face-to-face survey was conducted with ESP students in the Central Region of Portugal. The questionnaire was based on the ECSI Portugal scale. The questionnaire was applied in order to better understand the quality of service of educational establishments from the students’ point of view, for whom the HEI develops its activity, their opinion being extremely important and fundamental for the development of teaching and for the implementation of its strategic plan. According to this approach, and following the methodology of Antunes et al. [4], a questionnaire was built within the ECSI methodology, dividing the questionnaire into two parts: a first part related to the 27 items of the ECSI Portugal model and another part related to a set of questions of personal characterisation of the student. A pre-test was conducted with five students and marketing researchers, which resulted in slight adjustments. The questionnaire was delivered on paper in the classroom to students of the different years of undergraduate teaching. A total of 361 surveys were applied, which will be analysed in their different questions, using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), version 27.0.
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33.4 Results The analysis of results begins with a description of the sample in terms of demographic variables. In terms of gender, there is a predominance of males with 67% of respondents. Regarding age, the largest group is between 19 and 21 years old, with 52.4%. The average age is 21.7 years, the mode is 19 years, the minimum value is 17 years and the maximum value 58 years. Only 16.9% have ever been enrolled in other higher education institutions. The residence situation during class time is divided, with 46.8% of the students commuting daily from their residence of origin to the school and 49.6% who are from another municipality but are staying near the school (Table 33.1). Table 33.1 Demographic characterisation of the sample Variable Gender
N
%
Male
242
67.0
Female
111
30.7
Missing Total Age groups
Have you attended another higher education institution?
2.2 100.0
17–18 years old
71
19.7
19–21 years old
189
52.4
22–25 years old
60
16.6
More than 25 years
39
10.8
Missing
2.0
0.6
Total
361
100.0
Yes
61
16.9
No
296
82.0
Missing Year of course
8 361
4
1.1
Total
361
100.0
1st year
174
48.2
2nd year
103
28.5
3rd year
76
21.1
8
2.2
Missing Total
361
100.0
What is the residence status during Commuting daily from their 169 term time? residence of origin to the school
46.8
Originally from other 179 municipally, but currently living near the school
49.6
Missing
3.6
Total
13 361
100.0
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The next step was to assess the relationship between the latent variables that precede satisfaction and, in turn, the influence of this and the complaints on students’ loyalty. Thus, Table 33.2 presents the mean and standard deviation of the 27 items taken into consideration, on a Likert-type scale from 1-Strictly Disagree to 10-Strictly Agree. To verify the unidimensionality of the latent variables, we performed a principal components factor analysis of each set of items so as to find combinations of variables (factors) that explain the correlations between all pairs of variables. For the application and validation of this technique, it is necessary to assess the correlations between the variables to find out whether it is legitimate to perform a factor analysis. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) values that present the value of the measure of adequacy consider the analysis of good and very good level for all latent variables. Bartlett’s tests, which tests the null hypothesis that the correlation matrix is an identity matrix, present an associated probability of 0.000, in all constructs, which rejects the null hypothesis that the correlation matrices are an identity matrix. These tests indicate that the sets of variables in each construct are adequate to perform a factor analysis. Through the Kaiser criterion (eigenvalue greater than 1.0), a factor was found in each construct that explains a reasonable total variance in the set of variables analysed. These results attest to the unidimensionality of each latent variable. Only the complaints construct presented more than one factor. This is mainly due to the fact that students have few complaints, as well as to the high number of students’ non-responses to these questions. The internal consistency of each latent variable was then analysed using Cronbach’s alpha (α). The values of α range from 0 to 1 and the closer to 1, the greater reliability between the indicators. Most of the factors show strong internal consistency, except for the loyalty factor. The reason for the low internal consistency in the loyalty factor may be related to the fact that students have no intention of taking new training courses in future (Table 33.3). Next, we tried to find out which factors influenced satisfaction and loyalty. For this, we will use the factors found in the principal component analysis. For the complaints construct, a standardised summative scale was used. Several linear regression models were built, depending on the number of independent variables: in the case of only one dependent variable, the simple linear regression model is used, in the case of more than one independent variable, the multiple linear regression model is used. The adjusted determination coefficient (R2) is analysed, which represents a good measure of the model’s adjustment to the data. An analysis of variance to the model was also performed using Snedecor’s F-test, in which values are satisfactory and with associated significance levels lower than 0.000. The values of the linear regression coefficients are presented in Table 33.4. These values are statistically significant for a significance level greater than 0.05 or 0.10. For a better visualisation of the model with the respective coefficients between the latent variables, Fig. 33.2 is presented. The next step was to calculate the Satisfaction Index per variable, based on the average values. The data is shown in Fig. 33.3. Image, quality, expectations and
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Table 33.2 Mean and standard deviation Latent variable
Description of indicator
Image
The HEI is a reliable institution in 7.3546 what it says and does
1.83380
The HEI is stable and well positioned in the market
7.4377
1.71662
The HEI has a positive contribution to society
7.8310
1.57471
The HEI cares about its students
7.0111
1.99718
The HEI is innovative and future-oriented
7.2667
1.78074
I consider that the courses of the HEI have high quality
7.6205
1.65413
I consider that this HEI offers courses with higher quality than its main competitors
7.1639
1.73071
The HEI offers students quality care and service
6.8753
1.96737
The HEI offers accessibility to 6.9833 services through new technologies
2.07646
I believe that the HEI will continue to offer courses with the same quality in future
7.6343
1.70435
The HEI offers a wide range of courses
7.1056
1.87342
The information given by the HEI 7.0720 is clear and with high transparency
1.69159
The HEI is well located
7.8250
1.72639
I have high expectations for the overall quality of the HEI
7.2222
1.70386
The HEI offers courses that meet students’ needs
7.3778
1.63920
I have a high expectation that the courses taken at the HEI go well
7.1745
1.68655
The prices charged for the services 6.8886 are in line with the quality offered
2.03155
Given the quality of the services offered, the prices charged are adequate
6.7778
2.06187
I am completely satisfied with the HEI
6.8920
1.99080
Considering what I think is the ideal school, I think this HEI is ideal for me
6.9139
2.11924
The HEI exceeds my expectation
6.3684
2.14606
Perceived quality
Expectations
Perceived value
Satisfaction
Mean
Standard deviation
(continued)
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Table 33.2 (continued) Latent variable
Description of indicator
Mean
Standard deviation
Complaints
I have already made at least one complaint to the HEI
1.9970
2.39992
My last complaint was solved quickly
2.9095
2.80574
I have never complained, but I believe that if I did I would be treated well and the matter would be resolved quickly
6.1134
2.51328
I intend to take other courses/ training at the HEI in future
4.6480
2.87735
I would recommend the HEI to my 7.1983 friends and family
2.05861
I am not sensitive to the price of the services offered at the HEI
2.26733
Loyalty
5.4916
Table 33.3 Factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha values Constructs
KMO
T. Bartlett Approx. chi-square
Sig
No. factors
Accumulated explained variance
Cronbach alpha
Image
0.863
1026.65
0.000
1
70.80
0.894
Perceived quality
0.877
1539.07
0.000
1
57.40
0.889
Expectations
0.740
578.54
0.000
1
80.83
0.881
Perceived value 0.500
708.88
0.000
1
96.45
0.963
Satisfaction
0.754
734.47
0.000
1
84.90
0.911
Complaints
0.383
84.09
0.000
2
86.78
–
Loyalty
0.548
102.505
0.000
1
53.17
0.530
perceived value are the indicators with the highest importance. On the other hand, the complaints indicator is the one with the lowest value, which is not surprising given the small number of complaints made by students. With the exception of the perceived value indicator, all the other indicators have an average lower than the national average. From the analysis of Fig. 33.4, it can be concluded that the evaluation of Overall Satisfaction made for Higher Education is one of the lowest of all sectors of activity, only being higher than that of Transport in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon (AML).
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Table 33.4 Linear regression models Regression model
Dependent variables
Independent variables
Adjusted R2
B
Sig.
Regression 1
Expectations
Image
0.599
0.776
0.000*
Regression 2
Quality
Expectations
0.761
0.874
0.000*
Regression 3
Value
Expectations
0.455
0.294 0.401
0.000* 0.000*
Regression 4
Satisfaction
Quality
0.738
0.146 0.305 0.246 0.265
0.004* 0.000* 0.000* 0.000*
Regression 5
Complaints
Image
0.120
0.120
0.088**
Regression 6
Loyalty
Expectations
0.560
0.143 0.626 0.221
0.044* 0.000* 0.000*
*
Statistically significant for a level of sig. < 0.05 ** Statistically significant for a level of sig. < 0.10
Fig. 33.2 ECSI Portugal model applied to Polytechnic Higher Education
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Fig. 33.3 Mean values of the Satisfaction Index. Source for the HEI: survey data; for the Portugal: ECSI Portugal [28]
Fig. 33.4 Overall satisfaction based on ECSI Portugal indicators. Source for HEI: survey data; for other sectors: ECSI Portugal [28]
33.5 Conclusions This study intended to provide a detailed analysis of the theme of student satisfaction with the service provided in polytechnic higher education establishments. Through the measurement of particular aspects of this issue, an attempt was made to develop a structured investigation, which allowed adding scientific value to the area
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of knowledge of satisfaction, applied to the polytechnic higher education sector. The choice of this topic was justified by its relevance as a recurring problem that has been assuming significant visibility in the framework of the quality of service provided in this sector, which is considered to be of great importance for the development of the Portuguese economy. On the other hand, with the growing competition, the quality of the services offered has been revealed as a critical factor in the students’ choice of higher education institutions. The study allowed for the conclusion that HEIs should assess the level of student satisfaction in order to become more competitive. This study found that expectations, quality, perceived value and image have a direct influence on satisfaction, all presenting statistically significant values. Regarding loyalty, students’ satisfaction is the variable that most influences it, but there is also a positive relationship with image and complaints resolution. The use of a standardised Satisfaction Index allows for comparison with other activity sectors, based on the same methodology. In this sense, it was found that the global satisfaction evaluation made for polytechnic higher education is one of the lowest among the activity sectors analysed by the same methodology. These results should alert school management decision makers to make efforts to increase this level of satisfaction, in a market with an increasingly limited supply. Clearly, it can be concluded that the study contributes to the academia by making evident the importance of the constructs in teaching services and in the scope of management. The study contributed for HEIs to better understand which latent variables may influence their students’ satisfaction and loyalty. The main limitation of this study is the fact that it was carried out in a small number of HEIs and that the sample size was small. For future research, it is suggested to extend this study to other HEIs in order to be able to establish terms of comparison and also to other levels of education, such as CTESP and Masters. Acknowledgements This work is funded by National Funds through the FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., within the scope of the project Ref. UIDB/05583/2020. Furthermore, we would like to thank the Research Centre in Digital Services (CISeD) and the Instituto Politécnico de Viseu for their support. Thanks are also due to the Center for Research, Development and Innovation in Tourism (CiTUR), UDI—Research Unit for the Development of the Interior and the Polytechnic Institute of Guarda.
References 1. Amaral, F, Añana, E., Freitas, A.: A satisfação dos estudantes com a qualidade dos serviços prestados pelas Universidades Federais Brasileiras: proposição de um modelo de avaliação baseado no ECSI. Administração Pública e Gestão Social 15(1) (2023) 2. Bertaccini, B., Bacci, S., Petrucci, A.: A graduate’s satisfaction índex for the evaluation of the university overall quality. Social-Economic Planning Sciences 73 (2021). https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.seps.2020.100875
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Chapter 34
Didactic-Disruptive: Technological Tool for Children Who Present Slow Learning of Basic Arithmetic Operations Rubén Jerónimo Yedra , María Alejandrina Almeida Aguilar , Gerardo Arceo Moheno , Eric Ramos Méndez , Kristian Armando Pineda Castillo , and María Evilia Magaña
Abstract Didactic materials have been, for a long time, the main support to achieve the teaching–learning process of boys and girls. With the use of Information and Communication Technologies, a new proposal for disruptive teaching materials arises, which introduce a new way of teaching or learning, breaking with traditional methods and promoting creativity and innovation; having the intention of stimulating the imagination and curiosity of the students, making them actively participate in their learning process. Mathematics is one of the oldest sciences, which is in our daily lives fundamental since they help us to better understand our environment. Their study is not very pleasant for some children and adults, as they have difficulties learning specific mathematical skills, such as mental calculation or problem-solving. In this mixed-type research, the survey, interview, observation, and analysis of documents were used as a data collection tool, obtaining as a result a technological application, which aims to serve as didactic support to improve academic performance, of children who attend the first grade of primary school and who present slow learning, in handling basic arithmetic operations.
34.1 Introduction The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has allowed innovation in the transmission of new knowledge, offering students access to unlimited sources of knowledge, as well as multimedia tools that allow them to expand this
R. J. Yedra (B) · M. A. A. Aguilar · G. A. Moheno · E. R. Méndez · M. E. Magaña Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco, 86040 Villahermosa, Tabasco, México e-mail: [email protected] K. A. P. Castillo Universidad Pedagógica del Estado de Sinaloa, 80027 Culiacán, Sinaloa, México © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_34
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knowledge of information, which have had a significant impact on the functions of the educational system [1]. ICTs have revolutionized the way in which teaching and learning are taught, providing tools and resources that allow for a more accessible, inclusive, and innovative education, allowing the creation of new educational models, which have proven to be effective in terms of learning and information retention. The use of technologies can be of great benefit due to the flexibility, adaptability, and possibilities that it provides to work in the classroom, where different software, applications, and tools can be used that transform the materials into adaptive, where the content is adapted to the user needs [2].
34.2 Context Attending and learning at school is crucial for the educational and personal development of children and young people, since education is the fundamental pillar of society, since it allows people to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and values, to function in all stages of life. Galán [3] mentions that the incorporation of ICT in the classroom and its proper use can improve the quality of teaching if they are used from a pedagogical perspective as an innovative way to improve the teaching–learning processes. For the new generations of children and young people, ICTs have become habitual objects in their lives and a fundamental part of the generational identity that distinguishes them from adults. These young people are the first generation socialized under the digital culture and a digitized school, where it is common for them to incorporate digital resources into their learning routines in the classroom [4]. In the teaching–learning process, educational materials are fundamental tools, and their importance lies in their ability to make education more interactive, participatory, and functional for students. Traditional didactic materials have been used, for many years as tools for teaching in classrooms and at home, nowadays we talk about digital educational resources and materials, which Alvarez [5] defines as any material composed of digital media and produced to facilitate the development of learning activities. It is indisputable that the classic education models have not disappeared, but children, adolescents, and young people no longer learn as they did before, their ways of acquiring knowledge are changing. These different ways of teaching and learning, supported by digital systems, have reached all corners of the planet, presenting different formats according to pedagogical, psychological, philosophical, political, and sociological visions, depending on economic availability and technological contributions, which have led to disruptions, also in education [6]. The Spanish Royal Academy defines the word disruption, from the English “disruption” and from the Latin “disruptio,-¯onis” a variant of “diruptio, -¯onis” which means ‘break, fracture’ [7].
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Thus, disruptive technologies are those that alter established practices [8], promoting profound changes in processes, products, or services and that generally entail a strategy of introduction, penetration, and use that consolidates it [9]. Flavin [10] makes us know that disruption does not work when confronting an established practice but doing something new awakens people’s curiosity to want to learn something new. Disruptive technologies have arrived to transform educational processes, offering new ways of learning that are more accessible, flexible, and personalized for students. Learning in school requires students to pay attention, memorize, understand, observe, set goals, and take responsibility for their learning, where the use of effective and flexible strategies helps them retain information, understand, reason, and solve problems since learning is a complex cognitive task that cannot be fast, since it requires considerable time and periods of practice, to start building experience in the area [11]. The teaching–learning process in initial education enables an ideal space through which the boy and girl externalize their psychic, spiritual, physical, social, and affective wealth, building their personality in a dynamic, creative, and recreational way, considering what they can do and learn at a given time, depending on the stage of surgical development they are in [12]. Mathematics is a fundamental discipline in education because it helps us to understand and describe the world around us and to develop problem-solving skills and logical reasoning. They are very important for the training of all people because they constitute a powerful instrument to analyze the reality that surrounds us and to develop the capacity for criticism and understanding of the world. In this regard, Sepúlveda [13] lets us see that, in the school system, mathematics is considered a subject of great importance and occupies a privileged place in the curriculum because it is a fundamental area for intellectual development, especially of logic and critical thinking, coupled with the multiple applications it has in personal life situations. In Mexico, for example, mathematics is present in the curriculum at all educational levels, and more study hours are dedicated to it than to other subjects. Socially, high performance in mathematics is considered a manifestation of intelligence, above other subjects, a characteristic that is not achievable by all school enrollment but is reserved for a low percentage of it [14]. International research results show low performance in the area of mathematics since it is a complex phenomenon to which different causes can be attributed, which occur in the family and school context. In this regard, Minte [15], affirms that the factors associated with performance in mathematics are motivation, reinforcement of student abilities, the commitment of parents and/or guardians, and finally the educational center and that all of them impact positively the learning of their students. Mathematics is a skill that develops with practice and repetition, so a person who does not exercise regularly may forget what they have learned and have a hard time moving forward.
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In the state of Tabasco, in the Mexican Republic, there are educational spaces called Multiple Attention Centers (CAM), whose main objective is to provide preschool and elementary education to the school population with disabilities or special educational needs. At the CAM, to help develop the cognitive area of children who are slow to learn basic arithmetic operations, various teaching strategies are used, including the textbook, abacus, board games, construction games such as Lego, representation of paper bills and coins, gridded sheets, plasticine, number sheets, seeds or small stones, marbles, dominoes, among others. Learning mathematics requires constant focus and attention, and many children, when they begin their academic preparation, have problems with attention or concentration, which can cause them difficulty in understanding and applying mathematical concepts. If a person, when they are starting their learning process, does not understand the basic concepts of mathematics, they may have difficulties understanding the more advanced concepts, which they will have to learn in the different academic grades. For all the above, the proposal was made to CAM number 19, of the municipality of Cunduacán, Tabasco, in Mexico, to create a didactic material using ICT and to support in the learning process children who have slow learning of basic arithmetic operations, helping them to reinforce the contents they see inside the classroom and improve their academic performance.
34.3 Materials and Method This research study used a combination of quantitative and qualitative elements, which resulted in a mixed research approach, which involved the collection and analysis of numerical data, but also data based on observations and experiences of the participants. In this regard, Hernández-Sampieri [16] affirms that mixed research uses the strengths of both types of inquiry, combining them and trying to minimize their potential weaknesses. As data collection tools, we first used the unstructured interview, observation, and survey; also, for the closing of the research, we used the analysis of documents, as described below: (a) At first, the unstructured interview was used to detect the needs that the technological implementation with didactic characteristics will cover since the communication was established between the researcher and the teacher in charge of caring for the children who present slow learning of basic arithmetic operations, to obtain detailed and specific information on perceptions, opinions, experiences, and perspectives to the questions raised on the proposed topic, also because it is quick, simple, and easy to apply instrument.
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(b) Observation was used to collect information about the behavior, interactions, and environment of the participants in natural situations without any kind of intermediation. (c) The survey that was applied to the teacher in charge of the group of children who present slow learning of basic arithmetic operations was also used to obtain information on the topics that are reviewed daily in class and that help the children to reinforce their knowledge. (d) In the last phase of the investigation, the analysis of documents was used, which was required for the interpretation and analysis of the academic achievement, of the children, after having used the technological implementation.
34.4 Characteristics of the Target Population In this study, a study population was made up of 8 boys and girls, between 6 and 7 years old, who was in the first year of a primary school of CAM number 19 in the municipality of Cunduacán, Tabasco, and who present slow learning of the basic arithmetic operations. These types of children have difficulties understanding basic mathematical concepts, such as the relationship between quantities and numbers, the operations of addition and subtraction, or the comparison of numbers. They may also have difficulty retaining mathematical information and may require more repetition and practice to remember. In some cases, these children have difficulties maintaining attention and concentration on mathematical tasks.
34.5 Technology Implementation Design Model For the technological implementation with didactic characteristics, it is necessary to have a general vision of the application, for which a software engineering process is important, which is in charge of the process of design, creation, testing, maintenance, and software documentation, defining a model to control the life cycle of the software, the programming to be used, and also encompassing the methodology for the design of the software content [17]. The model used in this research was the evolutionary prototype (see Fig. 34.1), which is a flexible and adaptable software development methodology that focuses on the construction of functional prototypes to obtain feedback and continuously improve the software in such a way that ensures that the developer, the user, and the client agree on what is needed, as well as the solution that is proposed for said need and in this way minimize risk and uncertainty in development [18].
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Fig. 34.1 Evolutionary prototype model (Source Universidad de Salamanca)
34.6 Results As a result of this research, a technological tool with didactic characteristics was implemented, which aims to serve as a didactic support for learning outside the classroom, for children who present slow learning, in the management of basic arithmetic operations in the first grade of primary school, contributing to improve their academic performance, by interacting with the various elements that were contemplated within this technological product. Figure 34.2 shows the main screen of the technological tool with didactic characteristics, in which the six modules that compose it are shown, which are: Numbers, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, and Units-Tens. To access any of these topics is enough for the user to “click” on some of the buttons that exist. Figure 34.3 shows the use of the “multiplication” option. First, the exercise is shown for the boy or girl to analyze and choose the correct answer from a set of buttons. If you choose the wrong answer, then a disapproving digital image is
Fig. 34.2 Technological application modules
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presented. Finally, if the choice of the answer was correct, a digital image is shown that expresses approval. For the reinforcement of the mathematical operations, the same procedure was used for the basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Figure 34.4 shows the use of the “Division” option. First, the exercise is shown so that the child can analyze it and choose the correct answer from a set of buttons. If you choose the wrong answer, then a disapproving digital image is presented. Finally, if the choice of the answer was correct, a digital image is shown that expresses approval. In addition to the basic mathematical operations that are presented to the boys and girls for their use, the theme of “Units, Tens and Hundreds” (Fig. 34.5) and also the theme of “Geometric Figures” were included in the technological tool. After having elaborated on the technological tool, it was provided to the children in the sample of this study so that they could interact with it, which made it possible
Fig. 34.3 Example of the use of multiplication operations
Fig. 34.4 Example of the use of division operations
Fig. 34.5 Module of the theme “Units, Tens and Hundreds”
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to detect that the average number of exercises solved correctly in class increased for the various topics. Figure 34.6 shows the percentages before using the tool and after using it. Thus, it was also possible to observe that the average number of mistakes when carrying out the exercises during his class in the classroom decreased in the different subjects. Figure 34.7 shows the percentages before using the tool and after using it.
Fig. 34.6 Average number of exercises solved for the different topics
Fig. 34.7 Average errors in reviewed topics
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34.7 Conclusion Nowadays, the use of technology as a didactic support for the learning of boys and girls can help to significantly improve the quality of the teaching and learning process since they can have access to specific learning materials that meet their needs and interests. As a product of this research work, a technological tool with didactic characteristics was implemented, whose main purpose is to support children from the Multiple Attention Center (CAM) in the municipality of Cunduacán, Tabasco, who present slow learning of basic arithmetic operations. Children who have difficulty learning basic arithmetic facts may need more time and additional instruction to develop a solid understanding of fundamental math concepts, and technology-mediated instructional materials can help children learn more interactively. In this research, a technological tool with didactic characteristics for the CAM population was implemented, but it does not limit it to the fact that it can be used in a school or institute that attends to children with the same problem addressed here; it could also be used as didactic support with children who are in the first grade of primary school since they are infants who are beginning their learning process.
References 1. Sánchez, M.R.G., Añorve, J.R., Alarcón, G.G.: Las TIC en la educación superior, innovaciones y retos/The ICT in higher education, innovations and challenges. RICSH Revista Iberoamericana de las Ciencias Sociales y Humanísticas 6(12), 299–316 (2018). https://doi.org/10.23913/ ricsh.v6i12.135 2. Alonso-Sainz, E.: Las TIC en la etapa de educación infantil: una mirada crítica de su uso y reflexiones para las buenas prácticas como alternativa educativa. Vivat Academia. Revista De Comunicación 155, 241–263 (2022). https://doi.org/10.15178/va.2022.155.e1371 3. Galán Carvajal, M.: Las TIC como herramienta para la inclusión educativa en Educación Primaria. [Tesis de Licenciatura, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad de Jaén]. (2019). Repositorio de UJ. https://tauja.ujaen.es/bitstream/10953.1/10272/1/ TFG_Las_TIC_como_herramienta_para_la_Educacin_Inclusiva_en_Educacin_Primaria.pdf 4. Gallardo Fernández, I.M., Mariño Fernández, R., Vega Navarro, A.: Creación de materiales didácticos digitales y uso de tecnologías por parte de los docentes de Primaria. Un estudio de casos. Revista Iberoamericana De Educación 85(1), 39–60 (2021). https://doi.org/10.35362/ rie8514063 5. Alvarez Santizo, M.E.: Recursos y materiales didácticos digitales. 1er. Ed. División de Desarrollo Académico (2021) 6. García Aretio, L.: Educación a distancia y virtual: calidad, disrupción, aprendizajes adaptativo y móvil. RIED-Revista Iberoamericana De Educación a Distancia 20(2), 9–25 (2017). https:// doi.org/10.5944/ried.20.2.18737 7. Real Academia Española.: Diccionario de la lengua española (23.ª ed.) (2022). https://dle. rae.es/. Last accessed 10/04/2023 8. Zambrano Romero, W., Meza Hormaza, J.A.: Impacto de las tecnologías disruptivas en el proceso de enseñanza aprendizaje: caso UTM online. Revista Científica UISRAEL 9(1), 29–47 (2022). https://doi.org/10.35290/rcui.v9n1.2022.513
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9. Vidal Ledo, M.J., Carnota Lauzán, O., Rodríguez Díaz, A.: Tecnologías e innovaciones disruptivas. Revista Cubana de Educación Médica Superior. 33(1), 1–13 (2019) 10. Flavin, M.: Disruptive conduct: the impact of disruptive technologies on social relations in higher education. Innov. Educ. Teach. Int. 53(1), 1–13 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1080/147 03297.2013.86633 11. Stella Vosniadou, S.: Cómo aprenden los niños. Academia Internacional de Educación (2006). https://www.uv.mx/rmipe/files/2017/02/Como-aprenden-los-ninos.pdf. Last accessed 10/04/ 2023 12. Solórzano-Solórzano, S.S., Rivera-Matute, K.A., Reyes-Pico, N.P., Salazar-Guaranda, M.C.: El proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje y su incidencia en el área socio-afectivo de los niños y niñas de educación inicial de la Unidad Educativa Experimental Fiscal “15 de Octubre” de la ciudad de Jipijapa. Revista Polo del Conocimiento. 35(47), 46–65 (2019). https://doi.org/10. 23857/pc.v4i7.1021 13. Sepúlveda, A., Díaz-Levicoy, D., Minte, A.: Deficiente rendimiento en matemática: análisis desde la perspectiva de los alumnos de Educación Básica chilena. Rev. Espacios 40(23), 27–34 (2019) 14. García González, M. del S., Cortés Ortega, J., & Rodríguez Vásquez, F. M.: “Aprender matemáticas es resolver problemas”: Creencias de estudiantes de bachillerato acerca de las matemáticas. IE Revista De Investigación Educativa De La REDIECH, 11, e726 (2020). https:// doi.org/10.33010/ie_rie_rediech.v11i0.726 15. Minte Münzenmayer, A, Sepúlveda Obreque, A., Díaz-Levicoy, D., Payahuala Vera, H.: Aprender matemática: dificultades desde la perspectiva de los estudiantes de Educación Básica y Media. Revista ESPACIOS. 41(9), 30 (2020) 16. Hernández-Sampieri, R., Fernández C.C., Pilar Baptista L.M.P.: Metodología en Investigacion. 6ta. Ed. Mexico: McGRAW-HILL (2014) 17. Systems Group.: La Ingeniería de software ¿Qué es y qué utilidad tiene? (2019) https:// systemsgroup.es/tecnologias-de-la-informacion/la-ingenieria-de-software-que-es-y-que-uti lidad-tiene/32363/. Last accessed 10/04/2023 18. García Peñalvo, F.J., García Holgado, A.: Tema 3: Modelos de proceso. Universidad de Salamanca (Dpto. de Informática y Automática) (2018). https://repositorio.grial.eu/bitstream/grial/ 1142/1/IS_I%20Tema%203%20-%20Modelos%20de%20Proceso.pdf. Last accessed 10/04/ 2023
Chapter 35
Relationship Between Performance and Psychosocial Factors in Teachers of Private Educational Institutions in Quito—Ecuador Fausto Pazmiño , David Martínez , M. Xavier López , and Renato M. Toasa
Abstract The present study was carried out in order to establish the relationship between performance and psychosocial factors. The two variables are evaluated annually, so the interest in knowing if there is a relationship between them will allow us to take action plans that improve performance, work environment and workers’ mental health. Psychosocial factors have gained greater strength in recent years and are subject to research on their relationship between workers, their work and social environment. The result of this study indicates that there is no relationship between psychosocial factors and the performance of teachers in private educational institutions. The general performance had an average of 90%, this percentage was maintained at the different risk levels such as high, medium and low in all dimensions of the psychosocial factors under study.
F. Pazmiño · R. M. Toasa (B) Universidad Tecnológica Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] F. Pazmiño e-mail: [email protected] D. Martínez Universidad de Guayaquil, Guayaquil, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] M. X. López Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ambato, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_35
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35.1 Introduction 35.1.1 Motivation One of the main organizational objectives is to improve the productivity of organizations, with the commitment of employees. “To ensure that objectives are met and work is performed as intended, managers monitor and evaluate performance. Actual performance is compared with the objectives set. If those objectives have not been achieved, it is the manager’s job to correct the situation” [1]. “Job satisfaction refers to the overall attitude a person has toward his or her job. If an individual has a high level of job satisfaction, he or she will undoubtedly have a positive attitude toward his or her job. In contrast, one who feels dissatisfied will exhibit a negative attitude” [1]. “Early industrial or organizational psychologists studied the problems of fatigue, boredom and other work factors that tended to impede efficient performance”. “In more recent times, their contributions have expanded into areas such as learning, perception, personality, emotions, training, leadership effectiveness, motivational needs and forces, job satisfaction, decision-making processes, performance appraisals, attitude measurement, personnel selection techniques, job design and job stress” [2]. “However, there is currently an alarming situation in the teaching profession, since as shown by the International Labor Organization (ILO), in recent years there has been an increase in sick leave due to psychiatric disorders, mostly in the primary and secondary stages (22%), originated by all the stressful circumstances at the family, social and/or work level that surround them” [3, 4]. “The high load of interactions that teachers face and the emotional demands, are causing the level of satisfaction with job performance to decline, sometimes even generating effects on what and how it is taught” [4, 5]. Finally, collaborators are a key capital for organizational efficiency. “The quality of work and service is related to the ability of individuals to meet the objectives of the jobs”. “The physical, mental and social well-being of workers can increase motivation and the bottom line in performance”. Mental overload and the high responsibility that workers in an educational institution have when working with children and adolescents are dimensions that can cause stress and in turn develop psychosomatic illnesses in workers that can decrease their performance. “In the administration and management of organizations, the managerial function finds its essence and strategic meaning in the ability to inject incentive and motivation for action”. From the point of view of managers, to manage an organization or a work team is, to a large extent, to manage the structure, functions and work scenario. To do so, they introduce results and rewards that ensure that team members are involved in the tasks that lead to the objectives and develop a functional culture and interpersonal relationships that guarantee their job satisfaction [6]. “In the psychosocial environment we broadly identify risks related to the organization of work and human relationships that occur in the work environment”. “With
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reference to interpersonal relationships we can find ourselves facing the problematic related to violence in the work environment, social support, information and communication”. It is also known that the individual’s job satisfaction is a decisive factor. “Then, knowing how they rate their work environment, their relationship with supervision and the resources available for their work make up one more element that must be taken into account to manage commitment [7]”.
35.1.2 Related Works The subject of study is of great scientific interest; some important works are detailed below. The following conclusion on a study conducted points out, “psychosocial risks negatively influence the work performance of university teachers and constitute brakes to the quality of academic, research and engagement processes. Preventing risks, developing plans to mitigate their effects is a task of unquestionable value for the institution and especially for teachers” [8]. The Ministry of Labor “in the guide for the implementation of the psychosocial risk prevention program points out:” “Since some years it has been considered that mental illnesses affect the performance of workers; however, research has revealed that situations in the work environment called psychosocial risk can contribute, produce, aggravate mental and physical health problems”. Examples of these situations could be: “the perception of work overload that has been associated with accidents in young workers and the lack of control over the work environment that harms health. It has been found that psychosocial risk can also generate depression, anxiety, irritability and sleep disturbances” [9]. “Psychosocial factors can be favorable or unfavorable for the development of the work activity and for the individual’s quality of work life”. “In the first case they contribute positively to the personal development of individuals, while when they are unfavorable they have detrimental consequences for their health and wellbeing”. “In this case we speak of psychosocial risk factors or sources of occupational stress and they have the potential to cause psychological, physical, or social harm to individuals”. “There are numerous studies that have concluded that psychosocial risks are agents capable of deteriorating the health of people during the performance of their work and even outside of it” [6]. “Occupational health presents statistics of important consideration worldwide. Approximately 2.2 million deaths are work-related, 270 million people are injured and 160 million people fall ill due to work-related causes”. “Likewise, at the economic level, the costs due to occupational accidents, occupational diseases, compensation, lost work days, interruptions in production, medical expenses and others, constitute approximately 4% of the world’s gross domestic product” [10]. “Psychosocial factors are defined as the set of circumstances present in the work context and external to the organization”. “These factors influence the worker and the organization in various ways”. “The influence on the worker and his quality of
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life can be positive, stimulating personal growth and development and the achievement of organizational goals”. “As well as it can also be negative, as noted above, becoming risk factors, generating burnout, job dissatisfaction, low commitment to the organization”. “In the short term it becomes a source of work stress causing physical, psychological and social damage to the worker” [11]. “To justify the study on the relationship between psychosocial risks and job performance, it is important to analyze certain theoretical foundations, which allow me to determine the importance and build an objective study”. Psychosocial risks are: “those conditions present in a work situation directly related to the organization of the work, the content of the work and the performance of the task, and which present themselves with the capacity to affect the development of the work and the health of the worker” [10]. “Performance evaluation consists of identifying, measuring and improving the performance of workers in a company” [12]. “Management, as a discipline, is responsible for the achievement of organizational objectives through the efficient use of material, human and economic resources” [12]. “Administration has to do with coordinating and supervising the work activities of other people, so that they are performed efficiently and effectively” [13]. Evaluation is a fundamental element within the HR policy, it affects each and every employee, from management (achieving a higher quality of our HR), to evaluators and evaluated, providing the former with greater knowledge of the positive and negative aspects of their employees and the latter with the necessary information about their own level of performance [14]. “Teacher Performance: A quality teacher is one who provides learning opportunities to all students and contributes, through his or her training, to build the society we aspire for our country”. “The purpose of the teacher performance standards is to foster in the classroom a teaching that allows all Ecuadorian students to achieve the exit profiles or learning declared by the national curriculum for General Basic Education and for the Baccalaureate” [15]. Finally, “psychosocial factors are the conditions present in a work situation directly related to: the organization of the work, the content of the job, the performance of the task and even the environment, which have the capacity to affect the development of the work and the health of the collaborators” [15]. “The expressions work organization and organizational factors are often used interchangeably with psychosocial factors to refer to working conditions that can lead to stress and this at the same time have an impact on teachers’ work performance”.
35.2 Methodology A descriptive, documentary and field study will be used in order to determine the properties or characteristics of a population.
35 Relationship Between Performance and Psychosocial Factors … Table 35.1 Response options of the psychosocial risk assessment questionnaire
387
Response option
Score
Completely agree
4
Partially agree
3
Slightly agree
2
Disagree
1
“The questionnaire measures global organizational conditions that are related to social support among peers and/or from bosses at work, clarity regarding tasks, quality of leadership”. “The questionnaire does not measure an individual situation, nor does it allow making a diagnosis of psychiatric pathology” [9]. For this reason, the results are general by organization but not by worker, the questionnaire is anonymous in order to keep the confidentiality of the questionnaire. “In this context the questions of the questionnaire were formulated in a simple and concise vocabulary”. “The response options were formulated on a Likert scale ranging from completely agree, partially agree, slightly agree and disagree, each response option was assigned a score from 1 to 4 as given in Table 35.1”, and Table 35.2 gives the dimensions of psychosocial factors. Risk Levels [9] High Risk Level—“The risk is of high potential impact on the safety and health of people, the levels of danger are intolerable and can generate harmful effects on the health and physical integrity of people immediately. Safety and prevention measures must be applied continuously and according to the specific need identified to avoid an increase in probability and frequency”. Medium Risk Level—“The risk has a moderate potential impact on safety and health and may compromise them in the medium term, causing harmful effects on health, physical integrity and occupational diseases. If the corresponding safety and prevention measures are not applied continuously and in accordance with the specific need identified, the impacts may be generated with greater probability and frequency”. Low Risk Level—“The risk is of minimal potential impact on safety and health, it does not generate harmful effects in the short term. These effects can be avoided through periodic monitoring of the frequency and probability of occurrence and occurrence of occupational disease, the actions will be focused on ensuring that the level is maintained”. The dimensions to be analyzed are psychosocial dimensions. • Workload and rhythm of work. Set of mental and physical requirements to which a person is subjected in their work, overwork or insufficient work, time and speed to perform a certain task, which can be constant or variable. • Competency development. “Opportunities to develop competencies (skills, abilities, knowledge, knowledge, attitudes of people) in accordance with the current demands of work and apply them in the work environment”.
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Table 35.2 Dimensions of the psychosocial risk assessment questionnaire Dimensión
Total number of items
Number of item in the questionnaire
Workload and pace of work
4
1, 2, 3, 4
Development of competencies
4
5, 6, 7, 8
Leadership
6
9,10, 11, 12, 13, 14
Margin of action and control
4
15, 16, 17, 18
Work organization
6
19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24,
Recovery
5
25, 26, 27, 28, 29
Support and support
5
30, 31, 32, 33, 34
Other important points
24
35–58
Other important points: discriminatory harassment
4
35, 38, 53, 56
Other important points: workplace 2 harassment
41, 50
Other important points: sexual harassment
2
43, 48
Other important points: workaholism
5
36, 45, 51, 55 y 57
Other important points: working conditions
2
40, 47
Other important points: dual presence (work–family)
2
46,49
Other important points: job and emotional stability
5
37, 39, 42, 52, 54
Other important items: self-perceived health
2
44, 58
• “Leadership. Personal characteristics and skills to lead, coordinate, provide feedback, motivate, modify team behaviors, influence people in achieving objectives, share a vision, collaborate, provide information, dialogue, recognize achievements, among others”. • “Margin of action and control. Measure in which a person participates in decisionmaking in relation to his or her role at work (work methods and pace, schedules, environment, other work factors)”. • “Work organization. It contemplates the forms of communication, technology, the mode of distribution and designation of work, as well as the qualitative and quantitative demands of work”. • “Recovery. Time allocated for rest and energy recovery after performing physical and/or mental effort related to work; as well as time allocated for recreation, distraction, family life time, and other extra-work social activities”.
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• “Support. Formal and informal actions and resources applied by senior managers and coworkers to facilitate the solution of problems raised in the face of labor and non-labor issues”. The sample “For the calculation of the sample, the following calculation formula is applied”: Sample size = 1
z 2 × p(1− p) 2 ) ( 2e z × p(1− p) + e2 N
N = population size − e = margin of error (percentage expressed to decimal places) − z = z-score. Total, population: 14,198 9% margin of error Confidence level: 95% Total, sample: 116.
35.3 Results The results obtained for the psychosocial dimensions under study with performance are as follows: Each dimension was analyzed with the mean performance for each risk level, for this the SPSS STATISTIC software was used (Table 35.3). In reference to the work rhythm dimension, the different levels of risk keep a similarity in the percentage of performance without observing a condition that allows indicating that in this dimension if the level of risk affects the performance. “A psychosocial risk factor, which can affect teachers as the workload due to the different activities they perform such as: academic and administrative tasks do not affect the performance level which maintains an average of 90%” (Table 35.4). Table 35.3 Relationship of the workload dimension with performance
“Pace of work”
Performance Media
“Low risk”
90.88
“Medium risk”
90.55
“High risk”
90.70
390 Table 35.4 Relationship of the workload dimension with performance
Table 35.5 Relationship of the leadership dimension with performance
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“Competency development”
Performance Media
“Low risk”
90.75
“Medium risk”
90.66
“High risk”
–
“Leadership”
Performance Media “Low risk”
90.87
“Medium risk”
89.80
“High risk”
93.42
The competency development dimension does not evidence a high risk, it maintains a medium and low risk level, the level of performance does not vary significantly in relation to the risk levels. “Training and development in teachers of private educational institutions is not a psychosocial risk factor that affects performance, it is even a dimension that does not generate risk within this study group” (Table 35.5). The leadership dimension, which is characterized by personal abilities to direct, provide feedback, motivate and influence, does not affect performance; a high risk level maintains a higher level of performance than the others (Table 35.6). The dimension, action and control at a high risk level has a slight decrease in the level of performance, this dimension is related to the ability of the worker to make decisions about his role, work rhythm, work methods (Table 35.7). Table 35.6 Relationship of the action and control dimension with performance
Table 35.7 Relationship of the work organization dimension with performance
“Action and control”
Performance Media
“Low risk”
90.89
“Medium risk”
90.48
“High risk”
88.88
“Work organization”
Performance Media
“Low risk”
90.68
“Medium risk”
91.20
“High risk”
89.08
35 Relationship Between Performance and Psychosocial Factors … Table 35.8 Relationship of the recovery dimension with performance
Table 35.9 Relationship of the support dimension with performance
“Recovery”
391
Performance Media “Low risk”
90.61
“Medium risk”
90.86
“High risk”
90.41
“Support”
Performance Media “Low risk”
90.92
“Medium risk”
90.02
“High risk”
91.38
The work organization dimension, is related to the ability to develop in an organized manner the activities during the workday, although the high risk shows a lower percentage of performance than the others, it is not significant (Table 35.8). In the recovery dimension related to rest time, energy recovery, as well as recreational activities, it is not evident that performance is affected by the level of risk (Table 35.9). In the support dimension related to the support received by the worker from bosses and colleagues for job performance, a high performance average is maintained, which does not show that this dimension has an impact on it.
− 0.051
− 0.126
0.177
116
Pearson correlation
Sig. (bilateral)
N
116
0.586
Pace of work
Support
Pearson’s coefficient was used for the correlation analysis
Performance
Correlations
116
0.614
− 0.047
Leadership
116
0.846
− 0.018
Competence development
116
0.204
− 0.119
Action and control
116
0.876
− 0.015
Work organization
116
0.840
0.019
Recovery
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“The correlation coefficient can take a range of values from +1 to −1. A value of 0 indicates that there is no association between the two variables. A value greater than 0 indicates a positive association, i.e., as the value of one variable increases, so does the value of the other. A value less than 0 indicates a negative association; i.e., as the value of one variable increases, the value of the other decreases”. As the results approach zero, there is no relationship between performance variables and psychosocial factors.
35.4 Conclusions Lately, psychosocial factors are considered one of the most influential factors on workers in their daily activities, due to issues related to stress, mental fatigue and psychosomatic diseases that may occur, and this may be related to the overall performance of an individual. The present work reflects that the psychosocial factors under study are not related to performance, the different dimensions such as work load and rhythm, development of competencies, leadership, margin of action and control, work organization, recovery and support and support, do not affect the performance of teachers of private educational institutions in the city of Quito. The psychosocial factors were evaluated by means of the psychosocial risk questionnaire applied to the workers, this study is carried out annually since it is part of the psychosocial risk prevention program requested by the Ministry of Labor, likewise the teacher evaluation is applied by requirement of the Ministry of Education. The psychosocial factors under study do not reflect a major impact on overall performance. However, a more in-depth study can be carried out by applying another test to validate this research. Teachers are not influenced by the type of leadership in the institution and maintain a good level of performance. Dimensions such as workload and pace, work organization, support and action and control do not significantly affect teaching performance. The development of competence does not show a high risk and therefore does not affect teaching performance. Recovery, such as rest time to take energy to perform the activities, did not affect the teachers’ performance either. “Finally, a dependency-independence relationship between performance and psychosocial factors is not identified”.
References 1. Robbins, S.P., Coulter, M., Staines, M.O.: Administración, no. 658/R63mE/5a. ed. Prentice Hall México DF (1996) 2. Robbins, S.P., Judge, T.A.: Comportamiento Organizacionakl. México: PEARSON EDUCACIÓN (2009). Accessed: 10 March 2023. Available: https://frrq.cvg.utn.edu.ar/ pluginfile.php/15550/mod_resource/content/0/ROBBINScomportamiento-organizacional13a-ed-_nodrm.pdf
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3. Yin, H., Lee, J.C.K., Zhang, Z., et al.: Exploring the relationship among teachers’ emotional intelligence, emotional labor strategies and teaching satisfaction. Teach. Teach. Educ. 35, 137– 145 (2013) 4. Puertas Molero, P., et al.: La inteligencia emocional en la formación y desempeño docente: una revisión sistemática, Rev. española orientación y Psicopedag. (2018) 5. Piechurska-Kuciel E., Szyszka, M.: The ecosystem of the foreign language learner (2015) 6. Editorial, C.: Manual de recursos humanos: formación para el empleo (2016) 7. Sánchez Fernández, M.D.: Manual Gestión de recursos humanos (2013) 8. Samaniego, J.D.F., Suárez, N.A.C.: Riesgos psicosociales y su influencia en el desempeño laboral de los docentes universitarios. Didasc@ lia Didáctica y Educ. 9(4), 53–68 (2018) 9. de Trabajo, M.: Guía para la implementación del programa de prevención de riesgos psicosociales (2018). Available: https://www.trabajo.gob.ec/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Guia-parala-implementacion-del-programa-de-prevencion-de-riesgo-psicosocial.pdf?x42051 10. (OIT) Organización Internacional del Trabajo: Seguridad y salud en el trabajo. https://www. ilo.org/global/topics/safety-and-health-at-work/lang--es/index.htm 11. Schaufeli, W.B., Salanova, M.L.: ? ‘ Cómo evaluar los riesgos psicosociales en el trabajo. Prevención, Trab. y Salud 20(1), 4–9 (2002) 12. Villalpando, R.F., et al.: Administración de recursos humanos. Editorial Digital UNID (2016) 13. Robbins, S.P.: Comportamiento organizacional. Pearson educación (2004) 14. Ribes Giner, G., Perello Marin, R., Herrero Blasco, A.: Dirección de recursos humanos: gestión de personas (2018) 15. de Educación, M.: Estándares de gestión escolar y desempeño profesional directivo y docente (2021). https://educacion.gob.ec/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2017/12/2017-ESTAND ARES-DE-GESTION-ESCOLAR-Y-DESEMPENO-PROFESIONAL-DIRECTIVO-Y-DOC ENTE.pdf
Chapter 36
Estimation of Income Tax Collection in Ecuador Galo Geovanny García-García , Andrés Ramos-Alvarez , and Odette Pantoja-Díaz
Abstract The objective of the research is to estimate the collection of income tax in Ecuador for the fiscal period 2022 through the application of a statistical model of integrated autoregressive time series using ARIMA moving averages. For this study, a predictive investigation is carried out because a future forecast is obtained as a result; the inductive method is used since it is based on premises in order to draw general conclusions. This research is carried out under the Box-Jenkins methodology, using the free software R-Studio. The data used for this forecast were the values detailed in the collection statistics published on the website of the Internal Revenue Service corresponding to the periods from January 2015 to December 2021. Following the phases for the ARIMA modeling, proposed by Box-Jenkins, once the order of the model has been obtained and it has been concluded that it is sufficiently adjusted to make forecasts, the quantitative results are obtained: an income tax collection forecast for 2022 and an income tax collection trend forecast for 2022.
36.1 Introduction According to the statistics published on the website of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the negative impact that collection suffered in the 2020 period can be observed, and despite a slight recovery in 2021, it still does not exceed what was obtained in the previous year, the last pre-pandemic year [1]. In the explanations given in the Technical Report on the General State Budget (GSB) for the year 2021, it emphasizes the direct effect that the COVID-19 crisis had on public finances: the restrictions taken as measures to stop the pandemic led to little dynamism in the economy, mainly affecting the permanent income of the PGE.
G. G. García-García Servicio de Rentas Internas, Quito, Ecuador A. Ramos-Alvarez (B) · O. Pantoja-Díaz Universidad Tecnológica Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_36
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The same document indicates that tax revenues for the year 2021 will reach 41.92% of the resources considered to finance the PGE. The income tax (IT), in Ecuador, taxes the income that is obtained by natural persons or companies in the Ecuadorian territory, under the principle of taxation at source; likewise, it taxes the income that is obtained abroad by residents of Ecuador, according to the principle of taxation by residence, as established in the Internal Tax Regime Law, published in the Official Gazette No. 463 of November 17, 2004. The tax administration, in Ecuador, collects income tax in the following ways: • Annual IR declaration, mandatory for companies and for natural persons that exceed the deducted basic rate. • Withholdings at source made in purchase and/or sale operations by taxpayers are classified as withholding agents. • In advance, this concept was considered mandatory payment until 2019, and from then on, it has the category of voluntary payment. • IR statement for inheritance, legacies, and donations. • During the 2020 and 2021 periods, what was established under the microenterprise regime was collected, and from the year 2022, the collection is expected under the entrepreneurs regime. The SRI, as an entity with the power to collect income tax, presents on its website the historical information on tax collection for both the current period and previous periods in order to facilitate the analysis, interpretation, and understanding of these statistical series. The objective of the research is to estimate the collection of income tax in Ecuador for the fiscal period 2022 through the application of a statistical model of integrated autoregressive time series using ARIMA moving averages. The model makes it possible to estimate the behavior of income tax collection and thereby develop a greater programming of the general state budget, for which the income from said tax represents a determined percentage.
36.2 Theoretical Framework 36.2.1 Econometrics and Econometric Models Econometric models essentially help to explain the past behavior of variables and estimate their future performance. The application of these models has covered several fields of science, ranging from their development to forecast more polluting time periods at the atmospheric level in the environmental climate field to their use to obtain forecasts of the GDP of any country in macroeconomics [2]. So, a predictive model analyzes data from events that have occurred and, from that, provides new knowledge for better decision-making. Many companies seek to obtain predictions about their growth and their environment in order to make the
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right decisions; this fact entails the use of probabilities associated with the prediction process, i.e., the use of statistical and econometric models. On the microeconomic side, a reliable source of time series is accounting data [3]. The integrated autoregressive moving average, or ARIMA models, are models that have had an exponential development since 1970, when the book by Box and Jenkins was published that deals with these parametric models whose purpose is to achieve that the series is represented by temporal interrelation of your variables [4].
36.2.2 Application of Predictive Models In the macroeconomic field, predictive models have been of great contribution as tools to explain different variables related to the behavior of the economy and specifically taxes. Some more relevant articles are indicated below. The article “Econometric model of the relationship between the fiscal pressure and the economic growth of Ecuador in the period 2007–2016”, published in the Observatory of the Latin American Economy magazine, recommends expanding the sample and therefore developing time series models such as the ARIMA model in order that future studies achieve better results [5]. In August 2020, in magazine 131 of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), the development of an indicator that shows collection efficiency for the highest-collected taxes in Ecuador, the tax on value added and income tax, is intended to be an instrument that helps to close tax gaps and improve the collection efficiency of the tax administration. In this research, the X11-ARIMA method is used to seasonally adjust the variables [6]. In the June 2020 issue of the magazine Espacios, an article was published that sought to establish the determining factors of the Foreign Currency Outflow Tax (FCOT) and its influence on Foreign Investment (IE) in Ecuador. In this study, an ARMA model was used, whose results concluded, among other things, that despite there being a small relationship in the short term, the ISD does not affect EI in Ecuador in the long term [7]. Likewise, in June 2021, the magazine Dilemas Contemporáneos presents an article in which it is proposed to carry out an analysis and prediction of tax collection in Ecuador in the face of COVID-19 with the application of the ARIMA model; among its conclusions, it indicates that “this model presents projections of tax collection with favorable results and with acceptable margins of error” [8]. In Prospectivas UTC Revista de Ciencias Administrativas y Económicas, in volume July 4–December 2021, an article is published that proposes ARIMA econometric modeling of foreign direct investment and gross fixed capital formation in the Ecuadorian economy during the period 2019–2020, in which it is concluded that “in times of crisis and constant changes in emerging economies, such as ours, research work must continue through econometric models regarding national accounts in order to find new discoveries in the financial area and economic” [9].
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In the research “ARIMA models for the prediction of the joint cost of flight oxygen and other gases in the Air Force” once the results of the cost prediction are obtained through the ARIMA econometric model, it is evaluated by six consecutive quarters, reaching the conclusion that there are no mismatches between what was projected with the model and what was actually spent [10]. In the article “ARIMA econometric modeling of foreign direct investment and gross fixed capital formation in the Ecuadorian economy during the period 2019– 2020”, it is concluded that it can be used for forecasting with care in its interpretation and with updates of actual information at least on an annual basis [9].
36.3 Methodology In the present work, predictive research was used because it seeks to estimate future situations and behaviors of IR collection in Ecuador, as well as the inductive method since it will start from knowledge of specific characteristics to reach conclusions in a general way. At the same time, it will have a quantitative approach since it will work with numerical data; in addition, the analytical method is also used since the result obtained from the econometric model deserves to expose the interpretations and conclusions obtained. Considering the requirements of this work, the integrated autoregressive model of moving average, or ARIMA model, was used under the Box and Jenkins methodology.
36.3.1 Statistical Method The econometric method that will be used is the ARIMA model proposed by BoxJenkins, which consists of four stages: (i) Identification, based on historical data and other available information, an attempt is made to suggest the model to be used; (ii) Estimation, once the suggested order or model is obtained, the data inference continues; (iii) Validation, diagnostic tests are performed and it is verified that the ARIMA fits the data; and, (iv) Forecast, the predictive capacity of the built model is tested in this phase. This is under the principle of bare parameterization, which tries to find a model with a minimum number of possible parameters and in such a way that the model allows redoing each previous stage, i.e., iteratively. 1. 2. 3. 4.
ID Estimate Validation Prediction.
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This model was applied with the help of the free software R-Studio, which can be freely downloaded from its website, where the properties of the ARIMA model, both stationary and non-stationary, are used. Information Source: This research was based on collection statistics published on the website of the Internal Revenue Service. Population: The population is made up of a historical series of information and statistical data on tax collection. This information is public knowledge; it is the same that is presented on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual basis by the tax administration. The following techniques were used: Observation: To get to know the object of study closely and obtain as much data as possible. Analysis of data: To expose the interpretations and conclusions obtained in the application of the statistical model.
36.4 Results The collection of income tax in Ecuador is obtained under the following modalities: Annual IR declaration, mandatory for companies and for natural persons that exceed the deducted basic rate. Withholdings at source made in purchase and/or sale operations by taxpayers are classified as withholding agents. In advance, this concept was considered mandatory payment until 2019, and from then on, it has the category of voluntary payment. IR statement for inheritance, legacies, and donations. During the 2020 and 2021 periods, what was established under the microenterprise regime was collected, and from the year 2022, the collection is expected under the entrepreneurs regime. The historical behavior of the IR collection data in Ecuador is shown below, from January 2015 to December 2021, as established in Article 72 of the Regulations for the Application of the Internal Tax Regime Law (RLRTI). In the case of natural persons and undivided successions, the annual IR declaration must be submitted up to the month of March and companies up to the month of April of the immediately following year; in the case of withholding agents, they must cancel the values for this concept the following month after such withholding has been made, as indicated in article 102 of the RLRTI; in the case of the tax generated by inheritance, it must be declared up to a maximum of six months from the death of the deceased, and in the case of donation, this payment must be made prior to the registration of the deed for that purpose, in accordance with article. As can be seen in Fig. 36.1, from January 2015 to December 2021 (in thousands of dollars), the collection of this tax shows its highest peaks in the month of April. This is due to the fact that in said month they comply with the payment companies from this tax, showing this pattern periodically in annual cycles.
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Fig. 36.1 Income tax collection in Ecuador, from January 2015 to December 2021 (in thousands of dollars)
Figure 36.1 shows the data taken from the SRI General Collection Statistics, published on its website. These data are the initial basis for the application of ARIMA, or income tax collection in Ecuador, from January 2015 to December 2021. From these data, we proceed to build the ARIMA model using the Box-Jenkins methodology. Stages of the construction of the ARIMA model: Identification: With the use of the R-Studio tool, the data collected for income tax in Ecuador is entered, from January 2015 to December 2021, and they are converted into a time series, in which it can visually identify whether or not there is stationarity in the series, without this being the definitive test, as shown in Fig. 36.2. Optical test of stationarity. In order to verify the stationarity of this series, the Dickey–Fuller test is applied, in which the following hypothesis tests are proposed: H0 = The time series is not stationary. H1 = The time series is stationary. Once the hypothesis test, the Dickey-Fuller test, has been applied, the p-value is 0.01264, i.e., less than 0.05, therefore the null hypothesis, H0, is rejected and the alternative hypothesis, H1, is taken [11]. With this test, it is confirmed that it is a stationary series, thus fulfilling a fundamental requirement to continue with the construction of ARIMA:
Fig. 36.2 Optical test of stationarity
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Estimation: Starting from the fact that in this investigation it was not necessary to apply differences because, by means of the Dickey-Fuller test, the null hypothesis was rejected in the first test, that is, “d = 0”, for the estimation of the orders. For autoregressives “p” (AR) and moving averages “q” (MA), the partial autocorrelation (PACF) and autocorrelation (ACF) functions are used, respectively. In this sense, R-Studio presents the following correlograms as graphs, as seen in Fig. 36.3. Partial autocorrelation (AR, p) and autocorrelation (MA, q): where the ACF graph shows the autocorrelation value in each lag (lag), and a great correlation is visually noted at lag = 1, then q = 1 would have to be observed. In the same way, the PACF graph is the derivative of the ACF graph and shows the partial correlation between the intervals, and once the effect of the difference has been discounted, in this case it would have, in the same explanation, that p = 1. It should be clarified that the values that are between the blue lines indicate non-significant values or no correlation. Considering the reading of the correlograms, the result would be an ARIMA model of order (1, 0, 1), visually the result is shown in Fig. 36.4. Forecast of the ARIMA model (1, 0, 1), with different differences to zero, where clearly the estimate for the period 2022 is not related to its past behavior, so it does not agree with this model.
Fig. 36.3 Partial autocorrelation (AR, p) and autocorrelation (MA, q)
Fig. 36.4 Forecast of the ARIMA (1, 0, 1) model, with non-zero differences. Blue color: forecast, grey color: 95% confidence interval, light grey color: confidence interval 80%
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Once the ARIMA (1, 0, 1) model has been rejected, as indicated by the BoxJenkins theory, we return to the analysis of the data in Fig. 36.1. Income tax collection in Ecuador, from January 2015 to December 2015. 2021 (in thousands of dollars). This series has a seasonal behavior; i.e., it has a periodic behavior pattern identified in annual cycles. Considering this particularity, the seasonal part must be included in the ARIMA model, so it would be an ordered ARIMA model (p, d, q) (P, D, Q) (S); the observations in this study are monthly data with annual seasonal behavior, so S = 12. In addition, a difference will be applied to the seasonal part, with D = 1; then, the model for the present study would be ARIMA (1, 0, 1) (1, 1, 1) (12). Model validation: Once the seasonal ARIMA model of order (1, 0, 1) (1, 1, 1) (12) has been obtained, an optical test and a hypothesis test, or Ljung-Box test, are performed. In Fig. 36.5, visual diagnosis of white noise, the standardized errors, and their similar behavior with white noise are presented, and likewise the p values of the Ljung-Box statistic are located above 0.05 where graphically they are. You may notice that the model fits correctly. Then the model is subjected to the Ljung-Box test, which serves to detect if the ARIMA is good or not, i.e., if it meets the white noise requirements. For the application of this test, the following hypotheses are proposed: H0 = White Noise > 0.05. H1 = No white noise. 0.05. With the Ljung-Box test, the p-value is 0.7948, a value greater than 0.05, so H0 is accepted and shows that it has white noise conditions (Ivarez 2013). Once the Ljung-Box test has been passed, it is stated that the model fits well, allowing for the following forecast: Prediction: After validating that the seasonal ARIMA model of order (1, 0, 1) (1, 1, 1) (12) fits well, the forecast is made from R-Studio, in Table 36.1. For the forecast of the collection of income tax in 2022, you can see the estimate with the respective minimum and maximum confidence margins.
Fig. 36.5 Visual diagnosis of white noise
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Table 36.1 Forecast of 2022 income tax collection, in thousands of dollars Months
Forecast
The 80
Jan-22
399,123.1
220,032.94
Hi 80 578,213.2
The 95 125,228.364
673,017.8
Feb-22
223,736.3
44,363.47
403,109.1
50,590.753
498,063.3
Mar-22
337,933.5
158,375.55
517,491.4
63,323.338
Apr-22
938,660.8
758,981.64
1,118,339.9
May-22
310,000.9
130,242.37
489,759.4
35,083.951
584,917.8
Jun-22
278,787.1
98,976.64
458,597.5
3790,756
553,783.4
Jul-22
416,879.5
237,035.31
596,723.7
141,831.528
691,927.5
Aug-22
281,696.5
101,830.40
461,562.5
6615.068
556,777.8
Sep-22
388,114.2
208,234.33
567,994.0
113,011.692
663,216.7
Oct-22
285,748.7
105,860.57
465,636.8
10,633.552
560,863.8
Nov-22
282,961.5
103,069.19
462,853.9
7839.925
558,083.2
Dec-22
387,588.8
207,695.46
567,482.1
112,465.690
662,711.9
663,865.243
Hi 95
612,543.6 1,213,456.3
Through the use of the “plot” function, in R-Studio, the result of the forecast is graphically displayed; for the present investigation we observe in Fig. 36.6. Trend of the collection of the “income tax” forecast for the period 2022, the blue line indicates the behavior of the collection of the “income tax” for the fiscal period 2022.
Fig. 36.6 Forecasted income tax collection trend for the year 2022. Obtained through R-Studio, with the ARIMA model (1, 0, 1) (1, 1, 1) (12). Blue color: forecast, grey color: 95% confidence interval, light grey color: confidence interval 80%
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36.5 Conclusions There is enough theoretical basis to carry out research on the application of statistical and econometric models to macroeconomic variables, in order to understand their past behavior, based on their own values and even their own errors, and from their estimate their future behavior. The Box-Jenkins methodology for the construction of ARIMA models allows a systematic series of ordered steps that guarantee that the model fulfills all the assumptions; i.e., that the stationarity condition is met, that it does not have unit increases, that there are no coincidences in the residuals and that the white noise condition is met. The ARIMA model, in this investigative work, allowed the forecast of the collection of the “income tax” in Ecuador for the year 2022, presenting acceptable results, and its estimated visual behavior is similar to the behavior presented in the years 2016 and 2017.
References 1. Internas, S.d: sri. (S. d. Internas, Producer). Retrieved from https://www.sri.gob.ec/estadisti cas-generales-de-recaudacion-sri. Last accessed 15 Jan 2022 2. Ticket Ortiz, V.P.-M. (2019). Retrieved on February 22, 2022, from https://www.researchgate. net/publication/335368426_Analisis_ARIMA_para_Series_de_Tiempo_de_Contaminantes_ Atmosfericos_Distribucion_Geografica_y_Episodios_Extremos 3. Ocerin, J.M.: Econometrics: econometric models and time series with the micro-TSP and TSP packages, vol. 1, I reversed. Retrieved on 19 Jan 2022 (2013). https://elibro.net/es/ereader/uis rael/46718?page=17 4. Casimiro, PG: Time series analysis: ARIMA models 169 (nd-a) 5. Martillo, L., Juez, S.: Modelo econométrico de la relación entre la presión fiscal y el crecimiento económico del Ecuador en el periodo 2007–2016 (Bachelor’s thesis, Guayaquil: ULVR, 2017) 6. RVE131_Ramirez: ECLAC repository (2021). Retrieved on 29 July 2021. https://repositorio. cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/45954/RVE131_Ramirez.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y 7. Sanchez Giler, S.: Determining factors of the tax on the outflow of foreign currency and its influence with foreign investment in Ecuador. SPACES, 13 (2020). Retrieved on 4 Jan 2022 8. Paspuel, O.G.: Analysis and prediction of tax collection in Ecuador before COVID-19, applying the ARIMA model. Contemporary Dilemmas (2021). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.46377/ dilemas.v8i.2708 9. Henry Toapanta, A.C.: ARIMA econometric modeling of foreign direct investment and gross fixed capital formation in the Ecuadorian economy during the period 2019–2020. Journal of Administrative and Economic Sciences (2021). http://investigacion.utc.edu.ec/revistasutc/ index.php/prospectivasutc/article/view/339 10. Moraleda, J.G.-N., Aranda, A.R., Novella, J.M., Pérez, F.J.: ARIMA models for the prediction of the joint expenditure of flight oxygen and other gases in the Air Force. Military Health (2018). https://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1887-85712018000400223 11. Álvarez, R. A. R., Calvo, J. A. P., Torrado, C. A. M., Mondragón, J. A. U.: Fundamentos de econometría intermedia: teoría y aplicaciones. Universidad de los Andes (2013)
Chapter 37
Virtual Laboratories for Learning Chemistry and Physics Through Chemlab and Modellus Lidya Alulima , Evelyn Mena-Alvarado , and Marcos Chacón-Castro
Abstract In the present-day context, educational institutions have difficulties maintaining technological equipment available to the academic community. Therefore, the technology tools’ implementation for teaching Physics and Chemistry, through virtual laboratories in applications such as Chemlab and Modellus, is pertinent. The objective is to analyze Chemlab and Modellus simulators as didactic strategies that allow integral learning between theory and practice, applied to 200 high-school students of a public educational institution. The methodology is based on a mixed approach to gather information followed by an analysis and interpretation of the results, which are relevant to the use of qualitative and quantitative data based on the measurement of the variables. The subsequent results show satisfaction in the processes according to a survey of professional experts in the area and students who demonstrate to be satisfied acquiring and understanding contents and topics related to the environment reducing the difficulty degree, awakening interest, achieving a balance between theoretical concepts with experimentation and solving exercises, consolidating acquired competencies such as communication and technological
L. Alulima (B) Carrera Educación, Facultad de Ciencias de La Educación, Universidad Indoamérica, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] E. Mena-Alvarado Facultad Ciencias de la Educación—FACED, Maestría en Entornos Digitales, Universidad Indoamérica, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] M. Chacón-Castro Facultad Ciencias de la Educación—FACED, Maestría en Entornos Digitales, Universidad Indoamérica, Bolívar, Quito, Ambato, Ecuador Fundación Universitaria Internacional de La Rioja, Programa Ing. Informática, Grupo de Investigación GIECI, Bogotá, Colombia M. Chacón-Castro e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_37
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skills, critical thinking, autonomy, collaborative work, leadership, decision-making, and resolution capacity.
37.1 Introduction Digital innovation through technological evolution has allowed generating changes in teaching models, in teachers’ and students’ roles; it allows flexibility in different educational modalities implementing hybrid learning. The educational system assumes the challenge of incorporating digital tools such as virtual simulators, platforms, classrooms, interactive museums, and gamification allowing its application at any time or place [1]. According to the Organic Law of Intercultural Education (2015) second chapter of the obligations Art. 6, “The main obligation of the State is the full, and progressive attainment of constitutional rights and guarantees in the field of education, and the principles and purposes established in this Law” (p. 15) [2, 3]. The state has additional obligations as stated in the paragraph “to guarantee the availability, accessibility, acceptability and affordability of information technologies, digital literacy from an intercultural perspective, the use of communication in the educational process as fundamental rights and to promote the link between education and productive or social activities” (p. 16). New educational technologies are tools that enhance teaching and learning continuously; for the Ministry of Education (2016), they have allowed the development of innovative methodological strategies, improving daily planning and allowing a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed approach that achieves access to knowledge, facilitating the interaction of students in virtual environments with the use of multimedia resources to simulate situations, solve practical problems, acquiring skills such as decision-making, data analysis, results, critical and collective thinking in a self-taught way [4]. Due to the current problem, a literature review of authors who have the same concern about the use of laboratories in the hybrid classroom is proposed. For this reason, regional, national, and international consulting is carried out: Arroba and Acurio [4] in the analysis of the virtual laboratory incorporation into the Organic Chemistry learning environment, through a post-test, found 100% of students who strengthen their knowledge and acquire meaningful learning [5]. According to the Tiburcio and Bellemin [6] approach, when analyzing the Didactic Engineering—IT Methodology EDI by using an educational software such as Modellus, which supports the teaching–learning processes as a key strategy for Mathematics comprehension, it is a tool which allows to predict interactions with a basis for relevant technological advances with the educational knowledge integration based on contributions of substantial technological advances [6]. Scientific subjects aim to relate methods, concepts, laws, and theories which must be supported by real experiences to identify and analyze units and magnitudes as mentioned by Dwityanti et al. [7]. It is through research using the ADDIE model to apply conversions with an Android-based application as a means of learning, optimizing time for the resolution and interpretation of results in various issues [7].
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Within this context, in the public educational institution, one of the reasons for implementing virtual simulators is the lack of interest and motivation, specifically in Physics and Chemistry subjects, since it uses conventional media and resources. It disseminates exhaustive knowledge that prevents greater concentration, active participation, and an analysis of everyday situations. It also fails to relate them to other subjects or their application. Additionally, teachers use classical learning methods, and the institutions do not have resources for the equipment of physical laboratories. The importance of creating virtual laboratories is the possibility of using chemical substances that are not allowed to the public because they are toxic and dangerous when there is no good management and directly expose the students’ health. It also reduces the high costs of substances, materials, equipment, and the maintenance thereof. Additionally, using virtual laboratories teaching and learning process will be flexible, simple, and dynamic. The virtual classroom was developed in a public educational institution; subjects such as Physics and Chemistry are based on the experimental part, the observation of environmental phenomena and the environment, calculation of data extracted from the practice through the formula with the verification through equipment, reactions, and measuring instruments. Thus, the use of ICT significantly improves the students’ learning, leaving behind theoretical classes. Nowadays, the return to the classroom after the health emergency and the economic crisis affected all families worldwide and higher significantly in underdeveloped countries such as our country, especially in public schools where families must continue with their children’s studies in these circumstances. Thus, virtual laboratory practices are one of the strategies that have allowed them to perform their work experience without difficulty. One of the alternatives is the digital tools for their variety of benefits that allow the implementation of improvements in the classrooms to innovate the Chemistry learning process. According to López et al. [8], studies conducted by the University of Málaga, it has been shown that the incorporation of an interactive simulator for the redox reaction and the periodic table, along with the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), has had a positive impact on student learning. These tools have provided students with a visual reference and comparison, resulting in more effective and collaborative learning. In addition, a significant increase in students’ motivation to participate in related academic activities has been observed [8]. For Valarezo et al. [9], virtual reality plays important roles and offers didactic tools that contribute to improve education, through platforms, virtual environments that will provide interaction to users, increasing the benefit of real-time training, as well as promoting higher order thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration among students, reducing geographical and economic barriers to access to quality education [9]. Therefore, “the Model Chemlab simulator as a strategy for teaching inorganic chemistry” [10] is a valuable strategy to support the teaching and learning process of chemistry, as it contributes to students’ development. One of its main advantages is that it allows recreating the real world inside the classroom and facilitating students’ interaction with it. This does not imply that scientific knowledge is generated only
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from the perception of nature but seeks to stimulate scientific activity through representations that give the student the possibility of modifying conditions, controlling variables, and manipulating the phenomenon studied. That is why currently the challenge for teachers is to create, adapt, and use innovative strategies that manage to awaken interest and enthusiasm for knowledge, in the educational field, with the use of innovative strategies that allow interactive teaching in science such as the so-called virtual laboratories, according to Luengas et al. [11], “virtual laboratory is a set of shared resources on the network (a digital notebook, files, searches, etc.)” (p. 618), so that users can perform their practices and monitor experiments interactively without the need for sophisticated materials or expensive resources and that for many families it is difficult to acquire them. For this purpose, it is proposed to use the Virtual Laboratory with the simulator Modellus 4.01 as a didactic tool that allows practical demonstrations, problem– solving, and the development of a virtual practice guide. In this way, facilitate the assimilation of the knowledge taught in the subject of Physics, based on the ideas, theories, efforts, and opinions of various authors, Martinez et al. [12] consider that the “virtual simulator Modellus is a computer program designed especially for teaching Physics, whose use allows creating new applications without resorting to specific knowledge of programming” [12]. Modellus virtual simulator designed for learning Physics, for Vivas et al. [13], is a software that allows to simulate physical phenomena that are linked to algebraic or differential expressions that are part of a phenomenon, which is an alternative in learning from a technological perspective in the Physics subject, without losing the presence of the teacher but rather as a proposal in which practical demonstrations can be performed in laboratories to provide quality learning to students from the translational dynamics allowing teachers and students to develop skills and abilities, solving problems related to the context of their daily life in the Physics subject [13]. These laboratories avoid environmental, economic, and academic risks by reducing the use of toxic chemicals and protecting the health of on-site students. In addition, they facilitate teaching and learning processes to be flexible, easy, and dynamic, allowing observation, experimentation, and hypothesis testing. Therefore, this research raises the following question: What are the benefits in the use of virtual simulators in the learning of Physics and Chemistry experiments in high-school students? Therefore, the research objective is focused on analyzing the Chemlab and Modellus simulators as didactic strategies that allow integral learning between theory and practice in high-school students. The document structure is the following: methodology, participants, procedure, techniques, and instruments used, results, discussion, and conclusions.
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37.2 Methodology The research work has a mixed approach, which focuses on receiving information from a specific population using a questionnaire that contributes to data collection, descriptive statistical analysis, relevant background, characteristics, and criteria that provide evidence for addressing the specified questions. As Otero [14] defined, the project should be based on a framework of deductive and inductive research that includes relationships between parameters and surveys that allow the use of statistical concepts [14].
37.2.1 Participants A total population of 550 students from a public educational institution is established. A non-probabilistic sample of 200 students from the first year of BGU (Unified General Baccalaureate) in a public institution was taken. The number of respondents was: 90 males and 110 females aged between 13 and 15 years old.
37.2.2 Procedure This research is based on the PACIE methodology through the digital environment implementation, as mentioned by Basantes et al. [15], focusing on constructivist models through the innovation of instructional strategies, modifying the role of the teacher, motivating virtual teaching, to contribute with the meaningful study. Therefore, the use of virtual tools enables contextualized and integrated training through effective implementation in students and teachers. For this, five stages are required: presence, outreach, training, interaction, and e-learning, accessing a technological and progressive education model within a holistic environment, which allows creating, analyzing, guiding, and improving skills, abilities, and qualities and the warmth of humanity [15]. Presence: Learning management system (LMS) implementation through Google Sites that allows managing, organizing, and controlling the progress of the unit contents developed in Chemistry and Physics subjects. It is accompanied by predesigned practices with CHEMLAB-MODELLUS simulators with the most common equipment and procedures to simulate the steps performed in physical laboratory experiments, which allow the theory understanding with experimentation. It facilitates constant academic progress at the students’ own pace by following clear and easy-to-process instructions, achieving the analysis of variables and magnitudes through graphs and x–y tables. Scope: A web page is designed as an LMS, with a sequential structure to the units to be developed for the first year of high school with contents, management
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guides, and pilot copies for replication, focusing on improving the laboratory work. Therefore, it is beneficial to study subjects such as Chemistry and Physics, developing skills and abilities that allow students to question their knowledge by applying pre-knowledge and supporting theory with experimentation. Knowledge construction, scientific procedures understanding, purpose improvement, reasoning skills, and growth of critical and creative thinking will be achieved through this virtual laboratory. Training: Design of virtual practices oriented to students, with the support of guides focused on the use of simulators and exemplifications, which can achieve the development of new experiences. Interaction: Relevant contents were selected sharing precise instructions for interaction, so that students feel motivated and accompanied, strengthening their participation, collaborative work, self-learning, and asynchronous–synchronous communication between teacher and student online. It encourages cooperative learning for significant knowledge construction, incorporating technologies. E-learning: It combines learning with experimentation to learn theories, definitions, and laws, to verify by making reports of the practices incorporated in LMSGoogle Sites, with evaluations using gamification in free applications and questionnaires with a structured basis. It is intending to arouse interest and participation actively, optimizing resources and time with a continuous didactic interaction, where the student self-manages the learning. It allows flexible training with updated resources, disappearing the space–time barrier and resulting in significant learning.
37.2.3 Google Sites: Virtual Laboratories to Teach Chemistry A free application of the American company Google is applied, which enables the elaboration of web pages. The proposal suggests using simulators as digital tools to structure, organize, and plan the educational process. It also proposes to develop virtual laboratories to improve the Chemistry and Physics. Considering the lack of resources, equipment, and infrastructure, it allows him to make predictions about practical concepts, laws, and theories through experiments. The virtual laboratory is shown in Fig. 37.1. Educational guides, model experiments, and practices with different parameters are organized in the virtual simulators Chemlab and Modellus, allowing digital skills and competencies’ development to maximize the theoretical content understanding. Windows Chemlab permits running interactive simulations such as Chemical laboratories, and equipment using substances, reagents, and procedures that optimize time and avoid the acquisition of equipment, materials, and instruments as well as infrastructure maintenance without causing accidents with dangerous tests due to toxic and flammable substances. Each simulation copy contains its modeling module so that different laboratory equipment can be used through a single interface, selecting substances, and reagents through instructions for each practice with demonstrations
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Fig. 37.1 Virtual laboratories in Google Sites to teach Chemistry. Fuente: Own elaboration
that emphasize principles and methods. The following Fig. 37.2 shows the equipment, materials contained in the program, and a chemical substances practice with the selection of materials and equipment to demonstrate topics such as solutions. The Modellus program can perform time-dependent physical experiments through mathematical equations; it can develop models and solve problems and exercises; it can simulate rectilinear, parabolic, and circular movements, analysis of laws and theories with animations by selecting interactive objects. The results are verified with x–y graphs and a table of values. Therefore, the LMS will allow students to learn anywhere, asynchronously and synchronously, with teacher guidance; it facilitates the training processes. Figure 37.3 shows the modeling area for exercises, adapting interaction graphs, and mathematical models, while Fig. 37.4 shows the students’ handling of the topic force, equations, and obtaining a variable.
37.3 Results and Discussion Reliability statistics The reliability of the data collection instrument is measured by Cronbach’s alpha, as referred to by Duque et al. [16], by using various formulas with values ranging from 0 to 1; below 0.7 is a low coefficient, while close to 1 is a high score obtained that shows a strong overlap between the questions; hence from the results, it is known the relationship that exists between the proposed items, which show that the problem is unidirectional. For item coherence in students, the estimate is 0.951, and thus, the collection of information is reliable and acceptable [16] (Table 37.1). With the results obtained through a survey of a group of teachers who teach subjects such as Physics and Chemistry, with the support of ICT and the use of virtual simulators such as Chemlab and Modellus, there was evidence of a better
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Fig. 37.2 Chemlab classroom intervention. Fuente: Own elaboration
Fig. 37.3 Implementation of modellus. Fuente: Own elaboration
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Fig. 37.4 Modellus classroom intervention. Fuente: Own elaboration
Table 37.1 Students’ survey reliability. Fuente: Own elaboration Cases
N
%
Valid
200
100.0
Excluded
0
0.0
Total
200
100.0
Cronbach’s alpha
N of elements
0.951
11
Note Taken from IBM SPSS statistical software, students’ survey reliability
understanding and development of content, participation in classes demonstrating mastery of the topics, reducing difficulties in calculations with the modeling of exercises. The results obtained from the survey provided criteria on the experience of using virtual simulators, facilitated the understanding of content, problem-solving, mastery of skills, abilities, skills, experimental practices in scientific disciplines, enhancing the usefulness of simulators as a virtual laboratory. The results generated from the selective sample of students registered between the scale very satisfactory and satisfactory present a correlation inter-elements, from 0.944 to 0.953, of 11 questions validated for 200 people; therefore, it is established as a relevant tool the use and application of virtual simulators in exact sciences, being feasible and easy to use as a didactic resource increasing the interest in the students. According to Table 37.2, an analysis is made up of the measures of central tendency and dispersion: mean, variance, correlation, and reliability in each question, which shows ranges from 0.941 to 0.94 being favorable to the correlation between items, and internal consistency. Data are collected to analyze the relevant standards and consider the skills’ and abilities’ levels obtained by using virtual simulators, which improve Chemistry and Physics learning. It establishes the need to develop new teaching strategies that facilitate content comprehension, and exercises, optimizing time and resources, and contributing to improving innovation processes through ICT.
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Table 37.2 Correlation between elements. Fuente: Own elaboration Total element statistics Scale average if the element is deleted
Scale Corrected variance item-total if the correlation element is deleted
Squared multiple correlation
Cronbach’s alpha if the element is deleted
1. The use of the experimental 41,9950 practice in virtual laboratories facilitated the class understanding given by the teacher
65,412
0.742
0.632
0.945
2. The exercises or problem-solving procedure carried out through simulators or virtual laboratories favored their development
42,1300
64,295
0.812
0.688
0.943
3. Theoretical contents and exercises application were easy without using simulators or virtual laboratories
42,4200
65,923
0.581
0.384
0.953
4. What is your opinion after working on Chemistry or Physics topics in virtual laboratories or simulators?
42,0150
65,291
0.811
0.721
0.943
5. Did you find it easy to manage the experiments in the virtual laboratories or simulators?
42,1200
65,302
0.791
0.663
0.943
6. Has working with the Modellus virtual simulator for modeling Physics exercises facilitated learning?
42,1300
64,335
0.838
0.765
0.942
7. Do you consider that Chemlab and Modellus virtual simulators allow you to perform the activities in less time and with ease?
42,0800
64,215
0.798
0.758
0.943
8. Do the laboratories help in the comprehension and development of activities assigned by the teacher?
41,8850
68,102
0.738
0.619
0.946
(continued)
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Table 37.2 (continued) Total element statistics Scale average if the element is deleted
Scale Corrected variance item-total if the correlation element is deleted
Squared multiple correlation
Cronbach’s alpha if the element is deleted
9. Have the use of virtual 42,0350 simulators in Chemistry and Physics subjects improved their understanding and application?
64,004
0.842
0.772
0.941
10. How do you consider the 42,0000 work in virtual laboratories in Chemistry and Physics subjects?
65,236
0.811
0.725
0.943
11. Do you think the virtual 41,8900 laboratories’ implementation contributed to the innovation processes with ICT for virtual and face-to-face learning?
66,631
0.786
0.675
0.944
Note This table represents the correlation of individual elements taken from the IBM SPSS statistical program, student survey reliability
37.4 Conclusions To extend complement learning through the web page design that enables the organization, management, and development as a virtual laboratory, integrated with virtual simulators that perform the function to develop the essential practice in the Chemistry and Physics subjects. It encourages the student to establish a relationship with the exact sciences, society, and technology, as well as to set a connection with the capacity for qualitative and quantitative analysis, and verbal argumentation and exercises resolution with accuracy and precision. • The use of active methodologies for exact sciences allowed for reaching a satisfactory level of learning through virtual simulators, improving the physical and chemical contents’ comprehension, and contributing to socioeconomic, communicational, and technological progress. • The increase in the continuous practice of laboratories in Chemistry and Physics subjects strengthens and reinforces the teaching and learning process in theoretical concepts through experiments with virtual intervention simulators such as Chemlab and Modellus, awakening interest in learning and balance in theory and practice.
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• Control and verification of the usefulness of the virtual laboratory in synchronous or asynchronous scenarios, for learning construction and competencies development such as critical thinking, communication skills, digital, socioemotional, decision-making, problem-solving, leadership, analysis and interpretation, and description of phenomena. • In terms of technology, students were limited in terms of the resources needed to access technologies such as computers, tablets, applications, and the Internet, due to the lack of availability of these resources in the educational institution. As a result, the teacher assumed the responsibility of providing Internet access and computers were available that were not up to date.
References 1. Ministerio de Educación, Lineamientos curriculares para el bachillerato general unificado, Quito-Ecuador (2016) 2. Ministerio de Educación del Ecuador. Ley Orgánica de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe, QuitoEcuador (2021) 3. Ministerio de Educación de Ecuador- MINEDU (2016). Currículo de los niveles de educación obligatoria (2016) 4. Arroba, M.F.A., Acurio, S.A.M.: «REVISTA CIENTÍ[email protected]• eISSN: 2631 – 278673 Revista Científica Uisrael QUITO-ECUADOR 2021 Período septiembre - diciembre 2021 vol. 8, no. 3 laboratorios virtuales en entorno de aprendizaje de química orgánica, para el bachillerato ecua,» Revista científica UISRAEL, vol. 8, nº 3, p. 93 (2021) 5. Arguedas Matarrita, C., Concari, S., Marchisio, S.: «Una revisión sobre desarrollo y uso de Laboratorios Virtuales y Laboratorios Remotos en la Enseñanza de la Física en Latinoamérica,» de I Simpósio Ibero-Americano de Tecnologías, Araranguá, Santa Catarina, Brasil, 2017. Ministerio de Educación, Ley Orgánica de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe., Quito (2015) 6. Tiburcio, R., Bellemain, F.: «Improvement of Didactical-Computational Engineering with Contributions from the Modellus Software Development Methodology,» Revista do programa de pós-graduação em educação matemática da universidade federal de mato grosso do sul (UFMS), vol. 14, nº 35, pp. 1–21 (2021) 7. Dwitiyanti, N., Kumala, S.A., Widiyatun, F.: «Using the ADDIE Model in the Development of Physics Unit,» Jurnal Ilmiah Pendidikan MIPA, vol. 10, nº 2, p. 125132 (2020) 8. López Guerrero, M.M., López Guerrero, G., Rojano Ramos, S.: «Uso de un simulador para facilitar el aprendizaje de las reacciones de óxido-reducción. Estudio de caso Universidad de Málaga,» Revistas UMAN, vol. 29, nº 3, pp. 79–98 (2018) 9. Valarezo Guzmán, G.E., Sánchez Castro, X.E., Bermúdez Gallegos, C., García Alay, R.: «Simulación y realidad virtual aplicadas a la educación,» RECIMUNDO, vol. 7, nº 1, pp. 432–444 (2023) 10. Torres Nieves, F.: «Simulador Virtual Model Chemlab como Estrategia para la Enseñanza de la Química Inorganica,» 2018. [En línea]. Available: https://reposital.cuaieed.unam.mx:8443/ xmlui/handle/20.500.12579/5262. [Último acceso: 25 02 2021] 11. Luengas, L.A., Guevara, J.C., Sánchez, G.: Laboratorio Virtual: Herramienta pedagógica de apoyo en el proceso de enseñanza – aprendizaje, Medellin- Ecuador : CIMTED Corporación, pp. 616–638 (2017) 12. Martínez Nogales, J.M., Guilcapi Mosquera, J.R., López Ortega, J.R., Mata Cepeda, M.P.: «El laboratorio virtual mediante el simulador Modellus 4.01 y su incidencia en el,» Polo del Conocimiento, vol. 5, nº 06, pp. 82–98 (2020)
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13. Vivas Urías, M.D., Ortega, S.A., Gómez Navarro, M.: «Desarrollo de competencias digitales en docencia online: la asignatura Cimientos del curso de adaptación a grado en ingeniería de edificación,» Revista de Educación a Distancia (RED), vol. 8, nº 49, pp. 2–54 (2016) 14. Otero-Ortega, A.: Enfoques de investigación, Colombia (2018) 15. Basantes, A., Naranjo, M., Ojeda, V.: «Metodología PACIE en la Educación Virtual: una experiencia,» Formación Universitaria, vol. 11, nº 2, pp. 35–44 (2018) 16. Duque Vaca, M.A., Tuapanta Dacto, J.V., Mena Reinoso, A.P.: «Alfa de Cronbach para validar un cuestionario de uso de tic en docentes universitarios,» Revista mktDescubre - ESPOCH FADE, vol. 1, nº 10, pp. 37–48 (2017)
Chapter 38
Quadrilaterals in the Dynamic Figural Register Through Digital Technology Jesús Victoria Flores Salazar , Daysi Julissa García-Cuéllar , Jorge Luis Vivas-Pachas , and Tito Nelson Peñaloza Vara
Abstract The current study is part of an investigation project in progress that aims to analyze the treatments carried out on geometric figures, mainly quadrilaterals, when digital technology is used, such as the GeoGebra Dynamic Representation Environments. For this purpose, this study is founded on the Dynamic Figural Register. The qualitative methodology is emphasized to analyze the two activities described in this paper: The first one is based on the construction of an isosceles trapezoid and the operations that can be performed on its dynamic representation. The second is based on Varignon’s theorem, analyzing its dynamic reconfiguration and dimensional deconstruction. It is concluded that the dragging function of the GeoGebra environment favors the dynamic treatment of geometric figures and also allows interactive feedback.
38.1 Introduction The main focus of this paper is to analyze how digital technology is used, especially in Geometry when treatments are performed in the Dynamic Figural Register (DFR). That is, the treatments are given in the DFR in Dynamic Representation Environments (DREs) such as GeoGebra. It is worth noting that the DFR was defined by Salazar and Almouloud [1] and Salazar [2].
J. V. F. Salazar (B) · D. J. García-Cuéllar · J. L. Vivas-Pachas · T. N. P. Vara Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, San Miguel, 15088 Lima, Peru e-mail: [email protected] D. J. García-Cuéllar e-mail: [email protected] J. L. Vivas-Pachas e-mail: [email protected] T. N. P. Vara e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_38
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The authors defined the DFR based on the theory of Registers of Semiotic Representation developed by Duval [3], who explains that the use of figures in Geometry is essential because it allows access to the mathematical objects represented, to infer properties, to solve problems, among others. That is why the cognitive activity required in Geometry is more demanding than in other mathematical fields because the “operations” on the figures and their respective discourses must be simultaneous. Likewise, these operations support the development of the ability to abstract and generalize, which is refined by recognizing the geometric figures represented (perception) and subsequently establishing relationships between their representations and the properties of the figures. In addition, the importance of geometric figures lies in the fact that they are an intuitive support for the resolution of geometric activities, because based on them it is possible to formulate propositions by means of heuristic exploration. On the other hand, from a semiotic perspective, when digital technology is used, the process of semiosis, according to Duval, occurs at the moment of exploration, experimentation with the mathematical objects represented and in the feedback. Likewise, the dragging function of GeoGebra allows simulating movements such as: change of position, shape, and measures. Olivero [4] states that it is possible to identify three essential uses of dragging when interacting with a DRE: as feedback, it helps in the development of strategies for solving a problem; as a means, it allows invalidating wrong constructions; and as a search mode, it favors the exploration of the constructed figure to show its invariant properties. Similarly, researchers such as Baccaglini-Frank and Mariotti [5], Gómez and Salazar [6], Espinoza and Salazar [7], Peñaloza and Salazar [8] and Trocki and Hollebrands [9] show that the use of digital technology, such as DRE in the teaching and learning of Geometry, leads to the acceleration of treatments and articulation of apprehensions in the geometric figures represented. In relation to the heuristic use of geometric figures, Duval [10, 11] states that solving problems, explaining properties, elaborating conjectures, etc. depend, mainly, on the dimensional deconstruction of the figures, i.e., decomposing it into figural units of lower dimension than that of the given figure. In this sense, with the use of technology in recent decades, it is possible to perform operations such as juxtaposition or overlapping on figures dynamically. Also, DREs favor the identification of 0D, 1D, or 2D figural units.
38.2 Dynamic Figural Register The theoretical perspective is based on theoretical aspects related to the DFR which relies on Duval’s theory of Registers of Semiotic Representation [3] which explains that semiotic complexity is behind the difficulties in learning mathematics and that the analysis of mathematical productions requires semiotic analysis tools adapted to the cognitive processes mobilized in any mathematical activity in a representational context.
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According to Salazar’s research [2], three cognitive activities are developed to configure the DFR: dynamic formation, dynamic treatment, and conversion. In the following, the dynamic formation and treatments will be specifically presented since it is in these cognitive activities where the potential of DREs is most clearly evidenced.
38.2.1 Dynamic Formation In dynamic formation, at least three different ways of recognizing a figure have been identified. i Choice of figural units. It is given by the technological conditions (advantages or limitations of the DRE, its tools, functions, etc.). For example, to solve an activity in which an ABCD quadrilateral must be constructed, at the perceptual level (see Fig. 38.1) in GeoGebra, variations related to dimensions such as: 0 (points), 1 (line/segment), or 2 (surface) and qualitative variations such as shape, orientation, and color are highlighted. ii
Direct activation of the polygon tool. In the GeoGebra toolbar, it is necessary to recognize the characteristics of the polygon to be represented, for example, a quadrilateral having as input data its four vertices (see Fig. 38.2). Activate directly the “polygon” tool and by clicking on four points in the GeoGebra view
Fig. 38.1 Dynamic formation 1
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represent the quadrilateral. It should be noted that by performing these actions, the individual mobilizes notions about the mathematical object that is being represented. iii Geometric construction of the figure. When constructing a geometric figure, the variation of its parameters (length of the sides, position, color, etc.) maintains the properties of the original geometric figure. This variation can be done using either the drag or the slider function of GeoGebra. For example, when constructing a parallelogram ABCD (see Fig. 38.3) based on its geometric properties, manipulating and using the dragging function certify that the object maintains its geometric properties.
Fig. 38.2 Dynamic formation 2
Step 1: displays the representation of the object associated with a "legend".
Step 2: The tool allows the drawing of the figure by making several clicks. Step 3: Finally, the drawing is validated when the quadrilateral is "closed" and named.
Fig. 38.3 Dynamic formation 3
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Also, when the dragging function is activated, either in one of the free points (in this case vertex A) or in the figure ABCD (see Fig. 38.4), it can also be seen that the constructed figure maintains its geometrical properties. In addition, the protocol (step-by-step) of the construction can be activated, as shown in Fig. 38.5. Furthermore, this type of formation allows the analysis of the dimensional deconstruction of the figure in the 0D and 1D figural units, since circumferences, curves, straight lines, or segments (1D), points (0D) are identified, as defined by Duval [10, 11]. Fig. 38.4 Dynamic formation 3—dragging
Fig. 38.5 Dynamic formation 3—protocol
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38.2.2 Dynamic Treatments According to Salazar [2] when working with digital technology, treatments on geometric figures are accelerated. Direct manipulation and dragging allow two treatments to be identified in a geometric figure: changing the position of the represented figure without modifying it, varying the length of the sides of the figure, measuring its area, or reconfiguring it. This work focuses on the reconfiguration of a quadrilateral when digital technology is used. It is important to specify that reconfiguration is the division of a figure into other subfigures. In the view of Duval [3], reconfiguration allows to understand treatments such as the sum of the elementary parts or the identification of the equivalence of two intermediate regroupings and can be given in three ways: Strictly homogeneous, where the subfigures have the same shape as the initial figure; homogeneous, where the subfigures are different from the initial figure, but retain the same shape between them; and heterogeneous, since the subfigures have different shapes between them and different from the initial figure. With the use of digital technology, in this case GeoGebra, various functions and tools are used to separate, regroup, or form another geometric figure from an initial configuration.
38.3 Activities on Quadrilaterals Throughout this article, two activities with quadrilaterals are presented in which, in addition to GeoGebra tools, the dragging function is used, since it enriches the heuristic function of the figure, because reconfigurations can be performed dynamically. In the two activities on quadrilaterals that were adapted from Espinoza [12] and Gómez [13], respectively, we analyze dynamic treatments that according to Salazar [2] are given by reconfiguration operations of a geometric figure in the Dynamic Figural Register. Regarding the methodological aspects, the qualitative methodology was taken as a basis and for this purpose was structurally based on the works of Sierra [14] and Hernández-Sampieri, Fernández and Batista [15], because it was of interest to analyze the dynamic treatments when using the GeoGebra DRE. Following are presented, as examples, two activities in which cognitive activities are developed: dynamic training, dynamic treatment, as well as reconfiguration in the Dynamic Figural Register.
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38.3.1 Activity 1 Activity 1 consists of constructing an isosceles trapezoid ABCD with diagonals AC and B D and using GeoGebra’s dragging function to manipulate vertex A to conjecture the relationships between the diagonals of the isosceles trapezoid ABCD. First, the isosceles trapezoid is constructed in GeoGebra (see Fig. 38.6). This is done by creating the points A and B, using the toolbar. Then, the segment [AB] is constructed; after that the point M is obtained from the midpoint of the previous segment. Next, the line perpendicular to the segment [AB] passing through the point M is drawn and a point N is created on the perpendicular line (different from M). After that, the line parallel to the segment [AB] passing through the point N is constructed. Subsequently, a circumference of center N and crossing point M and the points C and D are obtained from the intercept of the circumference with the line parallel to the segment [AB]. Finally, the isosceles trapezoid ABCD is created with the polygon tool. Then, the diagonals of the trapezoid are constructed (see Fig. 38.7) by drawing segments AC and B D (homogeneous reconfiguration). Fig. 38.6 Construction of the isosceles trapezoid ABCD
Fig. 38.7 Isosceles trapezoid ABCD with its diagonals
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It is important to note that vertices A and B are mobile, i.e., when dragging any of them, treatments are performed, as shown in Fig. 38.8, in which vertex A is dragged (activating the trace function), as requested in the task. It is observed that in the construction of the trapezoid ABCD with its diagonals AC and B D, notions about segment, point, parallel line, perpendicular line, perpendicular bisector, circumference, and isosceles trapezoid are mobilized. In order to establish the relationship between its diagonals AC and B D, as shown in Fig. 38.9, in addition to the dragging function, reconfigurations are performed on the constructed trapezoid, that is, auxiliary traces are made (using software tools) and triangles ACD and DBC are configured. It should be noted that when working with digital technology, it is possible in the DFR to perform actions interactively such as: reconfigurations, verifying properties of the configured triangles using the segment and angle measurement tools.
Fig. 38.8 Positional change of trapezoid ABCD
Fig. 38.9 Reconfiguration of the trapezoid ABCD (a y b)
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In order to do this, it is important to mobilize the notion of triangle congruence, since it is necessary to perform the reconfiguration in the figure (division of the figure) to configure the triangles ACD and DBC. It is possible to establish that if AC ∼ = B D, then the triangles ACD and DBC are congruent (LLL case) since AD ∼ = BC and C D is the common side. Likewise, if ⊾ADC ∼ = ⊾DCB and ⊾DCA ∼ = ⊾BDC, the congruence of triangles ACD and DBC can also be checked (case ALA). By using the dragging function and also modifying the length of the sides of the trapezoid, it is possible to show that the diagonals AC and B D are congruent.
38.3.2 Activity 2 This activity, based on Varignon’s theorem, consists of constructing any quadrilateral ABCD, then constructing the midpoints of its sides, which will be assigned the letters E, F, G, and H, and based on them, using the polygon tool, constructing a parallelogram EFGH (see Fig. 38.10). In the Dynamic Figural Register, as shown in Fig. 38.11, it is possible to show through the use of GeoGebra tools (midpoint, parallel lines, area measurement, among others), the dimensional deconstruction of the parallelogram, and the dynamic treatments on the whole figure. Also, it can be shown using the DFR (treatments’ operations) in the GeoGebra DRE that the measure of the area of the parallelogram EFGH, which in this example measures 80.39 cm2 , is half the measure of the area of the quadrilateral ABCD of 160.79 cm2 . Verification can be done using triangle congruence criteria and figural reconfigurations of equivalent triangular areas. At the same time, as shown in Fig. 38.12, the condition that the perimeter of the parallelogram EFGH, which measures 38.65 cm. is equal to the sum of the lengths of the diagonals whose measures are 20.13 cm and 18.52 cm, respectively, of the original quadrilateral (see Fig. 38.10) is met. In this case, the verification can be performed by means of the midpoint theorem of a triangle (average base), among other criteria. Fig. 38.10 Quadrilateral and parallelogram (Varignon’s theorem)
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Fig. 38.11 Parallelogram (dimensional deconstruction)
Fig. 38.12 Reconfiguration of the quadrilateral ABCD
From what has been presented, it is evident that dimensional deconstruction and the dynamic reconfiguration treatments play an important role in the development of activities in Geometry (quadrilaterals) since the use of digital technology and especially the DFR configuration facilitate the activation of previous knowledge such as parallelism, area measurement, perimeter, among others. Also, there are other reconfiguration possibilities that can be performed depending on the knowledge to be mobilized and the purpose of the given task.
38.4 Conclusions The operations that can be performed on the figure, such as position modification and reconfiguration when using digital technology (DRE), are innumerable, since the functions of dragging and direct manipulation make it possible to accelerate the treatments of the figure. This acceleration leads the subject to mobilize geometric properties to construct a figure, in this case quadrilaterals, as well as making it possible to invalidate erroneous constructions.
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The three fundamental cognitive activities of the Dynamic Figural Register are performed differently than when working in a non-dynamic environment, because the functions of dragging and direct manipulation allow relationships to be built between the figural and discursive treatments. In addition, the treatments are accelerated and variations such as changing side length position, reconfiguring the figure can be performed “economically”. It is important to point out that the dragging function of DRE GeoGebra allows to perform treatments that also facilitates feedback, because the individual, having the “control” of the constructions that is performed, can develop strategies for the solution of a given activity or task. It is important to emphasize that the dragging function allows the simultaneous change of position and length of the sides of the figure. For future research, it is recommended to carry out studies related to the reconfigurations within the Dynamic Figural Register with other polygons or geometric objects, in basic education or in teacher training. Acknowledgements This work was funded by the Dirección de Gestión de la Investigación at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, through grant DGI DGI 2022-C-0025 [PI0890].
References 1. Salazar, J.V.F., Almouloud, S.A.: Registro Figural no Ambiente de Geometria Dinâmica. Educação Matemática Pesquisa. 17, 919–941 (2015). https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/emp/ article/view/26325 2. Salazar, J.V.F.: Semiotic representations: a study of dynamic figural register. In: Presmeg, N., Radford L., Roth WM., Kadunz, G. (eds.) Signs of Signification. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70287-2_12 3. Duval, R.: Les différents fonctionnements d’une figure dans une démarche géométrique. Repères-IREM 17, 121–138 (1994). https://publimath.univ-irem.fr/biblio/IWR97117.htm 4. Olivero, F.: The proving process within a dynamic geometry environment. Thesis (Education Doctorate) University of Bristol, Graduate School of Education, England (2003) 5. Baccaglini-Frank, A., Mariotti, M.: Generating conjectures in dynamic geometry: the maintaining dragging model. Int. J. Comput. Math. Learn. 15(3), 225–253 (2010) 6. Gómez, C., Salazar, J.V.F.: Visualización de cuadriláteros en el registro figural dinámico. In: Investigaciones en Educación Matemática. 189 - 204. Lima. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Fondo Editorial (2016) 7. Espinoza, B.P., Salazar, J.V.F.: Propiedades del trapecio y aprehensiones en el registro figural: una secuencia didáctica con el uso del GeoGebra con estudiantes de secundaria. Revista de Produção Discente em Educação Matemática. 6, 5–14 (2017). https://revistas.pucsp.br/index. php/pdemat/article/view/32561 8. Peñaloza, T., Salazar, J.V.F.: Aprehensiones y modificaciones en el registro gráfico-dinámico del paraboloide elíptico. Educação Matemática Pesquisa 20(1), 61–83 (2018). https://doi.org/ 10.23925/1983-3156.2018v20i1p61-83 9. Trocki, A., Hollebrands, K.: The development of a framework for assessing dynamic geometry task quality. Digit. Exp. Math. Educ. 4, 110–138 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40751-0180041-8
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10. Duval, R.: Ver e ensinar a matemática de outra forma: entrar no modo matemático de pensar: os registros de representações semióticas. PROEM editora, São Paulo (2011) 11. Duval, R.: Un tema crucial en la educación matemática: La habilidad para cambiar el registro de representación. La Gaceta de la RSME 9(1), 143–168. (2006). https://dialnet.unirioja.es/ser vlet/articulo?codigo=1984436 12. Espinoza, B.: Base media del trapecio y aprehensiones en el registro figural: una secuencia didáctica con el uso del Geogebra con estudiantes del nivel secundario. Tesis (Maestría en Enseñanza de las Matemáticas) Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Perú (2015) 13. Gómez, C.: Proceso de Visualización de Cuadriláteros: Un estudio con Profesores de Nivel Secundario. Tesis (Maestría en Enseñanza de las Matemáticas). Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Perú (2015). http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12404/6112 14. Sierra, M.: Investigación en Educación Matemática: objetivos, cambios, criterios, métodos y difusión. Educatio Siglo XXI 29(2), 173–198 (2011). https://revistas.um.es/educatio/article/ view/133021 15. Hernández-Sampieri, R., Fernández, C., Baptista, P.: Metodología de la Investigación. Sexta Edición. Mcgraw-Hill/Interamericana Editores, S.A. de C.V. México D.F. (2014)
Chapter 39
Synthetic Data Generator for an E-Learning Platform in a Big Data Environment Yaneth Moreno, Anthony Montero, Francisco Hidrobo, and Saba Infante
Abstract In this paper, we present the implementation of a big data environment to extract, filter, and classify data to use tools that anticipate its growth and that allow scaling resources in order for results to be used as a basis for future analysis or, as in this case study, for the generation of synthetic data. Specifically, we focus on the information available in a learning management system, concretely Moodle, where numerous interactions occur between users and the learning platform. All actions of users, mainly students, are recorded and can be used to reproduce behaviors. Then, we create a request simulator to emulate the behavioral pattern of students, using data from a database taken from an operative learning management system for training. Results were quite similar concerning student behavior, as reflected in the statistics on the operational learning management system database and the data synthetically generated.
39.1 Introduction Nowadays, in addition to the traditional face-to-face and distance learning modalities, there is online teaching, which uses the Internet to connect teachers and students to conduct teaching/learning activities and offer administrative services in real time. The application of this approach is becoming increasingly powerful, fast, and reliable, Y. Moreno (B) CEMISID, Faculty of Engineering, University of Los Andes, Mérida, Venezuela e-mail: [email protected] A. Montero Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering, University of Los Andes, Mérida, Venezuela F. Hidrobo · S. Infante School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, Yachay Tech University, San Miguel de Urcuquí, Imbabura, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] S. Infante e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_39
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thanks to the fact that information and communication technologies (ICTs) provide hardware and software elements to create, store, exchange, and process information in its various forms [1]. On the other hand, due to the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, educational institutions immediately faced a new challenge of adaptation, which forced the transition from face-to-face teaching to distance education in a short period of time [2]. Online education produces a large set of data related to learners’ activities; which can be processed with automatic procedures for many purposes. The implementation of these analytical methods is possible thanks to the use of powerful technologies such as data mining [3] or big data [4]. By using these tools, it is possible to obtain relevant information on the use made by students in an learning management system (LMS) or massively open online courses (MOOC’s), which allows inferring a pattern of student behavior [5]. The current volume of databases of e-learning platforms used by some study centers is not big enough to be considered big data; however, the volume and variety of this data could grow rapidly. During the recent pandemic, virtual learning environments (VLEs) became indispensable and widely used at different educational levels [6]. Therefore, it is necessary to have schemes that allow simulating the massive creation of data in such environments through the generation of synthetic data that meet basic characteristics of the 3V model [7], such as volume, velocity, and variety, to generate useful information that contributes to the study of e-learning platforms and the creation of models that describe the interactions of students with such environments. We focused on two trending technologies: VLE and big data. We implemented a big data infrastructure to extract, filter, and classify data to use tools that anticipate the growth of information generated in LMS and use it for the production of synthetic data. The information available in a learning management system, where numerous interactions occur between users and the learning platform, is recorded and can be used to reproduce behaviors. Then, we created a request simulator that emulated students’ behavior, using data from a database taken from an operative LMS for training. We implemented tests to compare data generated synthetically with data taken from the operative LMS using Moodle, the CEIDIS [8] database (Online education platform at the University of Los Andes, Venezuela). The rest of the paper is organized as follows: In Sect. 39.2, we establish the state of the art; in Sect. 39.3, we present the implementation environment, the data selection scheme, and the construction of the fact table. Then, in Sect. 39.4, we describe the implementation process, the metrics used, and the results generated in the tests; in Sect. 39.5, we show the results of the validation process; finally, in section 39.6, we present the conclusions of our work.
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39.2 State of the Art For the implementation of a synthetic data generator in an e-learning platform, using a set of big data tools, it was necessary to know certain elements to obtain a basis that would allow us to structure this work. To this end, we reviewed some research related to the design and configuration of big data clusters, as well as software to simulate requests to Web systems. Initially, we reviewed the work presented by [9]; they implemented a Hadoop cluster optimization based on configuration properties related to block size, memory, CPU allocation, number of MapReduce Jobs, job scheduling, and JVM. It is intended to deepen in configuration and operation of a cluster using big data technologies. Moreover, we analyzed a method for predicting the utilization of large-scale Hadoop clusters. This method applies a two-step model, the first simulates the performance of Hadoop applications, and the second predicts the resource utilization [10]. Subsequently, we studied mechanisms that allow performing big data analysis on the Moodle platform [11], to extract information regarding user behavior patterns and indicators on the influence of the activities performed by teachers on academic results. Additionally, we reviewed some data mining techniques, algorithms, and tools used to analyze data generated by Moodle [12]. This research showed that more frequently used data mining techniques include classification, clustering, and association rules; and J48, K-means, and Apriori algorithms. With respect to tools, Weka is the most frequently used. Application of these techniques to Moodle records makes it possible for teachers and educational authorities to manage new information that allows them to take corrective actions to optimize the online teaching-learning process. We also analyzed a set of big data techniques applied to the diagnostic evaluation of students in a course. For this purpose, data extracted from a course taught through Moodle was considered [13]. Finally, we examined an experiment based on a middleware to mitigate distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attacks [14]. This middleware works as a load balancer; its goal is to manage database connections, evenly distributing the work among the resources available to prevent bottlenecks. Apache JMeter was used in the simulation, in which they defined 5 test scenarios to validate the tests. On each scenario, they used 500, 1000, 2000, and 2500 test threads, and each thread represented a virtual user. They compared server performance with and without the middleware, optimizing application performance and disarming DDoS attacks against the database.
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39.3 Knowledge Extraction Using Big Data Tools This section contains three parts. The first presents the implementation of the big data cluster, the second describes the approach to select and filter data from the Moodle database, and the third shows the construction process of the fact table with big data tools.
39.3.1 Big Data Cluster For the implementation of our proposal, we used a Hadoop cluster. Hadoop is an open-source project made up of different frameworks that provide scalability to store large volumes of data on generic hardware. In addition, it can recover when it fails to run, as well as to manage different types of data. Moreover, it facilitates a shared environment, allowing the execution of multiple jobs simultaneously [15]. Due to the small size of the case study data and the ease of application, we implemented a small-scale big data cluster. Thus, the environment used for testing can be replicated quickly and easily. Furthermore, this represents a proof of concept that should not present problems when scaling up. The Hadoop cluster in this project has only three computers using the Master-Slave architecture. Each node runs the Linux Debian distribution V9. The master node executes functions NameNode, Secondary Namenode, Resource Manager, and Job History Server; while the slave nodes execute Datanode and Nodemanager.
39.3.2 Data Selection and Filtering We used a standard Moodle, specifically version 3.1.2, installation implemented through a relational DB managed with MYSQL, containing just over 300 tables [16]. Taking this database, we created a data warehouse, using extraction, filtering, and transformation techniques with the Hadoop cluster. After studying the tables and analyzing the fields required for this work, we exported the tables to Hive, a data storage infrastructure similar to SQL, although built on Hadoop, which allows grouping, querying, and analyzing data. We knew in advance that the database that we would analyze is static, so its volume does not vary over time. We do not need a system for searching and collecting logs, because these are stored in the MYSQL database. We needed to obtain the metrics from the Moodle tables; for this purpose, we performed an initial filtering of the tables, the results of which were exported to Hive to build a data warehouse. Subsequently, we transformed some of the data that make up the new tables using user-defined table functions (UDTF) to perform complex
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queries. Among the metrics obtained are the number of logins per user per day, number of modules in a course, size and number of files, average number of entries to a component per day, and average time per module per day.
39.3.3 Fact Table Construction The fact table is the central table of the new data warehouse and summarizes the information obtained from the previously filtered log files of the original database. We discretized this table to find association rules using the data mining tool Weka. To do this, we used a UDTF function (added temporarily). This function is in charge of comparing each value with the chosen limits and labeling results as low, medium, or high.
39.4 Implementation and Results This section describes how we obtained the necessary metrics to implement a request simulator and the results of the simulations.
39.4.1 Metrics To define the metrics, we took into account all the tables that keep track of user behavior and could be related to file downloads. Number of Logins per day per user. This value represents the average number of logs or entries to the Moodle platform by student per day. To calculate this statistic, we used information contained in table logstore_standard_log, in which Moodle logs are stored. This table keeps records of the actions performed by all users on that platform, so it contains information of interest. However, for this case study, we took only the logins successfully executed by the students. We took the data containing the role assigment in role_assignments table. From this table, we used the integer number assigned to the student’s role to run a Hive query that obtains the id of the Moodle students. Through the filtering process, we created a new Hive table with the same structure as table logstore_standard_log, but this table stores exclusively the logs of users with the student role. We sorted the obtained table by the user and by time created (this field stores the time when the log was generated and uses a timestamp format) in ascending order. Then, we passed them as input to two temporary UDTF functions, one that takes care of changing the date format to "dd-mm-yyyy" and returns a value to be stored
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in a field called "day" that represents the date in the expected format, and another that counts the logins performed by each of the students per day in each course. Number of modules in a course. We needed a counter to determine the number of modules (activities and resources) contained in each course. To do this, we took the information from the Moodle database, specifically, tables course_modules and modules. The first table has information about the modules of a course, and the second table only has information about the modules in general. We constructed a table from them, whose records must represent a different course. The table contains the total number of modules per course, as well as the number of each module per course. In this study, the following modules were taken into account: forum, assign, quiz, wiki, choice, glossary, chat, lesson, and workshop. From table modules, we extracted the identifier for each module and then created a table in Hive. We used this new table to count and group each module by course and stored the average and total number of each module. We took this table to define the number of modules in each test course used for simulations. File size and number of files. To know the size and the number of files used in each of the courses, we got this information from tables files (files loaded in a course) and context (course context). From table files, we extracted the files size in bytes. Then, we used a statement in Hive to obtain the number of files in each course. Subsequently, we employed user-defined aggregate functions (UDAFs) provided by Hive, such as max(col), min(col), and avg(col) to obtain the maximum, minimum, and average size in bytes of the recorded files. Another interesting data obtained from this query is the type and quantity of files contained in the course. These can be images, pdf, videos, and documents, among others. By knowing the number and percentage of files in each course, we can simulate them more accurately and realistically. Average number of entries to a component per day. We used a UDTF function to calculate this statistic. With this function, we obtain the number of times a user enters each component, per course, in a single day. This function uses data previously extracted and filtered from table role_assignments. However, we sorted the time by user, by course, and by day in ascending order so that the UDTF function operates correctly. The result of the function is stored in a new table. We added to this table the field number of components per record (variety). This data is required as a reference when choosing the course to simulate. For this case study, we divided this table into intermediate tables that only contain the information of a specific course; as it allows for a more detailed analysis. In addition, using Hive sentences, we calculated the average value of accesses. Then, to summarize the information obtained, a fact table was created, which will be the central table of the new data warehouse. For its construction, we used Hive. We used the fact table to compare a course in the real database with a simulated one.
39 Synthetic Data Generator for an E-Learning Platform Table 39.1 Course Module Quantity Forum Quiz Task Wiki Survey Glossary
6 2 10 2 3 1
437
Description Forums must have at least one discussion The quizzes have 4 questions Only 8 tasks have an associated resource Wikis have an associated page Surveys have 5 options Give everyone write access
39.4.2 Request Simulator To simulate multiple students in Moodle, we used Apache JMeter [17]. For this purpose, we configured a test course and a specific plan. The main idea is to generate synthetic data that resembles the behavior of users in a previously selected course. This course has 32 registered students (the number of students in the real course), with a variety of components, which allowed for obtaining clear and concise results. Table 39.1 shows the configuration of the course. We configured the test plan using a .jmx extension file; this file has a tagged language that is read sequentially by the compiler. JMeter executes the instructions contained in these tags. We can modify and configure it through a graphical interface or a text editor. To verify that the simulation successfully performs the requests, emulating the behavior of the users, we collected some metrics using data tracking and visualization tools, such as Elastic Search and Kibana. The first is a non-relational, document-oriented JSON database based on Apache Lucene. We mainly used it as a powerful document-oriented search engine that allows us to index a large volume of data to make queries on them later; we can access modified data in real time. In addition, the design can be horizontally scalable and attach servers to the cluster as needed. The clusters used by Elasticsearch can detect when one of the nodes is failing and reorganize them so that data is always available. Furthermore, it allows simultaneous operation on different indexes without using schemas; therefore, it offers the possibility to work without a fixed database structure. Elasticsearch entities are stored in JSON-like, structured documents where all fields are indexed. It also provides an API called Restfull in JSON for multiple languages for easy integration, not to mention that it prevents data loss when simultaneously editing records. Kibana facilitates visual exploration and real-time analysis of data hosted in Elasticsearch. It can perform advanced data analysis and display a variety of graphs, charts, maps, and more from a simple Web interface. The metrics obtained allowed us to determine that the requests made from JMeter fulfilled the task of simulating the behavior of the users. We measured the percentage of components, the total number of accesses of each student to the course, and by
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Fig. 39.1 Userid versus total acesses
(a) Discrete Real DB
(b) Discrete Synthetic DB
Fig. 39.2 Total acesses
component, as well as the total time spent by course and by module. Figure 39.1 shows results for Userid vs total acesses, where we can observe the same behavior for real and simulated data. The results for Userid versus total time were quite similar. We made the same measurements by discretizing the data, using the LOW, MEDIUM, and HIGH values. Results for case of total accesses are presented in Fig. 39.2a and 39.2b. The similarity when comparing the percentages allows us to affirm that the simulation was successful.
39.5 Validation Before doing the analysis, we exported the tables from Hive to a CSV file. To compare the results of the synthetic database with the real one, we used Weka, specifically clustering algorithms and association rules. These results showed the similarity of the behavior.
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Fig. 39.3 Clustering with SimpleKMeans
39.5.1 Clustering Using SimpleKMeans SimpleKMeans is a clustering method that aims to divide a set of n observations into k groups; each observation belongs to the group whose mean value is closest. The results generated by this algorithm can be seen in Figs. 39.3a and 39.3b. These figures show that both cases have similar results.
39.5.2 A Priori Association Rules Association rules serve to discover what occurs in common within a given data set. We used a discretized database to apply association rules using the apriori algorithm. The nature of the algorithm, which allows us to optimally find frequent data sets, serve as the basis for generating such rules. For this technique, similar results were also obtained for the real and the synthetic database
39.6 Conclusions In this work, we used a big data environment to extract and process data from a SQL database using the log files (logs) of the Moodle platform, where all the actions that a user performs on it are stored. We could capture, filter, and process logs and other records, to extract relevant information from the platform. We succeeded in implementing a simulator on the Moodle platform, taking data to emulate the behavior of a real user. This simulator allows the generation of synthetic
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data from the database of an e-learning platform using a big data infrastructure, with which it was possible to increase the initial data volume. The tests performed with both big data and data mining tools yielded satisfactory results when comparing both the CEIDIS database (Moodle platform of the University of Los Andes) and the synthetic database, being able to state that the simulation returns similar behaviors. We used a minimal configuration for the cluster to test and validate. However, this does not represent a limitation because the configuration and deployment process is simple. Besides, it is possible to scale upwards when required.
References 1. Ramirez, A., Espejel, A., Pirela, A., Castillo, I.: Virtual education: an alternative in a globalised educational system. Revista Venezolana de Gerencia, vol. 26 (Especial 6), pp. 376–389 (2021) 2. Godinho, A., Rosado, J., Sá, F., Caldeira, F., Cardoso, F.: Torrent Poisoning Protection with a Reverse Proxy Server. Electronics 12(1), 165 (2022) 3. Han, J., Kamber, M., Pei, J.: Data mining concepts and techniques, 3rd edn. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers (2012) 4. Balusamy, B., Kadry, S., Abirami, N., Gandomi, A.: Big Data: Concepts, Technology, and Architecture. Wiley (2021) 5. Secades, V., Arranz, O.: Big data & Elearning: a binomial to the future of the knowledge society. IJIMAI 3, 29–33 (2016) 6. Gurban, M., Almogren, A.: Students actual use of e-learning in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. SAGE Open, 12(2) (2022). https://doi.org/10.1177/ 21582440221091250 7. Sabaityte, J., Davidaviciene, V., Karpoviciute, R.: Learning skills for enhancing the use of big data. World J. Educ. Technol. Curr, Issuesl 12(1), 23–36 (2020). https://doi.org/10.18844/wjet. v12i1.4438 8. Coordinación General de Estudios Interactivos a Distancia (CEIDIS). Universidad de Los Andes. https://ceidisula.net/ 9. Reza, M., Tripathy, B., Ranjan, H., Anant Kumar, G.: Study and analysis of hadoop cluster optimization based on configuration properties. In: Power and Advanced Computing Technologies (i-PACT IEEE), Innovations in, pp 1–4 (2017) 10. Lei, Y. Fei, T. Shangming, N., Yunshu, L., Zhe, C., Shengdong, D.: A two steps method of resources utilization predication predication for large Hadoop data center. Concurrency Comput. Pract. Experience 32, 15 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.5385 11. Roldán, A.: Mecanismos de análisis BigData para la caracterización de la actividad docente en un Campus Virtual Moodle. Universidad de Valladolid. Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación. Master Thesis (2016). http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/17475 12. Olarte, Y., Cruz, M.: Review of big data algorithms applied to the Moodle educational platform. Dialnet 15(5), (2022) 13. Espigares-Pinazo, M., Bautista-Vallejo, J., Duarte, M.‘: Use of the Two-Stage Method in the study of musical teaching and learning processes through Moodle. Int. J. High. Res. Soc. Sci. 13, 187–200 (2017) 14. Cartuche, T., López, H., Paredes, O.: Database DDOS attack mitigation using a load balancer. GEEKS DECC-REPORTS. Trends in Comput. 6(1), (2022) 15. White, T.: Hadoop: The Definitive Guide, 4th edn. O’Reilly (2022) 16. Moodle LMS Database, ZOOLA Analitycs. https://moodleschema.zoola.io/ 17. Apache JMeter. https://jmeter.apache.org/
Chapter 40
Gamification for Virtual Learning Environments in Ecuadorian Universities Marcelo Ramírez Terán , Miguel Aizaga , and Renato M. Toasa
Abstract A game is an important activity in human life that has incidence in the field of education. This study focuses on characterizing gamification strategies in virtual learning environments in Ecuadorian universities. The research is located in a mixed approach and has a descriptive scope. The study is empirical, non-experimental, and cross-sectional. 18 professors from four Ecuadorian universities were surveyed. In addition, 18 virtual learning environments structured by the surveyed professors were observed. The low level of knowledge about gamification borders three quarters of the respondents, and the great majority is not clear about the difference between the options: game-based learning and gamification in the strict sense. It is identified with the survey and confirmed by the observation that in most virtual learning environments, some specific game has been implemented, but the absence of gamified strategies or projects is noticeable.
40.1 Introduction This research is based on the following research question: What are the characteristics of gamification strategies in virtual learning environments of Ecuadorian universities? Based on this question, the objective of the research is to characterize gamification strategies in virtual learning environments of Ecuadorian universities. A game is consubstantial to the human being. And not only as entertainment but also as an element that facilitates learning. The Real Academia Española gives us an approximation of what play is when it points out two meanings of play: M. R. Terán (B) · M. Aizaga · R. M. Toasa Universidad Tecnológica Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] M. Aizaga e-mail: [email protected] R. M. Toasa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_40
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1. Action and effect of playing for entertainment. 2. Recreational or competitive exercise subject to rules, and in which one wins or loses [1]. On the other hand, Huizinga defines a game as “a free activity or occupation, taking place within given temporal and spatial limits, according to absolutely obligatory, but freely accepted rules, an action which has its end in itself and is accompanied by a feeling of tension and joy and the awareness of “being otherwise” than in ordinary life” [2]. This means that play satisfies the following characteristics: voluntariness, autonomy, compliance with rules, meaningful decision-making, the possibility of making mistakes, and a fun experience. This is what makes play an inspiring and engaging experience for humans. Children, youth, and adults play and have fun. Of course, they also learn. As for the term gamification, it can be said that it is an anglicism that comes from the term gamification. This concept was first used by Nick Pelling in 2003 [3]. In 2011, Deterding et al. argue that “gamification is the use of game design elements in non-game contexts” [4]. Gamification, although it implies the inclusion of the game in the teaching and learning process, is not limited to its sporadic use but rather to its incorporation in a systemic and systematic way, i.e. integral and procedural. This can be seen, for example, in the proposal made in 2020 by Toasa [5]. Hunicke et al. in 2004, referred to by Cornella et al., establish a frame of reference for game design composed of three elements: mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics [6]. Mechanics are the structure, actions, and mechanisms that are embodied in the rules of the game and offered to the players. Dynamics are the player’s behaviours in the context of the game mechanics. Aesthetics are the narrative of the game, the storey that unfolds during the game. These three elements can be seen in Fig. 40.1. Fig. 40.1 Elements of gamification. Own elaboration based on Cornella et al. [6]
Mechanics -Basic game rules-
Dynamics -What the player can do in the context of mechanicsAesthetics
-Narrative of the game and its setting-
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In addition to this proposal of game structure assumed in this work, there is that of Werbach and Hunter [7] and which has been mentioned by Ortiz-Colón et al. This proposal establishes that games are integrated by mechanics, dynamics, and components [8]. There are two basic ways of using games in the educational field, more precisely in virtual learning environments: the occasional use of a game or game-based learning (GBL) and a complex methodological proposal that transforms the didactic design of a specific subject or topic called gamification [6]. Although both proposals are active methodologies and use play as a dynamic and motivating element in the teaching and learning process, they are very different, and their level of complexity is totally different. If gamification is considered in a broad sense, which implies the incorporation of gamification in learning environments both in a narrow sense, and in a targeted manner, it is important to take into account aspects such as fun, motivation, narrative, emotions, progress, technology, and diversity [6]. These aspects are schematized in the scheme below (see Fig. 40.2).
Entertainment -Entertainment as the essence of the game-
Diversity -Consider diverse stakeholders-
Motivation -Meeting human needs-
Gamification aspects
Technology
Narrative
-Can increase motivation-
-Tell a story-
Progress
Emotions
-Ensure constant skills learning-
-To provoke positive emotions-
Fig. 40.2 Aspects of gamification in a broad sense
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40.2 Material and Methods The research is located in the mixed approach, and taking into account the research scopes proposed by Hernandez et al. in 2014, it is descriptive [9]. In addition, the study is empirical and non-experimental and transectional or cross-sectional. The research methods used were the historical-logical, synthetic analytical, inductivedeductive and observational, as referred to by Ramírez Terán [10]. The survey and semi-structured observation techniques were used, whose instruments are the questionnaire and the observation guide, respectively. The questionnaire and the observation were validated by experts in the field of gamification. 18 university professors were surveyed, and 18 virtual learning environments from four Ecuadorian universities were observed and were structured by the professors who participated in this study.
40.3 Results The results obtained in the survey show that the majority of teachers, about three quarters, indicate that they have a low level of knowledge about gamification (see Table 40.1), although this is a trend. Regarding the level of knowledge about the basic elements of gamification— mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics—most of the 18 teachers surveyed indicated that it is low (see Table 40.2), i.e. they are not clear about how to configure gamification in their virtual learning environment. Table 40.1 Knowledge level about gamification
Knowledge level about gamification
%
High
11
Medium
17
Low
72
Total
100
Note Own elaboration
Table 40.2 Level of knowledge of basic elements of gamification
Level of knowledge of basic elements of gamification
%
High
–
Medium
6
Low
94
Total
100
Note Own elaboration
40 Gamification for Virtual Learning Environments in Ecuadorian … Table 40.3 Importance of the interaction of gamification elements
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Level of importance
%
Very important
6
Important
11
Not very important
83
Not important
–
Total
100
Note Own elaboration
Regarding the interaction between the elements of gamification—dynamics, mechanics and components—which is fundamental, the majority of teachers indicate that it is not very important (see Table 40.3). This result is related to the low level of knowledge about gamification expressed by teachers. If we take into account the two options in the use of games in educational contexts such as game-based learning (GBL) and gamification in the strict sense, only one out of ten teachers (11%) knows the difference between these two possibilities (see Table 40.4). From the observation of the 18 virtual learning environments (VLEs), it can be seen that most of them (78%) incorporate some specific game, and none have implemented a gamified strategy or project (see Table 40.5). In addition, the observation showed the existence of virtual learning environments for several subjects that have been structured in Moodle. Regarding the gamification elements of these VLEs, the results shown in Table 40.6 were obtained. Finally, in the 14 VLEs (78%) that incorporate specific games, the seven aspects of gamification in a broad sense were sought. Thus, it was observed that fun, motivation, emotions, progress, and technology are aspects of gamification present. However, narrative and diversity have certain shortcomings. Narrative does not follow a storey Table 40.4 Difference between GBL and gamification
Difference between GBL and gamification
%
Yes
11
No
89
Total
100
Note Own elaboration
Table 40.5 Implementation of gamification in the VLEs
Implementation
%
Gamified strategy/project
–
Some game
78
None
22
Total
100
Note Own elaboration
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Table 40.6 Elements of gamification in VLEs Elements of gamification
Observation results
Mechanics
• Specific games are inserted in virtual learning environments • They do not correspond to gamification in the strict sense • Tools such as Kahoot, Quizizz, Genially, and h5p activities in Moodle (word search, crossword puzzles, memory games) are used
Dynamics
• Players have fun in the games • A certain level of uncertainty is generated • Players are motivated
Aesthetics
• A narrative integrated to the theme or subject is not appreciated • The points and levels that each game brings
Note Own elaboration
Table 40.7 Aspects of gamification in VLEs Gamification aspects
Observation results
Entertainment
• Built-in games allow for fun
Motivation
• The mechanics of the games encourage the motivation of the participants
Narrative
• They do not tell a storey. They are punctual applications that are not inserted in a wide ludic context
Emotions
• Games generate different types of positive emotions such as surprise, joy, and interest
Progress
• Progress is visualized through scores (e.g. Kahoot) or grades (e.g. crossword puzzle, word search in h5p activities)
Technology
• Use is made of technology through built-in tools (Kahoot, Quizizz, Genially, and h5p activities in Moodle)
Diversity
• There is no differentiated attention to players because they are standardized games
Note Own elaboration
and is linear; neither is it incorporated in an integrated way to the subject or subject matter; which makes it appear as just another activity. Diversity is also not taken into account because they are single-user activities that do not allow for specific adaptations beyond those established by the tool itself (see Table 40.7).
40.4 Discussion Despite the emphasis given to online education in Ecuadorian universities and the fact that gamification is often mentioned in this process, it is little known by professors. Thus, it is determined in this study that most professors assume that they have a low level of knowledge about gamification and its basic elements. This in itself marks
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the subsequent responses to the survey because it is assumed that knowledge about gamification would affect its application in virtual learning environments. Therefore, the teachers’ perceptions about the low importance of the interaction of mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics as elements of gamification are consistent. In addition, the difficulty of teachers in differentiating between two options: game-based learning and gamification is highlighted. On the other hand, observation of the EVAs shows that in most of them, some specific game is incorporated into a topic or subject, while in four of them, no game is used. The absence of gamified strategies or projects may be due to the fact that most teachers consider that by applying a game they are gamifying. Teachers are simply using game-based learning, but not gamification in the strict sense. In relation to the elements of gamification, the mechanics are characterized by presenting specific games that do not correspond to a gamified strategy or project; tools such as Kahoot, Quizizz, Genially, and h5p activities in Moodle (word search, crossword puzzles, memory games) are used that involve games and whose purpose is to motivate the student. In the dynamics, players have fun and are motivated in games in a context of uncertainty. In terms of aesthetics, a narrative integrated to the theme or subject is not observed; in addition, the points and levels that each game brings are used. Of the seven aspects of gamification, five are present in the EVAs: fun, motivation, emotions, progress, and technology. Narrative and diversity have difficulty in being concretized in the observed EVAs.
40.5 Conclusions Game-based learning and gamification are two possibilities applicable in educational processes at the university level. These same options can be used in virtual learning environments. However, it is essential to understand the dichotomy highlighted by this work. In the virtual learning environments that were observed, the absence of gamification strategies or projects in the strict sense is noticeable. In most of the VLEs, a specific application of games for learning purposes is highlighted. While in one fifth of the EVAs, no games are used. The strategies for applying gamification in the virtual learning environments of Ecuadorian universities depend on the institutional context and the conceptual and methodological mastery of the teachers within the framework of the criteria mentioned in this study.
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References 1. Real Academia Española: Diccionario de lengua española. 23.a ed. (2022). https://dle.rae.es/ juego 2. Huizinga, J.: Homo ludens. Alianza Editorial, Madrid (2000) 3. Romero-Rodríguez, L., Torres-Toukoumidis, A., Aguaded, I.: Ludificación y educación para la ciudadanía. Revisión de las experiencias significativas. Educar 57(1), 109–128 (2017) 4. Deterding, S., et al.: From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining “Gamification”. MindTrek´11. ACM Press, Tampere (2011) 5. Toasa, R., Celi, E., Herrera, L.: Using accomplishment from Octalysis Framework in a Dynamic Game. In: 15th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI) (2020) 6. Cornella, P., Estebanell, M., Brusi, D.: Gamificación y aprendizaje basado en juegos. Consideraciones generales y algunos ejemplos para la enseñanza de la Geología. Enseñanza de las Ciencias de la Tierra 28(1), 5–19 (2020) 7. Werbach, K., Hunter, D.: For the win: how game thin-king can revolutionize your business. Wharton Digital Press, Philadelphia (2012) 8. Ortiz-Colón, A., Jordán, J., Agredal, M.: Gamificación en educación: una panorámica sobre el estado de la cuestión. Educacao y Pesquisa 44(e173773), 1–17 (2018) 9. Hernández, R., Fernández, C., Baptista, P.: Metodología de la investigación. 6.a ed. McGrawHill, México (2014) 10. Ramírez Terán, M.: Metodología de la investigación científica. 2.a ed. Exacto Visual, Quito (2003)
Chapter 41
Electronic Platform of Students’ Social Competencies Development as a Learning Management System Rasa Poceviciene
and Donatas Daugirdas
Abstract Social competence education has a positive impact on children’s social and emotional development and helps to create positive relationships with peers and adults in the present and future. It could be implemented in a variety of educational settings, including formal and informal educational activities: structured lessons, role-playing activities, and social skills training, but the proper results are achieved only if this education is systemic and permanent. One of such examples could be the model presented and analyzed in the article. The main characteristic of the model created and implemented in Šiauliai city municipality is collaboration with external companies, institutions, and organizations to promote social responsibility and engagement local communities into the process of social competencies development engages. The Student Social Competency Development (SKU) model in all schools was started to be implemented in 2014. Now network of 130 social partners is established, but the idea indeed was implemented and began working only when the electronic platform of SKU had been created. The relevance of the platform as well as the benefit of it, and the main aspects of implementation and operation are analyzed in the article. The analysis enables to confirm that digitizing operational processes facilitates the recording of social competencies in schools and enables effective coordination among all the participants of these activities. With the help of this system, the activities of business companies and non-business organizations can be publicized and incorporated into the educational process, while also ensuring cooperation with partners, sharing of information, and maintaining the confidentiality.
R. Poceviciene (B) · D. Daugirdas Siauliu valstybin˙e kolegija, 76241 Siauliai, Lithuania e-mail: [email protected] D. Daugirdas e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_41
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41.1 Introduction Social competence education has a positive impact on children’s social and emotional development and helps to create positive relationships with peers and adults in the present and future. It could be implemented in a variety of educational settings, including formal and informal educational activities, but the proper results are achieved only if this education is systemic and permanent. One of such examples could be the model presented and analyzed in the article. The main characteristic of the model created and implemented in Šiauliai city municipality is collaboration with external companies, institutions, and organizations to promote social responsibility and engagement local communities into the process of social competencies development engages. The Student Social Competency Development (SKU) model in all schools was started to be implemented in 2014. Now network of 130 social partners is established, but the idea indeed was implemented and began working only when the electronic platform of SKU had been created. The relevance of the platform as well as the benefit of it and the main aspects of implementation and operation are analyzed in the article. The analysis enables to confirm that digitizing operational processes facilitates the recording of social competencies in schools and enables effective coordination among all the participants of these activities. With the help of this system, the activities of business companies and non-business organizations can be publicized and incorporated into the educational process, while also ensuring cooperation with partners, sharing of information, and maintaining the confidentiality.
41.2 Methodology The system development approach used in this study is the object-oriented approach, which is a model-based technique that integrates data and processing problems into constructs called objects. Before the system was created, a feasibility study was conducted to assess the feasibility of the system. The theoretical and practical analysis of the idea is based on the following methodological attitudes. Social constructivism [1] and reconstructivism [2], which enable critical interpretation of “well-established” educational phenomenon and understanding them in the sociocultural context, i.e., as integral part of the general cultural, religious, and social groups; understanding the importance of social interaction and sociocultural context, of active participation in political and social activities of the society for personality’s education. In this perspective, students are treated as active (inter) creators. The new and quite different teachers’ roles are highlighted too. These new roles mean that teachers support the efforts of the students to them individually construct knowledge and the world. Progressivism philosophy [2], which emphasizes active person’s participation in his/her own learning process and society’s life too. They establish a free and
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creative personality development goal [3]. The principles of progressivism didactics (freedom, individual experience, experimentation, and academicals consulting) are the basic approaches of author’s researches. One of the most important features of progressivistic pedagogy is the free choice of the learner, when deciding what to learn, something to aspire to, every student takes responsibility for their own future, their own actions and behaviors, get used to make decisions related to personal risk. In addition to these features is not possible success of an individual’s life in a democratic, individual initiative and free competition based society [3]. New requirements in this context there are for teacher. So in this respect, it is relevant the idea of progressivisms, which emphasize on the teacher’s inner freedom, which allows the teacher to create free, sincere atmosphere of mutual trust, and so on. On the other hand, these demands increase the teacher’s responsibility to students and society. Pragmatism philosophy [4] emphasizes active participation in learning process by the way of experimenting, solving real-life problems, assessing the behavioral effects, active participation in society’s life, which emphasizes the importance of interaction between individuality and sociability and the importance of their educating at school, also higher educational institutions; the concept of education not as a preparation for life, but as the concept of life, and the importance person’s life for themselves and so on. Of particular relevance is highlighted of pragmatists the role of the educational institutions as promoter of individual and social skills of the learner, where individuality is seen as interaction of personal choice and freedom with objective conditions, and the role of the teacher not as a traditional teacher (as transferor of knowledge), but as a learning process coordinator (because the transferring of knowledge is not so important as personal experience).
41.2.1 Operational Feasibility Research has shown that social competence education can have a positive impact on children’s social and emotional development. Social competence education can be implemented in a variety of settings, including schools, preschools, and community centers. It may involve structured lessons, role-playing activities, and social skills training. Overall, social competence education is an important aspect of promoting children’s social and emotional development and can help lay the foundation for positive relationships with peers and adults in the future. Urbanization, globalization of markets, the 4th Industrial and educational revolution, new “breakthrough” technologies, longer life expectancy and constant change, greater change and the need for constant learning and frequent changes in the profession—only few reasons for development not only of professional skills, but also of social as well as digital competences of students. Those competencies are skills are mentioned in The Top 10 skills in 2030 presented at World Economic Forum, for example [5, 6]: 1. Judgment and Decision-making
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Fluency of Ideas Active Learning Learning Strategies Originality System Evaluation Deductive Reasoning Complex Problem Solving Systems Analysis Monitoring
Social competence education refers to programs and interventions that aim to improve children’s social skills and relationships with others. It can encompass a range of strategies, including teaching children how to communicate effectively, resolve conflicts, and cooperate with others. The Šiauliai City Municipality implemented the Student Social Competency Development (SKU) model in 2014 in all its general education schools, which involves collaboration with external companies, institutions, and organizations to promote social responsibility and engagement with local communities. Its goal is to develop students’ social and leadership skills and encourage professional activation, creativity, altruism, and volunteerism, and a network of 130 social partners has been established at the municipal level.
41.2.2 Functional Module Design After listening to the stakeholders during the implementation of the project, it was decided to create a unified system for schools, which will record all the activities of the student’s social competences. For several decades, project management systems have become comprehensive systems detailing the entire project life cycle; each system must be designed [7]. They are analyzed and designed using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) during the design phase. A use case diagram contains use cases and actors. Use cases represent system functionality, while actors represent the people or systems that interact with the system [8]. Visible from the use case diagram (Fig. 41.1), SKU is administered by three user groups: super administrator, administrator (who works with records, reports, and system maintenance), company/employer representatives who can publish activities to students. The super administrator administers SKU system administrators and all records in the system. Systems change appearance and plugins, restricts access, updates the system, installs plugins, manages users’ information and perform mass actions on them. The administrator, appointed by the Šiauliai City Municipality, is responsible for managing school administrator data, monitoring and analyzing SKU data and activities, and approving activities entered into the system by school administrators.
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Fig. 41.1 Use case diagram for SKU
Company/Employer administrator can register activities for students, to register an activity you need to specify the name of the activity, the age of the students, the number of students that the company can accept, date, time. The administrator can edit his data, as well as company data. The UML Activity Diagram (UAD) is mostly used for modeling behavioral aspects of objects and systems [9]. In Unified Modeling Language (UML) [10], an activity diagram is a type of behavioral diagram that shows the flow of control or object flow within a system or process. In the diagram (Fig. 41.2), we can see the activity logging system which records various activities. The calendar of activities (SKU) allows social activity coordinators from schools across the city to register and monitor activities on-site. Additionally, social partners can publish educational activities for students in their organizations, and school social activity coordinators can register students in those activities. Figure 41.2 shows the system is designed to require proper data entry into the SKU system, including the activity name, date, duration, location, and a brief description that clarifies the activity details for students, along with the number of participants and age group. Only after completing the data entry process correctly, can the activity be confirmed and made public to all schools in the city. It is very important that school administrators are properly involved in the data entry of the SKU system.
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Fig. 41.2 Activity diagram: activity registration by the school administrator
To handle the large amount of data that needs to be entered, activities were grouped by color. Referring to, it seems that the decision to group activities by color may be made as a way to organize and visualize the data more effectively. By assigning different colors to different activities, it may be easier to quickly identify patterns and make sense of the data, especially if the amount of data is quite large [11]. When designing the system, it was important to emphasize the importance of the scientific use of color in data visualization. It is clear from the researchers’ [12, 13] statements that it is important to emphasize the importance of using color in data visualization. Color used to highlight important data elements and relationships, draw attention to specific information, and create visual impact. It is important to choose and use colors carefully to convey the intended message and meaning [12, 14]. You can see the choice of color range in Fig. 41.3.
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Fig. 41.3 Selection of system data color gamut
41.3 Conclusion Social competence education is an important aspect of promoting children’s social and emotional development and can help lay the foundation for positive relationships with peers and adults in the future. Development of social competence could be organized by the different programs and interventions that aim to improve children’s social skills and relationships with others. It can encompass a range of strategies, including teaching children how to communicate effectively, resolve conflicts, and cooperate with others. One of such strategies was the model of Student Social Competency Development (SKU) in Šiauliai City Municipality. The model involved collaboration with external companies, institutions, and organizations to promote social responsibility and engagement with local communities. Its goal is to develop students’ social and leadership skills, and encourage professional activation, creativity, altruism, and volunteerism, and a network of 130 social partners has been established at the municipal level. The model was created in 2014, but indeed implemented it was only when the electronic platform for students’ social competences development was created. Digitizing operational processes facilitates the recording of social competencies in schools and enables coordination among employees of the education department of the city of Šiauliai for these activities.
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With the help of this system, the activities of business companies and non-business organizations can be publicized and incorporated into the training process, while also ensuring cooperation with partners, sharing of information, and maintaining the confidentiality.
References 1. Berger, L., Luckmann, Th.: Socialinis tikrov˙es konstravimas. Pradai, Vilnius (1999) 2. Duoblien˙e, L.: Šiuolaikin˙e ugdymo filosofija: refleksijos ir dialogo link. Tyto alba, Vilnius (2006) 3. Bitinas, B.: Ugdymo filosofija. Enciklopedija, Vilnius (2000) 4. Dewey, J.: Democracy and Education. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. The Free Press, New York (1966) 5. World Economic Forum.: The top 10 skills you’ll need for the future of work. Retrieved from https://www.coorpacademy.com/en/blog/learning-innovation-en/world-economicforum (2020) 6. The future of jobs employment, skills and workforce strategy for the fourth industrial revolution. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3lbUyhqTZfH vUvbOo1lsGTDGKzga5YssNpueAWO8dfo85Q0IHFSCsB3PE (2016) 7. Danenas, P., Skersys, T., Butleris, R.: Natural language processing-enhanced extraction of SBVR business vocabularies and business rules from UML use case diagrams. Data Knowl. Eng. 128, 101822 (2020) 8. Amiri, K.H., et al.:Introducing the use case diagram of community empowerment process in cybernetic space in order to improve the public participation in urban regeneration of areas suffering from decline in Isfahan. Motaleate Shahri. 11(42), 61–74 (2022) (Jms). https://doi. org/10.34785/J011.2022.717 9. Abbas, M., et al.: Formal modeling and verification of UML activity diagrams (UAD) with FoCaLiZe. J. Syst. Archit. 114, 101911 (2021) 10. OMG.: UML: Unified Modeling Language, version 2.5.1. Available at: https://www.omg.org/ spec/UML/2.5.1/About-UML/ (March 2023) 11. Crameri, F., Shephard, G.E., Heron, P.J.: The misuse of colour in science communication. Nat. Commun. 11(1), 5444 (2020) 12. Yuan, L.-P., et al.: Infocolorizer: interactive recommendation of color palettes for infographics. IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graphics 28(12), 4252–4266 (2021) 13. Zhang, R., et al.: Real-time user-guided image colorization with learned deep priors. arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.02999 (2017) 14. Qian, C., et al.: Retrieve-then-adapt: example-based automatic generation for proportionrelated infographics. IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graphics 27(2), 443–452 (2020)
Chapter 42
Proposal for the Inclusion of Narrative in the Video Game Design Process Miguel Cobos
and Patricia Salvador
Abstract Narrative is a literary genre that is developed in video games; it is presented as an element that narrates the events that take place while playing the game. When you decide to develop a video game, many things happen, from getting the idea, thinking about the story, defining the rules, designing the mechanics, programming, to name a few. At Indoamerica University, we have been developing video games for several years using the latest trends in graphic and video game design, as well as the necessary software. In this way, after analysing the products created, we noticed the absence of narrative in the design process. As a result, we wanted to incorporate this genre from the outset, so that it would be considered in the design of each of the elements that make up the game.
42.1 Introduction 42.1.1 New Narrative Discourses Narrating is an inherent part of human behaviour. It has accompanied the species from its Neanderthal stages to Homo sapiens or rather Homo videoludens [1]. Moreover, it was one of the transcendental acts that contributed to the evolution of the human being, thanks to the fact that it allowed the transmission of information from generation to generation, thus perpetuating the knowledge of the ancestor. They narrated stories, knowledge, rites, sensations, feelings, etc., reproducing the reality in which they lived. From the cave substrates to the digital support, narratives have contained the stories of the world. Today, the narration of reality is not only linked to the literary, graphic, or cinematographic, emerging technology has proposed M. Cobos (B) · P. Salvador Indoamerica University, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] P. Salvador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_42
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new formats that tell stories from interactivity, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and playfulness. These have positioned themselves as cultural products and is that, they are a mixture of new realities with technology, culture, entertainment, fun, among others, as stated by Fernández-Vara in his book Introduction to game analysis [2]. Video games as new narratives not only allow storytelling, but also have an impact on culture, society, and economy. They have managed to transcend from a children’s practice to a family and social activity [3].
42.1.2 Narratology The video game is still an emerging product; its study has taken research lines from other fields to gradually build its own path. In this sense, narratology is a discipline of analysis that can study the narrative within the game. These new narrative products, according to Pérez Latorre [4], enjoy a narratological structure. Interactive games produce a narrative experience that involves a narrator, characters, space and time, developed in a plot of events [5, 6]. The way of narrating and the configuration of the plot is what creates the reading experience, whether it is a book, film, or video game. In the case of the interactive game, the reading of these narratives is given through the gameplay, and this is a cognitive act that promotes the construction of the plot image in the mind of the player, in the same way that occurs in the mind of the literary reader or the film viewer.
42.1.3 Video Games as Narrative Discourses The video game, as an interactive discourse, is a generator of narrative experiences; these encompass cognitive, sensory, and emotional reactions and allow the player to be immersed in an experience in which the gamer ends up being a character and builder of the narrative. The gameplay gives the player the power to contribute to the story and become the protagonist [7]. These games may or may not start from a story to develop narrativity. Narrative relationships are triggered in the imaginary of the reader-player, which makes it possible to construct the story while playing, while reading the game, while thinking through it. A narrative discourse always has a narrative, there is someone who narrates it, and someone who receives it. For Genette [5], the receiver of the narrative is called the narrator. The narrator and narratary are the ones who consolidate the diegesis of the narrative. In this sense, the narrative dimension is not the property of the video game designer, it is shared between the designer and the player. The designer builds the first part of the narrative through the embedded and emergent narratives; these are found
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in the mechanics, rules, environments, levels, difficulty, flow, graphical style, sounds, music, among others, and after the design, the player completes the construction of the narrative through the gameplay [4]. This allows the player to live an immersion within the narrative elements of the interactive ludic discourse, which allows the player to exist in the events, make decisions, face challenges, and build the diegetic experience. With the above we can define that narrating is a biphasic process that materializes with the participation of the designer and the player. So, it is not only reading the interactive text or playing a game with rules. Gameplay is the state that shapes the narrative in the mind of the player. The construction of the plot that takes place after the game responds to the interaction of a given moment, in which each player will have shaped his or her own narrative. Each reading, each game is a unique and unrepeatable experience, different for each person. Even playing the same game several times generates different experiences and thus different narratives.
42.1.4 The Plot that Builds Narratives in Video Games The plot is the way the story is woven, it is how the narrative elements are ordered and related, and it will help to establish the thread of the story. For Kremers [8], it is everything that the reader-player will have to face as narrator and narratary, and it will not allow the narrative to be deviated by the gameplay; it constitutes the structure of the game. Related to the above, Level Design [8] proposes several ways of designing levels in a video game, one of which is the Level Arc; this is closely related to the dramatic structure of the story proposed by Freytag [9] in the nineteenth century. On the other hand, Rogers [10] uses eight moments to build the character’s story from the exposition of the problem to the resolution of the conflict. Figure 42.1 shows a comparison between the dramatic structure worked by Freytag as a basis and the story structure proposed for video games at Level Up. Rogers [10] outlines the basic structure of the story in several numbered moments, which are: 1—there is a hero who has a desire, 2—the hero encounters an event that causes a problem, 3—The hero attempts to overcome the problem, 4—the attempt fails, 5—the hero encounters more problems, 6—the hero exposes himself to more risk by overcoming greater problem, 7—finally, there is one last problem that threatens the hero with the greatest risk of all, and 8—the hero must solve a final problem and gains his object of desire. These moments unfold over the dramatic structure of Freytag’s five acts: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. A first analysis between literary narrative and video game narrative has been presented by Cobos [11]. Narrative is a literary genre that occurs silently in video games, as an element that narrates what happens during the game. When we decide to develop a video game, many things happen, from getting the idea, thinking of a story, defining the rules, designing the mechanics, and programming, to name a few. At Indoamerica
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Fig. 42.1 Freytag’s and Rogers’s narrative model comparative
University, we have been developing video games for several years, using the latest trends in graphic and video game design, as well as the necessary software. In this way, after analysing the products created, we have realized the absence of narrative in the design process. Based on this, we wanted to incorporate this genre from the beginning, so that it is considered in the design of each of the elements that constitute it. This work aims to be a starting guide as a complement to the theory of video game design that university students receive and for those who want to design video games, with emphasis on the first steps of the process, considering the narrative as a relevant factor in the conceptualization of these. It is relevant to note that anyone with a vocation in the subject can design video games; Schell [12] is of the opinion that the important thing is to make the decision and that no special equipment is needed for this. However, if your goal is to produce them, you will need additional skills such as programming and character design.
42.2 Related Works Studies have been conducted on the subject, some focusing on literary narrative and others on the design of video games, without precisely finding a work that allows students to follow the design process incorporating narrative in each phase.
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There are many experts who discuss the narrative theme in some part of their works, among them, we have the contributions of Suárez [13], Curiel [14], Rogers [10], Jenkins [15], Pérez Latorre [4], Kremers [8], Schell [12], and Sheldon [16]. They recognize that the narrative is a system of necessary connections from which interactive and ludic narratives are derived, which are indispensable elements of the dramatic thread in the video game. On the other hand, specific works are presented. An interesting work incorporates the measurement of the quality of a video game considering the narrative among its parameters and is the case of featured video games on water proposed by Galván and other authors [17]. We also highlight the article by Bizzcocchi [18] which an analysis of the narrative arc is made as a confrontation between narratologists and ludologists, trying to resolve the confusion in the story with elements such as characters, world, emotion, and interface among others.
42.3 Methodology This section details the methods used in this work focusing on four areas: (1) bibliographic selection of relevant authors, (2) systematization of the teaching experience, (3) analysis of the design documents of several published video games, and (4) development of a working proposal for the design of video games.
42.3.1 Bibliographic Selection For this selection, the experiences and material worked by video game designers and developers were considered. References were also taken from classic and modern authors referring to narrative and designers who have considered narrative as an important element in the process of designing video games. Table 42.1 shows the contributions of each author, which have been taken as the structural axis of this work.
42.3.2 Analysis of Narrative in Video Game Design Documents GDD With the purpose of analysing whether narrative is considered in the design of video games, the GDD video game design documents of the work of the students of Indoamerica University of the last five levels have been collected; these are the ones that we have access to. On the other hand, we have searched the web for these
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Table 42.1 Contributions of authors considered for narrative analysis in video games Author
Significant contributions
Fernández-Vara [2] Fernández highlights video games as a text, a cultural product that resembles a play, incorporating other media that allow for a narrative Pérez Latorre [4]
It recognizes video games as communicative cultural discourses capable of creating different narrative dimensions through playful interaction. They are theoretically framed in semiotics, narrative, and ludology
Suarez [13]
It approaches the video game as a narrative structure (embedded and emergent) where the interactions of the gameplay are the ones that determine the narrative of the game. Furthermore, it places the player as narrator-actant and narrator of the same story, thus defining a model for the analysis of interactive video game narratives
Rogers [10]
Rogers proposes a GDD design document model. On the other hand, he describes, with the support of cartoons, the events that occur in a story, which leads to narrative
África Curiel [14]
Curiel has worked from a narrative analysis, identifying the ways in which narrative is embedded in video games
Salem and Zimmerman [19]
They give great importance to narrative, considering video games as narrative systems. An analysis of the narrative, its characteristics, and structure is made
Jenkins [15]
Jenkis has worked in several fields that lead to narrative, among them embedded and emergent narrative
Schell [12]
Schell proposes lenses that help determine whether a video game design conforms to various considerations. He emphasizes the importance of the unique experience that is created in the player. With respect to story, he points to it as a kind of experience and proposes methods for telling them
Sheldon [16]
From his experience, he analyses video games from their conception and the need or not to have a story. He analyses the narrative, the way to develop it, even the style of the video game adjusted to it
Kremers [8]
Kremers, based on Freytag’s pyramid, uses the way of narrating events as a methodology in the design of levels
video game GDDs that have been shared for inclusion in this analysis. The inclusion criteria for this selection were educational video games, indie video games, both from the last 5 years, that the design document is available. Table 42.2 shows a comparison of the design documents of several video games, most of the works of the Indoamerica University do include a defined story, although none of them has considered the narrative. Of the rest analysed, we can highlight two indie video games that somehow try to incorporate the narrative in their design.
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Table 42.2 Presence of narrative in the GDD of the video games collected Source
Analysed
Presence of story
Narrative present in the GDD
36
0
8
0
0
Indie video games—GDD obtained from web search
21
20
2
Total
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56
2
Indoamerica University (last 5 48 levels) Educational video games—GDD obtained from web search
42.3.3 Systematization of the Teaching Experience We have considered the teaching experience of the authors of this work for 10 years in the process of design and development of video games. During this time, many video game projects of different genres were developed, from which the experiences, practice, evaluations, achievements, failures, and everything that can be noted of this process were compiled. Villa Holguín [20] and Jara [21] highlight this methodology as a stimulus to produce practical knowledge and leave guidelines for continuous improvement.
42.3.4 A Starter’s Guide to Narrative-Driven Game Design Working meetings were held to analyse all the contributions collected, considering similar and opposing positions and contrasting them with teaching practice, to propose an initial guide to video game design with a narrative emphasis. Participatory work was carried out between 3 teachers and 10 students, based on the analysis of the video game products produced by the students. The guide was then constructed with the working group based on video game theory. It was applied to the same products, repeating the process until a first draft was produced and, finally, the result presented in this work was reached.
42.4 Proposed Model for the Inclusion of Narrative in the Video Game Design Process The bibliographic analysis combined with teaching experience was very important in the development of this work. It has been determined that the narrative is described in less than 5% of the GDD, and this directly influences the quality of the products based on these.
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As a result of this work, a guide is presented for those who are starting in the design of video games, as well as for those who are on the way in the process and are interested in incorporating narrative in their projects. It also presents a model that allows us to validate how much the literary narrative fits with the narrative of the video game to be used both in the design process and to apply it in a developed product to refine it. The proposed model was built based on the theoretical foundation of outstanding works in the fields of narrative and video game design, our teaching experience in the related fields, and the collaboration of teachers and students of the multimedia design career at Indoamerica University. The model is oriented to be applied in two ways, as an instrument to refine the video game design process and as a tool to validate an already developed product, in both cases the way to apply it is the same; it only depends on the time of application, and in the first case, it will be done on the GDD design document, and in the second, playing several times to identify the elements. Table 42.3 shows the structure of the proposed model to consider the narrative in the above elements. The first step describes the context of the video game. Step 2 analyses several parameters concerning the literary narrative. Step 3 makes a general description of the narrative world and the type of plot, detailing what happens at each level, including graphically. Step 4 establishes the relationship between the literary narrative and the video game narrative; we recommend that each parameter in this last step is validated to consider the narrative in each act of the plot. Each step of the proposed model is described below. Marks should be placed as appropriate and described where necessary. Steps 1 to 3 are descriptive. Step 4 should be filled out according to the low, medium, and high scale; in case it does not apply, it should be marked in the No column. Step 1—Context In this step, the generalities of the video game are identified, considering the structure proposed by Fernández-Vara [2], who in his game analysis model presents a context section. In addition to the above, certain elements present in the One-Sheet suggested in the Game Design Document by Rogers [10] are added. Thus, Step 1 of the model is constructed before analysing the narrative present in it. Figure 42.2 shows this part. Guiding texts have been included to make it easy to fill in the form.
Table 42.3 Model for narrative analysis in video games Phase
Description
Step 1
Context
Step 2
Literary narrative
Step 3
General description
Step 4
Relationship between the literary narrative and the narrative of the video game
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Fig. 42.2 Step 1 of the model
Step 2—Literary narrative Step 2 consists of identifying certain aspects related to the literary narrative. The conceptual basis was drawn from the contributions of Genette [5], Pérez [4], Suárez [13], and Schell [12]. This will help determine the way the story is told and the player’s behaviour. Guidelines were placed on the form to allow filling out the form. Figure 42.3 shows this part of the model. Step 3—General description This step places the narrative and its relationship in the different levels of the video game. The first section locates the world where the story is told, this world where the organization of space in each level is identified. This organization was taken from Schell’s recommendations in the art game design [12].
Fig. 42.3 Step 2 of the model
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The next section describes the type of plot, the path through which the game unfolds. The contributions of Pérez Latorre [4] were essential in this construction. The way of narrating as String of pearls and story machine are based on Schell’s proposal [12]. The rules section, which define the structure of the video game and end up narrating the story, are focused on three types and must be described. These attributes have been very well worked by Salen and Zimmerman [19]. Figure 42.4 shows this step. Step 4—Relationship between literary narrative and video game narrative This part details what happens in each event; this step must be repeated for each identifiable or proposed level in the video game. Several sections have been placed to assess the presence of the narrative in each of them. Please note that the sections have been divided for better understanding. The headings shown in Fig. 42.5 are retained for all sections in Step 4.
Fig. 42.4 Step 3 of the model
Fig. 42.5 Step 4 of the model—formal structure
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The first section is based on Fernández-Vara’s proposal [2] and is labelled Formal Structure as show in Fig. 42.5; it contains basic narrative criteria, and others taken and adapted from the Beat Chart in the GDD of Rogers [10]. Each parameter should be marked with an X in the column that corresponds, analyse in what way it contributes to the narrative, in case of not existing mark in Null. The sense of freedom is described in the next section, these parameters are closely related to the narrative and are based on the indirect controls recommended by Schell [12]. These are categorized into constraints, goals, interface, visual design, characters, and music. Write how each indirect control can contribute to that the gameplay narrates the story. Figure 42.6 shows this section. These indirect controls help the player to stay in a flow channel, using Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory [22] and Schell’s recommendations [12]; in this regard, next section has been constructed to determine the contribution of flow in the narrative, and questions from Schell’s lens book [12] have been adapted to determine if the player can stay in a flow channel in favour of sticking to the narrative. Figure 42.7 shows the sections of this step. Finally, we have considered the mechanics, which lead directly to the construction of the narrative in each movement of the player. The structure presented in Games Mechanics was considered [23]. At this point, the mechanics in each category should be described and how much they contribute to the narrative. Figure 42.8 shows this step. Results of the assessment Finally, the values obtained should be summarized to determine how much the video game design adjusts to the narrative design; it will enable making decisions, finetuning the design, or suggesting changes to improve the video games developed
Fig. 42.6 Step 4 of the model—indirect controls
Fig. 42.7 Step 4 of the model—flow
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Fig. 42.8 Step 4 of the model—mechanics
Null
low
med
high
Formal structure Freedom sensation Flow Mechanics Total
Fig. 42.9 Results of the assessment of the video game narrative
by the students. Place the value corresponding to the totalized percentage for each category in the table as shown in Fig. 42.9.
42.5 Conclusions We recognize that the design of the mechanics contributes to the gameplay, but these mechanics respond to ideas, achievements, or challenges that the designer believes the player can immerse themselves in. In other words, the design of interactivity is central to the experience of the game. However, analysis of this work leads us to recognize that even in those GDDs where the story was never intended, it is necessary to ground the idea, the interactive experience, in a story. In this way, the practice of reading, embedded in the development of the video game, will allow the creation of new experiences, new ways of reading and constructing the diegesis. For this reason, in this article, a narrative analysis model was proposed to be applied to video games developed by students. This model was developed from the contributions of important research on literary narrative, narrative in video games, video game theory and the systematization of experiences in the subject. The criteria used were discussed in workshops with experts in the topics covered with the participation of the students, which helped to refine the proposal, until obtaining a document that can be applied in a simple way in the works carried out. Considering the narrative design in the future video games of the students can guarantee works of better acceptance by the public. Having a narrative analysis model makes it possible to determine how well the narrative fits in the video games worked on to improve them in terms of gameplay.
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A good GDD video game design document with narrative incorporated into each of its elements can greatly enhance the player’s experience and ensure the game’s success.
References 1. Huizinga, J.: Homo ludens a study of the play-element in culture. Routledge & K. Paul, London (1949) 2. Fernández-Vara, C.: Introduction to Game Analysis. Routledge, New York (2019) 3. Planells de la Maza, A.J.: La emergencia de los Game Studies como disciplina propia: investigando el videojuego desde las metodologías de la Comunicación. Hist. Comun. Soc. 18(0), 519–528 (2014). https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_HICS.2013.v18.43985 4. Pérez Latorre, Ó., et al.: Análisis de la significación del videojuego fundamentos teóricos del juego. Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2010) 5. Genette, G.: Figuras. 3. Lumen, Barcelona (1989) 6. Prince, G.: A Dictionary of Narratology. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (2003) 7. Scolari, C.A., Ruiz Collantes, F.X.: Homo videoludens 2.0: de Pacman a la gamificación. Universitat de Barcelona, Laboratori de Mitjans Interactius, Barcelona (2013) 8. Kremers, R.: Level Design: Concept, Theory, and Practice. A.K. Peters, Wellesley (2009) 9. Freytag, G., Plinke, M.: Die Technik des Dramas. Autorenhaus-Verl, Berlin (2003) 10. Rogers, S.: Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design. Wiley, Chichester (2014) 11. Cobos, M., Salvador, P.: Narrative in videogame design. A starting guide. In: Presented at the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies on Education and Research, ICALTER 2022, Lima (2022). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICALTER57193.2022. 9964824 12. Schell, J.: The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. CRC PressTaylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton (2019) 13. Suárez, A.: Un modelo de análisis para la narración en el videojuego en presencia de interacción. Caracteres 8(1), 39–71 (2018) 14. Narrativa emergente y narrativa embebida—África Curiel (2016) 15. Jenkins, H.: Game design as narrative architecture. https://web.mit.edu/~21fms/People/henry3/ games&narrative.html (2003) 16. Sheldon, L.: Character Development and Storytelling for Games. Course Technology, a Part of Cengage Learning, Boston (2014) 17. Galván-Pérez, L., et al.: Outstanding videogames on water: a quality assessment review based on evidence of narrative, gameplay and educational criteria. Water. 10(10), 1404 (2018). https:// doi.org/10.3390/w10101404 18. Bizzocchi, J.: Games and narrative: an analytical framework. J. Can. Games Stud. Assoc. 1(1), 10 (2007) 19. Salen, K., Zimmerman, E.: Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass (2003) 20. Villa Holguín, E.: La sistematización de experiencias, una estrategia de la investigación antihegemónica. Agora USB. 19(2), 547–557 (2019). https://doi.org/10.21500/16578031.4389 21. Jara, Ó.: La sistematización de experiencias y las corrientes innovadoras del pensamiento latinoamericano-una aproximación histórica (2009) 22. Csikszentmihalyi, M.: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper [and] Row, New York (2009) 23. Adams, E., Dormans, J.: Game mechanics: advanced game design. New Riders, Berkeley (2012)
Chapter 43
Real-Time Visual Feedback Technology in Support of a Didactic Voice Tuning System João Paulo Teixeira
and Izabela Ribeiro Leão
Abstract Pitch training is an important exercise for classical singers. This paper presents a Visual Feedback Technology (VFT) time system to improve pitch tuning. The objective is to present the developed helpful tool that allows in a didactic way to tune the voice and show the user the error due to the comparison between the voice produced and the target frequency of the notes along the melody. The voice signal acquisition system and fundamental frequency f o detection uses the autocorrelation method with center-clipping and compares it with the frequency of each note in different applications. The system allows the training using ascending or descending sequential notes, allows the training with a pre-existing melody, and allows to build of a new melody. It permits the identification of the adequate scale for the practitioner and the selection of the adequate scale for each practitioner. As for the results evaluation, the pitch training evolution of an experienced singer and another person without singing experience evidences the efficiency of the voice tuning system. The system was also evaluated by a questionary with all heuristics in the first upper quartile.
43.1 Introduction A common problem in vocal training is finding a tool that allows practicing voice tuning in a precise way.
J. P. Teixeira (B) · I. R. Leão Research Centre in Digitalization and Intelligent Robotics (CEDRI), Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, 5300-253 Bragança, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] J. P. Teixeira Laboratório para a Sustentabilidade e Tecnologia em Regiões de Montanha (SusTEC), Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, 5300-253 Bragança, Portugal I. R. Leão Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná, Campo Mourão, Brasil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_43
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A Data Acquisition System was developed to discretize and measure the fundamental frequency ( f o ), also known as pitch, of the sung voice and compare it with the frequency of notes in a song in real time. Some software tools offer a support platform for exercise singing in the correct tone. However, most platforms available do not allow the free insertion of notes aimed by the learner singers. The first project that incorporates VFT in real-time software for educational purposes for singing was developed by Howard and Welch [1]. The main objective of his project was to develop a pedagogical platform for singing teaching in a primary school. The software was designed for a BBC microcomputer and used a peak selector, originally designed for cochlear implants, to estimate f o in real-time accurately. Nowadays, some features help frequency recognition in vocal training [2–4], like the Sing and See project, presented at the Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology. The goal was also to present pedagogical approaches to implement acoustic study technology in real time [4]. Present systems were developed thinking of improving current features using some acoustic analysis techniques such as the ones presented in [5–12], and developing a more oriented platform for the experienced singer. The system presented here offers novel applications, such as vocal classifications and music writing. The aim is to create an easy-to-understand graphical interface for the public and a program accessible from any computer. So, it is a helpful tool for all who wish to improve their pitch control. The paper is organized into four sections. After the introduction section, follow the description of the methodology, namely the f o determination algorithm and the applications developed in the system. The third section presents the results of the learning evolution of a novice and expert singer using the system. The last section presents the conclusions.
43.2 Methodology This section presents the efficient and accurate algorithm used for pitch determination and the applications offered in the developed system.
43.2.1 Fundamental Frequency Determination The lyrical voice presents an average f o value of around 220 Hz, while the notes emitted by a soprano (the highest vocal classification in classical opera) can be close to 1000 Hz [13, 14]. The sampling frequency chosen for the different applications was 11,025 Hz. Although the Nyquist frequency has a low value [14] of about 5500 Hz, for
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the purpose of measuring the fundamental frequency f o , it is pretty enough and appropriate for a run in real-time. In order to measure the fundamental frequency value in real time, the autocorrelation method [10, 12, 15] was applied to each speech segment. This method is based on the autocorrelation function given by the equation below. A x (m) =
N
x(n)x(n + m)
(43.1)
n=−N
where N is the length of the segment x, and m (−N < m < N) is the index of the autocorrelation function Ax . The method consists of searching the autocorrelation peak with a positive m. The m position corresponds to the fundamental period and is the inverse of f o . The length of the segment limits the lower f o . Longer segments allow lower f o determination but require more time processing, which can constrain a real-time system. The autocorrelation peak is searched between 0.002 and 0.03 s, assuming a f o between 33 and 500 Hz. For expected higher f o (until 1000 Hz), the search must start from 0.001 s, which may introduce inaccuracy in f o determination. A variation of the autocorrelation method denominated “center-clipping” was implemented. This method consists of removing the speech segment samples with a magnitude lower than a percentage of its maximum peak. The center-clipping method allows getting a more prominent peak on the signal’s autocorrelation. The percentage used in this work was 30%.
43.2.2 System Description The developed graphical interface presents diverse ways of supporting the musician to improve the pitch by comparing the fundamental frequency with some musical sequence chosen by the user. The flowchart of the system is shown in Fig. 43.1. It shows the operation of the program and all user options sequentially. The main menu (Pitch Model Menu) displays the user options tools described below. The first choice of tool is the melody writer (Fig. 43.2). It adds any note of the scale of 1–5 of the classical piano, being sharp or flat, in tones or semitones, within a maximum limit of thirty-five notes. The limit was stipulated to avoid a significant break in the linearity of the time and real-time representation of each note. The second tool allows the training of the musical notes in order (musical scale) according to the vocal classification of each singer (Fig. 43.3). The ascending or descending sequence is an option. The f o values are based on the Speaking Fundamental Frequency (SFF) study extracted from different singers of six different classifications, which was realized by [16].
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Fig. 43.1 System operating flowchart
Fig. 43.2 Melody writer tool
Finally, the third tool presents a small selection of previously written melodies and the ones introduced using the melody writer (Fig. 43.4). For each melody, selecting the semitone and the eighth note that best fits the user is possible. Since the system was developed initially for Portuguese language users, the tool interface shown in Figs. 43.2, 43.3, 43.4, and 43.5 is in Portuguese, and the original melodies are also popular Portuguese/Brazilian songs (Fig. 43.4). The tessitura includes a range of notes more appropriate to the quality of the singer [17–21]. The vocal extension covers all the notes physically realizable by the singer. The minimum and maximum frequency found and the range of notes based on the classical piano are shown in Table 43.1. The tempered musical scale was chosen to represent the frequencies of the notches in this tool to reduce the ambiguities of the sharp and flat values in the transpositions, thus equaling frequencies of tempered instruments such as the guitar and the piano,
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Fig. 43.3 Scale training tool
Fig. 43.4 Melody training
for example [22]. Using the 3 Melody Writer tool, an array was created with 12 musical notes and their respective frequencies, allowing the subsystem to access this array for semitone, pitch, and octave transposition. A/D conversion is performed on the embedded computer sound card. Analog signal samples are collected at the specified sampling rate. For this application, the sampling rate is 11,025 Hz, allowing real-time processing and representation. The low sampling frequency introduced very low (insignificant) inaccuracy in f o values, since f o will always be below 1 kHz.
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Fig. 43.5 On the left hand: unvoiced interference in the reproduction. On the right-hand side: MSE of 10 training sessions with and without post-processing
Table 43.1 Frequency range of vocal classifications Vocal classification Bass Baritone Tenor Contralto
Minimum frequency (Hz)
Maximum frequency (Hz)
Note range G1–D3
97
147
108
165
A1–E3
65
220
C2–A3 G2–C4
98
262
Mezzo-Soprano
110
330
A2–E4
Soprano
130
440
C3–A4
43.2.3 Objective Evaluation The error between the target value and the real f o produced by the practitioner is calculated using the mean squared error (MSE) [23], as described below. MSE =
n 2 1 Xi − X i n i=1
(43.2)
where X is the melody vector selected for training, X is the fundamental frequency f o , and n is the number of segments. The MSE is further divided by a global variable that varies its value according to the vocal classification. In this case, the same variable multiplies the musical scale to fit the chosen frequency range and compensate the error.
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43.3 Experimental Results of the Pitch Training Process An experimental pitch training process was made to evaluate the adequacy of the tool with real users. The experience was made with students who have experience singing and others who do not. The analyzed results come from the arithmetic mean of the mean squared error between melody notes and the measured f o for the students of each group. After several vocal training sessions, students with no experience can improve very fast, which is progressive for experienced singers. If the user is next to the microphone, the f o ’s acquisition system is robust enough to bypass external noise and present only the actual frequency of the voice sung. The most significant additional interference to the error is the unvoiced signal (Fig. 43.5), which does not contain f o [23, 24], because there is no periodic (or quasi-periodic) excitation in the vocal tract [25]. Most unvoiced sounds require preprocessing [26], but since the response must be given in real time, this processing must be very efficient. A locally adapted filter will be projected in the future in order to change the cutoff parameters as the musical scale is selected (since the minimum and maximum frequencies allowed in each interval are also changed). The reproduction of silent parts or unvoiced sounds introduces very high errors in the training session because none of these sound types is periodic, and, thus, there is no f o . Therefore, the algorithm would find very high values of f o , as seen in Fig. 43.5, left-hand side. To avoid this situation, pre- and post-processing were implemented. The pre-processing consists of classifying each segment into voiced, unvoiced, or silent. The f o is determined only in the voiced segments. The energy and the zero-crossing rate (ZCR) are determined for classification. Silent segments have low energy and high ZCR, the unvoiced segments have high energy and high ZCR, and the voiced segments have high energy but low ZCR. The post-processing consists of identifying out-of-layer f o values and changing them with the f o value of the previous segment. After this signal processing process, the f o curve of one training session would luck like Fig. 43.6. Figure 43.5, right-hand side, presents the MSE over ten training sessions with and without f o correction with post-processing. An experiment with one novice, and another experienced singer was implemented. The experiment consists in using the system melody training over ten sessions. This experiment proves the effectiveness of the system in improving the performance of the singers when trying to hit the pitch of the chosen melody for both novice and experienced singers. In Fig. 43.7, it is possible to notice the evident improvement of the novice singers and also the evolution of the experienced singer. In order to evaluate generally the developed software, a questionary was implemented on a group of 24 Brazilian and Portuguese students between 18 and 25 years old from a High School of Education, graduating in Teaching Music Education in Basic Education. The respondents spend at least one hour experimenting with the tool. Table 43.2 presents the results of the questionary.
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Fig. 43.6 Musical scale training in tenor classification without unvoiced interference Fig. 43.7 Performance of the musical scale of an experienced singer and a novice singer
Analyzing the results of the questionary, the positive answers about the software are between 76 and 100%, and the negative answers are between 0 and 8%, indicating clearly good acceptability of the software.
43.4 Conclusions The voice tuning support tool is being developed and is still being improved, but it intends to present an easy-to-use graphical interface, implementing knowledge of discrete vocal signal signals connected to music. The program proved to be useful in the learning progression, and the general evaluation of the software is the first quartile of acceptance in all heuristics. Generally,
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Table 43.2 Questionnaire results Heuristic
Question
Yes (%)
No (%)
Simple and natural dialog
Is the interface simple and efficient?
96
User language
Does the interface use terminology adequate to the user?
88
Response time
The system response is continuous?
Clear exit
Does the interface show obvious exits?
96
4
Shortcuts
Does the interface allow quick execution for frequent operations?
84
4
Error messages
Error messages are clear, no codes, accurate, and helpful in solving problems indicated?
76
Documentation help
The software is easy to use, so that does it dispense help and documentation consultation?
92
Efficiency
Does the pedagogical structure of the software offer prospects for process improvement of learning?
92
Reliability
Are the response results provided by the software and the displayed content academically reliable?
76
4
Motivation
The software arouses intuitive interest and encourages one to drive and meet the objectives of learning?
92
8
NR (%) 4
4
8
100 12 25 4
4 8 20
the software presents an original method of training vocal tuning that any user can use. Future developments include the development of a user’s guide and improving the processing to keep presenting the f o curve in real time for longer melodies. Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) to CeDRI (UIDB/ 05757/2020 and UIDP/05757/2020) and SusTEC (LA/P/0007/2021).
References 1. Howard, D.M., Welch, G.F.: Microcomputer-based singing ability assessment and development. Appl. Acoust. 27, 89–102 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1016/0003-682X(89)90002-9 2. Olesen, B.: The Impact of Musical Background, Choral Conducting Training and Music Teaching Style on the Choral Warm-Up Philosophy and Practices of Successful High … (2010) 3. Howard, D.M.: Real-time visual displays in speech and singing. Def. Sci. J. 43, 211–221 (1993) 4. Callaghan, J., Thorpe, W., van Doorn, J.: The science of singing and seeing. In: Proceedings of the Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology (2004) 5. Hoppe, D., Sadakata, M., Desain, P.: Development of real-time visual feedback assistance in singing training. J. Comput. Assist. Learn. 22, 308–316 (2006) 6. Hess, W.: Pitch Determination of Speech Signals: Algorithms and Devices (1983)
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7. Teixeira, J.P., Freitas, D.: Segmental durations predicted with a neural network. Proc. Eur. Conf. Speech Commun. Technol. 169–172 (2003) 8. Teixeira, J.P., Freitas, D., Braga, D., Barros, M.J., Latsch, V.: Phonetic Events from the Labeling the European Portuguese Database for Speech Synthesis, FEUP/IPB-DB. In: International Conference on Spoken Language Processing, pp. 1707–1710 (2001) 9. Rodrigues, P.M., Teixeira, J.P.: Classification of electroencephalogram signals using artificial neural networks. In: Proceedings 2010 3rd International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Informatics, BMEI 2010, vol. 2, pp. 808–812 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1109/ BMEI.2010.5639941 10. Fernandes, J.F.T., Freitas, D., Junior, A.C., Teixeira, J.P.: Determination of harmonic parameters in pathological voices—efficient algorithm. Appl. Sci. 13 (2023). https://doi.org/10.3390/APP 13042333 11. Teixeira, J.P., Gonçalves, A.: Algorithm for Jitter and Shimmer measurement in pathologic voices. Procedia Comput. Sci. 100, 271–279 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PROCS.2016. 09.155 12. Fernandes, J., Teixeira, F., Guedes, V., Junior, A., Teixeira, J.P.: Harmonic to noise ratio measurement—selection of window and length. Procedia Comput. Sci. 138, 280–285 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PROCS.2018.10.040 13. Benolken, M.S., Swanson, C.E.: The effect of pitch-related changes on the perception of sung vowels. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 87, 1781–1785 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1121/1.399426 14. Oppenheim, A.V., Schafer, R.W.: Discrete-Time Signal Processing, 3rd edn. (2010) 15. Tan, L., Karnjanadecha, M.: Pitch Detection Algorithm: Autocorrelation Method and AMDF (2003) 16. Nadoleszny, M.: Untersuchungen uber den kunstgesang. Springer, Berlin (1923) 17. Salomão, G.L., Sundberg, J.: Relation between perceived voice register and flow glottogram parameters in males. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 124, 546–551 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1121/1.292 4146 18. Henrich, N.: Mirroring the voice from Garcia to the present day: some insights into singing voice registers. Logoped. Phoniatr. Vocol. 31, 3–14 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1080/140154305 00344844 19. Echternach, M., Sundberg, J., Baumann, T., Markl, M., Richter, B.: Vocal tract area functions and formant frequencies in opera tenors’ modal and falsetto registers. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 129, 3955–3963 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1121/1.3589249 20. Salomão, G.L., Sundberg, J.: What do male singers mean by modal and falsetto register? An investigation of the glottal voice source. Logop. Phoniatr. Vocology. 34, 73–83 (2009). https:// doi.org/10.1080/14015430902879918 21. Teixeira, J., Fernandes, J., Teixeira, F., Fernandes, P.: Acoustic analysis of chronic laryngitis. In: Proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2018)–BIOSIGNALS, pp. 168–175. SciTePress (2018). ISBN 978-989-758-279-0, ISSN 2184-4305. https://doi.org/10.5220/0006586301680175 22. Brown, A.W., Bertsch, M.: The paradox of musical acoustics: objectivzing the essentially subjective. In: CIM04—Proceedings of the 1st Conference of Interdisciplinary Musicology, pp. 1–6 (2004) 23. Stone, S., Steiner, P., Birkholz, P.: A time-warping pitch tracking algorithm considering fast f0 changes. In: Proceedings Annual Conference International Speech Communication Association INTERSPEECH Aug 2017, pp. 419–423 (2017). https://doi.org/10.21437/INTERSPEECH. 2017-382 24. Meenakshi, G.N., Ghosh, P.K.: A discriminative analysis within and across voiced and unvoiced consonants in neutral and whispered speech in multiple Indian languages. In: Sixteenth Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association INTERSPEECH, Jan 2015, pp. 781–785 (2015). https://doi.org/10.21437/INTERSPEECH.2015-223
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25. Suman, M., Harish, K., Kumar, K.M., Samrajyam, S.: Speech recognition using MFCC and VQLBG. Int. J. Adv. Appl. Sci. 4, 151 (2015). https://doi.org/10.11591/ijaas.v4.i4.pp151-156 26. Ekholm, E., Papagiannis, G.C., Chagnon, F.P.: Relating objective measurements to expert evaluation of voice quality in Western classical singing: critical perceptual parameters. J. Voice. 12, 182–196 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0892-1997(98)80038-6
Chapter 44
The Future of Learning in Romanian Schools: Examining the Transformative Impact of Gaming Technologies in Education—A Pilot Study in Bucharest Florentina Alina Grigorescu (Pîrvu), Cezar Scarlat, and Alexandra Ioanid
Abstract This study explores the transformative impact of gaming technologies on education in Romanian schools through a pilot study conducted in Bucharest. The hypothesis is that gaming technologies have the potential to enhance learning outcomes and foster a more interactive and engaging learning environment. The main objectives are to identify the benefits and challenges of using gaming technology in the classroom and to explore the attitudes of teachers toward this approach to learning. To achieve these objectives, an interview was conducted with 22 teachers from both private and public schools in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. The data was analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The pilot study was conducted in March 2023. The results indicate a generally positive view of gaming technology, with many teachers recognizing its potential to engage students and enhance learning outcomes. The article also discusses the potential challenges and limitations of integrating gaming technology in the classroom, as well as the need for further research in this area. The findings of this study have important implications for the future of learning in Romanian schools.
44.1 Introduction Games, even computerized ones [1, 2], are not necessarily “serious games”—as they are known in literature [3], and “serious games” are not necessarily ICT-based: their purpose should be other than entertainment, usually education; however, there is not such a rule—as some serious games could be war or political games [4]. F. A. Grigorescu (Pîrvu) (B) · C. Scarlat · A. Ioanid Faima Doctoral School from University Politehnica of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected] A. Ioanid Romania Academy of Romanian Scientists, Bucharest, Romania © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_44
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Bigdeli et al. [5] consider that educational games support Bandura’s [6] theory of self-efficacy—which explains, in part, the scholars’ interest for psychological and medical studies. Besides certain advantages of the serious games in training healthcare professionals [7], Tan et al. [8] underline their importance in nursing education, highlighting the contribution of Hahn and Bartel [9]. Sardi et al. [10], studying the influence of gamification on health, provided evidence that games stimulate the knowledge acquisition and enhance the cognitive development. The focus of this paper is on this particular area: the use of technology-based (serious) games in education [11–13], in an even narrow space (targeted schools in Bucharest, Romania).
44.2 Short Literature Survey: Technology and Education 44.2.1 The Impact of Technology on Society and Education The rapid introduction of increasingly sophisticated technologies into all areas of society is causing shifts in how, where and when we work, the individual organization of people, companies, and even nations, and the structuring of educational systems for effective preparation of students for life in the twenty-first century. The twenty-first century is viewed as the era of technology. Nowadays, technology plays a crucial role in people’s lives. The impact of technology is also felt in the field of education. The use of modern technology, equipment, and tools brings benefits to the learning process and increases students’ engagement. Moreover, students find the learning process more interesting and are more attracted to it when technology is integrated [14]. A research conducted in 2003 states that successful technology integration requires the technological tools to be appropriate and implemented in the classroom, as well as by all participants in the education process. In this case, a shift toward a technology-based curriculum can be discussed [15].
44.2.2 Implications of Technology Integration in Education The positive impact of technology in education. A study conducted by Costley [16] supported the fact that technology integration has become very common in private and public schools. Additionally, the same study shows that technology integration can be effective at all age groups, bringing many benefits. Another author who argues that technology has a positive impact on education is Rodriguez [17], who claims that technology integration encourages creativity through various social networks and design platforms, which, according to students, engage them in interactive and enjoyable activities.
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Digital learning represents a step forward from traditional forms of education and is engaging and fun for students, offering a deeper understanding and stimulating learning experiences. By integrating technology in the classroom, students are allowed to connect better with the learning material [18]. Cervenanska [19] asserts that the integration of information technology in teaching is the starting point for ensuring quality in the educational system. Additionally, the same author claims that future jobs depend on the use of technology, so students need to be familiar with it from school. The negative impact of technology in education. Kurniawan et al. [20] state that technology has significantly changed the way we live. Furthermore, the same authors argue that technology plays a vital role in learning strategies in schools. However, modern strategies also have a negative impact on students’ lives because they kill students’ imagination, easily distract them from learning, there is a possibility of presenting incorrect information, and promote laziness among them. A study conducted by Fried [21] highlights the fact that the use of laptops in the classroom negatively affects students’ ability to pay attention and understand course material. This is due to the fact that students use their laptops for other activities that are not related to the course.
44.3 Gaming Technologies in Education 44.3.1 Gaming Practices and Technologies in Education Games that simulate certain situations, solve problems, approach scientific and philosophical discussions, debate certain topics or transform mundane activities into entertaining activities have been activities that people have engaged in since ancient times. One of the main aspects of games is transforming activities into something pleasurable for humans. Fun is the key and represents the most important aspect responsible for achieving the main goal of the game, increasing the level of involvement of the participants, which is significant and relevant in learning activities [22]. Gamified learning or gamification of learning is defined as the use of game elements to increase motivation and attention to the task [23]. Gee [24] asserts that there are two types of games that impact the learning process. The first refers to commercial games that are based on solid learning principles, while the second is represented by video game technologies that, in addition to entertainment, offer new learning systems for serious purposes. Games present in the learning process can be seen as learning interface, but their role in education is to increase student motivation and engagement, improve collaboration and interaction skills, and offer the possibility for students to apply different game values in real life. To have a positive impact and to make learning more efficient for students, the tools used must be in line with the curriculum [25].
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Researchers in the field of pedagogy consider the incorporation of digital games into education as serious games. Serious games are digital games that are used for entertainment and amusement, but also for carrying out learning processes and achieving learning outcomes in a specific domain [26].
44.3.2 The Benefits of Gaming Technologies in Education Video games can bring numerous cognitive, emotional, motivational, and social benefits to students. However, these benefits can only be obtained if video games are properly implemented in the classroom. Educators can successfully use and integrate video games in the classroom if they have a strong command of the curriculum and use these tools to differentiate the instruction process for their students [27]. According to a study conducted by Tsekleves et al. [28], the benefits of using serious games are diverse and include the integration of problem-based learning (PBL), themes, collaborative learning, the introduction of real-world themes, increased motivation, interactive learning activities. Even though video games can be integrated into the learning process to achieve beneficial results for students, not all video games can be used to transmit academic content [29]. Based on the literature review presented earlier, some relevant ideas can be extracted for the research hypotheses that will be presented in the next section.
44.4 Methodology The main research questions are: (i) What is the perspective of Romanian teachers on the use of gaming technology in the teaching–learning-evaluation process? and (ii) What is the impact of gaming technology on students and the learning process? Hence, there are three research hypotheses as presented below. H1: Teachers’ familiarity with gaming technologies positively influences their integration of educational games in the teaching process. H2: The use of serious games improves students’ academic performance and engagement in the learning process. H3: Insufficient training and limited availability of materials/devices are barriers to the effective integration of serious games in Romanian schools. As a small-scale, pilot study, the research is predominantly qualitative; nevertheless quantitative elements are accepted for relevance reasons. As a qualitative pilot study, the secondary research (literature survey) is completed by primary research; the interview was considered the most suitable method. The teachers from primary schools were targeted as sources of information. The research instrument (interview guide) was developed as a flexible list of questions. The first three questions aim to gather demographic data about the teachers,
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while the last two questions are open-ended, providing respondents with the opportunity to express their opinions or other comments on the subject discussed, and to leave their contact details if they want to receive the results of this study. The remaining 22 questions refer strictly to the use of gaming technology in Romanian schools: 10 questions are open-ended, while 12 are unique or multiple-choice questions. The interview guide was designed to be administered online, utilizing the Microsoft Forms application. The primary online channels used for distributing the set of questions were WhatsApp, email, and various social media platforms. Due to logistical issues, the interviews were not conducted face-to-face. However, alternative methods such as phone conversations, email exchanges, and WhatsApp discussions were employed to communicate with each interviewee. This allowed for the successful transmission of the interview guide and the receipt of responses. The pilot study took place in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, in March 2023.
44.5 Results and Discussion A total of 22 teachers (all from Bucharest, Romania) have answered to all questions. There were 12 teachers who teach at the primary level, 4 at the middle school level, 4 at the university level, one at the preschool level, and one at the high school level. Teachers’ knowledge and use of video games. Initially, in order to determine teachers’ knowledge regarding video games, they were asked to list the technologies used in gaming that they are familiar with. Few teachers listed technologies such as VR—virtual reality, AR—augmented reality, AI—artificial intelligence, face recognition, gesture control, or blockchain. The majority of teachers, specifically 10, stated that they were not familiar with such technologies, while 5 teachers listed the names of specific video games. Furthermore, the teachers were asked to list video games that they were familiar with. They mentioned Minecraft, Ninjago, Fortnite, GTA, Roblox, Counter Strike, Brawls Stars, or League of Legends. In Table 44.1, we present the main research findings based on the responses provided by teachers regarding the use of serious games in education. Teachers’ familiarity with gaming technologies positively influences their integration of educational games in the teaching process. It can be observed that a large number of teachers affirm that they have integrated games into their lessons, but there are also teachers who have not done yet, even though they have been teaching exclusively online for a considerable period of time and have become familiar with digital educational technologies. According to the responses provided by teachers, the most commonly used educational games are Wordwall, Splash Learn, Learning Apps, Mathgames, and Genially. Additionally, teachers reported using problem-solving games, grammar games, games for practicing theoretical content from various disciplines, simulation games, and construction games. Additionally, regarding how familiar the teachers are with serious games available in Romania, a number of 8 teachers stated that they
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Table 44.1 Teachers’ responses regarding the use of serious games in education Yes Have you used educational games in the teaching process?
No
Don’t know
14
8
8
14
Do you consider gaming technologies effective for increasing students’ interest and motivation?
17
1
4
Do you consider students to be engaged during the use of serious games?
13
1
8
Do you believe that serious games can improve the quality of education?
21
0
1
Do you think serious games contribute to the development of students’ social and emotional skills?
13
6
3
Do you believe serious games contribute to the development of students’ collaboration and communication skills?
15
6
1
6
2
14
Are you familiar with the serious games available in Romania?
Do serious games improve students’ academic performance?
are familiar, and the rest of the 14 teachers said they are not. This is a worrying aspect and may be due to incomplete or insufficient training of teachers or their low interest and motivation. Regarding how effective gaming technologies are in increasing students’ motivation for learning, a total of 17 teachers stated that they consider them effective, 4 teachers said they did not know, and one teacher stated that they do not consider them effective. Regarding students’ engagement during the use of serious games, 13 teachers reported improvement, 8 teachers stated that they did not know if there was an improvement in this regard, and one teacher reported no improvement at all. Among the 13 teachers who reported an improvement in student engagement, the percentages they provide regarding this improvement ranged from 40 to 100%. They offered the following arguments: shy or less engaged students also participate in such activities because they are attracted to games, the association with the computer games is a positive one, and thus, students are more willing to participate, it increases students’ engagement because games keep their attention for a longer period of time, and they are motivated to achieve a certain objective or score. The use of serious games improves students’ academic performance and engagement in the learning process. Only 6 teachers responded affirmatively, 2 teachers reported that they did not observe any improvement, and the remaining 14 teachers stated that they did not know. These results contradict H2. Further research is necessary to delve deeper into this subject and explore the relationship between serious games and educational outcomes. The arguments provided by teachers who answered positively were that games improve concentration, coordination, and memory capacity, develop creativity, form certain skills such as developing vocabulary or math calculation skills, understanding certain processes or work stages, and absorption of new knowledge.
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Regarding the improvement of problem-solving skills through educational games, 19 teachers responded positively, two teachers said they did not know, and one teacher said no. As far as collaboration and communication skills developed by students through serious games, 15 teachers affirmed that these have positive impact on the development of the aforementioned skills, six teachers do not believe that they can be improved, and one teacher said they did not know. Related to the interpersonal relationships between students during the use of computer educational games, nine teachers observed an improvement in this regard, five teachers did not, and eight teachers said they did not know. Regarding the improvement of the quality of education only one teacher stated that they are unsure if serious games contribute to the quality of education, while the rest of the teachers agreed that serious games do contribute. The teachers’ arguments were: activities become interactive and engaging for students, they arouse students’ curiosity, students are more interested and involved, they help students assimilate information more easily, games can simulate situations and experiments that are difficult to carry out in the classroom, and students can practice certain skills and abilities through games. On the other hand, there was also a teacher who did not answer this question, stating that there is still not enough information to support or refute this idea. Also, in relation to improving the quality of education, the teachers were asked whether they believe that serious games can contribute to development of students’ social and emotional skills. Thirteen teachers responded positively, six teachers said no, and three teachers said they did not know. Insufficient training and limited availability of materials/devices are barriers to the effective integration of serious games in Romanian schools. The highest obstacles that teachers face in using educational games in Romanian schools, most teachers (17) stated that the lack of materials/devices is the biggest obstacle, 2 teachers stated that obstacles are personal, one teacher stated that obstacles come from parents, and one from students. Also, one teacher stated that they face a different type of obstacles, but did not specify their nature. This should be a problem that school management and education decision-makers should address soon, given the advancement of technology and the increasingly complex needs of students. The advantages listed by teachers are: easier learning through play, increased student engagement, development of concentration and self-control, easier assimilation of memorization and repetition content, development of mathematical skills, increased autonomy, and development of critical thinking, problem-solving skills, low-cost simulation of real-life situations, and the provision of an attractive learning environment. Regarding the disadvantages of using serious games, teachers mentioned the potential for technology dependence, the possibility of students being distracted from learning, and the potential for non-digital lessons to become “boring” for students. Teachers were also asked whether they believe that serious games could be successfully integrated into current school programs. A significant number of
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teachers, specifically 16, believe this is possible, 4 state that they do not know, and one said no. As for teachers’ training on the use of digital games in the teaching–learningevaluation process, only 6 teachers reported having participated in programs or courses. The remaining 16 teachers stated that they had not received any training in this area, citing lack of interest, lack of opportunities, or insufficient financial and time resources as possible causes. The teachers who reported having received training mentioned courses offered by the County Teacher Training Centre, workshops organized by various organizations, or course offered by their own school.
44.6 Recommendations It is recommended that, for the effective integration of serious games in education, teachers should be trained through specialized programs and courses. This should be the concern of school management, schools boards, and other organizations involved in teacher training. Currently, this is not happening in all schools, given the responses provided by teachers. Additionally, schools should be much better equipped with the necessary devices for conducting lessons using gaming technologies. If teachers are sufficiently trained and schools are well-equipped, the integration of serious games will lead to an improvement in the quality of education. Furthermore, in order to achieve desired objectives, teachers must select and properly integrate serious games so that they are suitable for schools programs. This is achievable, given that teachers have supported the idea that serious games can be successfully integrated into current school curricula. This is only possible if teachers are very familiar with the programs and their content. Additionally, even though serious games have a number of advantages, teachers must use them in moderation and maintain a balance between lessons that incorporate gaming technology and traditional lessons. This will also contribute to increasing students’ interest and motivation, thus improving their academic performance.
44.7 Conclusions The use of gaming technologies in schools has the potential to enhance learning outcomes and create a more engaging and interactive learning environment. This statement is supported by Hahn and Bartel [9], who argue that games invite students to become active participants in lessons. Teachers generally have a positive view of gaming technology and recognize its potential to enhance students and enhance learning outcomes. Even though not all teachers use or are familiar with many video games or serious games, the fact that they show interest in these new technologies is encouraging [30]. However, there are also challenges and limitations associated
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with integrating gaming technology in the classroom, including technical issues and concerns about the impact on traditional teaching methods.
44.8 Research Limitations and Further Research The current study has limitations due to its small sample size of only 22 teachers from Bucharest, and the results cannot be generalized on a larger scale. To fully realize the benefits of gaming technology in education, further research is needed to explore best practices for integration and to address the challenges and limitation. In this regard, the next step involves conducting a research study based on collecting a minimum of 200 responses through a questionnaire. Another limitation of the present research can be represented by the fact that all three hypotheses were formulated in a positive note, thus overlooking the potential negative outcomes or undesirable aspects associated with gaming technology in education. Funding The APC was funded by the University Politehnica of Bucharest.
References 1. Juul, J.: Half-Real—Videogames Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. MIT Press (2005) 2. Myers, D.: Computer game genres. Play Cult. 3, 286–301 (1990) 3. Ritterfeld, U., Cody, M., Vorderer, P. (eds.): Serious Games: Mechanisms and Effects. Routledge (2009) 4. Jansiewicz, D.: The New Alexandria Simulation: A Serious Game of State and Local Politics. Canfield Press (1973) 5. Bigdeli, S., Hosseinzadeh, Z., Dehnad, A., Sohrabi, Z., Aala, M., Haghani, F., Atlasi, R.: Underpinning learning theories of medical educational games: a scoping review. Med. J. Islam Repub. Iran (2023). https://doi.org/10.47176/mjiri.37.26 6. Bandura, A.: Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychol. Rev. 84(2), 191–215 (1977) 7. Wang, R., DeMaria, S., Jr., Goldberg, A., Katz, D.A.: A systematic review of serious games in training health care professionals. Simul. Healthc. 11(1), 41–51 (2016) 8. Tan, A., Lau, C.C.S., Liaw, S.Y.: Serious games in nursing education: an integrative review. In: The 9th International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications (VSGames), Athens, Greece, 6–8 September 2017, pp. 187–188. IEEE Explore (2017). https://doi. org/10.1109/VS-GAMES.2017.8056599 9. Hahn, J.E., Bartel, C.: Teaching gaming with technology in the classroom: so you want to be an educator? Nurs. Educ. Perspect. 35(3), 197–198 (2014). https://doi.org/10.5480/10-477.1 10. Sardi, L., Idri, A., Fernández-Alemán, J.L.: A systematic review of gamification in e-Health. J. Biomed. Inform. 71, 31–48 (2017) 11. Grigoroiu, A., Toma, I., Dascalu, M., Trausan-Matu, S.: Learner-skill—a serious hex wars game centered on learner comprehension. RoCHI, 11–14 (2017) 12. Toma, I., Andrioaie, I., Dasc˘alu, M., Trausan-Matu, S.: Reading space secrets—a serious game centered on reading strategies. Rom. J. Hum. Comput. Inter. 9(4), 269–284 (2016)
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13. Toma, I., Dasc˘alu, M., Trausan-Matu, S.: Seeker: a serious game for improving cognitive abilities. In: 14th RoEduNet International Conference: Networking in Education and Research (RoEduNet NER), pp. 73–79 (2015) 14. Raja, R., Nagasubramani, P.C.: Impact of modern technology in education. In: Proceedings of the Conference on “Recent Trend of Teaching Methods in Education”, p. 33. Phoenix Research Publishers, India (2018) 15. Alexiou-Ray, J.A., Wilson, K., Wright, V.H., Peirano, A.-M.: Changing instructional practice: the impact on technology integration on students, parents, and school personnel. Electron. J. Integr. Technol. Educ. 2(2), 58–59 (2003) 16. Costley, K.C.: The Positive Effects of Technology on Teaching and Students Learning, pp. 2–11 (2014). ED554557.pdf. Last accessed 07 Mar 2023 17. Rodriguez, D.: Positive impacts of technology on education (2018) Final-Paper-Tutorial-III.pdf (capilanou.ca). Last accessed 03 July 2023 18. Prasad, N.R.: Digital technology and its positive impact on the environment. Int. Res. J. Modernization Eng. Technol. Sci. 2(8), 1 (2022) 19. Cervenanska, M.: Need and importance of technology in education. Prof. J. Edu. 21(1), 1–2 (2013) 20. Kurniawan, A., Jumini, S., Antonius, Purnama, I., Ritonga, M.: Education and modern technologies, their positive and negative impact. Turk. J. Physiotherapy Rehabil. 31(2), 2674–3679 (2021) 21. Fried, C.B.: In-class laptop use and its effects on student learning. Comput. Educ. 50(3), 906–914 (2008) 22. Gilyazova, O.: Gaming practices and technologies in education: their educational potential, limitations and problems in the world-of-work and world-of-play context. Revista Tempos e Espaços em Educação 13(32), 1–2 (2021) 23. Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., Nacke, L.: Du game design au gamefulness: definir la gamification. Sciences du jeu 2, 2–17 (2015) 24. Gee, P.J.: Are video games good for learning? Nordic J. Digit. Lit. 1(3), 172–183 (2006) 25. Zirawaga, V.S., Olusanya, A.I., Maduku, T.: Gaming in education: using games as a support tool to teach history. J. Educ. Pract. 8(15), 55–65 (2017) 26. Kretschmann, R.: Digital sport-management games and their contribution to prospective sportmanagers’ competence development. Adv. Phys. Edu. 2(4), 179–186 (2012) 27. Siegle, D.: Technology: learning can be fun and games. Gift. Child Today 38(3), 192–197 (2015) 28. Tsekleves, E., Cosmas, J., Aggoun, A.: Benefits, barriers and guideline recommendations for the implementation of serious games in education for stakeholders and policymakers. Br. J. Edu. Technol. 47(1), 164–183 (2014) 29. Kafai, Y.B., Burke, Q.: Constructionist gaming: understanding the benefits of making games for learning. Edu. Psychol. 50(4), 313–334 (2015) 30. Razak, A.A., Connolly, T.M., Hainey, T.: Teachers’ views on the approach of digital gamesbased learning within the curriculum for excellence. Int. J. Game Based Learn. 2(1), 33–51 (2012)
Chapter 45
Behavioral Finance: Prospect Theory Topics in Decision-Making Joana Robalinho, Luís M. P. Gomes , and Cláudia Pereira
Abstract Decision-making by financial market stakeholders is a complex process. For this reason, the analysis and interpretation of investors behavior in this environment should deploy different fields of expertise, such as psychology and sociology. Refuting the principle of complete human rationality, Kahneman and Tversky [1] explore a set of effects, considering cognitive biases that underlie the (often) paradoxical behavior of individuals. Behavioural finance studies these biases and their implications on the decision-making process of investors. Being a relatively new area of knowledge, the challenges it poses to traditional finance is not yet fully explored. This motivated our work, which aims to revisit the contributions of the prospect theory in explaining the decision-making process of individuals. The topic is important because it highlights the opportunity of developing financial literacy in academic training plans and contributes to clarify the expectations of the decision-making process.
45.1 Introduction Traditional finance is based on the assumption that human beings, with more developed cognitive and behavioral abilities, are rational. Based on this hypothesis, their decisions are made according to an ideal world, are designed with utility maximization in mind and truly believe that there is market rationality. It is assumed that the limit to rationality is null, that is, the individual is knowledgeable of all the facts
J. Robalinho ISCAP, Polytechnic of Porto, Porto, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] L. M. P. Gomes (B) · C. Pereira CEOS.PP, ISCAP, Polytechnic of Porto, Porto, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] C. Pereira e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_45
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about the market, and, on the other hand, the market is perfect containing only true information. Nowadays, it is not consistent to assume a completely rational individual since the revolution regarding the perceived unreasonableness of considering finance in isolation. In this context, behavioral finance emerged by combining finance and psychology. This connection contributes to the recognition of the limited rationality of human beings and aids the understanding of decision-making based on emotions. Despite the approximation to reality, there are still several academics who are unbelieving of its applicability. Indeed, recognizing human imperfection is a valid proposition, but extremely complex to explain. Even so, the compilation of studies on the subject allows us to list a set of behavioral deviations and cognitive biases that explain the rational applied by each individual in his decision-making, justifying his irrationality. With the purpose of understanding individuals’ decision-making, several studies have emerged, among them the prospect theory [1] and the cognitive reflection test [2]. That theory challenges the principles of utility theory, being considered revolutionary, timeless and universal. Moreover, it presents a set of effects, in light of behavioral and cognitive deviations, that underlie the individual’s paradoxical behavior. The cognitive reflection test enables the direct recognition of some deviations, in which the choice of one option over another can be explained by the set of beliefs acquired by individuals. Motivated by the irrational approach, the aim of this article is to contribute to understanding the circumstances that influence individuals’ decision-making, relying on principles of behavioral finance. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Sections 45.2 and 45.3 distinguish traditional finance from behavioral finance. Section 45.4 presents the limitations of expected utility theory as a path to the development of prospect theory, which is discussed in Sect. 45.5. Here the functions and main effects are detailed, as well as the improvements that prospect theory has received. Finally, Sect. 45.6 summarizes the main findings.
45.2 Traditional Finance According to [3], the field of corporate finance began to be studied from the beginning of the XX century, becoming autonomous from economics. Over time, traditional finance stated itself on the assumption that all agents present in the market were rational. Under this belief, agents took into account the single price law (the same product should have the same price in all countries, not considering transportation prices) and utility maximization (utility theory) [4]. In addition, individuals would be able to update their decisions, depending on additional information, according to expected utility [5]. Accordingly, traditional finance focuses on the “correct” way of how individuals should position themselves, relating to a normative analysis [6].
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Furthermore, rational finance is supported by Fama and Malkiel [7] efficient markets hypothesis (HME). This theory is the basis for so-called market rationality, ensured on the theory of market perfection and asset price balance [7]. In addition, Markowitz [8] studies on portfolio selection were a landmark paradigm shift, proposing the inclusion of disruptive concepts such as risk, diversification, and the efficient barrier. After this work, [9, 10], and [11–13] independently established the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), which advocates a direct relationship between risk and the expected return on an investment. Although the widespread acceptance of this concept, some criticisms have emerged regarding its inefficiency and narrow view of reality. The study on “rational choice” by Simon [14], in the field of cognitive psychology and economic sociology, was an important contribution to the theory of bounded rationality, which contradicts the expected utility, concluding that individuals repeatedly choose the most reasonable option at each moment [15].
45.3 Behavioral Finance Since 1950, several scholars have questioned the adequacy of rational finance. Behavioral finance has emerged in order to address some of the identified unproficiencies. This stream of study in finance flexed the assumption of complete rationality, taking advantage of the knowledge about how individuals behave [16]. Considering the principles of bounded rationality theory, Lobão [16] specifies that the object of study of behavioral finance is to understand the reason for the departure from decisionmaking based on traditional finance and to identify the causes and consequences of individuals being non-rational decision-makers. In contrast with rational finance, behavioral finance is a prescriptive analysis, as far as relies on studies to demonstrate a line of thinking that can help individuals understand their decision-making by recognizing their cognitive and emotional weaknesses [6]. The newer strand of finance has called into question some inefficiencies of the previous side [17]. First of all, HME must recognize market imperfections and the irrationality of agents in making decisions [18]. On the other hand, the CAPM model must recognize the need to assume a homogeneous investor. The inefficiencies of the model were first pointed out by Fama and French [19]. According to [16], it is a tautological model, and a mathematical model cannot express how investors react. Furthermore, Merton [20] maintains that the mathematics of models is accurate, but models are not, being only a proxy to the complex real world. Meanwhile, Kahneman and Tversky [1] proposed the prospect theory to identify the causes of certain behaviors of economic agents when making decisions with risk. Their work “presents a critique of expected utility theory as a descriptive model of decision making under risk, and develops an alternative model, called prospect theory” [, p. 263].1
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Although behavioral finance presented a wide way of understanding finance, including the psychology approach, many authors considered that this concept would dissipate over time. More specifically, the work “The End of Behavioral Finance” by Thaler [21] expresses the need to bring the models of finance closer to the behavioral reality of investors and the conviction that this will occur in the near future. Despite the new perspective of finance has emerged beyond its time, when the normative approach to financial theory was in place [, p. 24], the joint contributions of Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert Shiller (Nobel Prize 2013) to the empirical study of asset prices bring behavioral approach back into focus.16
45.4 Limits to the Expected Utility Theory Utility theory is connected with rational finance. The first reference to the theory was presented by von Neumann and Morgenstern [22] and was further developed by Bernoulli [23]. This author aims to explain that even facing an unlikely risk, individuals still hold on to their assets. Considering also the “St. Petersburg paradox” study, Bernoulli [23] established the expected utility theory, in which, according to the principle of mathematical expectation, players would be willing to spend at most the expected value. The assumptions of the theory highlight that man is rational, seeks utility maximization, is risk averse and wants positive results. In this context, to determine the amount of a good cannot be based on its price, but on the utility it provides. Therefore, its price depends only on the item itself and is the same for everyone; however, the utility depends on the particular circumstances of the individual making the valuation [23]. According to [24], the theory was widely supported until the appearance of the work of [, p. 264], according to which “1… a prospect is acceptable if the utility resulting from integrating the prospect with one’s assets exceeds the utility of those assets alone”.
45.5 Prospect Theory Kahneman and Tversky [1] present arguments in favor of the theory of bounded rationality and critics of expected utility theory. The authors emphasize that decisions should be examined in an autonomous way, not in an overarching form as predicted by utility theory. Prospect theory is considered a theory of cognitive psychology that explains how individuals make irrational decisions when they are forced to choose an option, in a short period of time and among options that have uncertain outcomes [1]. Therefore, the theory presents an important contribution to exploring the behavior of the individual when making decisions in environments of risk and uncertainty [25].
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While utility theory assumes that individuals choose based on possible options and their respective probabilities, the theory of prospect considers a weighting function and final outcomes are related to a value function established in terms of gains and losses, rather than through utilities and final wealth [16]. The individual considers the changes in their wealth or well-being at the time of decision-making, not the end state of the gains and losses of the decisions [26, 27] and the weights of the decisions do not match the stated probabilities. According to [, p. 277], these deviations from expected utility theory must lead to normatively unacceptable consequences, such as “1inconsistencies, intransitivity and dominance violations”. Prospect theory distinguishes two phases in the process of choice under risk [28]. The editing phase consists of a preliminary analysis of the offered perspectives, based on a simpler representation of these options. The subsequent phase involves the judgment principles that govern the evaluation of gains and losses and the weighting of uncertain outcomes. Weighting Function The weighting function inherent to prospect theory is opposite to the choice of probabilities in utility theory. Essentially, this function relates decision weights to stated probabilities and its slope in the interval [0, 1] can be seen as a measure of the sensitivity of preferences to probability changes [1]. In prospect theory, the value of each choice is multiplied by a decision weight that is deduced from choices among alternatives. These weights measure the impact of events on the desirability of the alternatives, but they are not probabilities [28]. Usually, the individual tends to associate a low probability with the nonoccurrence of an event and a high probability with the certainty of its occurrence. In this type of value judgment, individuals undervalue highly probable events and vice versa [16]. Function Value The value function in prospect theory replaces the expected utilities in utility theory, expressing individuals’ preferences through a valuation of gains and losses [1]. Moreover, the carriers of value are changes in wealth or welfare, rather than changes in end states. The initial point, where the individual is found before making a decision, corresponds to the meeting point of the axes in Graph 45.1. While the utility function represents a straight line, the value function is discontinuous at the origin, convex in the loss area and concave in the gain area. In the initial phase, there is a downfall in the loss part, decreasing the slope as it moves from origin, concluding that the individual is less sensitive to gains/losses as their absolute value increases [16]. The past and present context of an experience provides a reference point for the response to an attribute. After a favorable outcome, the individual tends to take more risks than usual, but after an unfavorable outcome, the individual tends to take fewer risks. Therefore, the value should be treated as a two-way function: the position of the asset that serves as a reference and the magnitude of change from that reference point [28].
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Graph 45.1 Utility risk curve. Source Adjusted from Kahneman and Tversky [, p. 279]1
45.5.1 Effects of the Prospect Theory The study of [1] explores several situations that are related to non-consideration of utility theory. In addition, the work includes a questionnaire of hypothetical situations that were applied to students and university lectures in Israel and later at the universities of Stockholm and Michigan, reaching similar results. Given its notoriety, the survey has been replicated in other scientific studies to investigate some of the effects of the prospect theory. Certainty Effect According to this phenomenon, the individual tends to overvalue outcomes that are considered certain, rather than the outcomes that are merely probable [1]. But when faced with two uncertain events, the individual is likely to change behavior, preferring the risk [29]. Faced with the possibility of a certain event or a probable event in situations where there could be potential gains, the individual frequently assigns greater weight to possibilities with high probability of occurring, suggesting risk aversion when it comes to safe gains [5]. However, there being non-significant differences in the probabilities of gain, the investor may incur in a greater risk, even if averse [1]. Reflection Effect While individuals are usually risk averse in the scope of gain, they tend to take risk in the face of the same possibilities (for equal outcomes in measure) in terms of loss [1]. Moreover, they may incur in a choice with greater risk to mitigate the loss [5]. This suggests that losing money causes greater dissatisfaction than the satisfaction of gaining the same amount [30]. A negative correlation between the certainty effect and the reflection effect can be explained since, when faced with the possibility of gain, individuals become more risk averse, preferring a smaller gain to a larger gain with more risk.
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Isolation Effect To simplify the choice between alternatives, the individual usually does not consider the common components between them, focusing instead on the components that distinguish them [1]. This can lead to inconsistent preferences when the same choice is presented differently [5]. On the other hand, the individual tends to focus on situations of certainty of gain or situations that avoid losses. Probabilistic Insurance The prevalence of buying insurance against large and small losses has been considered as strong evidence of the concavity of the utility function for money. A problem in which individuals’ responses are inconsistent with the concavity hypothesis is called probabilistic insurance [1]. In this program, someone pays half the normal premium: if there is damage, there is a 50% probability of paying the other half of the premium for the company to cover all the losses; and there is a 50% probability of refunding the premium and suffer all the losses. Probabilistic insurance represents many manners of protective action in which a cost is paid to reduce the probability of an undesirable event (without completely eliminating it). The aversion to this type of insurance is particularly surprising since all insurances are, in a sense, probabilistic. Therefore, a risk-averse individual should choose full insurance when the premium is fair (matching the expected loss), while a more risk-prone individual should prefer partial insurance if the premium is lower [28].
45.5.2 Prospect Theory Improvement Later, Kahneman and Tversky [31] revisited the early work with the goal of incorporating the effects of framing, nonlinear preferences, source dependence, risk seeking and loss aversion into the initial model. In addition, they proposed the “cumulative prospect theory” to converge with stochastic dominance. This theory, which extends the original version and responds to divergences pointed out by some scholars, can be appended to finite probabilistic prospects with continuous distribution and to uncertain probabilistic prospects, allowing to include different decision probabilities for gains and for losses [28]. The study by Kahneman and Tversky [31] considered a sample of Berkeley and Stanford students. The results suggest that individuals have risk aversion toward the possibility of gains and risk appetite toward the possibility of losses. The descriptive theory was confirmed in the study, finding that prospects should be framed in terms of losses and gains.
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45.6 Conclusion Traditional finance assumes that investors’ decisions are made in perfect markets, consider utility maximization and that the boundary for rationality is null. Utility theory is connected with traditional finance, assuming human rationality, utility maximization and risk aversion. Later, the prospect theory presented arguments in favor of bounded rationality and critics of expected utility theory, demonstrating that final outcomes are related to a value function established in terms of gains and losses, rather than utilities and final wealth. Behavioral finance received an important contribution from the prospect theory, developed by Kahneman and Tversky [1], through the research of a set of effects to deepen the cognitive biases and behavior of individuals when making decisions in an environment of risk and uncertainty. Considering the effects of the theory explored in empirical evidence, it is concluded that individuals tend to choose a certain event over a probable one (certainty effect); are risk averse in situations of gains and riskpredisposed in situations of losses (reflection effect); prefer a certain return over a less certain choice, but with the same outcome and probability (isolation effect). This study contributes to emphasize the need to define strategic financial literacy plans and may be useful for risk profile assessors. More specifically, the different school levels can adopt financial literacy programs to develop skills related to the binomial risk/return of investments. In this context, the use of pedagogical technologies (b-learning and quizzes online, among others) can be an added value for exploring the training content. For future research, we suggest replicating Kahneman and Tversky’s questionnaire to identify the effects that influence the decision-making process of different groups of individuals, as well as the influence of overconfidence in this process. Acknowledgements This work is financed by Portuguese national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, under the project UIDB/05422/2020.
References 1. Kahneman, D., Tversky, A.: Prospect thoery. Econometrica 47(2), 263–292 (1979) 2. Frederick, S.: Cognitive reflection and decision making. J. Econ. Perspect. 19, 25–42 (2005). https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1257/089533005775196732 3. Van Horne, J.C.: Financial Management and Policy, 11th edn. P. Hall Ed. (1998) 4. Glaser, M., Nöth, M., Weber, M.: Behavioral finance. Pacific-Basin Finan. J. 11(4), 429–437 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0927-538X(03)00048-9 5. Barros, T., Felipe, I.J.: Teoria do Prospecto: Evidências Aplicadas em Finanças Comportamentais. Revista de Administração FACES J. 14(4), 86–105 (2015). https://doi.org/10.21714/ 1984-6975FACES2015V14N4ART2934 6. Kahneman, D., Riepe, M.W.: Aspects of investor psychology. J. Portfolio Manage. 24(4), 52 (1998). https://doi.org/10.3905/jpm.1998.409643
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7. Fama, E.F., Malkiel, B.G.: Efficient capital markets: a review of theory and empirical work. J. Finan. 5(2), 383–417 (1970). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1540-6261. 1970.tb00518.x 8. Markowitz, H.: Portfolio selection. J. Finan. 7(1), 77–91 (1952). https://doi.org/10.2307/297 5974 9. Treynor: Market Value, Time, and Risk, vol. 95–209. Unpublished manuscript (1961) 10. Treynor: Toward a Theory of Market Value of Risky Assets, pp. 15–22. Unpublished manuscript (a final version was published in 1999, in Asset Pricing and Portfolio Performance: Models, Strategy and Performance Metrics. Robert A. Korajczyk Editor). Risk Books, London (1962) 11. Sharp, W.F.: Capital asset prices: a theory of market equilibrium under conditions of risk. J. Finan. 19(3), 425–442 (1964). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1964.tb02865.x 12. Lintner, J.: The valuation of risk assets and the selection of risky investments in stock portfolios and capital budgets. Rev. Econ. Stat. 47(1), 13–37 (1965). https://doi.org/10.2307/1924119 13. Mossin, J.: Equilibrium in a capital asset market. Econometrica 34(4), 768–783 (1966). https:// doi.org/10.2307/1910098 14. Simon, H.A.: Behavioral model of rational choice, in models of man, social and rational: mathematical essays on rational human behavior in a social setting. Wiley, New York (1957) 15. Melo, T.M., Fucidji, J.R.: Racionalidade limitada e a tomada de decisão em sistemas complexos. Revista de Economia Política, 36, no 3(144), 622–645 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1590/010131572016v36n03a09 16. Lobão, J.: Finanças Comportamentais: Quando a Economia encontra a Psicologia. ACTUAL, Grupo Almedina, Portugal (2012) 17. Singh, J.E., Babshetti, V., Shivaprasad, H.N.: Efficient market hypothesis to behavioral finance: a review of rationality to irrationality. Mater. Today Proc. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j. matpr.2021.03.318 18. Mussa, A., Yang, E., Trovão, R., Famá, R.: Hipótese de Mercados Eficientes e Finanças Comportamentais: As discussões persistem. FACEF Pesquisa Desenvolvimento e Gestão 1, 11 (2008) 19. Fama, E.F., French, K.R.: The cross-section of expected stock returns. J. Finan. 47(2), 427–465 (1992). https://doi.org/10.2469/faj.v55.n6.2310 20. Merton, R.: Influence of mathematical models in finance on practice: past, present and future. In: Howison, S.D., Kelly, F.P., Wil Mott, P. (eds.) Mathematical Models in Finance, pp. 1–12. The Royal Society (1995) 21. Thaler, R.H.: The end of behavioral finance. Finan. Anal. J. 55(6), 12–17 (1999). https://doi. org/10.2469/faj.v55.n6.2310 22. von Neumann, J., Morgenstern, O.: Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour. Princeton University Press (1944). https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1r2gkx 23. Bernoulli, D.: Exposition of a new theory on the measurement of risk. Econometric Soc. 22(1), 23–36 (1954). https://doi.org/10.2307/1909829 24. Levy, J.S.: An introduction to prospect theory. Polit. Psychol. 13, 171–186 (1992) 25. Ruggeri, K., Alí, S., Berge, M.L., et al.: Replicating patterns of prospect theory for decision under risk. Nat. Hum. Behav. 4, 622–633 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0886-x 26. Vasconcelos, A.F., Antunes, G.A., Augusto, C.: Avaliação de Perdas e Ganhos nas Decisões Financeiras: Uma Investigação à Luz da Prospect Theory. Revista de Evidenciação Contábil Finanças 2(1), 22–38 (2014). https://doi.org/10.18405/recfin20140102 27. Pan, Z.: A review of prospect theory. J. Hum. Resour. Sustain. Stud. 7(1), 98–107 (2019). https://doi.org/10.4236/jhrss.2019.71007 28. Marques, J.F.B., Gomes, L.P.: Finanças Comportamentais: Teoria da Perspetiva e Contabilidade Mental. In: XVIII Encuentro AECA. ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon (2018). ISBN: 978-84-16286-48-5 29. Silva, P., Mendonça, J., Gomes, L.M.P., Babo, L.: Cognitive biases in the investment decision process. In: Mesquita A., Abreu A., Carvalho J.V., de Mello C.H.P. (eds.) Proceedings of Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology. ICITED—Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol. 320, pp. 185–197. Springer, Singapore (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-981-19-6585-2_17
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Chapter 46
Virtual Classroom and the Impact of E-Skills on the Performance of Peruvian University Students Paola Palomino-Flores
and Ricardo Cristi-López
Abstract The objective of the study is to explore the experiences of students in the virtual classroom and the impact of digital competencies on the performance of students. Participants were 363 university students enrolled in the School of Communication at a private university in Peru. The instrument used was a 10question questionnaire, based on a Likert scale. According to the results, the participants concluded that they were not entirely satisfied with the virtual classrooms, as they found it difficult to have a precise anchorage in the learning process. In addition, there are gaps related to the contents elaborated by teachers for asynchronous classes and synchronous lessons, finding advantages in the synchronic lessons, being valued by the student, because they can interact live and feel that they have a tutor supporting them. For this reason, information should be distributed in a straightforward and creative approach, avoiding long online periods and allowing long content in digestible and downloadable formats.
46.1 Introduction The integration of technology in education, particularly in virtual classrooms, has become increasingly widespread. The experiences that students have within these environments can have a significant impact on their academic performance and learning outcomes [1]. Digital competencies are critical to academic achievement, as students who possess high levels of these competencies tend to demonstrate higher levels of motivation and satisfaction [2]. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the global adoption of online education, creating a demand for the development of P. Palomino-Flores (B) Carrera de Comunicación y Periodismo de la Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, Lima 15023, Perú e-mail: [email protected] R. Cristi-López Carrera de Educación Superior de la Universidad Andrés Bello, 8370134 Santiago, Chile © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_46
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effective virtual teaching strategies and programs to ensure ongoing learning. Virtual education can enhance education quality, provide greater learning opportunities, and offer flexibility in the educational process [3]. Nowadays, educational institutions and educators in virtual education have adopted new approaches to teaching, learning, and assessment in virtual environments. Virtual classrooms have become essential tools in higher education [4]. However, the effectiveness of this mode of education is closely tied to the students’ level of digital competencies, which have become crucial in the academic sphere [5]. The aim of this study is to explore the student experience within virtual classrooms in the communication program at a private university in Lima by answering the research question: What are the experiences of students within the virtual classroom, and how do digital competencies impact their execution of activities? The specific objectives of the study are to investigate the students’ conception of the virtual classroom, describe the type of activities conducted within the virtual classroom, and examine the effects of the virtual classroom as a teaching–learning strategy on achieving significant learning for university students at the institution.
46.2 Framework 46.2.1 Virtual Classroom The virtual classroom is an internet-based platform that enables teachers and students to participate in a variety of activities that promote learning, interaction, emotional well-being, and social development [4, 6]. Virtual reality adoption during the COVID19 pandemic: A uses and gratifications perspective. Telematics and informatics should be noted that students at a private university in Lima experience virtual classrooms through the Blackboard platform, created by Matthew Pittinsky and Michael Chasen, which connects more than 12 million people from 2,200 educational institutions and 60 countries [7]. The platform offers a wide range of activities, including chat, forums, database queries, attendance records, questionnaires, surveys, glossaries, Scorm packages, workshops, audio, video, PPT, PDF, and collaborative work capabilities [8]. Organizing the virtual classroom involves the operational actions that teachers execute on the teaching and learning platform to maximize space and time utilization in the environment [9]. Educators must organize high-quality information in the virtual classroom. Asynchronous classes are valued by students, and clear explanations of concepts through videos or other materials are crucial [4]. A key aspect of the information presented in the virtual classroom is the recommendation to select teams of experts who can verify and evaluate the content presented in a platform or classroom space to determine quality [10].
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46.2.1.1
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Organization of Information in the Virtual Classroom
Effective classroom organization involves the strategic actions taken by educators in the teaching and learning platform to optimize the use of time and space within the environment [11]. This underscores the importance of educators being able to organize high-quality, engaging, and up-to-date information within the virtual classroom, as it is a fundamental element. On the other hand, it has been found that students value asynchronous classes because they can review the provided material later, as well as the clarity with which the teacher explains the required concepts or allows them to be understood in videos or other selected materials [12]. An essential aspect related to the information presented in the virtual classroom is the selection of expert teams who can evaluate and verify the contents presented on a platform or classroom space to ensure their quality [3, 13, 14].
46.2.1.2
Socialization of Learned Material, Experiences, and Ideas
The process of socialization in classes, whether they are conducted in-person or virtually, involves the exchange of learning. The use of technology is proposed as a means to promote and encourage pedagogical innovation, leading to the adoption of new teaching paradigms and concepts [14]. It is essential to envision how technology can be effectively utilized in the future to enhance the teaching and learning experience. On the other hand, it has been concluded by [15, 16], about the importance of socializing experiences and ideas within the virtual classroom. This aspect requires clear, fluid, and assertive communication by teachers. To increase student motivation and participation in virtual classes, teachers can implement constructivist approaches and use platforms that promote teacher–student interaction and collaboration. Planning and executing activities such as forums, debates, and group presentations can also encourage teamwork and engagement [17–19].
46.2.1.3
Application, Appropriation, and Evaluation of Content
The use of virtual platforms has proven effective for knowledge acquisition among university students [20]. Students should appropriate their learning and generate cognitive anchors for better understanding [19]. Encouraging collaboration and teamwork allows for transfer of learning to everyday and work situations [9, 21].
46.2.1.4
Security and Reliability in the Platform
Security and reliability are crucial ethical aspects in the educational platform to ensure a satisfactory experience for students. It is recommended that the platform be easy to use, reliable, and protected against unauthorized access [22]. To achieve a better user experience, it is essential that platform resources, such as applications,
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documents, forums, and search engines, are integrated in a simple manner [23]. It is essential that educational institutions consider the implementation of these security measures to ensure proper protection of student data and platform integrity. Therefore, it is important to take into account these security and reliability aspects to provide students with a safe and efficient educational environment. Virtual classrooms with a variety of activity types, such as autonomous and teacher-assisted activities, conducted synchronously, asynchronously, or in a mixed format, are essential for achieving learning outcomes [4].
46.2.2 Execution of Activities in the Virtual Classroom and Master Classes The virtual classroom is a space where teachers and students can engage in various types of activities to achieve learning. These activities can involve the use of different tools and may or may not include evaluation processes. When designing a virtual classroom, it is important to consider the available types of activities for both teachers and students based on the tools used. These activities can be carried out in three different ways [9]: synchronous, asynchronous, and mixed.
46.2.2.1
Teamwork or Collaborative Work
One of the recommendations made to university education teachers is to strengthen teamwork through various activities [6]. This involves being knowledgeable about educational theories that promote cooperative or collaborative learning, such as constructivism [10]. This theory allows teachers to guide educational activities toward teamwork, where everyone is responsible for building knowledge. Additionally, it has been shown that collaborative work is intertwined with the use of technology, according to the proposals of constructivism and connectivism, which consider that knowledge transfer is based on existing schemes and occurs through the construction of knowledge. Even when social, this knowledge has personal meaning since it is the student who creates it [24]. Students have highlighted the importance of the collaborative work experience for appropriating learning, socializing, and reflecting on what they learn. These exchanges may not necessarily take place in the virtual classroom but may also happen outside it, though they originate from the class [23].
46.2.2.2
Promotion of Research
As part of good teaching practices, some teachers promote academic development aspects from the virtual classroom that allow students to develop research skills.
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Typically, these teachers establish tutorial moments with their students, allowing them to strengthen their learning [16].
46.2.2.3
Increased Digital Competencies and Improved Academic Performance
Improved academic performance has been linked to increased digital competencies. UNESCO (2008) and the European Union (EU, 2021) have established a set of skills that students need to develop to be digitally competent. It is the responsibility of teachers to master these competencies and teach them to their students [10]. When students lack these competencies, they may not achieve their full potential and experience academic weaknesses [25]. Therefore, developing digital competencies is crucial for academic success, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted the significance of these competencies. Students who already had digital skills were better able to adapt to online learning without major disruptions [9]. On the other hand, students who lacked digital competencies faced difficulties in adjusting to the new online learning environment [15]. This further emphasizes the significance of digital competencies in today’s education system and the need for students to acquire them for academic success. The digital competencies that a twenty-first-century teacher should possess can be observed in the following diagram (see Fig. 46.1). Based on the previously mentioned points, individuals who attain digital competencies at an optimal level have the ability to locate information online, exercise critical thinking in evaluating received information, communicate with others assertively, and generate content. Thus, it can be inferred that digital competency is a multifaceted skill [15].
46.3 Methodology The proposed methodology for this research will be a mixed approach, combining both quantitative and qualitative elements to provide a comprehensive understanding of the topic, as suggested by Creswell [26]. The research design will be exploratory and descriptive, aiming to explore students’ experiences using the virtual classroom and the influence of their digital competencies on academic performance. This study will be conducted at the Faculty of Communications of a private university in Lima, Peru. The selected approach for this study was quantitative, following the steps of the method, which range from presenting the problem and evaluating the considered variables, to applying the instrument according to the design, executing the analysis, and presenting the results. This indicates that the researcher must follow the established parameters for the report’s preparation [27]. The selection of this approach is related to both the paradigm and the instrument, which allowed for the achievement
508 1. PROFESSIONAL COMMITMENT
1.1 Data Management
1.2 Organizational Communication
1.3 Professional Collaboration 1.4 Reflective Practice
1.5 Digital Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
P. Palomino-Flores and R. Cristi-López 2.DIGITAL RESOURCES
5.EMPOWER STUDENTS
6.PROMOTING STUDENTS' DIGITAL PROFICIENCY
2.1 Selection of digital resources 2.2 Organizing, sharing, and publishing 2.3 Creation and modification
5.1 Accessibility and Inclusion
6.1 Information and media literacy 6.2 Digital communication and collaboration
5.2 Differentiation and Personalization
3.PEDAGOGIA DIGITAL 3.1 Instruction 3.2 Student teacher interaction 3.3 Student collaboration 3.4 Self-directed learning 4. EVALUACIÓN DIGITAL 4.1 Assessment format 4.2 Analyzing tests 4.3 Feedback and Planning
6.3 Digital content creation 6.4 Well-being 5.3 Active Participation
6.5 Digital problem-solving solution
Fig. 46.1 Digital skills teachers will need according to the European Union (EU, 2021)
of the proposed objectives. The design of this study is non-experimental, as the variables were not manipulated, and cross-sectional since the instrument was applied at a single moment, i.e., once [28]. The study’s population consists of 6,229 students from the faculty, while the sample, after executing the analysis using Stats 2.0, which applies all statistical operations for the calculation, was composed of 363 students from the communication programs (Audiovisual Communication and Interactive Media; Communication and Marketing; Communication and Advertising; Communication and Photography; Communication and Corporate; Image Communication and Journalism).
46.4 Results The data presented represents a probabilistic sample in which all students had an equal opportunity to participate. A survey technique was used for data collection, consisting of a series of polychromous questions that allowed for more than two response alternatives for respondents. The survey questionnaire included ten questions rated on a Likert scale (see Annex 1). The data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for statistical analysis. The following procedure was followed for data processing: once the surveys were completed, the responses were
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Communication and Advertising Communication and Journalism Communication and Marketing Communication and Photography Communication and Corporate Image Audiovisual Communication and Media 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%100%
Excelent
Very good
Good
Chart 46.1 Evaluation of virtual classroom experience by field of study
coded. In this case, all the responses were grouped and coded for better processing in the SPSS. It should be noted that the results presented below are the most relevant ones (Chart 46.1). The satisfaction rates for e-learning were generally low, with no more than 3% of students rating the experience as “very good”. However, in the case of Communication and Image Management, Communication and Photography, and Interactive Media, 77% of students reported having a positive experience with e-learning, although only 3% rated it as “very good”. Journalism students were the only ones who rated the experience as “excellent” with a score of 2.75, suggesting that there are factors influencing students’ perceptions of their e-learning experience. The survey revealed that 50% of students found the unlimited access to explanations in virtual courses, especially with videos, as the greatest advantage. Additionally, 45% valued the guidance provided by teachers, and 5% appreciated the direct contact with their teachers. However, 38.84% of the students reported difficulty adapting to the new learning context, and 28.87% had course-specific difficulties. About 25.07% of students mentioned difficulties in understanding explanations and tasks due to the limited interaction between students, teachers, and peers in virtual courses. According to the results, feedback from teachers is highly valued by over 70% of students as it is believed to be beneficial for their learning experience. This was especially the case for students studying Communication and Marketing, Communication and Advertising, and Corporate Image Communication. Additionally, 47.11% of students appreciated the chance to collaborate with peers in completing evaluation activities as part of cooperative work, while 32% of them valued the flexibility of deadlines for completing activities. In particular, 9.2% of students in Communication and Advertising found this aspect to be most important. These findings highlight the importance of providing timely feedback to students and fostering collaboration opportunities in virtual learning environments. Chatting with teachers was rated at 19.56%, especially in Communication and Journalism and Communication and Interactive Media majors. However, blogs and videos were given lower ratings. These results highlight the importance of verifying which types of resources are being used in classes, as inappropriate use can demotivate students.
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46.5 Discussion and Conclusions Virtual classrooms and e-learning platforms have become increasingly popular in universities worldwide, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic [29]. These platforms provide students with the ability to attend classes and learn remotely, without the need for physical attendance. This flexibility has been particularly beneficial for students who live far away from their universities or have other obligations that prevent them from attending in-person classes. In addition to flexibility, virtual classrooms and e-learning platforms offer multimedia tools that enhance engagement and participation [9]. Success in these environments requires digital literacy and computer proficiency to effectively navigate resources, communicate, collaborate, and complete assignments and assessments online. Improving and optimizing digital competencies among teachers is essential to ensure quality education. By following the guidelines established by UNESCO (2008) and the EU (2021) for the development of these competencies, the negative effects that teachers’ deficiencies can have on students can be minimized. While a “Good” rating allows for reflective processes, it is important not to conduct a comprehensive assessment without analyzing other results. Investigating what contributes to a medium-scale rating is crucial to improve teaching performance. According to Area [8], students value autonomous learning activities, whether they are synchronous or asynchronous, which may be an aspect to consider in optimizing teaching practices. However, tutoring methods that enable closer interaction with teachers are necessary [30]. Students value flexibility in scheduling, feedback from teachers, and collaborative learning [9]. Additionally, it is important that students have the opportunity to apply what they have learned and feel supported when needed, as this can be a motivating factor for their continued success. Virtual learning success requires teachers to incorporate new paradigms into their teaching practices and strengthen collective work, as highlighted [19, 23]. However, virtual learning poses challenges such as the need for students to develop time management skills and the lack of pertinent feedback, with evaluation processes requiring improvement for better alignment with methodology and objectives. Security and platform reliability are critical considerations, impacting student perception of teacher competencies [22]. In order to minimize uncertainty and ensure effective learning, teachers must provide clear and well-defined learning paths. Verification of required conditions is also necessary to avoid loss of student confidence in presented resources. Group work must be strengthened to promote cooperative and collaborative work, while tutoring moments should be established [7, 9, 18]. The study shows that teachers preparing content for virtual classrooms have gaps, some drawbacks in fully reaching the learner, especially in asynchronous sessions. Teachers lack the skills and pedagogical application to make students the protagonists of their learning. To improve, teachers need to strengthen their digital competences, diversify virtual resources, involve activities that interact with the classroom, create spaces for discussion, encourage reflection, develop new approaches, and promote collaboration. However, the study only focused on higher education teachers and did not investigate the impact of the pandemic. It is therefore recommended that a broader
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study be developed to understand the impact of virtual classrooms on education and to develop effective support strategies. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the participants in this study. This study has been supported partly by the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC).
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Chapter 47
Students’ Perceptions from an Integrated Software Engineering and Databases Course Alexandra Martínez, Christian Quesada-López, and Marcelo Jenkins
Abstract The project-based learning approach has proven its value, as students can work on complex, real-life problems that allow for meaningful learning (Breiter et al. in Comput Sci Educ 18(2):165–180, 2005; Sung and Sunny in Learning through collaborative design: a learning strategy on the internet, vol 3, pp F4F–3, 2001; Coupal and Boechler in The value of agile in experiential learning of software development, pp 113–120, 2007) [1–3]. Since 2019, the Computing Science Department of the University of Costa Rica offers a project-based course integrating the subjects of Software Engineering and Databases. We surveyed the students in each sprint to gain insight into the students’ perception of the value and difficulty of technical challenges, teamwork, planning, and negotiating with the client. We collected data from four course instances and 79 students. The descriptive statistics analysis revealed that the perceived difficulty of addressing technical challenges was higher than the perceived difficulty of other dimensions, across sprints, and course instances. Statistical tests comparing the first and third sprints were performed. Further studies are needed to validate, complement, or contrast our findings. Evaluating students’ perception of different project aspects is useful in identifying the aspects that are more difficult for students throughout the course.
A. Martínez · C. Quesada-López · M. Jenkins (B) Escuela de Ciencias de la Computación e Informàtica, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica e-mail: [email protected] A. Martínez e-mail: [email protected] C. Quesada-López e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_47
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47.1 Introduction Project-based learning (PjBL) is a teaching and learning approach where students engage in complex real-world tasks, enabling them to acquire knowledge and skills [4]. In PjBL, the project itself drives the learning experience, giving students handson opportunities to work and discuss with their peers, investigate and apply course concepts, present their work, and receive feedback. Several benefits of PjBL have been reported, including improved attitudes toward learning and development of metacognitive skills such as self-regulation, self-monitoring, self-directed learning, and self-assessment [4]. The Computing Science Department at the University of Costa Rica offers since 2019 an integrated project-based course in Software Engineering and Databases. This course provides students with a simulated experience of a real software development project and professional work environment. The project is incrementally developed over the span of three iterations, following the Scrum agile methodology. The pedagogical approach used in this course is project-based learning. Particularly, we heavily rely on the PjBL principles from [5], which include seven project design elements, and seven teaching practices. The essential project design elements are [6]: a challenging problem, sustained inquiry, authenticity, student voice and choice, reflection, and critique and revision. The essential project-based teaching practices are [7]: design and plan, align to standards, build the culture, manage activities, scaffold student learning, and assess student learning. The authors of this article have jointly taught the integrated project course since its inception. In order to know the students’ perception about the value and difficulty of four specific aspects of the project, we surveyed the students at the end of each sprint. The project aspects or dimensions considered and assessed were technical challenges, teamwork, planning and monitoring, and negotiation with the client. This survey is based on the one proposed by Bastarrica et al. [8]. Overall, we present data collected from three sprints in four course instances and a total of 79 students. Our research question is what is the perceived value and difficulty of correctly addressing the technical challenges, teamwork, project planning and monitoring, and negotiation with the client, in the project? We analyzed the value and the relative perceived difficulty reported by the students each sprint, identified the elements that impact the perception of value and difficulty indicated by the students. Finally, we compared the results of perceived value and difficulty in the first and last sprints, to determine if there was variation in perception from the beginning to the end of the project.
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47.2 Related Work Project-based learning has been investigated in the context of Software Engineering courses [9–12], Computer Science education [1, 13] and Engineering education [14– 16]. Chen and Yang [4] performed a meta-analysis of 20 years of research, in order to compare the effects of project-based learning and those of traditional instruction on student academic achievement. Their study analyzed 30 journal articles from 1998 to 2017, representing 12,585 students from 189 schools in 9 countries. They found that PjBL has a medium to large positive effect on student academic achievement when compared with traditional instruction, thus offering evidence on the effectiveness of PjBL as a teaching and learning approach. Bastarrica et al. [8] studied students’ perception of the value and difficulty of four project dimensions in the context of an agile capstone course. The dimensions they investigated are technical challenge, teamwork, planning, and negotiation with the client. They found that throughout the course, the perceived value and difficulty of most soft skills grew while the value of technical challenge decreased. Our work draws heavily on this study. Similar studies [2, 17, 18] have addressed students’ perception on different aspects of the projects and learning outcomes (especially in capstone projects that incorporate or emulate industrial practice). Other studies have investigated students’ perceptions of Kanban practices [19] and agile practices [3, 20]. The issue of satisfaction has also been studied in agile contexts [21, 22]. Particularly, Biddle et al. [21] analyzed the sources of satisfaction, based on a survey conducted in Switzerland. They found that satisfaction is reported more by people using agile methodologies, and hypothesized that this is due to collaborative practices and business outcomes. The work by Kropp et al. [22] built on and deepened Biddle et al. [21]’s initial study. They wanted to explore whether satisfaction was influenced by the applied development method, specific practices, business, team, or software issues. Some of the main findings were that (i) satisfaction primarily came from two agile collaborative practices: self-organizing teams and collective code ownership; (ii) business was a dominant influence factor (time-to-market), i.e., delivering fast is a source of satisfaction for the teams; (iii) on a personal basis, the dominant factor linked to satisfaction was a focus on technical quality.
47.3 Course Context We report our experience with the “Integrated Project in Software Engineering and Databases” course that is part of a block including two more courses: Software Engineering (SE) and Databases (DB). This project-driven course aims at integrating and applying the knowledge and skills from the other two courses in the block. The course project is incrementally built over the span of three iterations, using Scrum.
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This study reports two face-to-face and two virtual instances of the course. The faceto-face instances were carried out in 2019, while the virtual instances took place in 2020.
47.3.1 The Course The “Integrated Project in Software Engineering and Databases” course is a 3-credithour mandatory course of the Computer Science Bachelor’s program at the University of Costa Rica. It is offered twice a year, and each semester two or three sections (groups) are opened. The class meets weekly for 3 consecutive hours, totaling 48 h in 16 weeks. Figure 47.1 shows the organization of the integrated project course in a timeline, and its interrelations with activities from the SE and DB courses. Since the three courses of the block are so tightly interrelated, we list in Table 47.1 the main learning units (topics) studied in the SE and DB courses. Learning units from Table 47.1 are covered through different didactic strategies, including: short lectures (or videos), readings, discussions, and hands-on activities like labs. During class, students work on hands-on activities with the teacher’s guidance, such as labs or practical exercises. Our course aligns well with the four project dimensions proposed by Bastarrica et al. [8]: (1) technical challenge (both in SE and DB), (2) negotiation with the client (a simulated PO in our case), (3) project planning (using Scrum values and principles [23]), and (4) teamwork (based on the characteristics of Scrum teams [24]). Ours is a junior-level course where most of our students are full-time, with only about 10% of them working either full-time of part-time in the industry. Both the SE and DB teachers participate in this course, allowing them to coordinate and align activities and contents of the SE and DB courses to the integrated project course. The main role of the teachers in this course is to serve as technical leads
Fig. 47.1 Organization of the integrated project-based course and scaffolding provided by the SE and DB courses
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Table 47.1 Learning units from the SE and DB courses No
Software engineering (SE)
Databases (DB)
1
SE principles
DB principles
2
Process models
Conceptual DB design
3
Requirement engineering
Logical DB design
4
Agile development
DB implementation: basic SQL
5
Planning and estimation
Advanced SQL
6
UI and user centered design
Normalization
7
Architecture principles
Disk storage and file structures
8
Requirements modeling
Basic index types and usage
9
Architectural design and UML
Transactions concepts
10
Configuration management
Concurrency control techniques
11
Quality assurance
Isolation levels
12
Software testing
Failures and recovery techniques
for the teams. In the initial stages, they model the interactions with the PO and help guiding the Scrum ceremonies. In three of the four instances reported here, the first author was the DB teacher, the second author was the SE teacher, and the third author was an additional instructor who served as the product owner (PO). In the fourth instance, other professors taught the SE and DB courses but the first and second authors participated in the projectbased course.
47.3.2 The Projects In the integrated project course, all students and teams work on the development of a single shared project. This adds a layer of complexity as teams have to communicate with each other to agree on multiple technical and methodological aspects of the project. Students choose the composition of the teams, provided they are balanced in size. The size of the teams varies between 4 and 7, depending on the number of enrolled students. We try to keep the maximum number of teams at 4 due to restrictions imposed by the physical layout of the classroom. There are no pre-defined roles for the team members, and teams are self-organizing. Collaborative teams are in charge of different interrelated modules of a single project, which must be integrated into a common code repository. The course grade is divided into 20% for supervised activities and 80% for the project. Supervised activities are practical project-related activities carried out in class. They typically involve students choosing a user story from the sprint backlog, working on its implementation by pair-programming, validating their work with the
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product owner, and integrating their code to the repository. The project has three iterations (sprints, in agile terms) plus an initial stage of conceptualization, design, and planning. For developing the project students use several case tools: Lucidchart is used as our preferred design tool, Microsoft Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio are used as development tools, Bitbucket is used for version control, and Jira for project management.
47.4 Methodology To gather students’ perception, a survey was conducted in every sprint.
47.4.1 The Survey Our survey design was based on Bastarrica et al. [8]’s survey, where students were asked to fill out a table of fours rows (project aspects to assess) and two columns (value and difficulty), such that the percentages along each column would add up to 100%. We slightly modified their survey to separate value and difficulty into two questions instead of a single table. Also, we changed a bit one of the original dimensions to better reflect what our students actually do. The original dimensions were: technical challenge, teamwork, planning, and negotiation with the client. We changed “planning” to “planning and monitoring”, since our students do both throughout the project. In order to guide students on how to assign the percentages, the following legend was shown: “the percentage you give reflects the relative value (or difficulty) of correctly addressing each of the aspects for the success of the project”. We expanded the survey with two open questions for students to write their comments on the given percentages. Our survey was implemented as an online survey with Limesurvey.
47.4.2 Data Collection Survey data was collected at the end of each sprint. Specifically, the survey was opened on the day of the sprint review and closed about three days later, providing students with enough time to complete it. We gathered data from four instances of the course and a total of 79 students.
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47.4.3 Threats to Validity The main validity threat is the use of a survey to assess the perceived value and difficulty of the four project aspects, since it is self-reported, and students can easily mix value with difficulty when evaluating each aspect. Nonetheless, a similar survey has been used in a published report [8], so we assume the dimensions and their assessment are agreed to be relevant and valid.
47.5 Results The perceived value and difficulty of correctly addressing the technical challenges (TC), negotiation with the client (NC), project planning and monitoring (PP), and teamwork (TW) for each sprint (S1, S2, S3) of the four course instances (P1, P2, P3, P4) are shown in Tables 47.2, 47.3, 47.4, and 47.5 that show the mean and standard deviation of the initial and final perceived value and difficulty of each project dimension, respectively. We also show the variation in perception between these two moments. The initial perception was collected in S1, and the final perception was taken at S3. Next, we present the results of the statistical tests run to compare students’ perceptions between the first and third sprints. For each dimension and course instance (project), we used a dependent paired sample t-test with alpha at 0.05. The results are shown in Tables 47.6 and 47.7. Significant differences are indicated in bold. Technical challenge. As can be seen from Tables 47.6 and 47.7 together with Table 47.2, the perceived value of addressing the technical challenges significantly increases from sprint 1 to sprint 3, when considering all the projects (course Table 47.2 Initial and final perception of technical challenges Project (n)
Value
Difficulty
Initial
Final
Var
Initial
Final
P1
x
24.6
29.4
−4.8
42.1
38.9
Var 3.2
(18)
SD
10.8
11.1
14.1
14.0
12.8
17.3
P2
x
28.7
30.7
−2.0
37.0
30.3
6.7
(15)
SD
7.2
10.2
13.5
11.0
12.5
18.7
P3
x
26.0
30.4
−4.3
47.0
37.5
9.6
(21)
SD
9.1
12.1
11.0
14.6
17.2
12.8
P4
x
33.7
33.2
0.5
42.7
40.3
2.3
(15)
SD
11.1
12.5
11.9
10.5
11.6
14.9
All
x
27.9
30.8
−2.9
42.6
36.9
5.7
(69)
SD
10.0
11.4
12.5
13.1
14.2
15.8
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Table 47.3 Initial and final perception of negotiation with the client Project (n)
Value
P1
x
(18)
SD
P2
x
(15)
SD
P3
x
(21)
SD
P4
x
(15)
SD
All
x
(69)
SD
Difficulty
Initial
Final
29.2
23.6
8.9
5.4
23.5
Var
Initial
Final
Var
5.6
16.9
21.1
−4.2
8.0
9.1
8.3
9.3
18.3
5.2
25.3
21.3
4.0
8.7
8.4
11.3
12.6
11.3
14.8
22.9
19.9
3.0
15.8
18.1
−2.3
8.5
8.6
5.8
8.1
8.8
8.1
23.3
22.7
0.7
16.3
14.3
2.0
9.6
10.0
9.0
7.9
7.0
6.8
24.8
21.1
3.7
18.3
18.8
−0.5
9.1
8.3
8.5
10.0
9.2
10.3
Table 47.4 Initial and final perception of project planning and monitoring Project (n)
Value
Difficulty
Initial
Final
P1
x
23.9
22.5
Var
(18)
SD
10.9
6.1
10.7
8.5
7.9
12.4
P2
x
22.5
23.3
−0.9
22.5
23.0
−0.5
(15)
SD
4.4
11.6
10.8
7.6
11.1
12.8
P3
x
21.8
23.0
−1.3
21.7
26.4
−4.7
(21)
SD
6.8
5.8
7.3
9.5
11.2
8.8
P4
x
19.0
21.7
−2.7
23.0
25.0
−2.0
(15)
SD
All
x
(69)
SD
1.4
Initial
Final
21.6
18.8
Var 2.9
6.0
5.2
8.6
8.6
8.2
12.5
21.9
22.7
−0.8
22.1
23.4
−1.2
7.6
7.3
9.3
8.5
10.1
11.6
instances). In contrast, the perception of difficulty in addressing the technical challenges drops significantly from sprint 1 to sprint 3, across all projects. Negotiation with the client. As can be seen from Tables 47.6 and 47.7 together with Table 47.3, the perceived value of correctly addressing the negotiation with the client decreases significantly between the first and third sprints, when considering all the projects (course instances). However, the initial and final perception of difficulty for the same dimension does not change significantly across projects. Project planning and monitoring. As depicted in Tables 47.6, 47.7, and 47.4, the perceived value of addressing the project planning and monitoring does not change significantly during the course. A similar result is obtained for the perceived value of difficulty in this dimension.
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Table 47.5 Initial and final perception of teamwork Project (n)
Value
Difficulty
Initial
Final
Var
Initial
Final
Var
22.3
24.4
−2.1
19.3
21.3
6.7
11.0
8.2
9.7
13.0
12.9
25.3
27.7
−2.3
15.1
25.3
−10.2
−1.9
P1
x
(18)
SD
P2
x
(15)
SD
6.4
13.3
12.7
8.3
15.4
19.1
P3
x
29.3
26.7
2.6
15.4
18.0
−2.6
(21)
SD
10.2
9.1
10.5
8.4
8.1
10.7
P4
x
24.0
22.5
1.5
18.0
20.3
−2.3
(15)
SD
6.9
5.3
7.8
9.6
5.8
8.4
All
x
25.5
25.4
0.1
16.9
20.9
−4.0
(69)
SD
8.2
10.0
10.0
9.0
11.1
13.2
Table 47.6 T-test for the perceived value of each dimension P1
P2
P3
P4
t
p
t
p
t
p
TC
−1.5
0.16
−0.6
0.57
−1.8
0.09
NC
2.9
0.01
1.8
0.09
2.4
PP
0.6
0.59
−0.3
0.76
−0.8
−1.1
0.29
−0.7
0.49
1.1
TW
t
All p
t
p
0.2
0.88
−1.9
0.05
0.03
0.3
0.78
3.6
0.00
0.43
−1.2
0.25
−0.7
0.48
0.27
0.8
0.46
0.0
0.96
Table 47.7 T-test for the perceived difficulty of each dimension P1
P2
P3
P4
All
t
p
t
p
t
p
t
p
0.8
0.44
1.4
0.19
3.4
0.00
0.6
0.55
3.0
0.00
NC
−1.9
0.07
1.0
0.31
−1.3
0.20
1.1
0.27
−0.4
0.69
PP
1.0
0.34
−0.1
0.89
−2.4
0.02
−0.6
0.55
− 0.9
0.39
TW
−0.6
0.54
−2.1
0.06
−1 .1
0.28
−1.1
0.30
− 2.5
0.01
TC
t
p
Teamwork. As depicted in Tables 47.6, 47.7, and 47.5, the initial and final perceived value of correctly addressing the teamwork exhibits no significant change across projects (course instances). On the contrary, the perception of difficulty associated to teamwork significantly increases during the course.
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47.5.1 Discussion Here, we compare our results to those obtained by Bastarrica et al. [8]. For the technical challenge dimension, they found that the perceived value drops significantly at the end of the course, and the perceived difficulty also seems to decrease but is not statistically significant. Our study finds dissimilar results: the perceived value of technical challenges increases significantly during the course, while its perceived difficulty decreases significantly. With respect to the negotiation with the client dimension, they found no statistical difference in the perceived value at the beginning and end of the course, while the perceived difficulty dropped significantly at the end of the course. Regarding the project planning and monitoring dimension, they found that the perceived value grows significantly by the end of the course, while the increase in perceived difficulty is not statistically significant. In our case, no statistical difference was found in perceived value or difficulty during the course. Finally, for the teamwork dimension, they found that the increase in the perceived value was not statistically significant, but the increase in the perceived difficulty was. Our results match theirs. We expected both value and difficulty to increase, hence were surprised to not find evidence of an increase in the perceived value. Some of the discrepancies in the results can be attributed to the fact that the course context is somewhat different: ours is not a capstone course as theirs, but rather a junior-level course where students develop a professional scale software for a (simulated) client.
47.6 Conclusions This study was developed in the context of a project-based course that aims to consolidate and integrate the knowledge and skills students learn in the Software Engineering and Databases courses. A single shared project is collaboratively built in teams over three sprints, following the Scrum methodology. We used a modified version of the survey proposed by Bastarrica et al. [8], where students are asked to answer questions regarding the perceived value and difficulty of four project aspects or dimensions: technical challenges, teamwork, planning and monitoring, and negotiation with the client. Students were surveyed in each sprint, across four instances of the course: two face-to-face in 2019 and two virtually in 2020. Our main finding from the descriptive statistics analysis is that the technical challenges are perceived as more difficult regardless of the sprint or project. On the other side, our statistical tests comparing the first and third sprints yielded the following evidence. The perceived value of correctly addressing technical challenges significantly increased from sprint 1 to 3, while its perceived difficulty decreased. The perceived difficulty of correctly addressing teamwork significantly increased from sprint 1 to 3. The perceived value of correctly addressing negotiation with the
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client decreased from sprint 1 to 3. Lastly, no significant change was found in either perceived value or difficulty of correctly addressing project planning and monitoring. Knowing students’ perceptions along the four analyzed dimensions aids teachers in making decisions about the complexity of the project, and the didactic strategies that are best suited to help students successfully complete project to identify what aspects are more challenging. Research in other contexts could help validate or contrast the findings of this study.
References 1. Breiter, A., Fey, G., Drechsler, R.: Project-based learning in student teams in computer science education. Special Issue of Facta Universitatis on Comput. Sci. Educ. 18(2), 165–180 (August 2005) 2. Sung, C.-T., Sunny, S.J.L.: Learning through collaborative design: a learning strategy on the internet. In: 31st Annual Frontiers in Education Conference. Impact on Engineering and Science Education. Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.01CH37193), vol. 3, pp. F4F–3 (2001) 3. Coupal, C.M., Boechler, K.: The value of agile in experiential learning of software development. In: Agile 2007 (AGILE 2007), pp. 113–120 (2007) 4. Chen, C.H., Yang, Y.C.: Revisiting the effects of project-based learning on students’ academic achievement: a meta-analysis investigating moderators. Educ. Res. Rev. 26, 71–81 (2019) 5. Markham, T.: Project Based Learning Handbook: A Guide to Standards-Focused Project Based Learning for Middle and High School Teachers. Buck Institute for Education (2003) 6. Larmer, J.: Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements. https://www.pblworks.org/ blog/gold-standard-pbl-essential-project-design-elements (2020). Accessed 16 Oct 2020 7. for Education, B.I.: Gold Standard PBL: Project Based Teaching Practices. https://www.pbl works.org/what-is-pbl/gold-standard-teaching-practices (2020). Accessed 16 Oct 2020 8. Bastarrica, M.C., Perovich, D., Samary, M.M.: What can students get from a software engineering capstone course? In: 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training Track (ICSE-SEET), pp. 137–145. IEEE (2017) 9. Francese, R., Gravino, C., Risi, M., Scanniello, G., Tortora, G.: Using project-based-learning in a mobile application development course—an experience report. J. Vis. Lang. Comput. 31, 196–205 (2015) (special Issue on DMS2015) 10. Kizaki, S., Tahara, Y., Ohsuga, A.: Software development pbl focusing on communication using scrum. In: 2014 IIAI 3rd International Conference on Advanced Applied Informatics, pp. 662–669 (2014) 11. Pérez, B., Rubio, A.L.: A Project-Based Learning Approach for Enhancing Learning Skills and Motivation in Software Engineering. Association for Computing Machinery, New York (2020) 12. Souza, M., Moreira, R., Figueiredo, E.: Students Perception on the Use of Project-Based Learning in Software Engineering Education. Association for Computing Machinery, New York (2019) 13. Pucher, R., Lehner, M.: Project based learning in computer science—a review of more than 500 projects. Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 29, 1561–1566 (2011) (The 2nd International Conference on Education and Educational Psychology 2011) 14. Kuppuswamy, R., Mhakure, D.: Project-based learning in an engineering-design course— developing mechanical- engineering graduates for the world of work. Procedia CIRP 91, 565– 570 (2020) (Enhancing Design Through the 4th Industrial Revolution Thinking) 15. Nair, M.G., Suryan, A.: Trans-disciplinary project based learning models for community service. Procedia Comput. Sci. 172, 735–740 (2020) (9th World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF 2019) Proceedings: Disruptive Engineering Education for Sustainable Development)
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16. Vila, C., Ugarte, D., Ríos, J., Abellán, J.: Project-based collaborative engineering learning to develop industry 4.0 skills within a plm framework. Procedia Manufact. 13, 1269–1276 (2017) (Manufacturing Engineering Society International Conference 2017, MESIC 2017, 28–30 June 2017, Vigo (Pontevedra), Spain) 17. Sebern, M.J.: The software development laboratory: incorporating industrial practice in an academic environment. In: Proceedings 15th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE T 2002), pp. 118–127 (2002) 18. Vanhanen, J., Lehtinen, T.O.A., Lassenius, C.: Teaching real-world software engineering through a capstone project course with industrial customers. In: 2012 First International Workshop on Software Engineering Education Based on Real-World Experiences (EduRex), pp. 29–32 (2012) 19. Matthies, C.: Scrum2kanban: integrating kanban and scrum in a university software engineering capstone course. In: 2018 IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Software Engineering Education for Millennials (SEEM), pp. 48–55 (2018) 20. Matthies, C., Huegle, J., Dürschmid, T., Teusner, R.: Attitudes, beliefs, and development data concerning agile software development practices. In: 2019 IEEE/ACM 41st International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET), pp. 158–169 (2019) 21. Biddle, R., Meier, A., Kropp, M., Anslow, C.: Poster: sources of satisfaction in agile software development. In: 2018 IEEE/ACM 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion (ICSE-Companion), pp. 333–334 (2018) 22. Kropp, M., Meier, A., Anslow, C., Biddle, R.: Satisfaction, Practices, and Influences in Agile Software Development. Association for Computing Machinery, New York (2018) 23. Alliance, A.: 12 principles behind the agile manifesto. https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/ 12-principles-behind-the-agile-manifesto/ (2020). Accessed 16 Oct 2020 24. Alliance, A.: Agile glossary: teams. https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/team/ (2020). Accessed 16 Oct 2020
Chapter 48
Scratch as a Tool to Promote Computational Thinking in Technological Education Aracelly Núñez-Naranjo, José Luis-Masabanda, Elizabeth Morales-Urrutia, and José Manuel Gómez Goitia
Abstract The objective of this work is to improve computational thinking through the approach of algorithms in Scratch, thus giving a solution to the main problem detected, which is the case of knowledge of digital tools as a means for the development of computational thinking, this has led to the creation of a mobile application that teaches programming in Scratch. For the study, a mixed methodology with qualitative and quantitative approaches was used, and a pretest and a posttest based on exercises were applied to measure computational thinking. The following results were obtained as a starting point with the pretest, a value of 6.81, and at the end of the practice with the mobile application, the posttest assessment was 7.86, demonstrating a positive effect on the development of computational thinking. Therefore, it is concluded that the algorithms and the Scratch tool motivated the students and stimulated the development of computational thinking.
A. Núñez-Naranjo (B) Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación, Carrera de Educación Básica, Universidad Indoamérica, 180103 Ambato, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] J. Luis-Masabanda · J. M. G. Goitia Maestría en Educación con mención Pedagogía en Entornos Digitales, Universidad Indoamérica, 180103 Ambato, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] J. M. G. Goitia e-mail: [email protected] E. Morales-Urrutia Universidad Técnica de Ambato, 182020 Ambato, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_48
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48.1 Introduction At present, there are various computational platforms that allow the development of programming learning or the generation of computational thinking. One of them corresponds to Scratch that was developed by the “Lifelong Kindergarten group” in the Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a visual programming language for children 6 years and older. Scratch is a free application that can run on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms [1]. In his study [2], he mentions that teaching programming to children has generated great interest worldwide, so some authors indicate that one of the main benefits of teaching programming to children is to develop their computational thinking. The most appropriate definition of computational thinking is the one given by Wing [3], and “computational thinking consists of solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior using the fundamental concepts of computing”, p. 12 [4]. For [5], the teaching of programming is done taking advantage of the didactic environment of the different applications, one of them is Scratch since it is a trend for teaching programming under the parameters in which it is involved with concepts such as sequential structures, iterations, conditionals, variables, functions, and parallel processes. An approach used to teach programming to children is to use Scratch [6]. The Scratch tool seeks to open a space between logic and creativity, so the role of the teacher is to change the concept methodological: where learning becomes a process, and the teacher must generate logical processes that promote cognitive development, this goes beyond person-computer interaction, it seeks the relationship of social development and group work; that is, connected learning [7]. According to [8] in Ecuador, “educational experiences on computational thinking are few and isolated, mainly related to the use of Scratch” (p. 21), and the development of students in the different fields has not been established through research. educational levels: initial, basic, and baccalaureate in the skills that make up the Academic Curriculum, for the Ministry of Education in 2008, according to what was mentioned by Suárez et al. [9] “It is necessary that educational institutions not only teach the use and management of digital tools, but teach students to be competent in technology”, p. 463. The present investigation arises from the application of a pretest, in which it is identified that the students have a regular level in terms of reasoning, analysis, and decision-making in problem solving since they obtain an average grade of 6.81 in the pretest. The test applied is based on determining the level of computational thinking from which 20 questions have been selected. It should be noted that this test has been validated and used in different investigations, one of which is the computational thinking test: design principles, validation of content, and analysis of items prepared by González [10]. The research seeks to develop computational thinking in upper-level students of 9th and 10th year of basic general education, it should be noted that they mechanically
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handle the Scratch program at a basic level, in addition, according to the initial evaluation, they have little logical thinking which is identified by seeing them solve exercises and problems. In current education, the development of new skills, abilities, and skills is of the utmost importance for students through different technological tools, which help to create an optimal educational environment in this way, students are motivated and obtain significant learning.
48.2 Literature Review In the review of the literature that described below, it has been identified that they use Scratch as a tool to introduce programming to both children and adolescents, which allows them to increase their ability to think and analyze through the practice of solving problems different algorithms. In the research of the [11], about the development of computational thinking in primary education: an educational experience with Scratch seeks to evaluate the feasibility of the development of computational thinking (PC) of 6th grade students, who lack computational knowledge prior to the study, through projects made with the Scratch tool. In this work, it has been done on the design and development of various activities that make up the beginner’s guide to Scratch. Finally, the CP has been evaluated through the “computational thinking test” (TPC) designed and verified by Román [11], as well as with other evaluation instruments such as the reflection tables contained in the Guide itself and the Dr. Scratch. The results obtained are positive, especially with regard to the acquisition of computational concepts that establish the basis of the PC, such as the repetition of programs, directions, or simple functions, which has allowed us to obtain favorable conclusions for the study [12]. Likewise, in the research study developed by Angamarca and Andrade [13] “Scratch, technology used as a tool to improve logical and algorithmic reasoning skills in school-age children”, p. 15, they state that within the new generation of digital native students, Scratch is a learning tool used as an interesting and motivating resource which focuses on the development of the student’s logic, this being an essential skill within this digital age, as well as developing computational thinking based on conditions and solutions clearly, intuitive, implementing purely mathematical knowledge such as coordinates, variables, algorithms, among others. In the research “Practical experiences with the use of the Scratch Programming Language to Develop the Algorithmic Thinking of Students in Chile” prepared by Vidal et al. [14] for the human being, the growth of logical thinking is relevant since it contributes in the analysis and solution of problems which are related to computational thinking in its structure, on the other hand, help to solve situations of daily life where it is necessary to propose a logical and algorithmic solution to the problem. Programming languages like Scratch facilitate forms of learning such as e-learning and t-learning which stimulate logical and algorithmic thinking.
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Fig. 48.1 Mobile-D methodology
For [15], student competencies related to computational thinking are necessary to reduce the digital and educational gap in countries, providing new ways of understanding the world where technology does not stop, which is why it is necessary that educational processes in their technological development achieve new learning environments as mentioned by Morales-Urrutia et al. [16], since this allows an update of the teaching process in the communicative field.
48.3 Methodology For the development of the proposal, it has been decided to work with the Mobile-D methodology since [17] argue that the Mobile-D methodology is based on wellknown but strictly applied methodologies such as: extreme programming (XP), crystal methodologies, and rational unified process. XP for development practices, crystal for scaling methods, and RUP as the foundation for lifecycle design. According to [17], the Mobile-D (see Fig. 48.1) methodology is divided into five phases, these being: exploration, initialization, production, stabilization, and testing.
48.4 Proposal This proposal has been developed and implemented by the authors as part of a titling project, and it is being used by eighth and ninth grade students of an educational center for basic and secondary education in the city of Ambato. Explore In this phase, the different resources, elements, and criteria have been established according to the needs for the development of the mobile application. In this phase, it is also defined how the theme of algorithms will be implemented, focused on the different activities and exercises with respect to each topic, in addition, video tutorials are established on the different exercises on cycles and conditional structures within the different blocks that the scratch tool. Initialize Phase In this phase, the technological tools with which work has been done in the development of the proposal are specified. It is important to indicate that an analysis of
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possible tools was previously carried out according to their characteristics and the ones detailed below have been selected, based on their uses and possible applications (Table 48.1). These tools are found in the mobile application developed for the study, which can be accessed through the following link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12YGur 2WLrb8Ba4I9lLv5flaorQGJiHSH/view?usp=share_link. Productionize In this phase, the implementation of the didactic material has been carried out through the use of the detailed tools, and these are used according to the planned topics and activities. With the MIT app inventor tool, the design and interface of the product were developed. Stabilize Phase In this phase, the integration of academic resources in the application is carried out in order to ensure that the system works correctly. The mobile application contains a main page, Fig. 48.2, which includes images, text, video tutorial, discussion forum, and information from the creator of the mobile app. Table 48.1 Description of digital tools Application
Characteristics
MIT app inventor
Tool used to create the application, it is focused on creating applications for mobile devices, through the use of different commands, which are used to create an interface and link with other tools
Liveworksheets
Tool that allows to apply tests or activities in an interactive online way, this tool is used for the application of the computational thinking test in an easy and entertaining way for students
Padlet
Board-type tool for collaborative work, it is used to give access to a discussion forum for students, allows interaction and information sharing
QR code generator
Tool that generates images with QR codes which allow linking with activities by scanning with a device tool that generates images with QR codes which allow linking with activities by scanning with a mobile device, allows access to the computational thinking test, algorithms among others
Google drive
It is the most important tool within the application, which will store the activities carried out by the students, having access to it by any user
Scratch
Tool used in the proposal for the creation, design, and development of different algorithmic projects in which students develop computational thinking
YouTube
Application that supports video tutorials on different study topics, allowing these to be viewed as many times as necessary to reinforce learning
BlueStacks
It is an emulator that helps to install mobile applications on a PC operating system
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Fig. 48.2 Application deployment screen
Through the different codes, tools such as YouTube, Padlet, Liveworksheets, and Google drive were linked to each of the app inventor work tables (Fig. 48.3). All of these helped for the different activities proposed within the content to be studied. System, Test, and Fix Version 1.0 of the “APRENDE_SCRACTH” application has been designed with a simple and easy-to-use interface, it is available for any mobile device or tablet that has an android operating system, and it can also be installed on any computer with the help of the BlueStacks emulator. In this phase, performance tests have been carried out with the 8th and 9th grade students (see Fig. 48.4) of an educational institution in the city of Ambato, and once
Fig. 48.3 Implementation screens of the app “learn with scratch”
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Fig. 48.4 Use of mobile application by students
the application has met the technical requirements, the use of the application in the classes of the computing subject carrying out 12 work sessions.
48.5 Results The proposal has been worked with 21 students between 8 and 9th grade, and initially, the main descriptive statistics were obtained; as it is a sample of less than 50 elements, the Shapiro Wilk parametric test was applied, determining that both the pretest and the posttest do not have normality in the scores obtained by the students. For the study, the calculations have been made with the SPSS Software (Tables 48.2 and 48.3). Once the non-normality of the data has been determined, the Wilcoxon statistic is used, establishing a p_value < 0.01, which establishes the existence of a significant Table 48.2 Descriptive N
Media
Mediana
DE
EE
Pretest
21
6.69
7.00
0.968
0.211
Posttest
21
7.69
7.50
0.558
0.122
Table 48.3 Normality test (Shapiro–Wilk)
W
P
Pretest
0.869
0.009
Posttest
0.899
0.034
Note A low p-value suggests a violation of the normality assumption
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Table 48.4 T student T test in a sample 95% confidence interval Statistical p Pretest
Difference Lower Upper of means
Effect size
W de 231 Wilcoxon
0) is presented. To respond to this case, it is expected that the manipulation of slider “a” will allow a different surface to be identified as the sign of b changes. Based on the MWS, the slider “a” is used as a digital artifact to promote the activation of the discursive genesis, as the condition of the statement a > 0 is used as a theoretical referential to carry out a test that allows the choice of a value from a to be justified.
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Fig. 53.5 Graphic views of the applet
Immediately afterward, the slider “b” is used as a digital artifact to execute the construction that allows the graphical representation of f to be obtained. In this way, the activation of instrumental genesis is evidenced and, thus, activation of the vertical plane [Ins-Dis]. In Fig. 53.6, the quadric surface generated using digital artifacts is shown, where the value of a = 1 is set and b = 0.5 is taken (Case 1). To respond to Question 3, it is expected that the conditions that the parameters must meet are determined by the association established between the different surfaces obtained and the combination of the values that the parameters taken in each case
Fig. 53.6 Quadric surface generated
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are analyzed in Question 2 in a unified way. From the point of view of the MWS, this association is used as a theoretical referential to carry out a test that allows justification of the combination of the values that the parameters take to generate the different surfaces, giving rise to the activation of the discursive genesis.
53.6 Conclusions We find that the given task allows for the characterization of the student’s mathematical work because it favors the activation of the semiotic, instrumental, and discursive genesis and, in turn, the activation of the vertical planes [Sem-Ins] and [Ins-Dis]. This fact is possible when, through the sliders presented in the GeoGebra applet, modifications are made in the graphical representation of f to generate different surfaces. On the other hand, the graphical representation of f allows us to identify different surfaces. Thus, this mathematical action provides evidence for the activation of semiotic genesis. Likewise, the graphical representation of f allows for the solution of questions that involve justification, using the values that the parameters must take, thus demonstrating the activation of the discursive genesis. From the above, the activation of the genesis and the vertical planes is favored if a didactic sequence of tasks mediated by digital technology is considered. Acknowledgements We thank the Universidad de Lima, the San Ignacio de Loyola University (USIL) and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) for their contributions to the study which allowed us to write this paper. Likewise, we appreciate the collaboration of the San Ignacio de Loyola University for the English translation of this research.
References 1. Chapman, T., Sholukha, V., Semal, P., Louryan, S., Rooze, M., Van Sint Jan, S.: Femoral curvature variability in modern humans using three-dimensional quadric surface fitting. Surg. Radiol. Anat. 37, 1169–1177 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00276-015-1495-7 2. Guillén, D.A., Puga, K.L., Puga, M.E.: Design of a playful environment for the manipulation of mathematical objects in 3D. AMUITEM ELECTRONIC MAGAZINE. Vol. VI, No. 1. Periodical Publication of the Mexican Association of Researchers of the Use of Technology in Mathematics Education. ISSN: 2395–955X. Mexico (2018). http://funes.uniandes.edu.co/ 20387/1/Guillen2018Dise%C3%B1o.pdf 3. Hoyos-Salcedo, E.A., Acosta-Minoli, C.A., Aristizábal-Zapata, J.H., Mesa-Mazo, M.J., Trujillo-Salazar, C.A., Rincón-Penagos, J.A., … Jaime-Pastor, A.: Influence of educational software in the consolidation of the learning of quadric surfaces. Tecne, Epis-teme and Didaxis: TED 49, 123–142 (2021). https://doi.org/10.17227/ted.num49-9574 4. Kuzniak, A., Richard, P.: Mathematical workspaces. Points of view and perspectives. Relime 17(4), 9–10 (2014). https://doi.org/10.12802/relime.13.1741a
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5. Kuzniak, A., Nechache, A.: A methodology to analyze the personal work of students in the theory of mathematical workspaces. In: Montoya, E. (Presidency) Space for Mathematical Work. Symposium held at the Sixth MWS International Symposium, Valparaíso, Chile (2018) 6. Kuzniak, A.: The theory of mathematical working spaces—theoretical characteristics. In: Kuzniak, A., Montoya-Delgadillo, E., Richard, P.R. (eds.) Mathematical Work in Educational Context. Mathematics Education in the Digital Era, vol. 18. Springer, Cham (2022). https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90850-8_1 7. Larson, R., Hostetler, R., Edwards, B.: Calculus with Analytic Geometry, 8a edn. Brooks Cole, USA (2005) 8. Nuñez, M.A., Buill, F., Regot, J., De Mesa, A.: Reverse engineering in small size models. VIII International Geomatic Week. Text en actes de congrés presented at the VIII Semana Geomática Internacional, Barcelona (2009). http://hdl.handle.net/2117/6214 9. Salazar, J.V.F., Gaona, J., Richard, P.: Mathematical Work in the Digital Age. Variety of Tools and the Role of Geneses. En Mathematical Work in Educational Context, pp. 165–209. Springer (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90850-8_8 10. Vara, T.N.P., Salazar, J.V.F., Vivas-Pachas, J.L.: Study of the visual variables of the elliptic paraboloid and their representations through digital technology. In: Mesquita, A., Abreu, A., Carvalho, J.V., de Mello, C.H.P. (eds.) Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol. 320. Springer, Singapore (2023). https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6585-2_7e
Chapter 54
Metaverse, Education, and Inclusion: Integrative Review Using the PRISMA Method Ingrid Weingärtner Reis , Ivam Galvão , and Vania Ribas Ulbricht
Abstract The metaverse, or immersive environments, is a reality and, at the same time, a promise for the future. It can be seen, therefore, as a process under construction. Thus, more than finding ready-made uses or applications, it is necessary to identify spaces for this new concept to be applied properly in education and in an inclusive way. In this way, the objective of this article is, through an integrative review using the Prisma method, to identify elements applicable to inclusive education in immersive environments. The main result is the identification of several elements that can be applied in inclusive education, such as the opportunity to create a welcoming environment that can improve social skills, the possibilities of carrying out simulations, providing access to knowledge to different profiles, but also the identification of technical limitations as well as teacher preparation.
54.1 Introduction Metaverse, or immersive environments, is, in the understanding of many authors, a copy or representation of reality, which is, however, projected in an expanded and realistic way [9, 16, 17]. It is an extension of the real world as it is known, with possibilities of social, political, and economic interaction [28]. Although the term or technology metaverse became popular with the announcement by Mark Zuckerberg of the creation of Meta in 2021, its concept predates this commercial brand. Its origin is in Neal Stephenson’s work, Snow Crash, from 1992 [12].
I. W. Reis (B) · I. Galvão · V. R. Ulbricht Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina—UFSC, Santa Catarina, Brasil e-mail: [email protected] I. W. Reis Department of Economic and Business Sciences, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja - UTPL, Loja, Ecuador © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_54
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The concept of metaverse is necessarily supported by technological devices that are at the same time facilitators and restrictors of the popularization of the metaverse. The concept is determined, although not unanimous, as virtual environments that allow the creation of a parallel reality to the physical world [28]. Three characteristics are identified that support an immersive virtual world or metaverse: the possibility of interaction, embodiment, the sensation of being incorporated into the reality represented in this environment, and persistence, which is the continuation of actions even when the user is not connected [1, 8, 10, 16]. Technologies are important elements for accessing this reality and ensuring these characteristics. Therefore, we find technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality. In addition to the technologies mentioned above, there are also studies that point to the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the metaverse, especially in the teaching and learning process. Students, teachers, and even other actors in the teaching and learning process could interact with AI for different purposes, and these AIs could play different roles. These AIs could learn from the behaviors of human actors and improve their responses in the development of the knowledge construction process [10]. According to research on the uses of the metaverse conducted and released by consulting firm McKinsey [14], education is one of the fields with the greatest potential for occupying this virtual space. Several scientific studies have supported this perspective, pointing to the metaverse as a trend [9, 11, 13, 28]. It is believed that the metaverse can be considered as a new educational environment [11, 28]. For education, the use of the metaverse lies in combining technological elements that allow immersion with the needs of the teaching and learning process. Researchers of immersive technologies should be concerned with ensuring greater inclusion, making sure that metaverse technologies break down barriers to the full development of people with or without disabilities. The metaverse can represent an important mechanism to help people develop various skills, including social skills, which are so important in the teaching and learning process [10]. In addition to the development of social skills, immersive environments also help to bridge the gap between theory and reality, between the possibility of knowledge on a symbolic, representational, and experiential level, increasing pleasure in learning and creating space for a deeper, longer-term retention process [11, 26, 28]. According to Zhang et al. [28], the space in the metaverse tends to be more democratic because both teachers and students will be able to access and enhance knowledge from virtual interaction. For inclusion in education, a welcoming and supportive environment for different needs or disabilities is fundamental. Even if it is not known exactly how the affective relationship will be in the metaverse, the possibilities of immersiveness can broaden the sensation and perception about the world around, facilitating the interaction with other actors and the development of the cognitive process [26, 28]. Considering this context, this research aims to identify the elements applicable to an inclusive education in immersive environments. We will present the results of an
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integrative review based on the Prisma protocol about the studies already carried out involving the metaverse, education and inclusion.
54.2 Methods and Materials The article is the result of research conducted by means of integrative review with the adoption of the Prisma—Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses protocol [4, 15]. The integrative review broadens the research perspective by considering empirical or theoretical studies, experimental or non-experimental, to understand a particular phenomenon [2, 27]. In addition, it is considered as the most suitable method due to the novelty of the research topic in relation to its practical application. This type of review can be conducted on new or emerging themes, seeking a holistic and synthetic conceptualization of the literature to date [24]. The research question was: ‘What elements of the metaverse can be identified for application to inclusive education?’ To help identify these supposed elements, a set of secondary questions has been prepared to guide the reading and organization of the data and information: (a) According to the timeframe defined for the research, how does the evolution of previous studies present itself in the timeline? (b) What types of research were found? (c) What use has metaverse been for education? (d) Does education with the use of metaverse tend to be more inclusive? (e) Are there limitations in the field of technology regarding inclusive education?
54.2.1 Procedures of the Integrative Review To begin the integrative review, the scope of the research was determined from the base question. Thus, the following terms were selected for searching in the databases: Metaverse, education, and inclusion. These expressions were applied to the English databases to broaden the results. Before the application, a search for similar words or meanings was performed using a Thesaurus from the ERIC—Institute of Education Science database specialized in the area of education. For the expression metaverse, no similarity was obtained; for the expression education, different expressions were identified, such as academic education, and adult education, among others. However, for the search, only the original expression, education, was used. For the expression inclusion, the following expressions were found and used: inclusive education and inclusive school. Thus, the key expressions used for the research were:
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Metaverse AND education AND (inclusion OR inclusive education OR inclusive schools). The databases selected were: Scopus, Science Direct, ERIC, and Web of Science and the search was conducted during the month of January 2023. Scopus, Science Direct, and Web of Science were chosen for their multidisciplinary and extension; ERIC was selected for its specialty in education; and all were considered for their rigor. The search was performed manually, dividing the bases among the researchers. The following inclusion criteria were adopted: original, complete, freely accessible articles, based on the combination of title, abstract, and keywords, without time restriction, displayed in order of relevance, and that were related to the research objective. No language restriction was applied. From the initial reading by keywords and abstracts, duplicate articles were excluded, and the analysis was consolidated. This research is the result of a study linked to LAMID—Media and Digital Inclusion Laboratory of the Postgraduate Program in Engineering, Media and Knowledge Management at the Federal University of Santa Catarina—UFSC. It was carried out directly by three researchers, all of whom conducted independent reviews of the articles to corroborate the limits established for the research. The non-restriction of languages for the selection of articles aims to meet the care not to develop biased or biased evaluations. We considered the cultural comprehensiveness and plurality as a critical factor.
54.3 Presentation and Analysis of the Results According to the review criteria established in the previous step, we proceeded to search and study the articles. After applying the criteria and the filters for exclusion, we arrived at 27 articles to be read in full, and after applying the exclusion criteria, 19 articles remained as the basis of this study (Fig. 54.1). When considering the years of publications, one identifies a concentration of studies conducted and published from the year 2022 onwards. It is possible to consider the impact of the commercial dissemination related to the metaverse but also the change and popularization of technologies [19]. The diversity of years was small, with the articles distributed thus: 2014, 1; 2020, 1; 2022, 15, and 2023, 03. To answer the questions supporting the central research question, first, the types of studies were identified, considering the purpose of the integrative review, to include both experimental and non-experimental studies, quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods [2, 27]. Thus, Fig. 54.2 presents the quantity of the types of studies found for evaluation in the quantitative synthesis. The other supporting questions will be detailed below, where the information found and its analysis will be presented.
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Fig. 54.1 Steps to logically apply criteria for selecting articles that will be part of the qualitative analysis
Fig. 54.2 Types of studies found and their quantities
What use has metaverse been for education? Even though it is not a unanimous technology, nor even consolidated in the market, studies of various natures are found where the application of the metaverse for education is identified. In this section, some of these practices will be exposed, to characterize them in the search for common sense. Table 54.1 gathers the most relevant of this research. The use of the metaverse in education occurs in different dimensions and with broad possibilities of inclusion. This can be seen, for example, in studies where artistic, social, and approach elements are used [6, 11, 20, 25]. It seeks to enable students to experience practices that are limited by time, cost, or disabilities. In this
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Table 54.1 Consolidation of the information found in the articles about how the metaverse has been used in education Features
Evidence or elements that Authors explain the characteristics
Development of affectivity
– Improved social skills – Autonomy and social inclusion
Hutson [11], López-Belmonte et al. [13], Valverde and Cochrane [25], Cheung et al. [7], Chen et al. [6]
Awakening student interest
– Playful space with the use of gamification and other elements that arouse interest and make the learning process more enjoyable – Strengthening of autonomous learning through the distribution of assignments (simulated, group work) – Lifelogging of student activities as a way to create a link to the content – Use of technologies to amplify and virtualize reality
Hutson [11], Valverde and Cochrane [25], Chen et al. [6], Suh and Ahn [20], Çalisir et al. [5], Talan and Kalınkara [22], Cheung et al. [7], Tlili et al. [23], Rauschnabel et al. [18], Buchner and Kerres [3], López-Belmonte et al. [13]
Follow-up
– Analysis of student Zhang et al. [28], Hwang and Chien [10] performance and behavior data to improve learning paths
Didactic and pedagogical elements
– Creating new and Díaz [8], Cheung et al. [7], Zhang et al. [28], creative learning Srisawat and Piriyasurawong [21], Suh and objects Ahn [20] – Incorporating different contents for more meaningful learning – Artificial Intelligence as a support for deep education; – Balance between learning process and content
Approximation of reality
– Simulation: immersion in simulated experiences – Multi-functional environment that allows for different activities with students – Problem-solving techniques
Zhang et al. [28], Hwang and Chien [10], Dwivedi et al. [9], Tlili et al. [23], Cheung et al. [7], Talan and Kalınkara [22], Srisawat and Piriyasurawong [21], Chen et al. [6]
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sense, the experience with using the metaverse for simulation and problem-solving is strengthened [6, 7, 9, 10, 21–23, 28]. There are studies that propose models or structured systems of how to use the resources and possibilities of the metaverse for a meaningful teaching and learning process [13, 21]. The importance of considering a model for metaverse use is to maintain the link with didactic and pedagogical aspects [6, 7, 21]. Combining with technologies such as Artificial Intelligence can make the teaching and learning process deeper by coordinating knowledge from different fields for student education. Both teachers and content creation will be challenged. The possibility of using virtual and augmented reality for controlled experimentation, simulation, will give students a reach that in conventional situations could not be reached. The possibilities for use in the metaverse are diverse, and as the studies show, they already work and can be replicated in other realities to increase their possibilities. Education using metaverse tends to be more inclusive? In the identified studies, inclusion is approached in a broad way, considering limitations imposed by disabilities, gender, space and time, and even financial issues. Table 54.2 organizes the considerations found in the studies about how the metaverse promotes inclusion. Specifically on inclusion, the reports bring positive expectations by presenting studies conducted at different levels of education, considering different populations, disabled or not, finding even unplanned scope, such as gender issue [5–7, 9–11, 19, 20, 22, 23, 28]. These are reports, results obtained where the inclusion of students in the social context of the school and in the training process is evidenced. The customization of the way to access knowledge, to participate in academic activities, and to build the formative trajectory is a relevant possibility with the use of the metaverse. Socialization is not interrupted but can be extended as an extension of the corporeality of each student [25]. There are limitations in the field of technology when it comes to inclusive education? Education has inclusion as one of its dimensions, and the use of new technologies is, in the first instance, an element of exclusion, since it creates dependence on an entity outside the process [7]. However, access to technologies will always be a challenge because it will continue to evolve and present needs. Table 54.3 organizes the results found in the articles on this aspect into two characteristics. Technology figures as an enabler of the immersive experience in education, and according to Hutson [11], it does not represent a limitation, just the opposite, because it gives possibilities that without it, we would not be able to provide to different profiles of students. The metaverse stems from the technological maturity achieved [9, 25, 28]. Some of these limitations deal with memo access to technologies, starting with the issue of internet connection, the structural difficulties of schools in developing countries, and the obsolescence of equipment [20, 22, 23]. On the other hand, there
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Table 54.2 Consolidation of information about the actions and trends of inclusion in education using the metaverse Features
Evidence or elements that explain the characteristics
Authors
Expansion of experiences
– Possibility of interaction for people who cannot perform face-to-face – New possibilities to explore the world, creating an extension of the physical world – Simulations and hands-on experiences – Safe and controlled environment for training based on everyday life skills – Creation of a comfortable environment – Increased socialization
Hutson [11], Zhang et al. [28], Hwang and Chien [10], Chen et al. [6], Cheung et al. [7], Suh and Ahn [20], Çalisir et al. [5], Tlili et al. [23], Sarıta¸s and Topraklıko˘glu [19], Talan and Kalınkara [22], Dwivedi et al. [9], Rauschnabel et al. 18, López-Belmonte et al. [13], Çalisir et al. [5]
Access to knowledge
– The combination of the Zhang et al. [28], Hwang and Chien [10], Chen use of the metaverse and et al. [6], Talan and Kalınkara [22], Cheung Artificial Intelligence et al. [7], Valverde and Cochrane [25], Díaz [8] makes it possible to access knowledge in different ways – Transdisciplinarity – Increased capacity for spatial understanding – Development in specific issues such as languages – Ubiquitous education
Art-technology
– Artistic experience (dance, for example)
Assertiveness
– Analysis of students’ Suh and Ahn [20], Zhang et al. [25], Hwang and actions and behaviors to Chien [10], Çalisir et al. [5] understand specific needs to be strengthened or extended (e.g., gender issues)
Access
– Ease of use as a democratic and inclusive factor – Possibility of active participation of all participants, regardless of their condition
Valverde and Cochrane [25]
Suh and Ahn [20] Talan and Kalınkara [22], Sarıta¸s and Topraklıko˘glu [19]
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Table 54.3 Consolidation of the information from the analysis about the limiting aspects of inclusion in the metaverse with respect to technology Features
Evidence or elements that explain the characteristics
Authors
Technology
– The metaverse arises precisely because of the maturity of the technology, which makes the assumption that without this technology, it will not fully function – Need for a minimal structure – Use of avatars as a possibility of hiding or denying reality – Need for users/avatars to be multiplatform – Limitation of internet connection – Control and misuse of data and information – Limitations of the technology itself: AR, VR, RX – Software development process suitable for devices is still new and not widespread – Need for improved testing of related applications
Zhang et al. [28], Valverde and Cochrane [25], Dwivedi et al. [9], Suh and Ahn [20], Tlili et al. [23], Talan and Kalınkara [22], Hwang and Chien [10], Çalisir et al. [5], Sarıta¸s and Topraklıko˘glu [19]
Using Technologies for inclusive education
– Lack of experience and knowledge to better target resources – Technological skills of teachers – Need for an integral approach – Pedagogical concern – Relationship with SDG 4, which deals with inclusive, equitable, and quality education
Suh and Ahn [20], Çalisir et al. [5], Talan and Kalınkara [22], Srisawat and Piriyasurawong [21], Tlili et al. [23]
are limitations related to teacher training in operating the technologies and understanding how to use them allied to the educational process. The metaverse should be incorporated into the training process as such [5, 20–22]. Limitations related to the security of the educational environment in the metaverse are still found, such as access to student data and information and misuse of avatars for unethical actions [5].
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54.4 Final Considerations This study was conducted through an integrative review, using the PRISMA protocol to ensure the validity and reliability of the results. The main objective was to identify which elements of the metaverse can be applied to inclusive education, and the answer to this question was sought through structured guidance from the reading of the documents with complementary questions. The search based on the terms metaverse, educations, and inclusion, from the determined search criteria, returned only 19 studies. Most of these, almost 80%, were published recently, in the year 2022, and this may be due to two factors: commercial aspects of the launch of a well-known brand and the technological development in recent years of the resources used. Regarding the use of the metaverse in education, several practical experiences were found, in different areas, such as artistic, social integration, and content. These experiences also take into consideration different limitations of the students, such as economic, time and space, physical or cognitive disabilities. We highlight the possibility of experimenting in the metaverse, simulating elements of daily life. As far as inclusion is concerned, since it is a simulated environment that represents reality, the reports are in the sense that the metaverse creates the possibility of interaction for people who could not do it face-to-face. The ease of use is highlighted as an inclusive factor, as well as the possibility of active participation of all people. Finally, when analyzing the limitations in the field of technology, barriers such as access to the Internet and the basic structure for the operation of applications and programs are found. Other limiting factors are also identified, such as the preparation of teachers for the adequate use of the metaverse in education. Thus, we highlight the most relevant elements found in the review that should be considered to promote inclusive education with the use of the metaverse. As limitations, the time restriction of the studies is pointed out, with most of them being in the year 2022, which is a consequence of the research criteria. As opportunities for future research, it is recommended to categorize the types of inclusion that the metaverse can provide, establishing a direct relationship with the technologies that support each of these types of inclusion .
References 1. Akour, I.A., Al-Maroof, R.S., Alfaisal, R., Slloum, S.A.: A conceptual framework for determining metaverse adoption in higher institutions of gulf area: an empirical study using hybrid SEM-ANN approach. Comput. Educ. Artif. Intell. 3 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai. 2022.100052 2. Broome, M.E.: Integrative literature reviews for the development of concepts. In: Rodgers, B.L., Knafl, K.A., (eds.) Concept Development in Nursing, pp. 231–250, 2nd edn. W.B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia, PA (1993)
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3. Buchner, J., Kerres, M.: Media comparison studies dominate comparative research on augmented reality in education. Comput. Educ. 195, 1–12 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j. compedu.2022.104711 4. Bueno, L.A., Batista, J.A.T., Trabbold, V.L.M.: Aplicação da metodologia Prisma em um estudo de revisão sistemática de literatura sobre as implicações do HPV para a população adolescente—resultados parciais da pesquisa. 11º Fepeg—Fórum ensino, pesquisa, extensão e gestão. Montes Claros, MG (2017) 5. Çalisir, E.C., Sbuncu, F.H., Altun, E.: Reflections of metaverse-based education on E-Learning. EJER (2022) 6. Chen, X., Xie, H., Li, Q.: Vision, status, and topics of X reality in education. Comput. Educ. X Reality 1, 1–7 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cexr.2022.100001 7. Cheung, J.C.W., et al.: Virtual reality based multiple life skill training for intellectual disability: a multicenter randomized controlled trial. Eng. Regener. 3, 121–130 (2022). https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.engreg.2022.03.003 8. Díaz, J.E.M.: Virtual world as a complement to hybrid and mobile learning. iJET 15(22) (2020). https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v15i22.14393 9. Dwivedi, K., Hughes, L., Baabdullah, A., et al.: Metaverse beyond the hype: Multidisciplinary perspectives on emerging challenges, opportunities, and agenda for research, practice and policy. Int. J. Inf. Manage. 66, 1–55 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102542 10. Hwang, G., Chien, S.: Definition, roles, and potential research issues of the metaverse in education: an artificial intelligence perspective. Comput. Educ. Artif. Intell. 3 (2022). https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2022.100082 11. Hutson, J.: Social virtual reality: neurodivergence and inclusivity in the metaverse. Societes 12 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12040102 12. Joshua, J.: Information bodies: computational anxiety in Neal Stephenson’s snow crash. Interdisc. Literary Stud. 19(1), 17–47 (2017) 13. López-Belmont, J., et al.: Design and validation of a questionnaire for the evaluation of educational experiences in the metaverse in Spanish students (METAEDU). Heliyon 8(11), 1–13 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e11364 14. McKinsey: Value creation in the metaverse: the real business of the virtual world (2022) 15. Page, M.J., et al.: Declaración PRISMA 2020: una guía actualizada para la publicación de revisions sistemáticas. Rev. Esp. Cardiol 74(9), 790–799 (2021) 16. Park, S., Kim, Y.A.: Metaverse: taxonomy, components, applications, and open challenges. IEEE Access (2022). https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3140175 17. Pereira, R., Ribeiro, F.B.V., Reis, I.W., & Santos, N.: O Metaverso e o dilema da inovação: reflexões sobre a possibilidade do conhecimento. In: Brasil, K.M. (ed.) 17o Congresso Brasileiro de Gestão do Conhecimento (2022) 18. Rauschnabel, P.A., Felix, R., Hinsch, C., Shahab, H., Alt, F.: What is XR? towards a framework for augmented and virtual reality. Comput. Hum. Behav. 133, 1–18 (2022). https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.chb.2022.107289 19. Sarıta¸s, M.T., Topraklıko˘glu, K.: Systematic literature review on the use of metaverse in education. IJTE 5(4), 586–607 (2022). https://doi.org/10.46328/ijte.319 20. Suh, W., Ahn, S.: Utilizing the metaverse for learner-centered constructivist education in the post-pandemic era: an analysis of elementary school students. J. Intell. 10(17), 1–15 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence10010017 21. Srisawat, S., Piriyasurawong, P.: Metaverse virtual learning management based on gamification techniques model to enhance total experience. Int. Educ. Stud. 15(5), 153–163 (2022). https:// doi.org/10.5539/ies.v15n5p153 22. Talan, T., Kalınkara, Y.: Students’ opinions about the educational use of the metaverse. IJTES 6(2), 333–346 (2022). https://doi.org/10.46328/ijtes.385 23. Tlili, A., et al.: Is Metaverse in education a blessing or a curse: a combined content and bibliometric analysis. Smart Learn. Environ. 9(24), 1–31 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40 561-022-00205-x
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Chapter 55
Simplifying Specialized Texts with AI: A ChatGPT-Based Learning Scenario Sílvia Araújo
and Micaela Aguiar
Abstract This paper introduces a methodology for facilitating the acquisition of specialized language using artificial intelligence tools, specifically ChatGPT, to simplify complex texts. The methodology consists of five steps: summarizing, simplifying, extracting terminology, creating mind maps, and visualizing, by generating multimodal content such as short informative videos or infographics. All five steps were performed with the assistance of ChatGPT. The methodology was applied in a translation class in partnership with the Law School, where students worked on texts outside their area of expertise. This article offers a comprehensive explanation of each step and showcases the practical application of the output produced by the students. This methodology is flexible and can be tailored to discipline-specific tasks. Its objective is to help them easily understand specialized texts and at the same time to equip them with science communication skills. Creating multimodal content is an effective way to bridge the gap between scientific expertise and the general public, and it is a valuable skill for students to develop in order to become effective science communicators.
55.1 Introduction Science has never been as accessible as it is now. Researchers have access to a wealth of information through repositories, open access journals, and search engines like Google Scholar. However, despite this increased access to scientific publications, the language used in scientific research can be highly technical and challenging to understand for many people. Even those with a background in the field can find it difficult to navigate through scientific publications. The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, has underscored the crucial role of scientific literacy in our modern world, S. Araújo · M. Aguiar (B) University of Minho, Braga, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] S. Araújo e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_55
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given the proliferation of misinformation and pseudoscience. As we move forward, it is crucial to prioritize simplifying scientific information to make it accessible to everyone. Efforts to simplify scientific and specialized texts have gained momentum in the field of computer science, reflecting a growing recognition of the importance of accessibility and understanding in scientific communication [1]. Our previous work using a T5 encoder–decoder model [2] as part of the CLEF2022 Workshop exemplifies the promise of this approach, demonstrating the ability to streamline scientific language and facilitate comprehension. While computer science has much to offer in terms of simplifying scientific texts, it is important to recognize that not all audiences have extensive knowledge of these methods. For students and others who are new to a particular subject area, simpler solutions are essential. In this article, we outline a learning scenario for a classroom setting that focuses on simplifying scientific concepts and enhancing scientific literacy through visualization using ChatGPT. By utilizing this approach, students can gain a deeper understanding of complex scientific and specialized texts and learn to communicate them effectively to a broader audience. The approach detailed in this article serves a twofold purpose. Firstly, it aims to enhance students’ grasp of the complex terminology associated with scientific disciplines. This is critical for developing a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter. Secondly, the methodology is designed to foster skills in science communication, helping students to effectively translate scientific concepts into accessible language for a broader audience. Simplifying scientific texts has traditionally been approached by streamlining written language. In contrast to typical approaches that solely focus on textual simplification, we advocate for a multimodal approach that utilizes various modes of communication, such as images and videos, to enhance understanding and retention of the material. We are inspired by Cope and Kalantizis’ research [3], which suggests that transferring content from one mode to another, such as from text to video or image, can facilitate student learning and deepen understanding. Cope and Kalantizis argue that pedagogy solely focused on one mode of communication, typically written communication, can be a discriminatory factor, as it gives preference to students who excel in this mode while potentially leaving behind those who don’t. In the following sections, we will present a step-by-step breakdown of the methodology and then share a case study of how translation students applied this approach to legal texts.
55.2 ChatGPT as an Ally for Education The intersection of artificial intelligence and language has roots that extend back to the 1950s with Alan Turing’s [4] well-known test to determine a machine’s ability to exhibit behavior that is considered intelligent and indistinguishable from that of a human being. Since then, the field of natural language processing (NLP) has undergone several phases, including rule-based systems, statistical models, and more
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recently, neural networks [5]. A groundbreaking milestone was reached in 2018 with the publication of “attention is all you need” by Vaswani et al. [6], propelling NLP into a new era. This paper introduced transformer models, a novel neural network architecture that revolutionized language processing. Among the most influential transformers are bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT) developed by the Google AI Team, and generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) [7], the driving force behind language models like ChatGPT from Open.Ai. ChatGPT is a prototype chatbot with artificial intelligence that is specialized in dialog from OpenAi, launched in November 2022. It is able to understand and respond to natural language in a way that is remarkably similar to human communication. ChatGPT’s proficiency in processing text efficiently allows it to perform a diverse range of tasks, including generating coherent texts, correcting grammatical errors, improving vocabulary, extracting keywords, translating texts, text summarization, information retrieval, and simplifying content. The explosive growth in ChatGPT’s user base—attracting more than one million subscribers in the first week—has made it a hot topic in various fields, with the potential to revolutionize several industries. As a result, there has been a significant increase in the number of publications on ChatGPT [8]. Interestingly, the largest proportion of these publications belong to the field of education [9] and academic writing [10], indicating the significant impact that ChatGPT is having in this area. There has been a lot of speculation in the media about the potential impact of ChatGPT and other similar technologies on traditional education. Some have expressed concerns about the impact of large language models on student learning and academic integrity. In response to these concerns, some schools and educational institutions have even gone so far as to ban the use of ChatGPT in the classroom, out of fear that it could be used for plagiarism [11] or that students will rely too heavily on the tool and not learn how to create original content. However, there is a growing number of voices and publications [12, 13] advocating for its integration into the learning process itself. They argue (and we agree) that AI-powered tools like ChatGPT can be used to develop critical thinking skills, digital literacy skills, and more. Our goal was to design a learning scenario that empowers students of any field to fearlessly delve into the intricacies of a specialty area or scientific field, while simultaneously developing critical thinking, proofreading, editing, and digital literacy skills through the use of ChatGPT.
55.3 A Learning Scenario for Specialized Texts Our learning scenario comprises five distinct steps: summarizing, simplifying, extracting, mapping, and visualizing. These steps work in tandem to help students gain a deeper understanding of complex concepts and ideas. Prior to delving into the specifics of the five steps, there is an underlying step that is crucial to the effective implementation of the learning scenario. Step zero is a critical step in our learning scenario, as it lays the groundwork for the entire process. This step falls to the
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teacher and involves a series of organizational and preparation activities to ensure that students have the best possible learning experience. The most important task in this step is the choice of material. ChatGPT has a character limit, typically around 4000 characters or 500 words. Therefore, it is essential to select material that is appropriate for this limit, or to divide a larger text into smaller sections that can be processed separately. The teacher should choose material that is relevant to the course content and aligned with the learning objectives, while also ensuring that it is of sufficient complexity to challenge students. Another important aspect of this step is deciding on the best approach for the scenario. The teacher may choose to assign individual work, where each student works independently with the ChatGPT tool, or group work, where students collaborate to complete the task together. One of the key strengths of our learning scenario is its suitability for group learning. This learning scenario encourages both collaborative and cooperative approaches, as students can learn from each other and develop a deeper understanding of the material. It is also well-suited to distance or hybrid learning environments. With the rise of online and hybrid education models, it is more important than ever to have learning scenarios that can be adapted to different formats and platforms. In addition to these tasks, the teacher should also provide clear instructions and expectations for the scenario, including any deadlines or milestones that students must meet. It may be helpful to provide students with a rubric or scoring guide, outlining the criteria for evaluation and the specific learning objectives that the scenario aims to achieve. It can be beneficial for the teacher to create a virtual wall, such as a Padlet, as it can help students to easily share their work with each other, provide feedback and support, and collaborate on tasks. It can also serve as a visual representation of the students’ progress throughout the scenario, helping the teacher to monitor their work and provide feedback as necessary. The first step of summarizing involves condensing complicated texts into clear and concise summaries, helping students to focus on the key concepts and ideas. Summarizing also provides students with a framework for understanding the material in a more focused way and helping prevent them from getting bogged down in extraneous details. To carry out this first step, students can provide ChatGPT with a prompt such as “please summarize the contents of the following text” or “summarize the text below”. It is worth noting that the prompts used in this step can be tailored to fit specific requirements. For instance, a word limit can be imposed by using a prompt such as “please summarize the text in no more than 150 words”. Customizing prompts in the summarization step can help students focus on specific aspects of the text that they need to understand or highlight certain themes. For instance, a prompt such as “summarize the text by emphasizing the author’s main argument” can help students identify the central thesis of the text and convey it succinctly. Once the text has been summarized by ChatGPT, it is essential for students to analyze it and ensure that it accurately captures the main ideas of the text. The second step of simplifying builds on the foundation of summarizing by breaking down complex ideas and concepts into simpler, more accessible language. To do this, students can give a prompt to ChatGPT such as “simplify the text” or “simplify the language of the text”. After ChatGPT has simplified the text, students
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should review and edit the simplified version to ensure that it still accurately conveys the original ideas of the text. Students can also ask for an explanation of the strategies used to simplify the text and the reasoning behind it, using prompts such as “can you explain how you simplified this sentence”? “Why did you choose to replace this word with that word”? “Can you suggest any other ways to simplify this sentence”? “Is there any part of the text that you think should not be simplified”? or “Can you suggest any strategies for simplifying technical vocabulary in the text”? This can help students to better understand the text and the methods used to simplify it. It also allows them to apply these strategies to their own writing and improve their ability to communicate complex ideas in a clear and concise manner. The first two steps of our learning scenario—summarizing and simplifying—lay a strong foundation for deeper learning and understanding. By distilling complex information into manageable summaries and simplifying it into more accessible language, students can more easily absorb and retain information. The third step of extracting involves identifying and isolating important terminological words and phrases, allowing students to better understand the context and relationships between ideas. With the help of ChatGPT, students extract terminology and identify important concepts and ideas in the text, by providing a prompt such as “extract the keywords from the following text”, “extract key terms from the text”, or “extract technical vocabulary”. Students can specify the type of terminology they want to extract and the quantity with prompts such as “extract in list format singleword terms”, “extract in list format multi-word terms”, or “extract 30 keywords”. Once the terminology is extracted, students can request a definition for each term and examples of the word in context. The fourth step of the learning scenario involves mapping the text to identify its main topic and framing it into macro and micro topics. To perform this step, students can use prompts to instruct ChatGPT to identify the main topic of the text and generate macro and micro categories based on that topic. For instance, they can ask ChatGPT to “identify the main topic of the text” or “generate macro categories based on the topic”. The macro categories refer to the broader themes or ideas within the text, while the micro categories are more specific subtopics within those themes. Once the main topics and subtopics of the text have been identified, students can then create a mind map to visually represent the information. Although the version of ChatGPT being used is not multimodal and is limited to text-to-text generation, it can still be utilized to create multimodal content. One way to create a mind map is to use a prompt such as “convert list to PlantUML code to generate a mind map”. This code can then be used with digital tools such as Draw.io. Simply navigate to Arrange > Insert > Advanced > PlantUML in order to generate the mind map. This mapping process helps students to understand the structure and content of the text, to visualize the relationships between different ideas and to improve students’ ability to organize complex information. In the fifth step of the learning scenario, students move from textual analysis to creating multimodal content such as infographics, posters, or videos based on the text or the macro and micro categories identified in the previous step. While ChatGPT is not itself a multimodal tool, it can be used to help generate resources for creating
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multimodal content. For example, students can use ChatGPT to generate a script for an informative video or a voiceover for a slideshow. Additionally, they can use ChatGPT to develop ideas for visual aids, such as selecting key phrases for a poster or designing a graph based on extracted data. ChatGPT can also assist in creating interactive content, such as quizzes or games. The fifth step of the learning scenario encourages students to develop their creativity and digital literacy skills while also making the information more accessible and engaging for a wider audience. After outlining the five steps of the learning scenario, we will provide a practical demonstration of the methodology with the use of a case study featuring translation students who are working with legal documents.
55.4 Translation Students Working with Legal Texts—A Case Study During the 2nd semester of the 2022/2023 academic year, the five-step learning scenario was applied in the Corpus Linguistics course of the Master’s in Translation and Multilingual Communication from University of Minho. The scenario was implemented with a class of 20 students, who were divided into groups of five. As the students had no prior knowledge of the subject, they were given legal texts to work with. Specifically, each group was responsible for analyzing a directive or regulation related to the field of law. To apply our methodology, we collaborated with the Law School of the University of Minho. The directives and regulations from the European Parliament for students to work on were handpicked by a specialist from the Law School. To ensure the students had a clear understanding of the methodology, a detailed learning roadmap was provided at the start of the experiment. This roadmap contained a step-by-step guide to the five stages of the scenario, including how to utilize ChatGPT to assist in each step. Two rubrics accompany each step of the methodology, namely the outputs rubric that documents the prompts and outcomes generated by the students, and the reflection rubric that encourages students to evaluate the results, identify key insights and areas for improvement, and explore new applications of ChatGPT for the given task. The first step of the methodology involved students utilizing ChatGPT to summarize the directives, with the assistance of prompts like “summarize Directive (EU) 2016/1148 of the European Parliament and of the Council of July 6, 2016”. An example of the outcome obtained is illustrated in Fig. 55.1. In the second step of the scenario, the students were tasked with simplifying the text. As seen in Fig. 55.2, the students used a prompt to create a table that showcases the original text in the first column and its simplified version in the second column. The prompt used for this task was to “simplify the language of the text below, creating a table”.
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Fig. 55.1 Text summarization by ChatGPT
Fig. 55.2 Text simplification by ChatGPT
As this learning scenario was developed for a linguistics discipline, we tailored the methodology to include tasks that were directly relevant to the subject matter. In the second step, we incorporated a linguistic analysis task. In this task, students were tasked with calculating metrics of lexical richness, including diversity and lexical density, for both the original text and the simplified text. Additionally, the students conducted a syntactic and semantic analysis of the text. Figure 55.3 showcases an example of the verb tenses, modal auxiliaries, and passive structures that were extracted from the text. By integrating these language-specific tasks into the methodology, we aimed to foster a deeper understanding of the linguistic characteristics of the texts being analyzed. During the third step, the students focused on extracting the technical vocabulary from the directives. Figure 55.4 provides an example of the extracted terminology and their respective definitions. In the fourth step, the students utilized various prompts to identify the macrostructure of the text and arrange the topics and subtopics into a coherent list. After organizing the subtopics of the directive, students proceeded to generate a mind map of the text. To achieve this, they used ChatGPT to convert the list of topic
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Fig. 55.3 Example of verb tense, modal auxiliary, and passive structure extraction using ChatGPT
Fig. 55.4 Terminology extraction by ChatGPT
subdivisions into plantUML code, which was then inserted into the Draw.io tool. Figure 55.5 depicts an example of the code generated. The students then inserted this code into the Draw.io tool to create a visual representation of the mind map. Figure 55.6 showcases an instance of a mind map of a directive created through this process. In the final step, students were tasked with creating multimodal content that included short informational videos and mini podcasts covering the themes of the directives. Figure 55.7 displays a screenshot of a short video created using the script generated with the help of ChatGPT. Using tools like SimpleShow or Renderforest, students were able to automatically generate a short video from the script. Given that the students were studying translation, they were also asked to translate the scripts into multiple languages, making the final output accessible to a wider audience.
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Fig. 55.5 Example of plantUML code for directive’s subtopics written by ChatGPT
55.5 Conclusion and Future Work In conclusion, this paper presents a methodology for appropriating specialized language using artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT, to simplify specialized texts. To demonstrate the potential of this methodology, a case study was conducted with translation students who were given a set of directives from the European Union. The students successfully applied the methodology and were able to comprehend the complex specialized texts and create informative and engaging multimodal content for science communication. These results suggest that artificial intelligence can be a powerful tool in facilitating the appropriation of specialized language. The methodology presented in this paper has the potential to be adapted to any topic or subject matter, making it a valuable tool for students and professionals in various fields. We are developing within the PortLinguE project (PTDC/LLT-LIG/ 31113/2017) different ways of visualization [14], and in future, we intend to explore other large language models, beside GPT-3, to develop a user-friendly interface that can streamline the entire process, integrating the necessary tools for the five steps.
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Fig. 55.6 Mind map of a directive created through Draw.io Fig. 55.7 Screenshot of a brief informational video produced with Renderforest, using the script generated by ChatGPT
References 1. Ermakova, L., Bellot, P., Kamps, J., Nurbakova, D., Ovchinnikova, I., SanJuan, E., Mathurin, E., Araújo, S., Hannachi, R., Huet, S., Poinsu, N.: Automatic simplification of scientific texts: SimpleText lab at CLEF-2022. In: Hagen, M., Verberne, S., Macdonald, C., Seifert, C., Balog, K., Nørvåg, K., Setty, V. (eds.) Advances in Information Retrieval, vol. 13186, pp. 364–373, Springer International Publishing (2022) 2. Monteiro, J., Aguiar, M., Araújo, S.: Using a pre-trained SimpleT5 model for text simplification in a limited corpus. In: Proceedings of the Working Notes of CLEF 2022—Proceedings of the Working Notes of CLEF 2022—Conference and Labs of the Evaluation ForumPublisher: CEUR-WS Workshop Proceedings (2022) 3. Cope, B., Kalantzis, M.: Multiliteracies: new literacies, new learning. Pedagogies Int. J. 4(3), 164–195 (2009) 4. Turing, A.: Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind 59, 433–460 (1950)
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5. Chernyavskiy, A., Ilvovsky, D., Nakov, P.: Transformers: “The End of History” for natural language processing?. In: Oliver, N., Pérez-Cruz, F., Kramer, S., Read, J., Lozano, J.A. (eds.) Machine learning and knowledge discovery in databases. Research Track. ECML PKDD 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12977, Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-3-030-86523-8_41 6. Vaswani, A., Shazeer, N., Parmar, N., Uszkoreit, J., Jones, L., Gomez, A., Kaiser, L., Polosukhin, I.: Attention is all you need. In: 31st Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems Long Beach, CA, USA, (2017). 7. Radford, A., Narasimhan, K.: Improving Language Understanding by Generative Pre-Training (2018) 8. Aydın, Ö., Karaarslan, E.: Is ChatGPT Leading Generative AI? What is Beyond Expectations? (2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4341500 or https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn. 4341500 9. Alshater, M.: Exploring the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Enhancing Academic Performance: A Case Study of ChatGPT (2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=431 2358 or https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4312358 10. Bishop, L.: A Computer Wrote this Paper: What ChatGPT Means for Education, Research, and Writing (2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4338981 or https://doi.org/ 10.2139/ssrn.4338981 11. Francke, E., Alexander, B.: The potential influence of artificial intelligence on plagiarism a higher education perspective. In: Proceedings of European Conference on the Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. EM Normandie Business School, Oxford (2019) 12. Kim, J.H., Lee, H., Cho, Y.H.: Learning design to support student-AI collaboration: perspectives of leading teachers for AI in education. Educ. Inf. Technol. 27, 6069–6104 (2022) 13. Baidoo-Anu, D., Owusu Ansah, L.: Education in the Era of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI): Understanding the Potential Benefits of ChatGPT in Promoting Teaching and Learning (2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4337484 or https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn. 4337484 14. Azevedo, B., Pereira, M., Araújo, S.: Designing a multilingual, multimodal and collaborative platform of resources for higher education. In: Brooks, A.L. (ed) ArtsIT, Interactivity and Game Creation. ArtsIT 2022. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol. 479. Springer, Cham (2023). https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28993-4_27
Chapter 56
Perceptions and Dispositions of Parents and Teachers Toward Technological Learning Communities Corina Núñez-Hernández
and Jorge Buele
Abstract The search for strategies to improve students’ academic performance is increasingly common in education. Parents’ participation and teachers’ attention are key factors in forming a learning community. This article presents the results of a survey in which relevant statistical data was obtained. A significant association (p = 0.571) was found between the frequency with which parents help their children understand school content and their willingness to be part of a learning community, representing 40.65% of the population. In addition, it was found that 66.67% of parents frequently meet with their children’s teachers because they often solve the children’s doubts. Regarding the attention of teachers, it was evidenced that 64.71% of parents who meet very frequently with teachers do so with those who very frequently resolve children’s doubts effectively, which shows a correlation significant (p = 0.467). Finally, the relationship between the degree of mastery of teachers in learning management platforms and their participation in forming learning communities was analyzed. A significant correlation (phi = 0.321) was found between the degree of mastery of teachers in these platforms and their participation in the formation of learning communities, with 28.24% of teachers having sufficient mastery and 20.61% of those with a moderate domain. These findings highlight the importance of parent-teacher collaboration in fostering a culture of learning in school and improving student academic achievement.
C. Núñez-Hernández Carrera de Educación Básica, Facultad de Ciencias de La Educación, Universidad Indoamérica, Ambato 180103, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] J. Buele (B) Carrera de Ingeniería Industrial, Facultad de Ingeniería, Industria y Producción, Universidad Indoamérica, Ambato 180103, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_56
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56.1 Introduction Education is a fundamental issue in the development of any society, and its continuous improvement process is essential to guarantee quality education [1, 2]. In this sense, it is essential to know the perception of parents and teachers about the educational process of primary school children and their willingness to participate in learning communities as a possible strategy to improve the educational process. Parents and teachers have an essential role in the educational process of primary school children [3]. Parents are children’s first educators, and their involvement in the educational process is essential to ensure children succeed academically. For their part, teachers are responsible for imparting the knowledge and skills necessary for the comprehensive development of children. In this sense, it is essential to know the perception of parents and teachers about the educational process of primary school children [4]. This allows for identifying strengths and weaknesses in the educational process and knowing the expectations and needs of parents and teachers. In addition, the perception of parents and teachers can impact the motivation and performance of children in the classroom [5]. On the other hand, learning communities can be an effective strategy to improve the educational process. Learning communities are spaces in which parents, teachers, and students work together to improve children’s academic performance and comprehensive development [6]. In these communities, effective experiences and strategies are shared to enhance the educational process, and parents’ active participation in their children’s educational process is encouraged. Therefore, knowing the perception of parents and teachers about the educational process of primary school children and their willingness to participate in learning communities is essential to improve the quality of education. This article presents an investigation that surveyed parents and teachers at a national level to know their perception of children’s educational process in initial and basic education and their willingness to participate in learning communities. This document has five sections, including the introduction in Sect. 56.1. Section 56.2 presents materials and methods, while Sect. 56.3 presents the results. The discussion and conclusions are presented in Sects. 56.4 and 56.5, respectively.
56.2 Materials and Methods 56.2.1 Methodology The methodology used in this study was descriptive since information and characteristics of the population studied were presented without carrying out any intervention. In addition, it was a cross-section since the evaluation was carried out at a specific time. A quantitative approach was used since numerical and statistical data were collected and analyzed to establish relationships between the variables studied. This
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study was carried out in an educational institution in Ambato, Ecuador, using a representative sample, so it is a case study. It is worth mentioning that the methodology used is part of action research, which is based on educational practice and seeks to identify the determinants of university dropout in the distance modality as the first step to building a change.
56.2.2 Participants The research focused on the perception of parents and teachers about the educational process of children in initial and basic education. For this, a study population of 130 parents and 151 teachers nationwide was considered. The sampling was conducted for convenience, and it was considered as an inclusion criterion that the participants were parents and teachers of children in initial and basic education. All necessary ethical precautions were taken to respect confidentiality, autonomy, and respect outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. The only exclusion criteria were for those participants who did not wish to participate in the research. The information on the sociodemographic variables of the participants is presented in Tables 56.1 and 56.2. This information allowed knowing the characteristics of the participants, such as their age, gender, educational level, and occupation, and using them in the analysis of the results of the survey investigation.
56.2.3 Instruments A survey designed in the free tool Google Forms was used to collect the necessary information for the investigation. This survey included sociodemographic, technological, institutional, and academic questions to evaluate various aspects related to the educational process from the point of view of parents and teachers.
56.2.4 Instrument Validation Several criteria were used to ensure the validity of the questionnaire, such as content, criterion, construct, and expert validity. The instrument was validated through the evaluation of specialists in the subject, who considered that the questionnaire was applicable and presented good clarity in the wording, internal coherence, and appropriate language for the level of the informant, among other aspects. Some minor adjustments were made to the structure and wording of some questions.
614 Table 56.1 Sociodemographic data of the participating teachers
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Variable
Category
n
%
Age
18–26
17
11.3
27–35
74
49.0
36–44
33
21.9
45–53
18
11.9
54–60
9
6.0
Rural
66
43.7
Urban
85
56.3
2
1.3
Zone Education
Primary Secondary
Work establishment
Teaching experience
1
0.7
Baccalaureate
42
27.8
3rd level title
95
62.9
4th level title
11
7.3
State
97
64.2
Fiscomisional
9
6.0
Municipal
6
4.0
Particular
39
25.8
0–5 years
51
33.8
6–10 years
45
29.8
11 or more years
55
36.4
56.2.5 Information Processing Once the data was obtained, they were processed using the statistical program SPSS version 24.0. Since the study included ordinal and nominal qualitative variables, the Chi-Square statistic and the Phi coefficient were used to determine the inference. The results will be presented based on categories to facilitate their analysis. In this way, it is expected to obtain valuable information about the perception of parents and teachers about the educational process of children in initial and basic education and their willingness to participate in learning communities.
56.3 Results 56.3.1 Descriptive Analysis In the questionnaire presented in Table 56.3, information is found on the use of ICT, the mastery of initial and basic education teachers, and their willingness to participate in learning communities. Most participants have Internet access, use innovative
56 Perceptions and Dispositions of Parents and Teachers Toward … Table 56.2 Sociodemographic data of the participating parents
615
Variable
Category
N
%
Age
18–30
34
26.2
31–43
74
56.9
45–56
16
12.3
57–69
5
3.8
70–89
1
0.8
No
40
30.8
Yes
90
69.2
Coast
13
10.0
Amazonia
86
66.2
Highland
31
23.8
Rural
37
28.5
Urban
93
71.5
7
5.4
Job Region
Zone Education
Primary Secondary
Civil status
Familiar structure
8
6.2
Baccalaureate
48
36.9
3rd level title
49
37.7
4th level title
18
13.8
Single
35
26.9
Free Union
15
11.5
Married
69
53.1
Divorced
8
Widowed
3
6.2 23
Single parent
21
16.2
Extended
19
14.6
Nuclear
90
69.2
platforms, and show interest in using ICT in their professional work. The intention to include parents in learning communities is evident (33.8%) and is confirmed by the frequent meetings they hold with them (39.7%). There is extensive knowledge about learning communities (86.8%). The questionnaire presented in Table 56.4 contains information on the use of ICTs, the involvement of parents of children in initial and basic education, and their willingness to participate in learning communities. Most of the participants have access to the Internet, use social networks and other platforms, and show concern for the well-being of their children. The accompaniment in the tasks (86.9%) and the frequent help to understand the school topics (40.0%) are evident. There is a great willingness to be part of a learning community (94.6%). It should be noted that due to the length of this document, only the questions that offered the most relevant results are shown.
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Table 56.3 Summary of the survey results: teachers Variable
Category
Internet connection
I don’t have Internet access
3.3
12
7.9
134
88.7
Never
2
1.3
Rarely
8
5.3
Occasionally
53
35.1
Frequently
60
39.7
Very often
28
18.5
Strongly disagree
14
9.3
I have Internet access
By integrating ICT in classes, students have a better disposition for learning
I try to involve parents in learning communities
Mastery level of learning management platforms
Know what learning communities are
%
5
I only have Internet access on my cell phone Frequency with which you meet with parents
No
In disagreement
7
4.6
Somewhat agree or somewhat disagree
29
19.2
Agree
61
40.4
Strongly agree
40
26.5
Never
2
1.3
Hardly ever
9
6.0
Occasionally
46
30.5
Almost always
43
28.5
Always
51
33.8
No mastery
32
21.2
Little mastery
31
20.5
Moderate mastery
30
19.9
Enough mastery
38
25.2
Full mastery
20
13.2
No
20
13.2
Yes
131
86.8
56.3.2 Correlational Analysis The frequency with which parents help their children understand the content they are learning in school shows a representative inference. According to the survey data, parents who frequently allow their children have a value (p = 0.571), as shown in Table 56.5. This can be interpreted as an association between the higher frequency in which a father helps his child and the willingness to be part of a learning community representing 40.65%. Teachers’ attention to individual and collective doubts also appears as a variable with a certain significant relationship (p = 0.467). Parents meet more frequently with teachers who solve their children’s concerns effectively. After analyzing the
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Table 56.4 Summary of the survey results: parents Variable
Category
Internet connection
I don’t have Internet access
No 7
5.4
I only have Internet access on my cell phone
9
6.9
114
87.7
No
17
13.1
Yes
113
86.9
4
3.1
I have Internet access Accompaniment in tasks Help your child understand school subjects
Meets with your child’s teachers
Teachers’ attention to doubts is effective
I would be willing to be part of a learning community
Never Rarely
%
6
4.6
Occasionally
24
18.5
Frequently
44
33.8
Very often
52
40.0
Never
8
6.2
Rarely
18
13.8
Occasionally
48
36.9
Frequently
39
30.0
Very often
17
13.1
Never
5
3.8
Rarely
5
3.8
Occasionally
20
15.4
Frequently
68
52.3
Very often
32
24.6
No
7
5.4
Yes
123
94.6
Table 56.5 Results of the correlation of variables with the willingness to participate in learning communities Population
Variable
P-value
Parents
Accompany in tasks
0.221
0.016
Helps understand content
0.571
0.000
Meets with teachers
0.255
0.077
Child independence
0.289
0.028
Effective teacher attention
0.467
0.000
Years of teaching experience
0.046
0.853
Work establishment
0.084
0.783
Integrate ICT in classes
0.219
0.123
Domain learning platforms
0.321
0.004
Teachers
Significance
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information, it was obtained that 66.67% of the parents frequently meet with their children’s teachers because they often solve their children’s doubts. 64.71% of parents who frequently meet with teachers do so with those who frequently resolve children’s doubts effectively. Finally, another variable with a significant correlation focuses on the degree of mastery of teachers in learning management platforms (phi = 0.321). Most teachers know the learning communities. There are more representative percentages in the population with sufficient command of the learning management platforms, 28.24%, and 20.61% of teachers with a moderate command of the learning management platforms.
56.4 Discussion Based on the results obtained in the survey carried out with parents and based on the results obtained in the survey carried out with parents and teachers at the national level about the educational process of children in initial and basic education and their willingness to participate in learning communities, it can be observed that several variables have a significant correlation and that may be relevant to improve the quality of education. A vital relationship was found between the frequency with which parents help their children understand the content they are learning at school and their willingness to be part of a learning community. This suggests that parents who become more involved in their children’s educational process and provide academic support may be more willing to participate in learning communities to enhance the educational process further. This can generate a natural and sustainable learning environment, as indicated in [7]. In addition, a significant correlation was found between teachers’ attention to individual and collective doubts and the willingness of parents to meet with them. This is consistent with what is indicated in [8], where it is shown how the teacher’s work is imperative in learning communities. Parents meet more frequently with teachers who can effectively address their children’s concerns, suggesting that personalized attention to students’ needs can influence parents’ perceptions of school quality. There is a significant relationship between the degree of mastery of teachers in learning management platforms and their knowledge about learning communities. Teachers who have a better command of learning management platforms and know more about learning communities may be more willing to participate in these communities and use them to improve the educational process. It is also important to highlight that teachers can now use more technological tools to motivate students, such as virtual environments and robotics, for example [9–11].
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56.5 Conclusions The results suggest that both the active participation of parents and the personalized attention of teachers can be important factors in improving the quality of education for children in initial and basic education. In this sense, it is essential to highlight that education is a fundamental issue for the development of any society, and its continuous improvement is essential to guarantee quality education. Parents’ active participation in their children’s educational process and teachers’ personalized attention can be effective strategies to improve the quality of education and foster students’ academic success. Furthermore, the results suggest that learning communities can be a valuable tool to enhance the educational process. Learning communities are spaces where parents, teachers, and students work together to improve children’s academic performance and comprehensive development. In these communities, effective experiences and strategies are shared to enhance the educational process, and parents’ active participation in their children’s educational process is encouraged. It’s essential to note that the study was conducted amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a context in which the formation of learning communities became absolutely necessary. In combination with the appropriate use of new technologies, this facilitated effective processes in virtual education, further enhanced by the involvement of families. This integration formed working groups for collaborative decision-making among teachers, parents, and students. A key challenge of contemporary education is leveraging the technology that has proven instrumental in the collective and collaborative construction of learning. This approach fosters participation from the entire educational community, thereby creating a virtual learning community due to its accessibility and convenience. However, it is essential to consider the limitations of this study, such as convenience sampling and the lack of assessment of children’s academic performance. In addition, it is suggested to deepen the identification of the factors that influence the willingness of parents and teachers to participate in learning communities, as well as the evaluation of their effectiveness in improving the educational process. Consequently, this work is expected to contribute to improving children’s educational process in initial and basic education by identifying the perceptions and dispositions of parents and teachers. Furthermore, this research is expected to be useful for future research in the field of education and for the design of effective educational policies and strategies. Acknowledgements We express our gratitude to the participants who generously provided their consent to participate in this study. We also thank Universidad Indoamérica for their support in funding this project under the title “Comunidades de aprendizaje y nuevas tecnologías en la formación docente”.
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References 1. Vásquez, C., García-alonso, I., Seckel, M.J., Alsina, Á.: Education for sustainable development in primary education textbooks—an educational approach from statistical and probabilistic literacy. Sustainability 13, 3115 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063115 2. Böhme, K., Streitlein-Böhme, I., Baum, E., Vollmar, H.C., Gulich, M., Ehrhardt, M., Fehr, F., Huenges, B., Woestmann, B., Jendyk, R.: Didactic qualification of teaching staff in primary care medicine—a position paper of the primary care committee of the society for medical education. GMS J. Med. Educ. 37, 1–14 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3205/zma001346 3. Santamaría-Cárdaba, N., Martins, C., Sousa, J.: Mathematics teachers facing the challenges of global society: a study in primary and secondary education in Spain. Eurasia J. Math. Sci. Technol. Educ. 17, 1–9 (2021). https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/10806 4. Brouwer, J., de Matos Fernandes, C.A., Steglich, C.E.G., Jansen, E.P.W.A., Hofman, W.H.A., Flache, A.: The development of peer networks and academic performance in learning communities in higher education. Learn. Instr. 80, 101603 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninst ruc.2022.101603 5. Admiraal, W., Schenke, W., De Jong, L., Emmelot, Y., Sligte, H.: Schools as professional learning communities: what can schools do to support professional development of their teachers? Prof. Dev. Educ. 47, 684–698 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2019.166 5573 6. Kovats Sánchez, G., Mesinas, M., Casanova, S., Chón, D.W.B., Pentón Herrera, L.J.: Creating positive learning communities for diasporic indigenous students. J. Multiling. Multicult. Dev. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2022.2159033 7. Mitchell, C., Sickney, L.: Sustainable improvement: Building learning communities that endure 8. García, E., Weiss, E.: The role of early career supports, continuous professional development, and learning communities in the teacher shortage. The fifth report in “The perfect storm in the teacher labor market” series. Econ. Policy Inst. 1–43 (2019) 9. Buele, J., López, V.M., Franklin Salazar, L., Edisson, J.-H., Reinoso, C., Carrillo, S., Soria, A., Andrango, R., Urrutia-Urrutia, P.: Interactive system to improve the skills of children with Dyslexia: a preliminary study. (2020).https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9155-2_35 10. Behr, A., Giese, M., Teguim Kamdjou, H.D., Theune, K.: Dropping out of university: a literature review. Rev. Educ. 8, 614–652 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3202 11. O’Toole, C.: “Virtual learning environment faculty continuing professional development— networked learning communities” a critical literature review. Irish J. Technol. Enhanc. Learn. 4, 48–67 (2019). https://doi.org/10.22554/ijtel.v4i1.50
Chapter 57
A Novel Approach for Distributed Security Over IoT in Learning Environment J. Lourenço , C. Lucas , J. Becker , and J. Morais
Abstract The Internet of things (IoT) is a disruptive technology approach with a great potential for growing and becoming a daily trend in our lives. Lecturing activities will greatly benefit from collecting and providing data to and from the student in remote learning activities. The data transit within the IoT network and into the cloud should deserve a special concern. The artificial intelligence (AI) can be the best tool to detect and stop malicious behaviors predicting a cyberattack, on the other security layer the data transit can gain in terms of security with a blockchain (BC) solution. A IoT with temporary loss of connectivity means its inability to keep collecting relevant data but also more vulnerability in terms of security. This occurs due to its temporary incapacity to keep the connection to all the security agents in the network. A delay tolerant network (DTN) approach is presented as a solution. Also, having the support of blockchain will enable secure and decentralized between all DTN nodes. An innovative approach that combines IoT super nodes, nodes with power processing, AI features, presence in vicinity of other nodes along with battery capacity twill play, temporarily, the role of relaying the traffic and work as agents for the successful security implementation should bring several advantages in comparison with classic security approaches. This work plans to present the benefits of this novel approach which is clarified in terms of the new technology paradigms applied along with the role of the super nodes in the solution.
J. Lourenço · C. Lucas · J. Becker · J. Morais (B) ISPGAYA, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] C. Lucas · J. Morais CEOS PP, Porto, Portugal © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_57
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57.1 Introduction The IoT concept was a major advance in the ability to connect all the ordinary devices that are the support for our daily routine and organization operative requirements. In the path for an all-connected world will mean more security, more efficiency, better automation, and even a better implementation of sustainability solutions, as detailed in the next session. New lecturing tools are emerging as levers for a disruption in all the education models, in particular artificial intelligence (AI) as smart tutoring or on defining the best approach for a better individual learning curve, blockchain (BC) as a data security solution and Internet of things (IoT) as an interaction provider with the students. After the pandemic crisis, remote learning solutions grow in popularity [1, 2]. This work provides a solution for a reliable and secure solutions for the data flow to the students even under severe network constraints, always with the focus on security. The security in IoT is of major concern besides classical approaches described in the literature, and this paper plans to present a novel solution: distribute the security in several capable nodes (super nodes) while avoiding the lack of connectivity that besides being of major concern in critical systems also can be a strategy for performing a cyberattack over a node temporarily unconnected. At same time, the support of BC can bring security to the data flow between nodes. At last, DTN approach is applied also. In a IoT, nodes may not always be connected to each other due to intermittent connectivity or limited bandwidth. Therefore, traditional security mechanisms like firewalls and encryption are not very effective in such networks. However, BC technology can enable secure and decentralized communication between nodes in a DTN. A BC is a distributed ledger that provides a transparent and tamper-proof record of all transactions between nodes. By using BC technology, IoT devices can securely communicate with each other without relying on centralized authorities, such as certificate authorities or trusted intermediaries. This can help to eliminate the risk of a single point of failure or a centralized attack. Moreover, BC can also provide a solution for identity verification in IoT networks. Each device can have a unique digital identity recorded on the BC, which can be used to verify the authenticity of the device and its data. In summary, the use of BC technology can provide a secure and reliable way for IoT devices to communicate in a DTN, even in the absence of a centralized infrastructure and under severe connectivity issues. The proposed novel approach for IoT security is supported by a fault connectivity resilience supported by DTN with BC along with AI for the security attacks prevention. A new role is proposed in an IoT network—the super node. This special, sometimes temporary status node will enable in a distributed form the constant monitoring of all the security issues along with enabling support for maintaining the connectivity in critical connectivity situations or temporary network failures. The following section of the article will be a bibliographic revision, followed by the novel approach for the IoT security solution and the final section with conclusions.
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57.2 State of the Art Several approaches are presented in the state-of-the art literature about the effective gain of IoT in terms of sustainability. The optimization of the use of natural resources is a clear example [3–7]. The enhancement of automation processes is also a topic of research [8–12]. The integration of IoT will also bring more uniformity in the data access, this way enabling more security in the task execution [13–16]. The security of the growing data traffic that is escalating over the IoT solutions represents a great security concern. Relevant personal and company data should be properly protected. Several state-of-the-art publications discuss this concern [17–19]. Real-time data availability is urging in several applications, so issues such as temporary loss of connectivity should be addressed in critical applications. The delay/ disruption tolerant networks (DTNs) are a set of standard protocols that are supported by the use information in the data streams, e.g., headers are attached do all data units in order to guarantee an end-to-end data delivery under networks with connectivity constraints. Situations such as drop link between end-to-end, severe delays, or data rates mismatches are ideal scenarios for the implementation of a DTN. The DTN approach is a store-and-forward communication architecture when DTN bundles are sent threw the network with the goal of reaching successfully the destination communicating node [20–23]. At last, AI can be important lever to detect and avoid cyberattacks in an IoT network. To learn the pattern behavior of the network can lead to a fast detection of anomalous attempts from cyberattacks. The support of AI as a security solution for IoT is also a topic of research [24–26]. Some approaches to security issues of Internet of things deployments and applications have the lever of machine learning and deep learning techniques. An important prerequisite for enabling such approaches is the development of scalable infrastructures for collecting and processing security-related datasets from IoT systems and devices [27]. The support of REST API in the IoT systems, this way providing the ability to record and count everything. A middleware that connects these devices and cloud can also be introduced. All of these solutions will provide a mean to block attackers infiltration in the network through IoT devices and also to secure data in transit from IoT devices to cloud [28]. A novel paradigm that combines a network-based deployment of IoT architecture through software-defined networking (SDN) is proposed [29]. An IoT Provenance model, Prov-IoT, is proposed—which documents the history of data records considering data processing and aggregation along with security metadata to enable a foundation for trust in data [30]. The IoT protocols besides security issues should also offer lightweight and reliable communication without compromising the computational and energy limitations. Literature reveals certain protocols such as CoAP, MQTT, XMPP, RESTFUL Services, 6LoWPAN, and RPL that can be deployed for carrying communication at different layers [31]. Node communication in IoT network can get hack and wrong operation performs if it happened, then there will be a chance to go for heavy loss. The proposed methodology improves the communication network
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with the implementation of IP binding technique and the uses of random encryption selection process [32]. The broad range of possible IoT security attacks can’t be controlled by human intervention. The envision security automation and orchestration for IoT systems are a research path [33]. The development of a blind attack detection method based on data conformity evaluation is also under research [34]. A dynamic defense frame for IoT security is formed in the proposed approach. The links in the frame are correlated with relative data of IoT security. Performance in biological immunology is applied into some links to make the proposed approach be adaptive to IoT environment [35]. An approach implies the on-demand security configuration technique, thus way, the required setup functions can be applied without recreating device image [36]. A concise preface for the cloud ecosystem, logical cloud security challenges, and confidence mechanism concept, (REO) architecture and opportunities are presented [37]. In complex systems of IoT devices (SIoTD), the security must be provided locally and in an autonomous fashion [38]. The urge for a secured IoT layered architecture, IoT applications, along with security issues with various attacks in each layer of the IoT and existing methods for providing security solutions and their limitations is another topic of research [39]. A survey about IoT security is described in [40–42]. A major bibliographic revision about IoT-based smart environments such as smart homes and smart cities is presented in [43]. A BC is a distributed database or ledger that is shared among all the nodes of any computer network. With its nature of a database, a BC stores all the information electronically in digital format. BC is best known for their crucial role in cryptocurrency systems, such as Bitcoin, for maintaining a secure and decentralized record of transactions. The innovation with a BC is that it guarantees the fidelity and security of a record of data and generates trust without the need for a trusted third party [44–46]. BC can act as a decentralized double blockchain (DB) architecture for scalable, lightweight, and secure Internet of things (IoT) information and reputation management, assuring the necessary security [47]. The BC has emerged as the possible solution for creating more secure IoT systems in the time to come [48]. Devices of IoT are dynamic, resource constraints, having less processing power which creates major security and privacy issues. Major challenges include identification, authentication, scalability, and data security [49]. A novel lightweight decentralized encrypted cloud storage architecture called, Yugula, which maintains file confidentiality, removes the centralized data deduplication and increases file integrity by using blockchain [50]. A security authentication system named IoT-chain in the Internet of Things, which provides attribute-based security authentication based on the hyperledger fabric blockchain framework, is presented [51]. A system that allows the storage of data from loT services in a decentralized network with a blockchain managing transactions through a smart contract is a line of research [52]. A multi-layer aggregate verification (MLAV) solution to improve supply chain management with IoT blockchain devices is a solution [53]. In IoT, it is crucial to identify what data should be stored and how to store it in a secure way. Research conducted describes how data is being stored in various blockchain-based IoT applications and provides data storage compliance
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in treating IoT data in a blockchain environment [54]. Two novel commitment, lightweight adaptable blockchain, and disseminated time-based agreement. The lightweight adaptable accomplishes decentralization by shaping an overlie network where high asset gadgets together deal with the blockchain [55]. A new framework named Sash that couples IoT platforms with blockchain that provides several advantages compared to state of the art. In Sash, the blockchain is used to store access control policies and take access control decisions. The prototype Sash by using the FIWARE open source IoT platform and the hyperledger fabric framework as the blockchain back-end [56]. DTN provides a solution for infra-less communication system, taking into consideration that the proposed solution plans to avoid loss of connectivity and the consequent distributed security service the application of DTN concepts is considerer of extreme relevance for the proposed solution. Until now, research on crowdsensing mainly focused on scenarios with devices such as smartphones with huge memory and high computing capacity. With the development of the Internet of things (IoT), crowdsensing can be envisaged with other constraints. Indeed, some IoT nodes are mobile but with limitations about storage and processing capabilities, then connectivity disruptions might occur between the nodes. These issues are tackled by a disruption tolerant networking architecture. In this article, we focus on a subset of IoT, mobile sensing networks (MSNs). A mechanism which respects the constraints of the nodes and maintains high performance is described [57]. The named data networking and delay tolerant networking architectures were originally targeting distinct networking domains: NDN was designed for content retrieval within fixed networks, while DTN was aiming to deliver data in highly-dynamic wireless topologies with intermittent connectivity. In this paper, we argue that the two technologies can complement each other to shape a joint NDN-DTN scheme which can improve data retrieval from intermittently-connected devices, such as IoT and sensor networks in remote areas [58]. It is desirable to develop a feasible, reliable, and robust protocol for this new range of applications such as IoT. In this work, we will present a DTN protocol for the Internet of things (IoT) applications [59]. A better routing method in delay tolerant network using machine learning. Delay tolerant network is a wireless network, in which nodes are changing its positions dynamically, such in IoT, in an unexpected way due to that round trip time and error rates are very high [60]. An efficient protocol based on the human mobility patterns. In such a protocol, a message is delivered to several devices that are expected to deliver well the message to the destination. The proposed protocol relies on the human mobility patterns that contain the regularity and improve delay and data delivery efficiency [61]. In remote areas the probability of loss of connectivity is higher, to provide an approach of using data mules such buses or other vehicles [62–65].
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57.3 A Novel Model Approach The full purpose of the presented work is to provide an innovative solution that could enhance the resilience of an IoT infrastructure and at same time to have a strong focus on security. The enrichment of lecturing activities will greatly benefit from a secure and reliable connection. The state-of-the-art presents several solutions about IoT, BC, DTN, and AI applied to the improvement of lecturing. Our proposal plans to merge the advantages of IoT, BC, and DTN providing the secure and reliable academic data flow even in lecturing scenarios with mobility and under severe network conditions. The IoT as described has the purpose of improving the lecturing classes. The students will have a chance to in real-time interact in the educational ecosystem. The immediate effect of an action of the student will have its implication presented. The novel model presented combines the enriched possibilities of using IoT as a learning lever, with the security of BC in the data transit and the implementation of a distributed cooperative approach for security with AI as a helper. The need for a constant connectivity is supported by the DTN implementation. In an IoT scenario, some of the nodes (hardware with connectivity capacity) concentrate better resources, e.g., more battery capacity, more processing power, AI support, favorable geographic positioning (at an instant)—therefore an availability to play a more relevant role in the network. These nodes are eligible to the (temporary) status of super nodes (SNO). The condition of a SNO is a temporary status, as described in the previous section. To fully understand how many SNO are needed, is of extreme relevance. Considering a network of N devices in 2D scenario of “L” meters per “l” meters is necessary considering L > l. The 2D scenario is easily extended to 3D scenario, for future calculations. Besides the methodology for the election of the SNO, that at the moment, goes beyond the scope of this work took in consideration the following assumptions: Each node candidate for SNO needs to have the ability to connect for a distance of L/5. This will mean that in the described conditions, the probability of having a SNO that could serve the purpose (this means—is on the vicinity of the served node(s)) could be modeled using a stochastic approach. If S is the number of nodes with superpowers, the probability that at least one node with superpowers is within L/5 of a randomly selected node is: S N −1 1− 1− N At last, it is expected to have the following number of SNO (designated by S) for a proper operation of the proposed scenario. Assuming that we desire a large communication success rate, e.g., 95%. Then, we want the probability calculated above to be greater than or equal to 0.95. We can solve the resulting equation for S:
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S N −1 1− 1− ≥ 0.95 N 1
S ≥ N ∗ (1 − 0.95) N −1 A SNO can lose its status if it starts having battery issues and/or if its movement turns, it into a less relevant network lever. These SNOs are responsible for the safe routing of all traffic and also are the main actors in implementing security proactive measures. An invalid access attempt, an anormal data traffic pattern or an uncommon attempt to access nodes data. The desired AI support can besides analyze all the normal and anomalous communications patterns to use deep learning to improve its security analysis capabilities. As implicit stated this approach is supported by an active cooperation inter nodes. The SNO will also implement all the DTN protocols and BC to assure a secure data flow over the network.
57.4 Conclusions The learning process if being pushed into a brand-new disruptive scenario. The technology has the chance to recreate a new learning environment full of new features that will work as levers for better and more efficient learning practices. Recent pandemic crisis, nature severe disasters, or even simple remote locations are an issue where the conventional approaches for communication do fail. The urge for reliable and secure communication is the anchor for the success of remote learning. This work describes a novel approach that merges several technological trend concepts with the single purpose of achieving—all the time—a path for the learning experience to take place. The evolution of ordinary daily use devices makes it possible. The Moore law is escalating the processing power, battery capacity and AI features for several ordinary devices that can be used over an IoT network. The innovative approach presented enables the implementation of an IoT with distributed security and reliable communication path between students uses, even under mobility. It is our strong believe that this conceptual proposal will assure in a near future a good solution for the all the issues discussed and presented in this article.
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Chapter 58
Open-Source Technologies for Simulation and Operation of a Low-Cost Robotic Platform for Educational Mobile Robotics Henry Díaz-Iza , Harold Díaz-Iza , Wilmer Albarracín , and Rene Cortijo
Abstract Robotics has become a popular topic of study at all levels of education, from elementary schools to universities. Teaching robotics helps students acquire technical and problem-solving skills and essential skills such as teamwork, creativity, and innovation. This paper presents a low-cost multidisciplinary platform that is simulated, programmed, and controlled by free software, allowing it to cover different issues related to the realization of practical robotics-related work. In this work, a lowcost platform of EV3 and free software ROS and CoppeliaSim Edu has been selected. Advances in technology have opened up a wealth of options in the field of robotics, allowing robot designers and programmers to choose the option that best suits their needs and objectives.
58.1 Introduction Robotics education studies the principles, design, construction, and programming of robots [1, 8]. It involves learning about the different components of a robot, such as sensors, actuators, controllers, and power sources, as well as the various programming languages and tools used to control robots. At the undergraduate and graduate levels, H. Díaz-Iza (B) · W. Albarracín · R. Cortijo Universidad Tecnológica Israel, Quito, Ecuador e-mail: [email protected] W. Albarracín e-mail: [email protected] R. Cortijo e-mail: [email protected] H. Díaz-Iza Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia, Valencia, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_58
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robotics education typically involves a combination of theoretical coursework and hands-on laboratory experiences [11, 16]. Students learn about the mathematical foundations of robotics, algorithms, and software tools for robot design, control, and planning [2, 5]. They may also have the opportunity to work on research projects in robotics, often in collaboration with industry partners. In this sense, specifically, the subject of robotics has had great success in educational contexts in recent years [3, 4, 17]. One of these reasons lies in the possibility for the student to put into practice the work proposed theoretically in the classroom. The main problem in achieving this experimentation lies in the price of the equipment and the use of the software to operate it. Fortunately, in recent years, it has become possible to acquire several inexpensive robot platforms, many of them compatible with the use of free software for programming [2, 16]. In recent years, the Lego Mindstorms EV3 system has become one of the most popular platforms for practical work related to robotics, mechatronics, and control systems [14, 19]. EV3 offers remarkable flexibility to develop various projects and activities through its programmable control unit and electronics parts. For these reasons, examples of using this platform for teaching purposes can be found [9, 11, 12]. On the other hand, robotics simulation software is a valuable tool for the creation and development of robots, as it allows engineers and programmers to test and refine their designs before implementing them in the real world, which can save time, costs, and risks associated with the implementation of robotic systems in real situations. In this sense, examples of free software such as ROS, CoppeliaSim Edu, and Gazebo offer advanced tools for designing, simulating, and testing robots in the educational environment [6, 7, 15, 18]. This paper aims to review the tools or options that, based on experience in recent years, are considered most suitable for teaching and research in subjects such as robotics. Thus, both the hardware and the possible software tools available for programming and an example of an application are described. The article is organized as follows: Sect. 58.2 describes the hardware of the LEGO Mindstorms low-cost robot development and programming platform and the free software ROS and CoppeliaSim Edu for programming, simulation, and control of the LEGO robot. Section 58.3 shows the results of an example application of teaching kinematic control of a mobile robot. Finally, Sect. 58.4 presents the conclusions of this work.
58.2 Methodology 58.2.1 Hardware In education, it is possible to find several resources and tools designed to teach and learn subjects such as robotics. Most of these resources are designed to provide students with the necessary knowledge to understand the foundations of robotics,
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Fig. 58.1 LEGO EV3: main brick, sensors, and actuators
including transversal skills related to mechanics, electronics, and programming. The choice of an educational resource to teach robotics depends on factors such as curriculum, textbooks available, or branches in the market. However, the choice mainly depends on the objectives of the class. For example, if the objective is to teach mechanical robot design or to build a robot, a robot kit with modular pieces to assemble is the best option. On the other hand, if the objective is to teach something more advanced like programming or control theory concepts, a programming platform or a simulator software may be more appropriate. In this context, several robotics kits or software are designed for educational purposes in the marketplace, but the most popular include LEGO Mindstorms EV3, VEX Robotics, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi. LEGO Mindstorms EV3 is versatile and user-friendly, allowing students to learn the fundamental concept of robotics in a fun and engaging way. VEX Robotics offers a variety of motors, sensors, and controllers commonly used to build robots. Arduino and Raspberry are open-source platforms that can create customized robots with several functionalities. The EV3 is a powerful robotics platform equipped with an ARM9 processor running at 300 MHz. It has 64 MB of RAM, 16 MB of flash storage, and a range of sensors including touch sensors, color sensors, ultrasonic sensors, and gyroscopic sensors. The EV3 has three output ports for actuators and various communication options such as USB, mini-USB, Bluetooth, and infrared ports. Its monochromatic LCD display has a resolution of 178 × 128 pixels, and it operates on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery providing up to 3 h of runtime (Fig. 58.1).
58.2.2 Software Learning robotics is an activity that not only involves hardware platforms but it also involves software to simulate and program a robot. In recent years, the capacity of
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computers has permitted us to simulate a variety of robots in different virtual environments. One advantage of simulation and virtual environment is the versatility that performs to experiment without the worry of damaging the real robot; in addition, the simulation allows students to program and control robots in a safe environment and permit them to test algorithms in a different context that sometimes are not available in the natural environment. In this context, using robot simulation and programming software in education is an effective tool to prove the conceptual theory and to prepare students to work with real robots in either class or industrial environments. The marketplace offers free and paid software options for robot simulation and programming. As free software, it is possible to mention CoppeliaSim Educational Edition, Gazebo, Webots, and RoboComp; these programs allow students to experiment with different virtual environments and safely test the algorithms programmed by the students. On the other hand, paid software like MATLAB/Simulink or RoboDK has advantages such as its high-precision simulation and more visualization tools which can be more beneficial for research projects or industrial applications. In this sense, if the high cost of software is a problem, open software is an option due to its versatility in the robotics educational context. In addition, open-source software can enhance a robotics class’s learning and teaching experience. Furthermore, in recent years open source has gained popularity in the robotics world, especially when simulation and programming matter due to its benefits such as being free of charge, which is an attractive option to whom work on projects with limited economic resources; customizable, which is an advantage because it permits to adapt the software according to specific requirements, and developer community, supports the software and works together to solve bugs. This work used ROS and CoppeliaSim Educational Edition to simulate and program the robot EV3. Robot operating system (ROS) is a widely-used open-source software for creating robot applications. It provides a set of tools and a variety of libraries to develop robot applications, from low-level device drivers to high-level algorithms. ROS provides a distributed architecture to create complex systems that involve many different robots and components, each running on its microprocessor or computer. In addition, ROS supports a wide range of programming languages, including C++, Python, and Lisp; also, ROS can be used with many different robotics platforms, from hobbyists to industrial robots. CoppeliaSim is a powerful robot simulation software used for researching and teaching robotics in a simulated robot context; specifically, it is used to test robotics systems. It is developed by Coppelia Robotics, and it allows users to create realistic simulations of robots, including their sensors, actuators, and 3D environment. The software offers a wide range of features, including physics simulation, scripting, and visualization tools, which can be used to test and validate robotic systems before deploying them in the real world. One of the key features of CoppeliaSim is its support for a wide range of robot platforms and sensors, including industrial robots, drones, and mobile robots, as well as cameras, LiDARs, and other sensors commonly used in robotics. Additionally, it supports a wide range of programming languages, including C++, Python, MATLAB, and Lua, which allows users to develop and test control algorithms and other software components in a realistic simulation environment.
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58.2.3 Teaching Different Contents Related to Robotics Once described the possible low-cost hardware/software solutions, some basic applications can be realized, for example, identification and control of DC motors, signal filtering, kinematic control of mobile robots, control of robots with advanced sensors; and also applications with more complexity, such as multiagent systems, unstable processes, and non-minimum phase processes. These activities support the usefulness of this platform for the teaching of different contents related to robotics and computer control. In the case of mobile robot kinematics, the study of the motion of mobile robots, understanding the relationship between the robot’s motion and its control inputs, such as the velocity of its wheels or the thrust of its propellers, is an important aspect to be considered. Kinematic control of mobile robots consists of determining the actions required to move the robot from its current position to a desired end position, considering its velocities and orientation [13]. One of the most common mobile robot kinematic models is the differential drive model, which describes the motion of a two-wheeled robot. The model assumes that the robot’s motion is planar and that the wheels are fixed to a rigid body. The kinematics of the robot can then be described using the following equations:
v w
=
1 2 1 1 − 2b 2b 1 2
vi , vd
(58.1)
where v and w are the linear and angular velocities, respectively; 2b is the separation distance between the wheels, vi and vd are the linear velocities of the left and right wheel, respectively. From Eq. 58.1, it is possible to calculate the position and orientation of the robot with the following equation: ⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤ x˙ cos(θ ) 0 ⎣ y˙ ⎦ = ⎣ sin(θ ) 0 ⎦ v . w θ˙ 0 1
(58.2)
From these two equations, the direct kinematics of the differential robot can be calculated as follows: ⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎡ ⎤ ⎤ cos(θ ) 0 x˙ cos(θ ) 0 1 1 vi ⎣ y˙ ⎦ = ⎣ sin(θ ) 0 ⎦ v = ⎣ sin(θ ) 0 ⎦ 2 1 21 , (58.3) − v w d 2b 2b ˙θ 0 1 0 1 The trajectory control in a temporal space can be achieved with the position and the velocity of a point (xp, yp) separated a distance g from the drive shaft. Moreover, this consideration allows us to obtain the inverse kinematic control considering the velocity (x p , y p ) in the point. The Eq. (58.4) shows the inverse kinematic control.
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Real velocity robot
Kinematics
Fig. 58.2 Control trajectory diagram
vi vd
=
1 g cos(θ ) + b sin(θ ) g sin(θ ) − b cos(θ ) x˙ p . g g cos(θ ) − b sin(θ ) g sin(θ ) + b cos(θ ) y˙ p
(58.4)
With the consideration mentioned before, the final control diagram is shown in the Fig. 58.2.
58.3 Results In this section, we show some applications developed with the hardware and software described in the previous section. These applications endorse the use of open-source technologies as a valuable tool to teach robotics in an educational context.
58.3.1 CoppeliaSim CoppeliaSim, as an integrated developed environment, allows us to attach scripts in different objects of its environment. With this premise, we used an associated child script attached to the 3D model of the EV3 [10] to set up the main configuration of the robot and define the different topics, publishers, and subscribers used by ROS. Although CoppeliaSim permits us to use a script for each object for our purpose, we use a script attached to the main model for our configuration as shown in Fig. 58.3. Listing 58.1 shows the topic names used to send and receive data into the ROS system. Listing 58.2 shows the configuration and type of messages used by the publisher and the different subscribers.
58.3.2 Robotic Operating System (ROS) and EV3 The real Lego EV3 has a Debian Linux-based operating system called ev3dev that allows us to control the different sensors and motors of the robot, but it is necessary to integrate ROS into it. To integrate ROS into the original operating system, Docker
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Fig. 58.3 Associated Child Script associated to the 3D model of the EV3
Listing 58.1 Topic name definitions in CoppeliaSim
local robotPositionTopicName = ’ev3/position_robot’ local jointStateTopicName = ’ev3/joint_states’ local leftMotorTopicName = ’ev3/cmd_vel_left_wheel’ local rightMotorTopicName = ’ev3/cmd_vel_right_wheel’
Listing 58.2 Publisher and subscriber definitions in CoppeliaSim leftMotorSub=simROS.subscribe(’/’..leftMotorTopicName, ’geometry_msgs/Twist’,’setLeftMotorVelocity_cb’, 10) rightMotorSub=simROS.subscribe(’/’..rightMotorTopicName, ’geometry_msgs/Twist’,’setRightMotorVelocity_cb’, 10) jointStatesPub = simROS.advertise(’/’..jointStateTopicName, ’sensor_msgs/JointState’, 10) robotPositionSub=simROS.subscribe(’/’..robotPositionTopicName, ’geometry_msgs/Pose2D’,’setRobotPosition_cb’, 10)
and rosdep tool are used. Docker allowed to push the ev3dev and start a container where a lightweight ROS Melodic version was installed. As in the main script integrated in the EV3 robot into CoppeliaSim, the same topics are incorporated in the main program of the real EV3. Listing 58.3 shows the configuration used. The topics ev3/cmd_vel_left_wheel and ev3/cmd_vel_right_ wheel are configurated as subscribers whose purpose is to get the wheel velocities sent by the trajectory node paso_desc_circle_node. Additionally, the topic ev3/joint_ states is configurated as a publisher whose purpose is to send the current wheel velocities to the trajectory node.
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Listing 58.3 Publisher and subscriber definitions in EV3 robot cmd_vel_left_wheel_sub_ = rospy.Subscriber(“ev3/cmd_vel_left_wheel”, Twist, self.cmdVelLwheelCallback) cmd_vel_right_wheel_sub_ = rospy.Subscriber(“ev3/cmd_vel_right_wheel”, Twist, self.cmdVelRwheelCallback) self.joint_states_pub_ = rospy.Publisher(’ev3/joint_states’, JointState, queue_size=1)
58.4 Kinematic Control of Mobile Robots The main purpose of kinematic control is to determine the necessary control action to carry the robot from an initial position to a desired final position considering the velocity and orientation of the robot. The control of mobile robots can address the problem of trajectory and path control. In the first problem, a desired trajectory is expressed in the values of the trajectory coordinates for each instant of time over which control of the robot is required. In the second case, the geometric information of the trajectory is in the Cartesian plane, but time is irrelevant. An important aspect of the control of the mobile robot is the kinematics of the robot. For EV3 is recommended to take the differential or Ackerman configuration. In the case of the differential configuration, the movement of the robot is determined by the differential velocities of the wheels (right and left). For this reason, it is necessary to implement two velocity control, one for each wheel. On the other hand, the Ackerman configuration needs the configuration of the wheels (orientation and velocity). As a result, two kinds of controllers are needed: position and velocity. Based on the differential configuration of the EV3, a trajectory control was developed to steer the robot. Figure 58.4 shows the flow diagram followed to control the robot with a reference trajectory. The algorithm calculates both the x and y values of the reference trajectory and the position and orientation of the robot based on the inverse kinematic in each iteration. Listing 58.4 shows the publishers and subscribers configurated in the main program as well as the topics: ev3/position_ref, ev3/position_robot, ev3/joint_states, ev3/cmd_vel_left_wheel, ev3/cmd_vel_right_wheel. The trajectory node: generate the reference trajectory and publish x and y values on the topic ev3/position_ref, calculate the robot position based in its kinematics and publish its value on the topic ev3/position_robot, calculate the angular velocity error of the wheels based on the inverse robot kinematics, generate the action control and publish the action control to each wheel on the topics ev3/cmd_vel_left_wheel and ev3/cmd_vel_right_wheel. It should be noted that the topic ev3/joint_states is used to obtain the linear velocity of each wheel sent by the EV3 robot. Figure 58.5 shows the reference trajectory (a circle with a radius of 0.5 m) and the trajectory followed by the simulated EV3 robot.
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Start
Yes
ROS node is shutdown?
End
No Generate x and y circular trajectory reference
Obtain inverse kinematic model of the robot
Obtain x and y trajectory reference values
Publish x, y and theta robot position values
Publish x and y trajectory reference values
Obtain x, y and theta robot position values
Calculate angular velocity error
Calculate control action
Publish control action
Fig. 58.4 Trajectory node flowchart Listing 58.4 Publisher and subscriber definitions in the main node control ev3_left_vel_whl_pub = rospy.Publisher(’ev3/cmd_vel_left_wheel’, Twist, queue_size=10) ev3_right_vel_whl_pub = rospy.Publisher(’ev3/cmd_vel_right_wheel’, Twist, queue_size=10) position_ref_pub = rospy.Publisher(’ev3/position_ref’, Pose2D, queue_size=10) position_robot_pub = rospy.Publisher(’ev3/position_robot’, Pose2D, queue_size=10) rospy.Subscriber(’ev3/joint_states’, JointState, jointStateCallback) Robot position (simulation)
0.5
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y (m)
0.1 0 -0.1 -0.2 -0.3 -0.4 -0.5 -0.5
-0.4
-0.3
-0.2
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0 0.1 x (m)
0.2
0.3
0.4
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Fig. 58.5 Control kinematic response of differential in a simulated EV3 robot to a circle trajectory
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Fig. 58.6 Control kinematic response of differential in a real EV3 robot to a circle trajectory
In the following, the decentralized point trajectory control for the EV3 mobile robot with differential configuration is shown. The kinematic control is the same as described in Fig. 58.4. The advantage of using ROS is that the sensor and actuator nodes of the simulation are now replaced by the actual sensor and actuator nodes of the EV3 robot. Figure 58.6 shows the reference trajectory (circle) and the trajectories followed by the real EV3 robot.
58.5 Conclusions and Future Work A hardware/software platform oriented to education in robotics has been presented. The robotics system is based on Lego Mindstorms EV3. The EV3 is a low-cost equipment with sensors, electric actuators, and a robust control unit. The proposed system can be simulated, programmed, and controlled using the free software CoppeliaSim and ROS. Thanks to this hardware and software, multiple educational activities can be proposed for learning mobile robotics topics. In future, integrating technologies such as computer vision, artificial intelligence, or augmented reality can be considered, improving educational activities and promoting a higher level of interaction between students and robots.
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Chapter 59
SparkDigiGirls: Challenges to Motivate Girls to STEM ¯ e, Brigita Dane, Célio Gonçalo Marques , Inês Araújo , Laura Grineviˇciut˙ and Renata Danielien˙e
Abstract Through a European project, partners from four different countries came together to create a program to motivate girls aged 14–18 to enter the STEM field. Often associated with gender stereotypes and misconceptions, girls opt for professional fields other than engineering and science. Over two years, the interests that could attract the girls were identified and a non-formal education program with sixteen challenges was designed and made available through the Moodle platform. The technologies covered are cloud computing, programming, phishing, 3D modeling, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. From January to March 2023, a total of 279 girls accompanied by 46 youth workers registered on the Moodle platform to carry out the proposed challenges during a pilot test. The results indicate that there are some corrections to be made in some of the proposed challenges. However, the methodology with which these activities will be carried out has an impact on the results. Therefore, the monitoring by youth workers in regular sessions to carry out the challenges is an indicator of a higher level of achievement. Also, the choice of a challenge for each technology ensures a more enjoyable experience for girls.
C. G. Marques (B) · I. Araújo LIED, Polytechnic University of Tomar, Tomar, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] L. Grineviˇci¯ut˙e Viešieji Interneto Prieigos Taškai, Vilnius, Lithuania B. Dane Simbioza Genesis, Social Enterprise, Ljubljana, Slovenia R. Danielien˙e Information Technologies Institute, Kaunas, Lithuania © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_59
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59.1 Introduction In primary school, boys and girls are almost equally likely to want to work in a science-related field [1]. However, in subsequent school years girls’ attitudes and opinions are changing and they are more likely to choose careers in social, environmental, and medical fields over science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and ICT studies [2]. This is due to biases, lack of role models and other reasons that limit girls’ ability to fully benefit from the opportunities offered by digital transformation [3, 4]. According to the 2021 data of Eurostat, girls and women continue to be underrepresented, being only 19.1% of all ICT students in the EU. Among the four countries of focus of SparkDigiGirls Program, Lithuania had the highest rate of women in ICT—23.7%. Greece and Portugal displayed, respectively, 21.3% and 20.7%, with Slovenia being the lowest, with 16.6% [5]. Gender stereotypes are persistent, as are misconceptions related to working in technology and engineering. Teachers and educators can play an important role in changing this perspective by giving girls guidance and access to experiences that can change the current scenario [6]. In view of this need, partners from Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, and Greece initiated the two-year international project SparkDigiGirls, funded by Erasmus+ strategic partnership in the field of youth. The project Empower Girls Creativity through Use of Digital Technologies (SparkDigiGirls) aims to encourage girls to explore digital technologies such as augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies and to come up with new and interesting ideas, using their newly acquired digital knowledge to contribute to the STEM industry (dominated by men) with innovative, different and creative approaches. Throughout the project, an online training program designed to the needs of girls has been created and were applied from January to March 2023 to a group of 279 girls aged 14–18 who want to develop their creativity using digital technologies. The online course that has been created during SparkDigiGirls projet is called Unleash CreativITy with Technology Program. The present paper aims to present the online training program and the results of this pilot test. For this we will describe how the program was planned and then how the pilot test was implemented, analyzing its results.
59.2 Program Unleash CreativITy with Technology The project SparkDigiGirls started by surveying case studies identified in each of the countries, followed by interviews with their representatives. This allowed the identification of the topics in ICT and technologies that might interest girls [6]. This initial study allowed us to outline the contents we could work with girls. An online
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Fig. 59.1 Moodle course in the different languages of the project (https://moodle.digigirls.eu/)
program was created, using the LMS MOODLE platform. It aims to reach girls with fewer opportunities such as those living in remote areas, migrant girls, girls from families at risk. For this reason, a course has been planned that any girl can do autonomously. An initial course was created in English, with each partner creating three to four challenges. Once completed, the courses were created and translated into the different languages of the project: Lithuanian, Slovenian, Portuguese and Greek (Fig. 59.1). The online program contains 16 separate learning packages called challenges. Each challenge covers a specific topic or area of interest of young girls age 14+. For example, fashion, design, environment, culinary, art, etc. Each challenge includes two essential intertwining components: digital technologies (artificial intelligence, augmented reality, Internet of Things, programming, 3D modeling and printing, cloud computing, blockchain) and real-life situations or problems that young girls face in their lives, e.g., how to make a birthday present in 3D, how to create clothes using programming, develop CO2 footprint, culinary website and many other interesting challenges. Table 59.1 gives the scheme of how topics, challenges and digital technologies are intertwined and what exact tangible results are reached at the end of implementation of each challenge. Each challenge must be completed by following concrete steps of implementation. By following the steps each girl knows exactly where to start from and how to complete it. During the pilot test, each girl performed interactive tasks and ultimately solved suggested situation or problem. Each learning packages (challenge) includes: • Learning guide which consists of introduction to the challenge and instructions for learner on how to perform it. • Videos are used to present various digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, Internet of Things, programming, 3D modeling and printing, cloud computing and blockchain. Each video aims in a simple way to
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Table 59.1 Challenges created under Unleash CreativITy with technology program Categories
Topic
Challenge
Leading technology
Supporting technology
Results
Cloud computing
Culinary
#5: Pinch of food creations
Cloud computing
Artificial intelligence
Their own website with Wix
Virtual art
#7: Futurist artist
Cloud computing
Blockchain
Their own online gallery with their arts in NFTs format
Data visualization
#8: My virtual data-driven stories!
Cloud computing
N/A
Their own contact map of friends
Green Europe
#13: Small changes with big impact
Cloud computing
Blockchain; Their own artificial CO2 footprint intelligence (AI); Internet of Things (IoT)
Virtual art
#15: Cloud in Cloud the computing organization of a bazaar
Programming Design
Cloud computing
#2: Being your Programming Augmented own designer reality
Their own online art bazaar A game in fashion design
Entertainment #6: Tic-tac-toe
Programming Cloud computing
Tic-tac-toe game
Games
#11: Bullying is not just a game!
Programming Cloud computing
Pong game
Robots
#16: Create a robot to help you
Programming Robotics; electronic
Robot to help them
Phishing
Cybersecurity
#14: Don’t get hooked on the Internet
Phishing
N/A
Help them to recognize phishing techniques and signs
3D modeling
Design
#1: Birthday present in 3D
3D modeling and printing
Artificial intelligence
Create a 3D smart case for phone and music song as a present for a friend (continued)
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Table 59.1 (continued) Categories
Augmented reality
Artificial intelligence
Topic
Challenge
Safe use of technologies
Leading technology
Supporting technology
Results
#12: Safe 3D modeling usage of and printing technologies: 3D models and augmented reality
Augmented reality
Make a 3D model
Design
#3: My awesome digi-room
Augmented reality
3D modeling Design a and printing virtual room and make an illustration for the room wall
Digital marketing
#4: Business card with AR
Augmented reality
Augmented reality
Their own business card with virtual effects
Buying and selling
#9: My digi Artificial ‘artsy’ business intelligence
Augmented reality
Their own gumroad marketplace
Self-branding
10#: Rock your Artificial career intelligence (self-branding)
Augmented Create an reality; cloud avatar computing
explain how these technologies work and what they are used for. Videos are either taken from YouTube or they are owned by partner organizations. On top of each video an interactive layer is added by using H5P tool to pay attention to important information in the video. • Presentations in pdf or ppt files are used for presenting concrete tools, activities in a clear and summarized manner. • Quizzes are used to interact with learners and test their knowledge in each challenge. • Submission of evidence of having completed the proposed challenge, it can be an image, link, video, audio, etc. After completing a challenge, the girls receive a certificate that proves the completion of that activity. However, to complete the program and receive grand certificate it is necessary to finish six challenges, one from each presented category in Table 59.1. Each category is assigned to key leading and supporting technology. Girls are allowed to choose any challenge from each category and perform it by following provided steps. After completion of each challenge, the learner receives a certificate with the certain key. When a girl collects six keys, she will be able to unlock the grand certificate of the program.
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To assist the girls, each partner invited youth workers. These are people who already accompany the girls in another context, and their mission is to help with some difficulties, but also to liaise with the partner’s team.
59.3 Methodology The project Empower Girls Creativity through Use of Digital Technologies (SparkDigiGirls) was organized in five intellectual output (IO) to take place over two years. The third IO is about creating resources and testing them with a group of girls and their youth workers. This paper intends to present how the pilot test was carried out. Piloting of created materials was taking place in each partner country from January to March of 2023. After pilot, feedback has been collected and according to them updates could be made in the training material. To carry out the pilot study, each partner contacted local organizations working with girls aged 14–18 (schools, associations, youth institutions). Given the availability shown, the pilot test was proposed, and the necessary agreements were established, as well as the request to fill in declarations of granting of image rights, so that it would be possible to disseminate through social media the project products. Therefore, in total 279 girls and 46 youth workers participated in the online learning (Table 59.2). It is expected that the training course will: (i) Engage and empower girls to use technologies, solve real-life problems, foster creativity, enhance personal development; (ii) Girls will feel more confident and perceive the benefit of technologies; (iii) From the youth workers side, it is expected to reach positive impact on teaching and consulting. All those indicators were evaluated during piloting. At the beginning of January, the youth workers were trained and girls who were interested in taking part registered on MOODLE (https://moodle.digigirls.eu/). The monitoring was carried out remotely by the partners and in person by the youth workers. Each partner outlined how the girls could complete the tasks, depending on where the technology was available. In this way, the girls could travel to the indicated Table 59.2 Youth workers and girls enrolled during piloting
Partner from Youth workers enrolled Girls enrolled Type Lithuanian
13
57
Hybrid
Slovenia
10
103
Online
Greece
12
65
Hybrid
Portugal
11
54
Hybrid
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location to complete the challenge. Since not all institutions have 3D printers, for example, were indicated locations where the girls could print their creations. The challenges were applied differently between partners, have they considered pertinent. In Slovenia only six challenges were applied during piloting, giving the girls no choice facing each technology. They chose to present the girls with specific challenges facilitating the follow-up they planned. As for the partner from Lithuania, they did not apply 2 of the 16 challenges, as they considered that challenges 15 and 16 raised many doubts during implementation. Portugal and Greece have left all challenges available. At the end of March, questionnaires were made available for the girls and the youth works, where we wanted to know in an anonymous way the opinion about the course carried out, as well as to identify possible problems with the material created. The questionnaire for girls presents questions on the following topics: (iv) General information (personal data, age, use of technology, motivations for taking the course); (v) Program evaluation (evaluation of the course, evaluation of the challenges, identification of the technologies that are easier and more difficult) and (vi) Quality of the organization (experience with MOODLE, would you recommend to others). The questionnaire for youth works is simpler, asking for opinions about the course, whether it is suitable for girls and suggestions for improvement.
59.4 Results The pilot test took place over two months, with each partner given autonomy to organize the way they worked with the girls. The initial work was proposed to take place entirely online, with the girls being able to ask for support from youth workers or even partner experts. In the end, only the Portuguese partner kept this methodology, while the others opted to organize face-to-face sessions with the girls and thus motivate them to carry out the challenges. This explains the difference in the number of girls active on Moodle among the different partners (Table 59.3). Table 59.3 Performance of active girls during piloting Partner from Active girls Challenges submitted Average number of Grant certificate challenges per active girl Lithuanian
57 (100%)
296
5.2
28 (49.1%)
Slovenia
53 (51.5%)
126
2.4
11(20.8%)
Greece
65 (100%)
118
1.8
10 (15.4%)
Portugal
12 (22.2%)
62
5.2
5 (41.6%)
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At the end of the pilot test, there were countries where all girls performed at least one challenge (Lithuanian and Greece), but there was also one country where the rate of active girls was low (Portugal). This can be explained by the methodology used, since in Portugal it was decided to let the girls carry out the challenges autonomously, without face-to-face sessions. The other countries have chosen to organize regular face-to-face sessions to motivate the girls to develop their challenges. However, the average number of challenges submitted per active girl is the same between Portugal and Lithuania. This shows that even if they do it alone and autonomously, the challenges can be stimulating by themselves. To compare submissions by challenge, we chose to calculate the percentage of active girls who completed each of the challenges (Fig. 59.2). Comparing the number of challenges submitted by each of the technologies, we see that phishing has the highest number of submissions. This can be explained by the fact that the girls only had to complete a questionnaire, not requiring the creation of something and shows that girls are aware of the risks associated with online activities and are interested in protecting themselves. Augmented reality and 3D modeling emerge as the second and third technologies with the highest level of participation. For the Greek girls challenge #1 (Birthday Present in 3D) was the one that captured the most participation while challenge #3 (My awesome digi-room) captivated the rest of the countries the most. The pilot trainings showed that girls are eager to learn about technology when it is presented in a fun and engaging way. Allowing the girls to choose the tasks they found interesting succeeded in engaging and motivating the girls to complete the tasks. The popularity of certain challenges may reflect girls’ interests and engagement with certain technologies and hobbies. For example, for Lithuanian girls, Challenge #4 Challenge: Business card with AR was popular because it introduced a tool that can be used for creative expression and self-promotion. Similarly, Challenge #10 Challenge: Rock your career (self-branding) was popular because it matched girl’s aspirations and goals for their future careers. Challenges #15 and #16 stand out for their low level of submissions, explained by the fact that they were not made available to Lithuanian and Slovenian girls, but were
Fig. 59.2 Active girls who completed each of the challenges (%)
59 SparkDigiGirls: Challenges to Motivate Girls to STEM Table 59.4 Responses by girls and youth workers to questionnaires
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Partner from
Girls
Youth workers
Lithuanian
23 (40%)
10 (77%)
Slovenia
24 (45%)
5 (50%)
Greece
No data available
No data available
Portugal
6 (11%)
5 (45%)
also not completed by the Portuguese and Greek girls. It was in these challenges that more doubts arose for the Portuguese girls during the pilot test. At the time of writing of this paper, data collection from girls and youth workers is still ongoing. The available preliminary data will be presented (Table 59.4). The girls were asked to evaluate each challenge using as options: L = I liked it/ D = I disliked it/F = I failed to perform/N = I haven’t done it (Table 59.5). In most cases, the girls indicate that they enjoyed the challenges, although there are some in which they report having failed in their execution or have not yet performed them. Table 59.5 Girls’ ranking of the challenges (Legend: L = I liked it/D = I disliked it/F = I failed to perform/N = I haven’t done it) Challenge
Lithuanian
Slovenia D
Portugal
L
D
F
N
L
#1: Birthday present in 3D
9
1
6
7
Not available
F
#2: Being your own designer
8
0
6
9
Not available
#3: My awesome digi-room
15
1
3
4
21 0
L
D
F
N
3
0
1
2
4
0
0
2
5
0
0
#4: Business card with AR
16
0
1
4
Not available
1
5
0
0
1
#5: Pinch of food creations
13
0
4
6
Not available
#6: Tic-tac-toe
9
2
7
5
13 3
4
0
0
2
4
0
0
#7: Futurist artist
15
1
3
4
Not available
2
4
0
0
2
#8: My virtual data-driven stories!
10
1
5
7
12 5
1
#9: My digi ‘artsy’ business
12
2
4
5
15 3
1
6
4
0
1
1
5
3
0
1
#10: Rock your career (self-branding)
12
0
3
8
2
Not available
5
0
0
1
#11: Bullying is not just a game!
15
1
2
5
Not available
4
0
1
1
#12: Safe usage of technologies: 3D 15 models and augmented reality
1
2
5
16 3
4
0
1
1
#13: Small changes with big impact 14
2
2
5
Not available
2
0
1
3
#14: Don’t get hooked on the Internet
22
0
1
0
15 3
5
0
0
1
#15: Cloud in the organization of a bazaar
Not available
Not available
3
0
2
1
#16: Create a robot to help you
Not available
Not available
1
0
3
2
0
4
0
0
N
0
4
5
6
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It is interesting to note that in the group (Slovenia) where girls could only perform one challenge for each type of technology more answers appear indicating that they did not like it. The girls were also asked to indicate which technologies are easier and which are the hardest (Table 59.6). Programming technology stands out as being the easiest and 3D printing as the hardest. For Lithuanian and Slovenian girls, the technology they find most difficult is programming, while for Portuguese girls this is not the case. This can be explained by the fact that the Portuguese school curriculum includes programming in Scratch in the ICT subject. 3D modeling, on the other hand, is considered by most to be the hardest. This can be understood as it is still something new for all girls. It is still a technology that is not available in most schools, so it represented a first experience for most. The youth workers were asked more organizational questions. Most of them consider that: • This program helped girls to understand the importance/benefits of technology in their daily lives. • The most appropriate training format for this program is a mixed from online and face-to-face. • The role of the youth worker is very important to motivate the girls. • The program could be integrated into girl’s non-formal education and run as a club. Table 59.6 Classification of the technologies between easier and harder by the girls Lithuanian
Slovenia
Portugal
Easiest Hardest Easiest Hardest Easiest Hardest Cloud computing (WIX, MetaMask, 11 OpenSea, DataWrapper)
5
11
3
2
2
6
12
8
14
5
1
12
2
9
6
3
2
3D modeling and printing (Fusion 360, Vectary)
5
8
8
10
2
3
Augmented reality (SketchAR, Assemblr EDU)
9
4
12
5
5
0
12
3
7
6
1
1
Programming (Scratch, MIT app inventor) Phishing
Artificial intelligence (SnapChat, HitPaw)
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59.5 Conclusions The development of the pilot test allowed each partner to test suitable conditions considering the local context. This allowed us to validate the material provided for each of the languages. However, some situations were identified that need to be reformulated: • Challenge 16 and 15—there is a need to redefine the tasks to be requested to girls, since few girls completed the challenges, many mentioned not being able to complete. • Challenge 13 and 11—need to redo some materials just for language details and replace a digital tool that does not work as initially intended. The main difference observed in the pilot test applied in the various countries is in the way the work with girls was done. While in Portugal the option was to invite the girls to carry out the challenges autonomously, they could ask for help both from the project team and from the youth workers they were with daily. The other groups have chosen either to create regular sessions with the girls or to insert the challenges into activities already planned with girls’ groups. This enabled more girls to complete the challenges in the groups in the countries with regular sessions. Youth workers agreed that the challenges created can be inserted into girl’s nonformal education and run as a club. The pilot test proves that regular work can attract more attention from the girls, so the integration in a non-formal context can be a solution for a better dissemination of the project. The possibility of choice in the face of different challenges in the same technology is something that should be maintained. As shown by the results with the Slovenian girls, compared with the others, when there is a possibility of choice the probability of finding an activity where they enjoy using technology can be higher. The project will now continue with two more IOs: • IO4—Digital Female Role Model Campaign aiming to tackle and demystify existing negative stereotypes about computer science and technology. • IO5—Guidebook aims to describe implementation of the online program in formal and non-formal educational settings and provide recommendations on how to ensure access to sustainable digital support and mentorship of the youth workers for girls interested in a course. • Local dissemination event. At the end of the SparkDigiGirls project, we intend to make the course and the guidebook available so that they can be used by institutions that want to attract girls to the STEM area. With this, we hope to contribute so that more girls enter the STEM field, thus contributing to greater equity in a professional area with higher income. Only in a more extended study will it be possible to understand if access to different technologies at these ages can effectively guide the choice of girls.
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Acknowledgements This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Agreement number: Project No. 2020-1-LT02-KA227-YOU-007294
References 1. Noonan, K., Laffarge, S.: Why Europe’s Girls aren’t Studying STEM. Microsoft (2017). https:// news.microsoft.com/uploads/2017/03/ms_stem_whitepaper.pdf. Accessed 05 Mar 2023 2. OECD: Chapter 8. Do boys and girls differ in their attitudes towards school and learning? In: PISA 2018 Results Volume II, OECD (2018). https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org//sites/f54b6a75-en/ index.html?itemId=/content/component/f54b6a75-en. Accessed 05 Mar 2023 3. Lambrecht, A., Tucker, C.E.: Algorithmic bias? An empirical study of apparent gender-based discrimination in the display of STEM career ads. Manag. Sci. 65(7), 2966–2981 (2019) 4. Neerukonda, M., Chaudhuri, B.: Are technologies (gender-)neutral? Politics and policies of digital technologies. ASCI J. Manag. 47(1), 32–44 (2018) 5. Eurostat: ICT specialists workforce continued to grow in 2021 Eurostat (2022). https://ec.eur opa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/4/4f/V1_Distribution_of_persons_employed_as_ ICT_specialists_by_sex%2C_education_attainment_level_and_age%2C_2012_and_2021_% 28%25%29.png. Accessed 05 Mar 2023 6. Marques, Manso, Grineviˇci¯ut˙e, Danielien˙e: The use of digital technologies to develop girls’ creativity: paths and practices in Greece, Lithuania, Portugal, and Slovenia. In: Rocha, A., et al. (eds.): WorldCIST 2022, LNNS 469, pp. 512–52 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03104819-7_49
Chapter 60
Mobile App Prototype for Citizen Science: Toward the Development of Complex Thinking Jorge Sanabria-Z , Jose-Martin Molina-Espinosa , Inna Artemova , and Berenice Alfaro-Ponce
Abstract Mobile technology applied to citizen science has helped renovate its meaning and educational impact. Numerous apps collect data, identify species, monitor the environment, and educate and disseminate science, which can impact citizens’ engagement and complex thinking, among other aspects. However, developing citizen science-related apps is not yet considered a priority or standard to address in the design stage. Therefore, we present a case study on developing a citizen science mobile app whose prototype was evaluated through the eight components of the Threshold for Citizen Science projects. We offer the results of an online focus group that answered trigger questions regarding the app’s objective and the development of complex thinking. The results showed the limitations and strengths of the prototype, leading to a better consideration of the components of the threshold for a more comprehensive impact on its subsequent development. By documenting this case study and the evaluation process, we intended to support other studies seeking to apply the threshold to evaluate the impact of citizen science mobile applications.
60.1 Introduction The ubiquity of mobile phones has primarily driven a resurgence of the citizen science movement. One of the basic features of mobile applications is data collection, where users take pictures of phenomena or events (e.g., birds, clouds, insects, etc.) that they upload to the web for further analysis [7]. More in-depth, some applications use artificial intelligence to identify the data collected and provide citizens with information about the phenomenon or event [5]. Leveraging the sensors available in smartphones, J. Sanabria-Z · B. Alfaro-Ponce (B) Tecnologico de Monterrey, Av. Gral Ramon Corona No. 2514, 45201 Zapopan, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] J.-M. Molina-Espinosa · I. Artemova Universidad de Guadalajara, Av. La Paz No. 2453, 44130 Guadalajara, Mexico © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_60
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some apps allow monitoring of environmental conditions and reporting real-time anomalies in their immediate environment [9]. Another useful function is the GPS capability, with which one can note the movement of animals using coordinates and thus produce data to study cloud movement patterns [10]. Mobile gamification apps maintain user interest by rewarding achievements, generating competition scoreboards, or launching challenges for users to solve [13]. Mobile apps can disseminate citizen science projects and their benefits while educating citizens and advancing science. However, how do we assess the potential impact of a citizen science mobile app on its target citizens? In this article, we present the case study of the prototype design of a mobile app to monitor and report urban community citizen science phenomena, considering its holistic impact. To assess its design and performance, we applied the Threshold for Citizen Science Projects Framework by Sanabria-Z et al. [15], a typology designed to determine the comprehensive impact of projects from their conception. First, we show the creative process of the citizen science mobile application developed by higher education students. Next, we report the results of a focus group, where the participants expressed their opinions about the mobile application. Finally, we interpret the focus group results through the lenses of the threshold framework.
60.2 Current Context of Tech-Based Citizen Science Citizen science, understood as a form of volunteering for research projects, is now revamped with the help of portable technologies. Increasingly, the application of new technologies benefits citizen science research. On the one hand, we can highlight the excellent access for citizens to use their mobile devices to participate in large global projects. On the other hand, machine learning algorithms classify millions of data citizens collect [2]. The result is a cascade of projects that seek to harness the help of citizens to advance science. However, there are also limitations regarding the expectations of citizens and researchers and the reality behind the projects. Despite the significant advances in the integration of technologies in citizen science projects, the development of the individual still presents challenges for its enhancement. A study by Sanabria-Z et al. [16] focused on the engagement and social impact of tech-based citizen science initiatives and found that the development of complex thinking remains restricted to passive participation. From the perspective of levels of engagement introduced by Haklay [6], this indicates that technological integrations in citizen science still focus on the lowest level of participant engagement, known as crowdsourcing, whose typical role involves collecting data without further analysis or interpretation. Thus, we need to incorporate within the design process of a tech-based citizen science initiative the expected characteristics of its impact on both the individual and their environment from conception.
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60.2.1 Assessing the Impact of Citizen Science Projects Numerous organizations have promoted programs to support societal development through citizen science initiatives, which may serve as frameworks for evaluating their impact. UNESCO [17] has presented its open science recommendation to guide good practices in using and disseminating data. On the other hand, the United Nations Environment Program [18] aims to generate strategies to achieve the 2030 sustainable development agenda. Moreover, there are groups such as the European Citizen Science Association [4], which seeks to democratize science and has generated the ten principles of citizen science, reflecting the ideal practices expected to be achieved by any related initiative. Even considering these global frameworks, narrowing down tools specifically for citizen science projects is worthwhile. In addition to focusing on environmental impact, citizen science project assessment should also consider participants’ individual development. In search of a typology to comprehensively assess the impact of citizen science projects, Sanabria-Z et al. [15, 16] developed the Threshold for Citizen Science Projects, which integrates eight components to monitor in three progressive dimensions. The eight components are (a) Context awareness, participant understanding of the problem addressed; (b) Citizen engagement, protocols and procedures for keeping participants safely involved; (c) Infrastructure leverage, improving participants’ interactions with the environment; (d) Technological innovation, use of technology to support operation and dissemination of data; (e) Educational innovation, adopting sustainable processes for strengthening lifelong learning; (f) Outreach and scale, measuring the scope of the project; (g) Network building, the participating stakeholders of the quintuple helix; and (h) Complex thinking, enabling participants to develop complex thinking through challenges posed by wicked problems. Considering complex thinking as a priority in the current educational context is of great value in this typology.
60.2.2 Development of Complex Thinking in Educational Tech-Based Projects The twenty-first century has brought a refocusing on the competencies to develop to align with technological advances. At the outset, the World Economic Forum [20] promoted the twenty-first-century skills comprising the axes of foundation literacies, competencies, and character qualities, aligning to support lifelong learning. Different perspectives derive from this vision, such as the one adopted by the University of Cambridge [1] in its guide for language teachers and education managers, “The Cambridge Life Competencies Framework,” covering the competencies of creative thinking, critical thinking, learning to learn, communication, collaboration, social responsibilities, and emotional development. In the context of Education 4.0 in higher education, the definition of complex thinking by Ramírez-Montoya et al. [14] is noteworthy, it comprises critical, innovative, scientific, and systemic thinking, which
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address the emerging ICT features of connectivity, digitalization, virtualization, and datafication. Notably, the complex thinking sub-competencies considered in different frameworks indicate their relevance when designing new tech-based devices for educational purposes.
60.3 Methodology The research method in this case study is a focus group, as group interaction supports the exploration and clarification of individual and shared experiences [12] and corresponds to the primary goal of this research stage: to evaluate the mobile app’s features, its strengths, and areas of opportunity. The focus group members had professional relations with different universities, having experience working with topics on technologically enhanced education. The balance of member profiles led to the coproduction of meaning, open negotiation, and discussions, which are the critical conditions for this method [19]. The focus group met through videoconferencing to avoid assembly difficulties due to time and location constraints [8]. Since the procedure was virtual, specific considerations [11] aimed to ensure the results reliability of the focus group: (1) Choice of hosting platform; (2) Adjustment of the resource materials and the protocol; (3) Planning the focus group logistics. The platform chosen was Zoom, as it allows the connections of many members and is highly familiar to all the members of academic communities, in part due to the recent pandemic. The materials organized through slides, an interactive wireframe of the mobile app, and a short video presented during the Zoom meeting aimed at providing a clear idea of the app’s intended purpose and design. The moderator was one of the lead researchers of the project, who introduced the topic and scope of the mobile app. A video showed the mobile app navigation, where the developers presented the flow; they did not participate in the group discussion. An email invitation sent to the participants of the focus group established the protocol: first, the participants were exposed to the presentation of the project; then, the same questions were presented to each member of the focus group; at the wrap-up, the participants received feedback. The logistics planning involved seven people, the maximum number of people considered feasible to fulfill the one-hour event. During the Zoom meeting, participants were asked two main questions after hearing the presentation: (1) Was the purpose of the citizen science mobile app clearly understood? Their responses followed, and then (2) What is your opinion on how this citizen science mobile app may help to advance science? Fig. 60.1 presents the design features and the expected user path through a wireframe, which the focus group members saw during the meeting. A higher quality image is also available in the following link: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7968679.
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Fig. 60.1 Wireframe of the mobile app navigation (developed in Figma)
60.4 Results The results presented mostly link to the two trigger questions in the focus group regarding the purpose of the mobile app and its advancement of science. The objective of the focus group process was threefold: first, to verify the design of the app; second, to identify strengths and weaknesses in the user interface and user experience (UI/ UX) of the target citizens; and third, to analyze the focus group results based on their actual correspondence to the eight-component typology.
60.4.1 Citizen Science Mobile App Development One main characteristic that encourages using a mobile app is the functionality that allows users to perform tasks or activities nomadically. From the citizen science perspective, the app can serve as a vehicle for creating mass knowledge, i.e., allowing users to enter information (crowdsourcing) that later converts into group knowledge (wisdom of crowds) that offers them scientific value and supports them in decisionmaking. An essential aspect of the functionality is the users’ privacy since, on the one hand, it is vital to validate that the information entered into the app is accurate, but on the other hand, the private information of the users must be respected, meaning, not to expose who published certain information. The validity of the data can be verified through a committee with the support of AI algorithms.
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60.4.2 Focus Group for the General Assessment of the Mobile App The interaction between the app users makes the graphical interface essential to maintain their interest in the continuous or frequent use of the app. Presenting an app with a friendly UI/UX interface to users will lead to more data collected. The UI prioritized images over text so the user could relate the functionalities graphically. Similarly, we created dashboards to summarize essential data for the user community. One topic the participants repeatedly mentioned was the adequate selection of projects or problems in which they could participate. Keeping a catalog updated and relevant to user communities was one of the main ideas from the focus group session.
60.4.3 Mobile App Impact According to the Threshold Framework To analyze the contributions of the focus group participants, we applied thematic analysis, preordinately deciding the themes [3] per the description of the Threshold for Citizen Science Projects’ eight components. Table 60.1 presents the summary of the thematic analysis results. Three columns correspond with the order proposed by Sanabria-Z et al. [16] in the typology of the eight components, without this signifying any priority in their classification. The first column corresponds to the component, and the next two to the opinions of the focus group participants regarding the mobile application in terms of strengths and opportunities, respectively. As observed in the thematic analysis, the main areas of opportunity for the citizen science mobile app are developing network building and complex thinking. Other opportunities lie in technological and educational innovation, outreach, and scale.
60.5 Conclusion In this study on the development of mobile apps for citizen science, the objective was to know the opinions about their scope in terms of design, interface, and experience through the typology of eight components of the Threshold for Citizen Science Framework Projects [16]. We applied the focus group findings to each of the eight components of the typology. As expected in a first evaluation of a technological prototype, we experienced a greater inclination toward opportunities to improve the device. The researchers and developers welcomed these comments on design and potential features (e.g., geolocation) to continue the progress of the citizen science mobile app. From another perspective, the role of complex thinking and the construction of networks were the
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Table 60.1 Strengths and opportunities of the mobile app prototype according to the Threshold for Citizen Science Projects [15, 16] components, as reported by the focus group Threshold component
Strengths
Opportunities
Context awareness
1. The user understands that 1. The users may be confused by the broad the app aims to collect scope of the thematic environmental information about problems and have difficulty associating the environmental problems. problem of their interest with this thematic The images that appear in if it is not presented in the app the app provide clear examples of possible problems
Citizen engagement
1. The users are inspired and 1. The users cannot transcend to leading motivated to participate positions in the projects, as the app’s because they contribute to interactive dynamic is unclear solving the problems of their interest and concern
Infrastructure leverage
1. The app is accessible to any user
1. The app provides the interactive infrastructure in this case. However, the distribution of roles of its users is not precise, and it is unclear how the participants can interact with each other
Technological innovation
1. The app presents an easy-to-use tool for disseminating information to the participants
1. The app lacks specialized software to collect and analyze data to meet contextual requirements 2. The app presents an opportunity to incorporate artificial intelligence to process the data, prioritizing some problems and distributing the results among the citizens and agents that receive and use the data
Educational innovation
1. The app provides 1. To support lifelong learning, it is crucial to opportunities for consider the general profile of each citizen: gathering large amounts the design and the path of the app, and the of data to create reusable possible problems to report, should be educational resources and straightforward and adaptable to any citizen contribute to lifelong of whatever educational background, age, or learning career 2. The way to submit the information should be flexible: for example, if the user cannot take a picture for security reasons
Outreach and scale
1. The app can reach many scientists who require up-to-date local data
1. The outreach and scale of the project are not clear. What is the app’s proposal? To report things, to get information, to contribute to a project? How many citizens can be engaged? 2. It is necessary to ensure that the procedure for data reporting results in reliable and useful data (continued)
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Table 60.1 (continued) Threshold component
Strengths
Opportunities
Network building
1. The app can provide users 1. It is not clear what kind of network with information for connections could be built through decision-making: for participation in the app and what elements of example, an area to avoid the quintuple helix are possible to reach an for camping accord with political, social, environmental, economic, or educational systems 2. It is unclear who receives the information, how it gets distributed, and how a citizen can benefit from an app 3. If the app does not meet its objective, it is unclear how it could complement the existing tools and procedures in citizen science 4. It is not clear who will receive the data 5. It is unclear what roles will have people who receive the data in the app and how their profiles will differ from other users and citizens who provide the data 6. It would be desirable for users to keep their profiles closed (in case of reporting sensitive data, for example, concerning security)
Complex thinking
1. The app proposal 1. The app presents an opportunity for suggests a committee that georeferencing so that users can perform will review the data that searches based on direct exploration on the the citizens will report map and help with its presence 2. It would be desirable for the users to browse the information in the app to understand the in the app, guiding the interactions and cases reported topics of interest for all 3. It would help to have a visualized map to users guide the user into the niche of their particular interest, which would contribute to understanding how the topics interconnect 4. Complement the news with scientific resources, like articles or dissemination products 5. The images, maps, and visualization tools on the map should provide the users with the option of understanding the scale of the identified problems (city level, state level, country level) and thus provide them with the necessary knowledge and background for recognizing the issues at the local level
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elements with the most significant opportunities, coinciding with the findings of another study by Sanabria-Z et al. [15, 16]. Overall, this study contributes to related research by demonstrating how a citizen science typology can be applied to assess the potential impact of specific technology at the source of its development. Moreover, it emphasizes the opportunity to integrate the complex thinking component from the beginning in technology-based research. Some limitations include the scope of the prototype presentation, where the focus group members were restricted to observing and could not test the prototype directly. Future research may feature a working prototype usable on evaluators’ mobile devices with more time to experiment, test, and reflect on many interaction aspects. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the technical and financial support of Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, in the production of this work. We are grateful to the development team of Tecnologico de Monterrey students that allowed the creation of the mockup of the mobile application: Juan Pablo García Malta, José Avir Gariel Guerrero, and Estefanía Pérez Yeo. Funding The authors acknowledge the financial support of Tecnologico de Monterrey through the “Challenge-Based Research Funding Program 2022.” Project ID # I001-IFE001-C1-T1-E.
References 1. Cambridge University: The Cambridge Framework for Life Competencies (2020). https://www. cambridge.org/elt/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Life-Competencies-Digital-final.pdf 2. Ceccaroni, L., Bibby, J., Roger, E., Flemons, P., Michael, K., Fagan, L., Oliver, J. L.: Opportunities and risks for citizen science in the age of artificial intelligence. Citizen Sci Theor Pract 4(1) (2019). https://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.241 3. Cohen, L., Manion, L., Marisson, K.: The ethics of educational and social research. In: Research Methods in Education. Taylor & Francis Group (2018). https://www.routledge.com/ResearchMethods-in-Education/Cohen-Manion-Morrison/p/book/9781138209886 4. ECSA: Ten Principles of Citizen Science (2015). https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/XPR2N 5. Garcia-Soto, C., Seys, J.J.C., Zielinski, O., Busch, J.A., Luna, S.I., Baez, J.C., Domegan, C., Dubsky, K., Kotynska-Zielinska, I., Loubat, P., Malfatti, F., Mannaerts, G., McHugh, P., Monestiez, P., van der Meeren, G.I., Gorsky, G.: Marine citizenscience: current state in Europe and new technological developments. Front. Mar. Sci. 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021. 621472 6. Haklay, M.: Participatory Citizen Science. In Haklay, M., Hecker, S., Bowser, A., Makuch, Z., Vogel, J., Bonn A. (eds.) Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society, and Policy, pp. 52–62. UCL Press (2018). https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787352339 7. Lee, A.T.K., Nel, H.: BirdLasser: the influence of a mobile app on a citizen science project. Afr. Zool. 55(2), 155–160 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/15627020.2020.1717376 8. Liamputtong, P.: Focus group methodology: principles and practice. SAGE Publications Ltd (2011). https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473957657
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9. Luna, S., Gold, M., Albert, A., Ceccaroni, L., Claramunt, B., Danylo, O., Haklay, M., Kottmann, R., Kyba, C., Piera, J., Radicchi, A., Schade, S., Sturm, U.: Developing mobile applications for environmental and biodiversity citizen science: considerations and recommendations. In: Multimedia Tools and Applications for Environmental & Biodiversity Informatics, pp. 9–30. Springer International Publishing (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76445-0_2 10. Masto, N.M., Robinson, O.J., Brasher, M.G., Keever, A.C., Blake-Bradshaw, A.G., Highway, C.J., Feddersen, J.C., Hagy, H.M., Osborne, D.C., Combs, D.L., Cohen, B.S.: Citizen science reveals waterfowl responses to extreme winter weather. Glob. Change Biol. 28(18), 5469–5479 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16288 11. Menary, J., Stetkiewicz, S., Nair, A., Jorasch, P., Nanda, A.K., Guichaoua, A., Rufino, M., Fischer, A.R.H., Davies, J.A.C.: Going virtual: adapting in-person interactive focus groups to the online environment. Emerald Open Res. 3, 6 (2021). https://doi.org/10.35241/emeraldop enres.14163.2 12. Morgan, D.L., Spanish, M.T.: Focus groups: a new tool for qualitative research. Qual. Sociol. 7(3), 253–270 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987314 13. Ottaviano, Beltrán-Jaunsarás, Teriús-Padrón, García-Betances, González-Martínez, Cea, Vera, Cabrera-Umpiérrez, Waldmeyer: Empowering citizens through perceptual sensing of urban environmental and health data following a participative citizen science approach. Sensors 19(13), 2940 (2019). https://doi.org/10.3390/s19132940 14. Ramírez-Montoya, M.S., Castillo-Martínez, I.M., Sanabria-Z, J., Miranda, J.: Complex thinking in the framework of education 4.0 and open innovation—a systematic literature review. J. Open Innov. Technol. Market Complex. 8(1), 4 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3390/JOITMC801 0004 15. Sanabria-Z, J., Alfaro-Ponce, B., González Peña, O.I., Terashima-Marín, H., Ortiz-Bayliss, J.C.: Engagement and social impact in tech-based citizen science initiatives for achieving the SDGs: a systematic literature review with a perspective on complex thinking. Sustainability 14(17), 10978 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3390/su141710978 16. Sanabria-Z, J.C., Molina Espinosa, J.M., Alfaro Ponce, B., Vycudilíková Outlá, M.: A threshold for citizen science projects: complex thinking as a driver of holistic development. RIEDRevista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia 25(2) (2022). https://doi.org/10.5944/ried. 25.2.33052 17. UNESCO: UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science OPEN SCIENCE (2021). https://une sdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379949.locale=en 18. United Nations: The Untapped Potential of Citizen Science to Track Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (2019, October 19). https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/unt apped-potential-citizen-science-track-progress-sustainable-development 19. Wilkinson, S.: Focus group methodology: a review. Int. J. Soc. Res. Methodol. 1(3), 181–203 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.1998.10846874 20. World Economic Forum: Industry Agenda New Vision for Education: Fostering Social and Emotional Learning through Technology (2016). https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_ New_Vision_for_Education.pdf
Chapter 61
Is the Human-in-the-Loop Concept Applied in Educational Recommender Systems? María Viola , Daniel de Queiroz , and Regina Motz
Abstract The concept of “human-in-the-loop” (HITL) has gained increased attention in the field of educational recommendation systems (ERS). ERS aims to provide personalized learning experiences by suggesting relevant learning resources or activities to individual learners. HITL in ERS involves incorporating human intervention and decision making into the recommendation process, leveraging the unique capabilities of both human and machine algorithms. This approach recognizes the importance of human expertise, preferences, and context in the learning process and seeks to enhance the effectiveness and relevance of recommendations by actively involving users in the recommendation process. In this paper, we explore the concept of HITL in ERS by performing a systematic review of the literature. The systematic review examines the key components of HITL in ERS, including the integration of human feedback, the role of machine learning algorithms, and the impact on the overall recommendation process. The findings of this systematic review provide insights into the current state of HITL in educational recommendation systems and highlight areas for future research and development in this promising field.
61.1 Introduction We live in an age where changes occur in such a short period unknown until now. These changes are mainly marked by significant growth of innovations and extensional use of artificial intelligence. Within this context, it became more notorious for learners to use educational recommendation systems to personalize their learning experience. Educational recommendation systems (ERS) are software tools and techniques providing suggestions for items to be helpful to a user, where “item” is the M. Viola · R. Motz (B) Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay e-mail: [email protected] D. de Queiroz Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_61
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general term used to denote what the system recommends, for example, learning objects or activities [1]. They can automatically select and suggest personalized items using learner information such as preferences, needs, context, and history of transactions, using machine learning and data mining techniques to achieve their goals [2]. However, from the teachers’ point of view, in some cases, this information is not good enough to capture educational institutions’ didactic and pedagogical guidelines. An interesting approach to introduce the teacher’s perspective in educational recommendation systems would be to allow teachers to intervene in the algorithm that produces the recommendations with additional criteria or data. This kind of intervention, more direct than the common feedback, is called HITL. It is a promising concept that can bridge the gap between the automated recommendations generated by educational recommendation systems (ERS) and the pedagogical expertise of teachers. HITL refers to a paradigm where teachers are actively involved in the recommendation process, providing additional criteria or data, or making decisions that can influence the recommendations. This allows teachers to customize the recommendations according to their pedagogical guidelines, ensuring that the recommendations align with the specific needs and goals of the educational institution. By incorporating the teacher’s perspective, HITL in ERS has the potential to enhance the relevance, quality, and effectiveness of the recommendations, leading to improved personalized learning experiences for students. In this paper, we explore the concept of HITL in ERS, performing a systematic review and analyzing the recent academic bibliography. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 61.2 presents the HITL concept. Section 61.3 explains the methodology used in the systematic review. Section 61.4 shows the analysis of the collected data. In Sect. 61.5, the discussion and results of the study are presented.
61.2 The Human-in-the-Loop Concept Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) is a concept that involves the interaction between humans and machines to improve system performance. Its main objective is to train prediction models by integrating human knowledge and experience to contribute to correcting inaccuracies in machine predictions. HITL approach varies among researchers, with some emphasizing the quality impact of human interaction, while others focus on supervision and feedback, or reducing the cost of labeling data by integrating human knowledge and experience. According to Arambepola et al. [3], HITL is the combination of both human and machine intelligence supporting the creation of machine learning (ML) models; the goal of HITL is to provide intelligent and efficient automation for system improvements through human intervention [4]. Arambepola et al. define HITL as a method that allows users to interact with the system and provide extra data and criteria to evaluate its performance or “fix” potential problems that may arise in real-world applications, such as equity assessments and biases. Similarly, Grønsund and Aanestad
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[5] view HITL as a way of integrating human supervision to handle exceptions and improve the system’s performance. On the other hand, Wu et al. [6] propose a different perspective on HITL, which focuses on the objective of training prediction models at a minimum cost, integrating knowledge and human experience. According to Wu et al., the goal of HITL techniques is to reduce the cost of labeling data by combining the power of automated methods with human knowledge and expertise. In summary, HITL is a concept that involves the interaction between humans and machines to train prediction models to improve system performance. Its approach varies among researchers, with some emphasizing the quality impact of human interaction, while others focus on supervision or reducing the cost of labeling data by integrating human knowledge and experience. In this paper, we explore the concept of HITL in ERS, through experiences or applications that describe potential implications for improving personalized learning experiences.
61.3 Systematic Review Methodology We first defined the main research question to guide our search: How are educational recommendation systems and HITL techniques related? Then, we conducted the review process following the PRISMA guidelines [2] in three steps (Fig. 61.1). Step 1 Identified the relevant sources to search and write the search criteria. We selected three sources, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Xplore (IEEE),1 the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM),2 and Google Scholar (GS).3 We adjusted the search criteria based on the syntax and options of each database. To create the search string, we used the concepts of system recommender, education, and HITL as a basis. We adjusted the search syntax according to each database’s search conditions and options, as outlined in Table 61.1. We initially screened the search results, excluding irrelevant articles based on their titles and abstracts. A spreadsheet was used as a tool to analyze the references and keep track of the articles on each step to obtain the final list. Zotero was also utilized to share all references and to have the option to go over the literature again. Step 2 Screening. To obtain a collection of references that can give some answers to the research question, we follow the exclusion and inclusion criteria that are depicted in Table 61.2. The GS search yielded 249 articles, while IEEE returned zero and ACM returned 840 articles. For the IEEE database, we conducted another search using “Full text only” as the matching condition for the keyword, which returned 433 matches. 1
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/. https://dl.acm.org/. 3 https://scholar.google.com/. 2
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Fig. 61.1 Studies identification Table 61.1 Databases search string Dbase
Search query
Applied filters
Google
[education OR educational] AND human-in-the-loop AND [“recommender systems” OR “recommendation systems” OR “recommender system” OR “recommendation system” OR “system recommender” OR “system recommendation”]”
Anywhere in the article
ACM
[[[Full Text: recommend*] AND [Full Text: system*]] OR [[Full Text: system*] AND [Full Text: recommend*]]] AND [Full Text: education*] AND [Full Text: “human-in-the-loop”]
Full text, PDF format, research articles, journals
IEEE Xplore
(“All Metadata”:recommend* system* OR “All Metadata”:system* recommend*) AND (“All Metadata”:human-in-the-loop) AND (“All Metadata”: education)4
All metadata
IEEE Xplore
(“Full Text Only”: education*) AND (“Full Text Only”:human-in-the-loop) AND (“Full Text Only”: system* recommend* OR “Full Text Only”: recommend* system*)
Full text only
4 “Metadata: Includes the abstract, index terms, and bibliographic citation data (such as document title, publication title, author, etc.)”. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplorehelp/searching-ieee-xplore/ command-search#summary-of-data-fields.
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Table 61.2 Exclusion and inclusion criteria for systematic review Exclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria
1. Studies exclusively focus on specific recommendation techniques 2. Publications that are not open access 3. Studies that are not specific to the education domain, such as studies on ethics, traffic, smart cities. 4. Studies exclusively on recommendation systems without human intervention 5. Studies that fall under content types such as surveys, tutorials, newsletters, reports, posters, and abstracts
1. Research articles in the domain of education and recommender systems (RS) that apply HITL techniques 2. Systematic Reviews or Mapping Reviews related to RS, HITL, and education 3. Articles in the English language 4. Text formats like PDF 5. Open or public access articles
During Step 2, at the second screening, articles obtained from the first screening were combined in a spreadsheet, and any duplicates were eliminated. After applying exclusion and inclusion criteria, each article was reviewed to determine its relevance to the education and recommendations systems domain, with a specific focus on HITL. As depicted in Fig. 61.1, the partial resulting list included only six articles. Step 3 Included articles and final list. We select cross-referenced literature applying the reference chaining technique as described by Gao et al. [7], based on their titles from previous literature that are considered potentially relevant to the study. We include seven works in the selection. From the result of 13 articles, we review their abstracts, keywords, and conclusions, remaining 7 papers to the final list. The articles that made it to the final list are [3, 4, 8–12].
61.4 Data Analysis The articles from the final list are analyzed. We read the full text of each article and extracted relevant information, including the characteristics of the selected articles, the methods and techniques used in the recommender systems, and the outcomes of the studies. Oktavia et al. [11] propose an interactive RS that connects with social media LinkedIn to help higher education institutions find the right learning partner for a course. It uses an ontology to model the learning topic, partner competency, and relations to future job and potential partners. The system connects with LinkedIn and matches the course with partner competency to find the right match. This makes it easier for universities to find qualified partners that align with the learning topic. The system can be integrated with any university’s learning management system to find partners based on their learning material. Fu et al. [9] propose a Conversational Recommendation System (CRS) framework that considers the user’s preferences captured in natural language and their preference history to avoid biased recommendations based on the popularity of certain elements.
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In this framework, humans indirectly intervene by providing feedback to the system without directly manipulating its rules. By incorporating the HITL technique, the proposed framework balances the recommendation performance with the popularity of items, helping to avoid (or minimize) the “long-tail” effect. The research conducted by Fotopoulou et al. [8] focused on proposing a modeling approach that combined recommender systems (RS) and reinforcement learning (RL) techniques to design an interactive system that considers the social and emotional characteristics of students and uses feedback to improve the system’s recommendations. The involvement of educators in the HITL process plays a significant role in the effectiveness of the recommendations. The RS suggests educational activities to educators, who are responsible for deciding which activities are appropriate for their students, ensuring that the recommendations are aligned with the needs and preferences of the educational group. The work presented in [12] and [4] is a specialization of HITL. Rodríguez-Triana et al. [12] propose a HITL process named teacher-in-theloop in the customization of Multimodal Learning Analytics (MMLA) solutions that uses data from different sources such as video, audio, and text to better understand the learning process. Educators and students are involved in the process of deciding what data should be analyzed, when, and how. The RS uses algorithms to analyze different types of data and provide insights into the learning process. In this work, educators and students are involved in the design, development, and evaluation of the MMLA system. By doing so, it increases the educator´s trust and agency in the interpretation and use of the results, by being better informed about the trustworthiness of the results. In this scenario, educators can make better decisions based on the analyses. Holzinger et al. [4] state that there is evidence that in the field of health, health personnel still outperform machine learning algorithms in certain tasks due to their instantaneous medical instincts. To address this issue, they propose a new paradigm in medicine, called “doctor-in-the-loop”, where RSS receives information about real patients, treatment results, and general information from the doctor as a way of incorporating the knowledge of expert users, to support automated decision making. The work presented in [3] and [10] is a review of HITL. Arambepola and Munasinghe [3] discuss the concept of HITL in the context of AI, and its limitations. HITL is a design approach in which human interacts in the training and optimization of the models using human feedback. This approach involves the integration of human expertise and feedback to improve the accuracy and efficiency of algorithms, by reducing errors, improving model performance, and enhancing the overall user experience. However, the authors highlight certain drawbacks of this approach such as, such as decision making with emotional bias, the possibility of human errors, and the potential for slowed decision making and failure to take immediate action. Mosqueira-Rey et al. [10] provide a comprehensive overview of the new types of interactions between humans and machine learning algorithms, defined as human-inthe-loop machine learning (HITL-ML). The authors go into detail on various forms of interaction, including active learning and interactive machine learning, and how humans can play a crucial role as teachers in different approaches to ML.
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About the proposed research question, we highlight their approach to AIX techniques aims to produce models that are easier to interpret, allowing for better understanding and trust in AI systems. First the introduction of the concepts “usable AI” and “useful AI” to describe the relationship between humans and AI models beyond cooperation in learning. Humans expect the system to be easy to use and useful in achieving their goals. It includes both aspects: usability in the learning process and usability in the use of the system itself. On the other hand, useful AI is a solution that can provide the functions required to satisfy the target users’ needs in their specific domain. And second the importance of adding human experts to the learning loop to improve knowledge and connect machine learning techniques with explainable AI. They mention areas like healthcare, where compensating for the black-box effect of most machine learning systems is crucial. In summary, from the systematic analysis carried out, few results are obtained for RS, education, and HITL. After studying the works in depth, five criteria are defined to classify them: area, application domain, HITL technique used, human involvement, and purpose of HITL. Table 61.3 shows the result of the classification. Table 61.3 Works classification References
Area
Domain
HITL technique
Human involvement
Purpose
[3]
HITL
N/A
Interactive
Feedback
Avoid bias Rare and limited data Transparency and trust
[12]
HITL
Education
LA
Design, evaluation
Accurate and improve recommendations Transparency and trust
[10]
HITL
N/A
MMML
Multiple ways
All those named here
[9]
HITL
Movies
CRS
Feedback
Avoid bias
[13]
RS
Education
Interactive
Feedback
Accurate and improve recommendations
[4]
RS
Health
Interactive
Feedback
Accurate and improve recommendations Fix recommendations Rare and limited data
[11]
RS
Education
Interactive
Feedback
Accurate and improve recommendations
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As shown in Table 61.4, the study of selected works in various dimensions has yielded the following results. In terms of the area of study of the works, HITL and RS are relatively evenly split at 57% and 43%, respectively. Moving on to the dimension of the application domain, it is observed that 60% corresponds to the field of education, 20% to healthcare, and 20% to the movie industry. Regarding the HITL techniques used, a majority of 58% of the works propose interactive systems, while the remaining three options, namely “Crowdsourcing”, “Active Learning”, and “Supervisory Control”, are evenly split at 14% each. In terms of how humans interact with these systems, it is observed that feedback is applied in 84% of them. Finally, it is interesting to note that out of the five criteria for applying HITL in systems, the one with the highest percentage is “Accurate and Improve recommendations” at 36%, while those that follow it with the same percentage (18%) are “Avoid Bias”, “Introduce rare and limited data”, and “Transparency and Trust”. Table 61.4 Study dimensions Articles
Total
Area HITL
[3, 9, 10, 12]
4
RS
[4, 11, 13]
3
Total
7
Domain Education
[11–13]
3
Health
[4]
1
Movies
[9]
1
Total
5
HITL techniques Interactive
[3, 4, 11, 13]
4
CRS
[9]
1
LA
[12]
1
ML
[10]
1
Total
7
Purpose Avoid bias
[3, 11]
2
Introduce rare and limited data
[3, 4]
2
Transparency and trust
[3, 12]
2
Accurate and improve
[4, 11–13]
4
Recommendations fix errors
[4]
Total
1 11 (continued)
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Table 61.4 (continued) Articles
Total
Human involvement Feedback
[3, 9, 4, 11, 13]
5
Design, evaluation and evaluation
[12]
1
Total
6
61.5 Conclusion ERS plays an important role in automatically selecting and suggesting personalized items based on student information such as preferences, needs, context, and transaction history. These systems utilize machine learning and data mining techniques to achieve their objectives. Additionally, ERS serves as a valuable tool for educators to address information overload and tailor learning experiences to the unique needs of each student. The systematic review and further analysis of the selected research work have provided valuable insights into the field. Firstly, it is surprising to note the limited amount of research focusing on the intersection of RS, education, and HITL. Then, the analysis emphasized the significance of incorporating human expertise and feedback to enhance the accuracy, efficiency, and usability of AI systems. Furthermore, based on the results obtained after categorizing the works according to different dimensions, it can be observed that most of the studies proposed the involvement of feedback as a form of human intervention in the HITL process, aiming to ensure accurate and improved recommendations. However, there is no clear solution presented on how to address the limitation of ERS in effectively capturing the pedagogical guidelines and practices of educational institutions. To bridge this gap, an interesting approach would be to enable educators to directly intervene in the recommendation algorithm by incorporating additional criteria or data. Acknowledgements The research presented in this publication has been carried out with the support of the National Agency for Research and Innovation (ANII) in Uruguay, under the code FSED_2_2021_1_169701.
References 1. Kantor, P.B., Ricci, F., Rokach, L., Shapira, B.: Recommender systems handbook. Springer, Heidelberg, Germany (2011) 2. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). http://pri sma-statement.org/. Last accessed 21 Mar 2013 3. Arambepola, N., Munasinghe, L.: Human in the loop design for intelligent interactive systems: a systematic review. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Applied and Pure
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M. Viola et al. Sciences (ICAPS 2021-Kelaniya), Vol. 1, Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, pp. 225 (2021) Holzinger,A., Calero Valdez, A., Ziefle, M.: Towards interactive recommender systems with the doctor-in-the-loop (2016). https://doi.org/10.18420/muc2016-ws11-0001 Grønsund, T., Aanestad, M.: Augmenting the algorithm: emerging humanin-the-loop work configurations. J. Strateg. Inf. Syst. 29, 101614 (2020) Fu, U., Xian, Y., Zhu, Y., Xu, S., Li, Z., de Melo, G., Zhang, Y.: HOOPS: human-in-the-loop graph reasoning for conversational recommendation. In: Proceedings of the 44th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR’21), pp. 2415–2421. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY (2021). https://doi.org/ 10.1145/3404835.3463247 Gao, F., Luo, T., Zhang, K.: Tweeting for learning: A critical analysis of research on microblogging in education published in 2008–2011. Br. J. Edu. Technol. 43(5), 783–801 (2012). https:// doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01357.x Fotopoulou, E., Zafeiropoulos, A., Feidakis, M., Metafas, D., Papavassiliou, S.: An interactive recommender system based on reinforcement learning for improving emotional competences in educational groups. In: Kumar, V., Troussas, C. (Eds.), Intelligent Tutoring Systems. ITS 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 12149. Springer (2020). https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-030-49663-0_29 Fu, Z., Xian, Y., Geng, S., de Melo, G., Zhang, Y.: Popcorn: human-inthe-loop popularity debiasing in conversational recommender systems. In: Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Information & Knowledge Management (CIKM’21), pp. 494–503. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY (2021). https://doi.org/10.1145/3459637.3482461 Mosqueira-Rey, E., Hernández-Pereira, E., Alonso-Ríos, D., et al.: Human in-the-loop machine learning: a state of the art. Artif. Intell. Rev. 56(3), 3005–3054 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10462-022-10246-w Oktavia, T., Sujarwo, S.: Interactive recommender system for identifying learning partners. Int. J. Emerg. Technol. Adv. Eng. 11, 72–77 (2021). https://doi.org/10.46338/ijetae0621_09 Rodríguez-Triana, M., Prieto, L., Martínez-Monés, A., Asensio-Pérez, J.I., Dimitriadis, Y.: The teacher in the loop: customizing multimodal learning analytics for blended learning. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK’18), pp. 417–426. ACM (2018). https://doi.org/10.1145/3170358.3170364 Tejeda-Lorente, A., Bernabe-Moreno, J., Porcel, C., Galindo-Moreno, P., HerreraViedma, E.: A dynamic recommender system as reinforcement for personalized education by a fuzzy linguistic web system. Procedia Comp. Sci. 55, 1143–1150 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2015. 07.084
Chapter 62
Managing the Inclusion of Students with High Cognitive Performance and/ or Dual Exceptionality, from Virtual and Face-to-Face Collaborative Spaces Emilio Sagredo-Lillo and Ignacio Salamanca-Garay
Abstract Chile, like other countries, has implemented a strategy aimed at educational inclusion in regular classrooms, as committed in the Salamanca Declaration. However, it is important to note that the inclusion process has been focused on needs and deficits, without considering the natural diversity and differences in each individual. Particularly, gifted students with high cognitive performance and dual exceptionality are not considered in this process, and it is precisely this group that will be investigated through the representations of teachers and school administrators. In response to the process of educational inclusion, a strategy of collaborative work has been developed, supported by empirical evidence from research in the field. Due to the lack of time for face-to-face collaborative work, virtual collaborative work has been used as a substitute. Based on the above, the present study aimed to analyze the representations of teachers and school administrators regarding the development of face-to-face and virtual collaborative work. The method used was a multiple case analysis, through semi-structured interviews and thematic content analysis. The results show that both teachers and school administrators are focused on the needs and deficits for educational inclusion, overlooking the work with students with high abilities and confusing them with students who simply have good grades. Virtual collaborative work is used to compensate for the lack of time for working with students with special educational needs, without considering the need to recognize current neurodiversity and specifically academic talents, as required by Decree 83 in Chile.
E. Sagredo-Lillo (B) Facultad de Educación, Universidad San Sebastián, FONDECYT 11220432/2022, 4080871 Concepción, Chile e-mail: [email protected] I. Salamanca-Garay Centro de Investigación en Educación, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Universidad Bernardo O´Higgins, 8370993 Santiago, Chile e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_62
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62.1 Introduction 62.1.1 Inclusion of Students with Special Educational Needs in the Regular Classroom The process of including students with special educational needs (SEN) in regular classrooms has been promoted internationally over the past decades [24]. It is important to clarify that the scientific community related to this topic currently criticizes the term SEN, and it is more accurate to focus on support needs and neurodiversity. In studies conducted in Chile and abroad [7, 21], inclusive education is seen as a means to achieve equity, contributing to heterogeneity and universal access to education [1, 2]. However, the problem is that in educational contexts, the focus is not always on working with universality [11, 17]. Evidence shows that both public policies and theory and empirical research directly associate inclusive education with SEN in regular classrooms [21]. This is the main mistake with which inclusion is approached, as inclusion is a much more complex process that is not limited to traditional needs [11]. More specifically, studies [17] have found that inclusive education has not been effective so far, as it mainly focuses on specific problems of students [21]. In contemporary societies, inclusion should not be an option, but rather a right for students [8, 16] and an obligation for public policies. High abilities. It has been noted that inclusive education is much more than focusing specifically on the special educational needs of students [9, 11]. Decree 83 [16] in Chile requires universal work with students in schools. Therefore, it is necessary to consider students with high cognitive abilities as well, since due to their characteristics and personal identity, these individuals may perform cognitively better or learn with less effort than their peers [9]. It is not necessary that this exceptional performance be in all executive functions, but they may excel in one or more, while maintaining an average performance in others, and some may have high cognitive performance in all areas [9, 10]. The Chilean education system practically does not consider the high abilities of students in its formal processes of school inclusion through integration programs [20, 21]. Regarding traditional special educational needs and high abilities, there is a particularly relevant issue to address, which is the existence of students with dual exceptionality [10]. These are students who have been diagnosed with SEN but also possess undiagnosed high cognitive abilities. Collaborative Work (CW) is a fundamental tool to address the diversity of learning in today’s heterogeneous classrooms [20, 21]. Achieving inclusive education requires collaborative and multidisciplinary work [8], which adequately plans this joint effort and finds the complement between regular and special education teachers, taking advantage of their experiences and knowledge. CW is closely related to the concept of teamwork. In schools with Special Education Programs (SEP), professionals who engage in CW for diversity support are referred to as the SEP team [14]. According to Hargreaves and Fullan [12], collaborative professional communities drive educational establishments toward
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achieving goals and targets, making collaborative work key to teamwork. An essential aspect in the development of CW is effective communication among the professionals involved. It is necessary to have good communication between regular and special education teachers so that they can coordinate and complement their efforts effectively. Information Technologies. The theory of information can be summarized as a system that includes an input, processing, an output, and feedback, to loop back to the input [23]. This can be applied to any type of data processing that, when automated in computer systems, undergoes binary processing [13]. The main differentiation among these systems lies in the output, which can vary depending on the need, ranging from texts, numbers, graphs, sounds, images, etc. [22]. Furthermore, a combination of all these outputs can be generated, especially in current times. For example, the academic writing process we are currently undertaking may seem very simple to us, but this assumption is largely due to our familiarity with these digital writing assistance systems [27], as an extension of our communication and linguistic skills. The theory of information did not come out of nowhere; the authors drew on how our own brain processes, organizes, and systematizes data and stimuli [23]. For example, we hear, see, or feel (input), then the brain processes or decodes, understanding these stimuli as the results of calculations, images, and sensations (output), and subsequently providing feedback through a new approach or cognitive responses. The representation of reality that is achieved through cognition is very similar to the process of information representation. Linking the study with information and communication technologies. For collaborative work among teachers, and especially to address the lack of time, virtual collaboration has become relevant, even more so during and after the COVID19 pandemic. Teachers have recognized the importance of time management for the development of appropriate and successful Distance Collaborative Work (DCW) [21]. Due to the limited available time, they mention that they need to collaborate in informal spaces, and ICTs are essential to compensate for this lack of time. In this regard, it is important to note that in educational management, ICTs help diversify the channels and means of communication, as well as address the lack of time for face-to-face interaction. They contribute to the didactics of the learning-teaching process [3] for all students in a course, considering the heterogeneity of the current educational context. Thanks to ICTs, teachers can interact, contributing to the generation of an organized and systematized process [5, 6]. Furthermore, it is also possible to optimize work by facilitating the entry and archiving of information in digital platforms that can be accessed more quickly and from anywhere [18]. Information and communication management through computer platforms is considered indispensable in today’s organizations and is practically part of the habitual and logical behavior in contemporary organizations. The importance of technologies in the educational world is undeniable. In fact, [15] has outlined and described twenty ICT skills for learning that students in today’s society should possess, divided into four dimensions. It is crucial that all teachers become familiar with these skills, not only because [15] is promoting them, but also out of personal conviction and adaptability to Knowledge Management [5], and because if teachers do not master these tools, it is difficult for students to develop
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Groups
Interviews
Focus groups
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and use them for well-designed and targeted educational purposes. It is common to hear that the new generations are digital natives [19]; however, students primarily navigate social media and do not necessarily use computer tools as effective and active technical means; they tend to use technologies as an automated communication system, just a click away [5]. If work in inclusive educational contexts has been mediated by a hyper-focus on needs and deficits, it can be thought that for progress toward inclusion based on the true meaning of the word, and especially in addressing the needs of gifted and twice-exceptional students, not incorporating attention to real and inevitable diversity in our classrooms into collaborative work, both in-person and virtual, would be a shortcoming.
62.2 Objectives and Method Analyze the development of management processes and collaborative work associated with the inclusion of students with high abilities and dual exceptionality through face-to-face and virtual classroom work, in subsidized educational establishments in the province of Concepción, Biobío region, Chile. The methodological approach was through grounded theory, using processes of open, axial, and selective coding.
62.2.1 Participants G1: Educational leaders from Educational Organizations with Special Education Programs (SEP) in four educational establishments. G2: Special education and regular teachers who engage in collaborative work for inclusive education of students with special educational needs in four educational organizations with SEP. Refer to Table 62.1, the final sample of the research can be observed.
62.2.2 Dimensions of Interest Educational inclusion, high abilities, dual exceptionality, face-to-face and virtual collaborative work.
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62.2.3 Information Sources 1: Semi-structured interview: Interviewing is an appropriate technique for multiple case studies [25]. For the purposes of this research and to fulfill the objectives of the study, the semi-structured interview will be used as the instrument [26]. The semistructured interview is an interview that, while having a predefined script, is not a closed-question questionnaire that prevents interaction and qualitative depth. Validation or research credibility. Various techniques for validating qualitative approaches were used, although the literature suggests having at least 3 [26]. Content validation. The content of the script is validated by constructing it through thematic content analysis [4]. Validation by supervisors or senior researchers [25, 26]. Consensual validation. Seeks the opinion of other stakeholders directly involved in the research, avoiding relying solely on external judges with an academic degree of doctorate but who may not be familiar with the specific problem of the qualitative research in question.
62.3 Results Educational leaders are interested in the School Integration Program (PIE), but they are not getting involved extensively. They are unaware of the obligation to work with all diversity. Teachers are focusing on working with students with special educational needs (SEN), neglecting academically gifted students. They mention a lack of training in university. Lack of time is cited as a response, and virtual collaborative work emerges as a solution. However, there are still deficiencies in competencies for working with Web 2.0 technologies, even less so in the use of artificial intelligence, as teachers report making too many mistakes. Refer to Table 62.2, an example of a summary of axial and selective coding can be observed. Regarding teachers’ representations of working for the inclusion of students with high cognitive performance and twice-exceptionality in face-to-face and virtual contexts, most of them place children, students, and inclusion in a prominent position. However, they are still strongly influenced by the concept of needs and practically exclude the attention to academically gifted students from their discourse, even when asked directly. See Fig. 62.1. Similar to teachers, the word “academically gifted” or “high abilities” is hardly considered by educational leaders, even though it is mentioned that such students exist in the school. See Fig. 62.2. When directly searching for word frequencies to create categories, both teachers and educational leaders have many similarities. They mainly associate academically gifted students with high grades and acknowledge that such cases have always existed in the school. However, there is no discourse associated with specific practices that
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Table 62.2 Example of summary for axial and selective coding Interview quotes
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Code
Integration
The truth is that only the coordinator sees the PIE I care a lot about having PIE, it’s necessary for inclusion, although I don’t understand the law
1
Lack of knowledge about PIE (Saturated) Lack of understanding of the law
Educational leaders do not get involved in the PIE. They are unaware that Decree83 requires working with all diversity in the classroom
Of course, there are talented 2 students, but the law doesn’t help us work with them. I try to help talented students by adding extra exercises, for example Students with high abilities have good grades Unfortunately, our main work is with students in PIE, the university doesn’t teach you how to work with gifted students or whatever they are called Lack of teacher training There is no time to work with them, virtual work helps us, but not all colleagues know much, despite the pandemic
Deficit-focused (saturated) good grades (saturated) Time management and virtual work
Teachers work for the average, without generating activities for academically gifted students or stimulating the development of new talents. They mention a lack of teacher training in this area They do not recognize them as gifted students, assuming it is related to grades. There is little time and virtuality is useful for this, but there is still a lack of competency development
Source Own elaboration Fig. 62.1 Word cloud of teachers’ responses. Own elaboration using N-VIVO 14 software
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cater to these students, nor do they associate it with virtual support, which they use for students with traditional educational needs. See Figs. 62.3 and 62.4.
Fig. 62.2 Word cloud of educational leaders’ responses. Own elaboration using N-VIVO 14 software
Fig. 62.3 Word tree of academically gifted, teachers. Own elaboration using N-VIVO 14 software
Fig. 62.4 Word tree of academically gifted, educational leaders. Own elaboration using N-VIVO 14 software
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When both teachers and school administrators are asked about collaborative work, they elaborate on it without connecting it to a theoretical model or even to technical guidelines for collaborative work. They approach it more from an intuitive perspective. Figure 62.5 shows how collaborative work generates multiple discursive connections. Virtual collaborative work is particularly emphasized when it is associated with lack of time. However, when asked about specific actions and their connection to working with students with high abilities, very few connections can be seen. What is done appears to be disorganized and intuitive, as shown in Figs. 62.6 and 62.7.
Fig. 62.5 Word tree for collaborative work among teachers. Created using N-VIVO 14 software
Fig. 62.6 Word tree for virtual among teachers. Created using N-VIVO 14 software
Fig. 62.7 Word tree for virtual among school administrators. Created using N-VIVO 14 software
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62.4 Discussion and Conclusion Inclusion seeks to recognize that every person is different, equal in dignity and rights, but not identical to others, beyond Special Educational Needs, as pointed out by Molbaek et al. [17]. Schools develop their management to integrate students based on needs associated with increased school funding, without generating relevant actions for the attention of high abilities and all the diversity present in educational establishments, following the trend of scientific evidence [11, 14]. The aforementioned authors also refer to talented students who do not feel attended to and sometimes do not even recognize themselves as such, and teachers do not understand high abilities, seeing them as synonymous with good grades, a finding that also emerged in the present research. Although it is recognized that virtual spaces are used to address the lack of time, in line with findings by Refs. [21, 25], gaps still persist, and the situation worsens considering the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, with even less consideration for addressing and/or stimulating academic talent and high abilities. High abilities are invisible, mentioned to exist in the school context but nothing specific is mentioned about actions taken in this regard, even when specifically asked if the management of virtual collaborative work and time takes into consideration the needs of high abilities, there are few discursive connections. They state that virtual and in-person collaborative work is mainly useful for Special Educational Needs, but always viewed from a perspective of need and deficit. They mention that talented students learn on their own, with little help, which demonstrates a total lack of understanding regarding what high abilities and academic talent actually are [25]. Some teachers resist having high-ability students in their classrooms even with all the necessary precautions taken, and there is a lack of collaborative culture with the scientific community. They participate in interviews, but when it comes to observation, they feel somewhat attacked. School leaders claim that the law does not consider working with students with dual exceptionality and/or high abilities, contradicting what is required by decree 83 [16], which refers to the need to work with universality. The finding regarding dual exceptionality is significant, as neither teachers nor school leaders interviewed understand what it means. The lack of teacher training for the inclusive educational context is mentioned in other articles [21], which undoubtedly serves as a warning for both teacher training universities and public policies. Based on the above, this research revealed a lack of training for working with students with high abilities and the use of virtual collaborative spaces to address diversity in an organized and planned manner. To conclude, certain limitations and projections of the research process will be added. The main limitation was the resistance of teachers to allow access to their educational space and the fact that interviewing other members of the educational community was not part of the main objective. This led the teachers to presume that their work was being monitored, which was not the intention. Another aspect that complicated the research was the assimilation of the return to face-to-face instruction;
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over time, we adapted to it. As a projection, it is worth mentioning that this area is considered in the Fondecyt 11220432/2022 project, which provides government funding to continue investigating and contributing new findings. This is necessary due to the need to move toward real inclusion processes in the educational context, beyond hyper-focusing on needs and deficits, which is currently predominant.
References 1. Ainscow, M.: Developing Inclusive Schools: Ideas, Proposals and Experiences to Improve School Institutions. Narcea, Madrid (2001) 2. Ainscow, M., Booth, T., Dyson, A.: Improving Schools, Developing Inclusion. Routledge, London (2006) 3. Area-Moreira, M., Hernandez-Rivero, V., Sosa-Alonso, J.: Models of educational integration of ICTs in the classroom. Comunicar 47(24), 79–87 (2016) 4. Caceres, P.: Qualitative content analysis: an accessible methodological alternative. Psicoperspectivas 2, 53–82 (2003) 5. Careaga, M., Avendano, A.: Cybernetic curriculum and knowledge management: foundations and reference models. Ediciones UCSC y RiL, Concepcion (2017) 6. Careaga, M., Fuentes, C., Molina, J.: The 5-R model (2018) 7. Duran-Gisbert, D., Climent, G.G.: Teacher training for inclusive education: a process of professional development and school improvement to address diversity (2017) 8. Echeita, G.: Inclusive education: smiles and tears. Aula Abierta 46(01), 17–24 (2017) 9. Gomez-Leon, M.I.: Loneliness in high intellectual ability: risk factors and coping strategies. Rev. Psicoterapia 31(117), 297–311 (2020) 10. Gomez-Arizaga, M.P., Truffello Palau, A., Kraus Friedmann, B.: Parental perceptions regarding the academic and social experience of their children with high intellectual abilities. Perspectiva Educacional 58(3), 156–177 (2019) 11. Hansen, J.H., Carrington, S., Jensen, C.R., Molbaek, M., Secher Schmidt, M.C.: The collaborative practice of inclusion and exclusion. Nordic J. Stud. Educ. Policy 6(1), 47–57 (2020) 12. Hargreaves, A., Fullan, M.: Professional Capital. Morata, Madrid (2014) 13. Krishnan, K.G., Vanathi, P.T.: An efficient texture classification algorithm using integrated discrete wavelet transform and local binary pattern features. Cogn. Syst. Res. 52, 267–274 (2018) 14. MINEDUC: Supreme Decree 170 of 2009 that sets norms for determining students with Special Educational Needs who will benefit from subsidies for special education. Chile (2009) 15. MINEDUC.: ICT skills for learning. Enlaces, Center for Education and Technology, Ministry of Education, Chile (2012) 16. MINEDUC: Approves criteria and guidelines for curricular adaptation for students with special educational needs in early childhood and basic education (Decree 83) (2015) 17. Molbaek, M., Hansen, J.H., Lassen, M., Schmidt, M.C.S., Jensen, C.R.: Approaching inclusion as social practice: processes of inclusion and exclusion. J. Educ. Soc. Res. 8(2), 9–19 (2018) 18. Moreno-Crespo, W., Paredes-Salazar, N.T.: ICT management and education quality, measured by standardized school evaluations. Rev. Libre Empresa 12(1) (2015) 19. Prensky, M.: Digital natives, digital immigrants. On Horiz. 9(5) (2001) 20. Rodríguez, F., Ossa, C.: Assessment of collaborative work among teachers in primary schools in Tomé, Chile. Estud. Pedagógicos 40(2), 303–319 (2014) 21. Sagredo, E., Bizama, M., Careaga, M.: Time management, collaborative teacher work, and inclusive education. Rev. Colomb. Educación 78, 343–360 (2020)
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22. Sagredo, E., Salamanca, I., Castro, R.: Critical meta-review of the link between technologies, information technology, and cognitive development of individuals and organizations. J. Positive Sch. Psychol. 2535–2544 (2022) 23. Shannon, C., Weaver, W.: The Mathematical Theory of Communication. The University of Illinois Press, USA (1949) 24. UNESCO.: The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education, Madrid (1994) 25. Valles, M.: Qualitative techniques for social research. Methodological reflection and social research. Editorial Síntesis Madrid (1999) 26. Valles,M.S.: Focus groups and other related techniques in qualitative techniques of social research. In: Methodological Reflection and Professional Practice. Síntesis, Madrid (1997) 27. Yamaç, A., Öztürk, E., Mutlu, N.: Effect of digital writing instruction with tablets on primary school students’ writing performance and writing knowledge. Comput. Educ. 157, 103981 (2020)
Chapter 63
Open Platform Prototype for Technocreative Labs: Case-Based Assessment to Enhance Complex Thinking Jorge Sanabria-Z , Inna Artemova , and Berenice Alfaro-Ponce
Abstract Emerging Industry 4.0 demands for the continuous reskilling and upskilling of researchers and employees indicate the need to develop complex thinking in higher education students through training in applied research projects at the international level. This work uses the research case methodology to showcase the creation of a virtual technocreative platform prototype through sequential activities for the progressive development of complex thinking at the undergraduate level in international partnership research between Mexico and Canada. The study process applied the observation method. The findings were: (a) research activities promote the development of complex thinking; (b) a logical sequence of contextualized activities can enhance complex thinking; and (c) international collaboration triggers complex thinking. The work emphasized innovative thinking through supervised interdisciplinary work and students acquiring inquiry skills through real-life problem-solving. The highly contextualized, sequenced activities can be replicated in other educational projects that involve international collaboration.
63.1 Introduction Student participation with researchers in joint Education 4.0 initiatives nurtures scientific interest and competencies. Several studies show that higher education students’ active involvement in research activities helps them develop sub-competencies of complex thinking, including approaches such as collaborative activities [21, 24], research-based learning [19, 34], project-based learning [30], and inquiry-based J. Sanabria-Z · B. Alfaro-Ponce (B) Tecnologico de Monterrey, Av. Gral Ramón Corona No 2514, 45201 Zapopan, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] I. Artemova Universidad de Guadalajara, Av. La Paz No. 2453, 44130 Guadalajara, Mexico © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_63
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learning [33, 36]. However, developing these sub-competencies is particularly difficult in online systems, as in the case of virtual technocreative lab environments. Given their novelty, researchers and students are still not fully integrated with their design and implementation [17]. The lack of cross-disciplinary relationships and a holistic justification of objectives reduce their impact on benefiting the innovation ecosystem and future entrepreneurs. Additionally, documented evidence of practical activities for students to develop complex thinking sub-competencies is lacking [27]. Such documentation should be strictly contextualized for future replication in similar contexts. Contemporary industry requires specialists willing to continuously update their knowledge and develop a wide range of various skills. Organizations should incorporate lifelong learning strategies that provide employees with upskilling and reskilling [20]. In this light, cooperation between academicians and students to prepare for Industry 4.0 [5] is vital, along with promoting interdisciplinary and international research [22] starting at the undergraduate level, targeting the development of inquiry skills for everybody, not just future scientists at postgraduate levels. Thus, this article presents the case study of deploying a functional prototype of a technocreative virtual lab as an open personal learning environment (PLE) conducted by higher education students in coordination with researchers to fulfill various activities that promote complex thinking sub-competencies. The article presents evidence of the PLE and the results of the participants’ experience.
63.2 Theoretical Framework 63.2.1 Transformation of Education Through Digital Technology Technological advancement has fundamentally changed education; unanticipated, impactful events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have posed significant educational challenges. The global quarantine forced educational systems to adopt strategies that eventually sped up changes in their pedagogical approaches [6, 10, 26], making Education 4.0 more significant. Thus, integrating digital technologies into learning and personalizing education are now fundamental for individual development. Considering this, personalized learning platforms are crucial instruments for adjusting the educational process to each student’s unique demands. Technology offers new options for customized learning with more flexible and adaptable learning settings [12, 31]. Ratheeswari [29] emphasizes that technology has enabled access to various online learning resources, promoting collaboration and open science. Accordingly, learning platforms help create environments for students that are more adaptable, flexible, collaborative, and interactive.
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Personalized learning environments (PLE) directly benefit formal education by enriching the teaching–learning process through them, and their impact is also relevant in non-formal and lifelong education. Authors such as Torres Kompen and Costa [39] emphasize that although PLEs do not openly state their contributions to lifelong learning, it is simple to distinguish that their objectives aim to strengthen the relationship between lifelong learning and non-formal education. According to Torres Kompen and Costa [39], the characteristic of PLEs that impact lifelong learning involves how the user assumes a leading role as the person responsible for their learning process, leads individuals to manage each of the elements for a better learning experience. In formal education, although the student is the central figure with specific responsibilities in administering their PLEs, the teacher will always have a participatory role in validating these environments [12]. Thus, personal learning platforms are an essential educational training tool for users in formal and non-formal educational settings.
63.2.2 Technocreative Labs In the last decade, the proliferation of digital technology has given rise to the emergence of technocreative labs [32]. These are places where digital fabrication is encouraged using advanced tools and machines. A virtual technocreative lab (VTL) is a digital alternative to physical labs, allowing for the development of various projects through co-creation platforms that offer the convenience of access from anywhere in the world through a device connected to the Internet. The easily accessible VTL has several components: user registration, communication and information spaces, 3D simulation, learning and teaching areas, a project gallery, and cloud connections. Its key features include educational tools with both paid and free versions, simulations, responsiveness, adaptability, collaboration, information sharing, and community building. VTLs fall into various classifications, such as those that serve as didactic tools and educational, scientific, informative, simulation, and learning categories.
63.2.3 Complex Thinking in Higher Education There is a latent need to prepare higher education students to face the demands of a complex and changing world. Complex thinking enables understanding reality in all its intricacy, recognizing the interconnection and interdependence of phenomena at different levels of analysis where interdisciplinarity allows the integration of various alternatives [2, 23]. It must be developed at multiple educational levels [3, 9] because it allows students to reason for solving problems, applying scientific, systemic, critical, and innovative skills [11]. Using contextualized complex authentic life situations is a helpful strategy for enhancing complex thinking [16]. Although
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numerous research studies describe methods for developing components of complex thinking, few document real-life experiences involving transforming these strategies into educational activities with students. According to Forsman [14], complex thinking is a cognitive system with multi connections acting together to solve complicated situations. In the educational field, Ramírez-Montoya et al. [28] have defined it as the meta-competency comprising subcompetencies of critical, innovative, scientific, and systemic thinking. According to Grussendorf and Rogol [15], critical thinking combines skills, attitudes, and processes to progress from discovery to discernment. It is context-dependent [13]. It refers to the ability to question and examine assumptions to see oneself, and one’s learning in a larger context [15, 38]. Passig and Cohen [25] describe innovative thinking as occurring when creativity transcends into a tangible form for a specific platform. In turn, A. Suryansyah et al. [1] posit scientific thinking as the process of identifying the optimal solution to a problem, undergoing both induction and deduction, as well as analytical and logical phases. As for systemic thinking, Talanquer et al. [37] state that it arises when seeking to understand complex phenomena through reasoning by analyzing, selecting, integrating, and evaluating ideas and concepts. Thus, complex thinking presents a metacognitive landscape of particular interest for approaching real-life problem-solving.
63.3 Methodology 63.3.1 Case Study: Nova-Plat Platform Development Context This work used the case study research methodology [4] to build a virtual technocreative lab during an international research project between the University of Guadalajara in Mexico and the University of Quebec in Rimouski, Canada. Undergraduate students were provided context, data sources, and researchers’ support, making the international collaborative engagement an additional factor for enhancing complex thinking [18]. To support the research and to implement pedagogical practices for developing complex thinking in students, the call had the following requirements: (1) basic competency in English and/or French languages, (2) thesis development or research protocol on a topic aligned with the project, supervised by the researchers; (3) data collection in creative spaces of Jalisco, Mexico; (4) availability to travel to Canada for data collection; (5) six hours online work per week and a monthly face-toface meeting; and (6) to be restless, creative, social, interested in open and social innovation. The six selected undergraduate students participating in the project studied the following majors: (1) Organizational Management (3 students); (2) Computer Science (1 student); (3) Educational Development (1 student); and (4) Graphic Design (1 student). This research applied the unstructured observation method in natural settings [8] due to its unique ability to gather data from naturally occurring social situations [35],
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which is the context of the present research, and document verbal, non-verbal, and physical aspect of the activities [7]. The physical component of the current study was a virtual laboratory, which resulted in the evolution of the proposed activities to develop complex thinking and identify the variables that influence its development in students. We designed a sequence of activities aligned to several educational situations suitable for the project. Researchers ensured that all students participated in the activities for developing critical, scientific, systemic, and innovative thinking. The successful output of the proposed sequence of activities allowed us to conclude that the proposed didactical design is effective for students to develop complex thinking for solving real-life problems.
63.4 Results 63.4.1 Activity Plan to Enhance Students’ Complex Thinking Several planned activities selected for the students by researchers supported the project’s development. All the activities had one or more purposes for enhancing complex thinking development. Kick-off meeting. Initially, the researchers organized a meeting at the University of Guadalajara with a visiting professor to discuss the project’s main objectives, receive feedback on the planned activities, and share their views on research methods. Also, they presented and discussed the research protocols of the intended thesis, e.g., “Role of technocreative labs to reduce school dropout in young people from 15 to 19 years of age” and “Comparative analysis of the graphic elements used in 3 digital platforms of free virtual technocreative platforms,” making relevant contributions to develop the research. Students had to reflect on topics for their research protocols, think of the questions to ask the visiting researcher and maintain openness and readiness for conversation. The dominant sub-competency at this stage was critical thinking, as the students’ challenge was to argue the relevance of their topics, considering the macro context of technocreative labs and relating them to the national and local microcontexts. Scientific thinking came next since students had to imagine optimal solutions from their projects to solve the identified problems. This type of thinking could not dominate because the projects were at the initial stage; the following research stages were gathering data, observing, and making assumptions about the results. Protocol presentation. The next planned activity was a follow-up meeting at another University of Guadalajara campus with a visiting partner researcher from Canada. The meeting occurred in their creative lab, a transcendent activity for the students because it was their first contact with such a place. Besides presenting their research protocols, students had the additional challenge of presenting in a foreign language,
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reflecting on their proposals in the technocreative lab, and making their first contextual observations. This activity and the sub-competencies targeted previously led to systemic thinking at an early project stage. Visits to technocreative labs. Subsequent activities targeted visiting different technocreative labs in Guadalajara with a group of researchers and collaborators from Canada to document their characteristics, tools, and processes. They conducted interviews with users and managers of the ecosystems visited, based on the instrument elaborated by the researchers and introduced to the students. Students also applied personal instruments they developed to address their topics. This process enhanced the students’ learning about data collection techniques and research instruments, with scientific and systemic thinking as the primary development goal. The same stage repeated during their visit to Canada. Mainstreaming activities. The project concluded with the following integrative activities to fulfill the research objectives: (1) presentations of the personal research protocols in Canada by the students; (2) a description of the physical technocreative labs in Mexico and Canada; (3) a comparative analysis between the physical and virtual labs; and (4) a collaborative work on the open virtual lab prototype that would incorporate users’ best practices and possibilities derived from observations in the physical and virtual labs. Table 63.1 summarizes the educational events in the research project with students and their associated activities for enhancing complex thinking and its sub-competencies. Figure 63.1 shows the final result of the PLE developed by the students. It is a functional, open prototype that accumulates different virtual labs focused on digital fabrication.
63.5 Discussion 63.5.1 Findings from the Nova-Plat Project The meta-analysis of the case study conducted between students and researchers identified the project benefits of developing an open virtual lab prototype. (1) Research activities promote the development of complex thinking. As shown in the flow of Table 63.1, the different activities encouraged the development of the sub-competencies of complex thinking. These results coincide with [11] stating that applying scientific, systemic, critical, and innovative thinking skills contributes to problem-solving. Moreover, these real-life settings confirm what Halpern and Dunn [16] stated as leading to complex thinking. Overall, the format presented in this case study demonstrates the usefulness of planning research activities to trigger students’ complex thinking.
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Table 63.1 Activities to enhance complex thinking in the virtual lab project Educational event within the research project
Activities planned to enhance complex thinking and its sub-competencies
Meeting with a visiting national professor at the local campus
– Justify the relevance of personal projects (critical thinking) – Understand their projects in a macro and micro context (critical thinking) – Imagine optimal solutions (scientific thinking) Meeting with a visiting professor from Canada – Enhance intercultural competency and at another local campus in the context of a understanding of the macro and micro technocreative lab contexts of the research project (critical and scientific thinking) – Familiarize with the context and first observations in the technocreative lab (systemic thinking) Visits to technocreative labs in Mexico – Interviews with users and managers; data collection and interpretation (scientific and systemic thinking) Visits to technocreative labs in Canada – Interviews with users and managers; data collection and interpretation in an international context (scientific, systems, and critical thinking) Personal research protocol presentations in Canada
Comparative analysis of physical and virtual technocreative labs Development of the open virtual platform prototype for technocreative activities
– Reasoning through a deeper understanding of the context and personal research protocols (complex thinking involving the main themes) – Complex reasoning involving two phenomena (complex thinking through its sub-competencies) – Complex activity, demanding a deep understanding of the phenomena, incorporating the results of the scientific observations, and interdisciplinary work with a tangible outcome (complex thinking through its sub-competencies with an emphasis on innovative thinking)
(2) A logical sequence of contextualized activities can enhance complex thinking. As shown in the results (see Sect. 63.4.1), the activities effectively supported students’ inquiry skills training. The order of the activities proved that complex thinking is a meta-competency that can develop through sequential stages that target its sub-competencies [28]. The exercise of arranging the planning as a program for the participants is a model to apply in other research training contexts. (3) International collaboration triggers complex thinking. Table 63.1 lists the international activities allowing us to observe the students’ exposure to activities that benefited the development of their complex thinking sub-competencies.
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Fig. 63.1 Random pages of the “nova-plat” open platform functional prototype
These correspond to the statements by [18] related to the importance of contrasting different cultural environments to develop complex thinking. Moreover, we found that interdisciplinary and collaborative research [22] is crucial for attaining real-life results visible to students that provide them with project experience in science and Industry 4.0. The simultaneous exposure to external audiences in another language is a challenge that favors the development of competencies.
63.6 Conclusion This case study on personal learning environments for virtual labs focused on training students through applied research. The objective of co-creating a virtual lab with digital fabrication tools resulted in findings about developing complex thinking: (a) research activities promote the development of complex thinking; (b) a logical sequence of contextualized activities can enhance complex thinking; and (c) international collaboration triggers complex thinking. Among the implications for the practice of this study is the potential application of educational events and activities in similar tech-based international settings. From the complex thinking perspective, students can benefit from acquiring sub-competencies of critical, innovative, scientific, and systemic thinking while they experience total immersion in research activities supervised by researchers from different contexts. Regarding implications for research, the case study is helpful as an exploration of how the co-design of digital technologies enables efficient and comprehensive outcomes for higher education students. Furthermore, the bilateral research experience also benefits the researchers’ perspective regarding the enrichment of students’ graduate projects and opens opportunities for future exchange and new joint research projects.
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Limitations of this study regarding the activities performed suggest that they be more diversified and better adjusted to the students’ profiles and previous competencies. Future studies may explore how different participant profiles in various combinations impact the students’ creative, critical, innovative, scientific, and systemic thinking processes. Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the technical and financial support of Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, in the production of this work. We are grateful to the Universidad de Guadalajara students who participated in the project: Mónica Espinoza, Karina Arenas, Erick Borquez, Marcelino Llamas, Daniel Silva, and Jorge Chávez. Funding: The authors acknowledge the financial support of Tecnologico de Monterrey through the “Challenge-Based Research Funding Program 2022”, Project ID # I001-IFE001-C1-T1-E; and of the grant PRODEP (SEP) assigned to the project entitled “Plataforma digital Laboratorio Tecnocreativo Virtual (LTCV)”, both directed by members of the Academic Research Group “Creatividad, Innovación y Emprendimiento” of UDGVirtual (UDG-CA-1058).
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Chapter 64
Enhancing Speaking Skills in a Foreign Language Using Virtual Reality. A Study in a Portuguese Higher Education Institution Graça Chorão , Célia Tavares , and Pedro Duarte
Abstract Fear of public speaking is a problem shared by many people, which means it is also experienced by many students. However, given the circumstances of a student’s life, they gradually discover that they must frequently deal with this fear whenever the need to engage in oral presentations arises. This fear ends up being considerably worse when public speaking is not done in their mother tongue, as is the case in foreign language disciplines. In this regard, and to better prepare students for public speaking, a virtual reality study was conducted with 41 students from a Portuguese higher education institution. The study’s objectives were to ascertain whether virtual reality makes it possible to design an environment that is more comfortable for practicing oral presentations and whether the tool’s performance feedback may potentially have an impact on students’ subsequent performances. It was concluded that, in fact, the use of virtual reality is able to provide clear insights regarding the students’ performance, giving specific instructions on how to change certain aspects, such as voice volume or speech pace, among others.
64.1 Introduction Glossophobia or fear of public speaking is a widely researched topic, since it is one of the most known fears [1]. The psychological and cognitive load of speaking in front of an audience may have negative consequences, namely social anxiety and stress, behavioral limitations, or even physical symptoms such as hand sweating, G. Chorão (B) · C. Tavares · P. Duarte CEOS.PP, ISCAP, Instituto Politécnico Do Porto, S. Mamede Infesta, 4465-004 Porto, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] C. Tavares e-mail: [email protected] P. Duarte e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_64
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shaking hands, or increased heart rate [2]. Overall, glossophobia can also lead to low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy, as individuals may feel that their fear is a sign of weakness or incompetence. This problem worsens when individuals must express themselves in a foreign language and communicate effectively with others. Internal psychological barriers such as fear of failure, fear of judgment, or a lack of belief in one’s abilities can hinder our ability to speak in front of an audience. Considering the context of higher education students, the complexity theory of foreign language development [3] contributes to an additional level of stress as assessment of oral skills is an integral part of the evaluation system. Given the need to address this problem by trying to minimize its negative effects and open new possibilities and new tools to fight the psychological barrier created by real-time in-class audiences, a pilot study was conducted in 2021 by the authors [4]. The main goal was to investigate the effectiveness of using virtual reality (VR) to improve public speaking skills in English with a group of Portuguese higher education students. The study involved two groups of participants: a group that used virtual reality and a traditional classroom group. Both groups received the same amount of instruction and were evaluated on their public speaking skills before and after the instruction. Pre- and post-tests were conducted, and the findings showed that the virtual reality group reported higher levels of motivation and engagement in the learning process, as well as greater satisfaction with the learning experience. The second phase of the study, on which this paper focus, is the qualitative analysis of the feedback provided by the Virtual Speech App for Meta’s Quest2 VR glasses [5]. Thus, and following this study, this paper aims to deepen other important aspects of its development that have not yet been explored in previous publications, namely the feedback provided by the virtual reality tool on students’ performance. The outline of the paper is as follows: Sect. 64.2 provides an overview of the theoretical concepts which underpin our study, namely the use of virtual reality as a way to train public speaking in a foreign language, with its challenges and a description of the experiment that took place. Section 64.3 describes the methods and procedures implemented to address our research question: Can VR assist in the development of essential competences for public speaking? Sect. 64.4 depicts and discusses our findings. Finally, Sect. 64.5 provides conclusions that may be drawn from our study.
64.2 Virtual Reality in Foreign Language Learning Anxiety has proven to be a negative emotional filter for foreign language learning (FLL) [6]. Thus, involving students in a safe affective environment can reduce their anxiety and enhance their speaking skills, which is why the introduction of VR in education has changed second language teaching and learning significantly in more recent years.
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According to research on the use of virtual reality-assisted in language learning (VRALL), students can strengthen their communicative skills in a virtual learning community through production, feedback, immersion, and interaction in a variety of social contexts [7]. By immersing language learners in a simulated environment, VR can provide an opportunity to practice speaking and presenting in a safe and controlled space, without fear of embarrassment or judgment. Many benefits have been reported as to the use of VR for practicing public speaking, namely immersion and realism, instant feedback, increased confidence, just to name a few. Learners can thus acquire and/or enhance oral capabilities, such as those necessary for a job interview, by immersing themselves and acting in simulated VR environments while being subjected to a lower affective pressure associated with making mistakes [8]. To advocate the use of VRALL, its potential benefits have been identified in some studies. It is possible to cite the works of Chen et al. [9], Hua and Wang [10], and Chan [11], just to mention a few. Using VR to practice public speaking in a foreign language is an innovative and effective way to improve language proficiency and communication skills. Furthermore, it can help learners to build confidence and reduce anxiety when speaking in real-life situations and provide instant feedback that may help students to identify areas for improvement and track their progress over time. Overall, VR enhances motivation and engagement by providing a novel and exciting learning experience that captures learners’ attention and interest.
64.2.1 Potential Challenges While using VR to practice public speaking in a foreign language has many potential benefits, there are also some drawbacks to consider. First, cost, accessibility and the lack of authenticity are three factors which may hinder the use of VR. This technology can be expensive, making it inaccessible to some learners and institutions and technical issues such as glitches or connectivity problems, can disrupt the learning experience and create some distress. The lack of authenticity, while helpful to some degree, happens because it provides an environment that is too controlled and that cannot fully replicate the nuances and complexities of real-life interactions. In addition, the differences between immersion and the formation of presence as explored by Cummings et al. [12], supported by the work of y Slater and Wilbur [13] also play a part to the sense of authenticity. Ethical concerns in VR may also pose some challenges when considering issues related to privacy, consent, and representation, for example [14]. Virtual audiences or scenarios may be created based on certain assumptions or biases, which can impact the diversity and inclusivity of the training content. Additionally, collecting and storing data from VR simulations may raise concerns about data privacy and security.
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Finally, not all learners may enjoy or feel comfortable with the VR experience, which could hinder their motivation to engage in language learning and public speaking practice.
64.3 The Experiment: Methods and Procedures The study described in this paper was implemented at the Porto Accounting and Business School (ISCAP), a Portuguese Higher Education Institution. It was carried out in the academic year 2021–2022, during the second semester, and it involved three classes of Business English IV (41 students), from the Administrative Assistance and Translation degree. This experiment was divided into two groups that were attending continuous assessment: the control group in which students carried out the speaking exercises in a so-called traditional way, which is giving a speech to their colleagues in the classroom (19 students), and the VR group (18 students). Each student had 3 min to prepare their speeches after receiving a random statement about a well-known subject. As soon as students felt prepared to speak, they began talking for no longer than two minutes. The VR group performed the same oral tasks as the control group but facing a virtualized audience provided by the Virtual Speech App for Meta’s Quest2 VR glasses. This software provides different virtual scenarios such as conferences, meetings, sales pitch, and classrooms in which individuals can improve professional development training for the workplace. In light of this study, the classroom set was chosen as shown. The researchers reassured both groups that the speech would not be recorded in order to reduce their anxiety and stress during the experiment. Some people are prone to negative emotions and performance anxiety while being recorded, which shows low benefit in doing it [15]. No assessment grade was given for the work for the same reason. On a pre-scheduled day, all students waited for their turn to conduct the task. The room had the appropriate light, and the VR headset was properly placed on their heads by the instructor. Then, each student delivered their speech individually without any distraction from external factors. Thus, following the activity, the VR software delivers a performance analysis based on the following criteria: eye contact and room split, filler words, speaking pace, voice loudness, and listenability. The participants’ performances were recorded in video and then analyzed by the authors. Since nonverbal communication is essential to maintaining audience engagement and establishing a connection with them, the first category, eye contact and room split, is focused on increasing audience engagement. According to the software analysis, “nonverbal communication can have this much impact as the words you say. Your mannerisms, posture, eye contact and how you present yourself can affect the delivery of your message” (virtual speech). Maintaining eye contact is an essential aspect of
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effective public speaking because it fosters a sense of trust and rapport with your audience maintaining their engagement and interest. In regard to speech delivery, it depends on three basic features: filler words, speaking pace, and voice loudness. The first refers to “any word or sound that interpolates the main message of the speaker” [16] (p. 36). Regardless of their cause, filler words affect both the listener’s comprehension and the speaker’s trustworthiness. This software detects the insertion of these linguistic units and provides advice on how to overcome this issue: “Pause if you need a moment to gather your thoughts; if you feel nervous take a deep breath to slow yourself down; practice more with virtual speech to make yourself more comfortable; if you find yourself using filler words in transitional moments write down some transitional phrases you can use instead.” (virtual speech). The program detects the presence of these expressions in order to remove any potential obstacles to the audience’s reception of the message. Considering that the second item, the speaking pace, may have a direct impact on the way audience process information, the tool recommends a speaking rate of 100–160 words per minute. The message’s comprehension may suffer if a value is below or beyond the suggested range. A related point is addressed in the third parameter which is voice loudness. When delivering a speech, the speaker should be audible to the audience which implies speaking loud enough so that people in the rear of the room can hear you. The final parameter refers to listenability in relation to the content and delivery of the speech. Listenability may be used to evaluate the easiness and enjoyability of a spoken utterance. It could also refer to how well someone is able to listen and understand spoken language, such as in the context of language learning or communication skills training. Since the Flesch Model was created particularly to gage the readability of written text, it is not frequently used to evaluate spoken communication. However, virtual speech applied a modified model to evaluate various aspects of oral communication. It analyzes the speaker’s voice using numerous metrics, including sentence and word length, speech structure, speaking pace, tone, and other factors. With the aid of this distinctive score, the speaker can better adapt the speech to the target audience. Following each participant’s speech, the instructors recorded the metrics that the software had registered for later analysis.
64.4 Results and Findings As previously stated, this paper intends to examine the pertinence of using VR for improving students’ oral performance and to highlight its potential advantages for overcoming public speaking fear in a foreign language. Teachers, although certainly able to provide students with key elements of their speaking performance, will have a clear inability to detect finer details, such as nonverbal communication, specific body language, and audience engagement, which are crucial to effective public speaking and clearly influence the interaction. In this
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regard, it is crucial to investigate the data offered by the tool as significant indicators of the aspects to be improved in the students’ overall performance, both in their speaking and in their body language and presence. Hence, according to the data collected from the software, it was possible to observe the following results in the VR group (Table 64.1). Considering that eye contact reveals confidence and credibility and it helps to build trust with the listeners, the results were satisfactory as the majority of the participants registered appropriate levels of eye contact. However, four individuals scored lower than 50% which may indicate low levels of self-confidence or insecurity. As this technology allows for the analysis and measurement of the speakers’ gaze, it may assist the students to improve their visual connection with the audience that would otherwise be very difficult to record and assess purely by human interaction. In addition to maintaining eye contact, the direction of the gaze influences the engagement and inclusivity of all members in the room. Hence, results showed that students varied their gaze to different angles as they were alerted by the software to change their gaze to a different side (see Fig. 64.1). Figure 64.2 shows how the students divide their attention within the room. Apart from participant 2, who gets a “perfect 50/50” score, we can observe that some students can divide their attention, but most of them show a difference of more Table 64.1 VR feedback analysis results Speech duration
Speech duration
Eye contact
Filler words
Participant 1
1 min 29 s
5/10
3 out of 170 words
Participant 2
1min 21 s
7/10
8 out 107
Participant 3
1min 20 s
9/10
7 out of 109
Participant 4
1min 12 s
8/10
4 out of 114
Participant 5
1min 37 s
9/10
3 out of 179
Participant 6
1 min 29 s
4/10
5 out of 162
Participant 7
2 min 4 s
7/10
14 out of 170
Participant 8
1 min 10 s
5/10
4 out of 104
Participant 9
1 min 13 s
9/10
5 out of 148
Participant 10
1 min 20 s
4/10
8 out of 118
Participant 11
1 min 12 s
6/10
4 out of 161
Participant 12
1 min 12 s
8/10
5 out of 134
Participant 13
1 min 13 s
4/10
7 out of 87
Participant 14
1 min 7 s
7/10
4 out of 112
Participant 15
1 min 16 s
8/10
5 out of 119
Participant 16
1 min 10 s
2/10
5 out of 134
Participant 17
1 min 9 s
8/10
2 out of 72
Participant 18
1 min 13 s
1/10
2 out 136
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Fig. 64.1 Participants received a warning when they looked more to one side than the other
than 10%. Participants 1, 6, 9, 11, 17, and 18 show a difference of over 20% when comparing the left and right side. Regarding speech delivery, three basic features were measured by the software: filler words, speaking pace, and voice loudness.
Fig. 64.2 Eye split
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While counting the total number of words each participant delivered, the first item, filler words, recorded the number of words or expressions used to fill pauses or gaps in speech. These words are easily detected by the audience, and their overuse can make a speaker appear less confident or less knowledgeable and can lessen the clarity and impact of the message. With practice, students become more conscious of their speech patterns and work to eliminate or minimize filler words. The results were satisfactory as the participants registered a low number of instances. Given that the VR tool advises a speech rate of 100–150 words per minute (https:// virtualspeech.com/blog/average-speaking-rate-words-per-minute), results show that 55% of the students were able to perform according to the recommended rate. These instances were assessed by VR tool by saying: “Your audience was able to follow what you were saying with ease.” In cases where participants were speaking too slow, they received the following message, “your speaking pace was below the recommended range,” which allowed students to clearly understand the need to maintain a more appropriate and comfortable speaking speed. Interestingly enough were the instances where the software recommended improvements during the actual delivery. Participant 11 received a message saying its speech rate delivery was too rapid, and he/she should slow down the pace. Comparing to the final result, the rhythm was significantly reduced as the individual ended the speech with a rate of 135 words/minute. Voice loudness was also analyzed by the software, and data suggest that participants were able to speak loud and clear as proven by the final messages that participants received at the end of their speech. Laudatory messages such as “you were speaking at a good volume, well done!” and “your audience could clearly hear you.” Warning messages were also displayed, advising on how to improve their performance: “try to speak a little quieter when you present. Although you may come across as energetic, you don’t want to appear like you are shouting your speech.” Figure 64.3 shows that most speakers achieved a result above 75% in terms of the tool evaluation. One can infer a good degree of confidence from these participants who did not refrain from delivering their speech using a voice volume that could easily be heard and recorded as per voice loudness (Fig. 64.4). Another instance was detected where a participant received two messages regarding eye contact and voice loudness. This allowed the participant to be coached and corrected while the oral performance was happening. The Modified Flesch Model applies the concept of Listenability which was designed to assess specific aspects of oral communication, such as sentence and word length, speech structure, speaking pace, tone, and other elements. Listenability scores can be interpreted as the following [17]: • • • • •
> 90: Very easy to listen to. Easily understood by an average 11-year-old student. 90–80: Easy to listen to. Conversational English for consumers. 80–70: Fairly easy to listen to. 70–60: Plain English. Easily understood by 13 to 15-year-old students. 60–50: Fairly difficult to listen to.
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Fig. 64.3 Speaking pace—words per minute
• 50–30: Difficult to listen to. • 30–0: Very difficult to listen to. Best understood by university graduates. The speaker can more effectively tailor the discourse to the target audience with the assistance of this distinctive score. Results show that the majority of students accomplished an excellent performance analysis while only two students reached inferior scores. Despite the potential relevancy of this indicator, to date it fails to supply useful information (Fig. 64.5). To conclude this section, these data indicate that this technology provides unbiased, objective, external evaluation of the participants’ spoken performance. In an educational context, this factor alone enables a considerable benefit to students as they are offered comments and recommendations not only after the speech’s conclusion but specifically while the speech is being delivered. In addition, the emotional and stress associated to public speaking is significantly reduced since human intervention is limited to the presence of the instructor. Having the possibility to analyze and measure objectively the speakers’ performance and to offer feedback without human presence may be considered as potential benefits offered by VR.
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Fig. 64.4 Voice loudness
64.5 Concluding Remarks Due to various aspects that the teachers could not anticipate, the results were encouraging but also inconclusive. One of these was the observation of technology-related fear as an influencing factor while the study was being conducted. For the majority of the students, using VR equipment was a new experience; just a small number of gamers claimed having used it before we first gave the task. Thus, the researchers came to the conclusion that the fact that the students were exposed to an unusual environment (the VR environment and technology) may have conditioned their fear of public speaking, influencing/affecting the study’s findings [4]. Another factor that was not tested due to the lack of time and should be taken into account is repetition. In LL, it has been thoroughly researched and proven that repetition is an important methodology/practice to improve speaking skills. VR scenarios will enhance the possibilities of repetition and help improve both language learning and public speaking skills for ESL students. Repetition is incremented by the feedback provided by the VR app. As stated, it is a type of feedback that could hardly be provided with the same precision by a teacher, thus making it an innovative form of training that can be complementary to other methods of training.
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Fig. 64.5 Listenability—“Modified Flesch score”
The use of VR glasses to emulate virtual real-life scenarios may be helpful to students with public speaking anxiety, because VR is able to provide a simulated environment that replicates real-life speaking scenarios, such as standing in front of a large audience, giving a speech at a conference, or presenting in a meeting. This may help individuals to practice their public speaking skills in a safe and controlled virtual environment before facing a real audience. Through repetition and practice individuals pave the path to gain more confidence, improve their speech delivery, and reduce anxiety related to public speaking, especially the anxiety that derives from speaking in a foreign language. Although the researchers registered inconclusive results regarding the concrete benefits of VR as stated in the previous publications [4], it is unquestionable that having detailed feedback about one’s presentation can provide valuable insight for future improvements in future performances.
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References 1. Public speaking anxiety, National Social Anxiety Center. https://nationalsocialanxietycenter. com/social-anxiety/public-speaking-anxiety/. Accessed 10 Aug 2022 2. Anxiety signs and symptoms. https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mentalhealth-problems/anxiety-and-panic-attacks/symptoms/. Accessed 14 April 2023 3. Larsen-Freeman D.: Complexity theory: the lessons continue, Chap. 1. In: Ortega, L., Han, Z. (eds.) Language Learning & Language Teaching, pp. 11–50. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam (2017). https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.48.02lar 4. Tavares, C., Chorão, G., Duarte, P.: The use of virtual reality to practice public speaking in a foreign language: a case study with Portuguese higher education students. Presented at the 15th Annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, pp. 4912–4920. Seville, Spain, Nov 2022. https://doi.org/10.21125/iceri.2022.1188 5. ‘Meta’, Meta. https://www.meta.com/. Accessed 15 April 2023 6. MacIntyre, P.D., Vincze, L.: Positive and negative emotions underlie motivation for L2 learning. SSLLT 7(1), 61–88 (2017). https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.2017.7.1.4 7. Yudintseva, A.: Virtual reality affordances for oral communication in English as a second language classroom: a literature review. Computers & Education: X Reality 2, 100018 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cexr.2023.100018 8. Au, E.H., Lee, J.J.: Virtual reality in education: a tool for learning in the experience age. IJIIE 4(4), 215 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1504/IJIIE.2017.091481 9. Chen, B., Wang, Y., Wang, L.: The effects of virtual reality-assisted language learning: a meta-analysis. Sustainability 14(6), 3147 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063147 10. Hua, C., Wang, J.: Virtual reality-assisted language learning: a follow-up review (2018–2022). Front. Psychol. 14, 1153642 (2023). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1153642 11. Chan, V.: Investigating the impact of a virtual reality mobile application on learners’ interpreting competence. Computer Assisted Learning, p. jcal.12796 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal. 12796 12. Cummings, J.J., Bailenson, J.N.: How immersive is enough? A meta-analysis of the effect of immersive technology on user presence. Media Psychol. 19(2), 272–309 (2016). https://doi. org/10.1080/15213269.2015.1015740 13. Slater, M., Wilbur, S.: A framework for immersive virtual environments (FIVE): speculations on the role of presence in virtual environments. Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments 6(6), 603–616 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1162/pres.1997.6.6.603 14. Slater, M., et al.: The ethics of realism in virtual and augmented reality. Front. Virtual Real. 1, 1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2020.00001 15. Zhou, H., Fujimoto, Y., Kanbara, M., Kato, H.: Virtual reality as a reflection technique for public speaking training. Appl. Sci. 11(9), 3988 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3390/app11093988 16. Duvall, E., Robbins, A., Graham, T., Divett, S.: Exploring filler words and their impact (2014). Available: https://schwa.byu.edu/files/2014/12/F2014-Robbins.pdf 17. Speech analysis and feedback. VirtualSpeech Help Center (2023). https://support.virtualsp eech.com/hc/en-gb/articles/4419081270033-Speech-analysis-and-feedback. Accessed 1 May 2023
Chapter 65
Using Identity and Access Management Systems in Hotels: Evidence from Algarve, Portugal Rashed Isam Ashqar , Huthaifa I. Ashqar , and Célia M. Q. Ramos
Abstract Identity and access management (IAM) systems are essential for managing access to digital resources in the tourism and hospitality industry. This paper investigates how hotels use IAM using a questionnaire addressed to hoteliers from ten hotels located in Algarve region, Portugal. We showed that recent techniques of IAM, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), identity federation (IF), authentication techniques, and identity management systems (IMS) software have been increasingly adopted in hotels to improve security and privacy. We also found that hoteliers offer access to IAM for their tourists through the website and mobile app. In addition, we found that hoteliers are interested in using IAM, as it is important in using IAM, and can afford to pay the costs of IAM in the hotels. Moreover, we show that the hoteliers have no knowledge of specific recent techniques such as rolebased access control (RBAC), encryption techniques, authorization techniques, and user behavior analytics (UBA). We offer implications to the hoteliers to learn and use more recent IAM techniques to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data. The limitation of this research is the sample size. Therefore, we suggest future research to the extent of collecting more data from different cities and countries.
R. I. Ashqar (B) · C. M. Q. Ramos ESGHT, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] CinTurs, Faro, Portugal C. M. Q. Ramos e-mail: [email protected] H. I. Ashqar Arab American University, Jenin, Palestine e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_65
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65.1 Introduction Nowadays, people use the Internet to maintain communication, contact with family, friends, and people around the world, access and exchange information, and enjoy multimedia communication. Therefore, user data security is critical to the Information Technology (IT) systems and its user lifecycle control system through IAM systems. As the cloud has revolutionized the way businesses work and with the increasing use of cloud computing, web resources reside in the cloud where each service has its own authentication. Many companies are moving toward the cloud but as an organization grows, it cannot give access to everyone because employees change departments or jobs. Therefore, IAM is considered an ideal solution to manage resource access including verifying the user and authorization based on the protected resources and the user’s role [1]. IAM is a method that provides an adequate level of protection for organization resources and data through rules and policies, which are enforced on users via various techniques such as enforcing login passwords, assigning privileges to the users, and provisioning user accounts [2]. IAM has two components: identity management and access management. Identity management systems help in providing a super-set of user provisioning systems that allow easy management of user credentials and their identity information to users and others, who might need that information. On the other hand, access management systems provide strong authentication and authorization solution using single signon (SSO), WebSEAL, and policy-based approaches to identify who can access the resource at what level [3]. Specifically, hotels may use IAM to ensure that only authorized individuals have access to certain systems or data within the organization. One example of how hotels use IAM is through the use of access control systems, such as key cards or biometric scanners, to limit access to certain areas of the hotel to only authorized personnel. This can help prevent theft, vandalism, or other unauthorized access to guest rooms or sensitive areas. In addition, hotels may use IAM to manage access to their IT systems and data. This can include limiting access to financial data or other sensitive information to only authorized personnel and ensuring that passwords and other access credentials are secure and regularly updated. Thus, this paper aims to investigate how hotels use IAM using a questionnaire addressed to hoteliers from ten hotels located in Algarve, Portugal. This paper is structured as follows. Section 65.2 presents a literature review. Section 65.3 explains the data and methodology. Section 65.4 shows the empirical results, and Sect. 65.5 concludes the paper.
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65.2 Literature Review IAM is a critical aspect of any organization, including the tourism and hospitality sector. IAM helps to manage and control access to resources, systems, and data within an organization. The tourism and hospitality industry has seen an increase in the use of IAM techniques to protect guest information, manage employee access, and improve overall security. One of the primary IAM techniques used in the tourism and hospitality sector is multi-factor authentication (MFA). MFA involves the use of multiple authentication factors, such as a password, biometric data, or a smart card, to verify the identity of users. According to Dasguta et al. [4] and Liu [5], MFA is effective in preventing unauthorized access and reducing the risk of data breaches in the hospitality industry. Another IAM technique that is gaining popularity in the tourism and hospitality sector is identity federation (IF). IF enables users to access resources and services across multiple organizations using a single set of credentials. IF can improve user experience, reduce password fatigue, and enhance security. According to Mohammed [6], IF can be used to facilitate secure access to guest services, such as hotel reservations, without the need for guests to create new accounts or remember multiple passwords. Role-based access control (RBAC) is another IAM technique commonly used in the tourism and hospitality sector. RBAC involves assigning users to roles based on their job functions and then providing them with access rights based on those roles. This approach ensures that users only have access to the resources and systems they need to perform their job duties [7]. According to Gao et al. [8], RBAC can be used to manage employee access to sensitive data, such as financial information, and improve overall security in the hospitality industry. In recent years, there has been an increased focus on using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to improve IAM in the tourism and hospitality industry. AI and ML can be used to analyze user behavior and detect anomalous activity, such as unauthorized access attempts [9]. According to Sestino and De Mauro [10], AI and ML can also be used to automate IAM processes, such as user provisioning and access certification, which can improve efficiency and reduce errors.
65.3 Data and Methodology In order to achieve the objective of the research, we prepared a questionnaire addressed to hoteliers from ten hotels located in Algarve region, Portugal. The Algarve is a region located in the south of Portugal, known for its stunning coastline, beautiful beaches, and warm climate, which makes it a suitable candidate for our study. It is a popular destination for tourists from all over the world, offering a wide range of activities and attractions. The questionnaire was administered online through Google Forms and prepared in the Portuguese language. The questionnaire
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was structured into three groups of questions: one related to profile response characterization, the second related to IAM systems, and the third was about using the recent techniques of IAM, as shown in Appendix. Overall, ten answers were completed by hoteliers. Data analysis was conducted including a descriptive statistical analysis of respondents and their options regarding IAM and using the techniques of IAM.
65.4 Empirical Results The empirical results will be presented according to the groups mentioned in the methodology, with the characterization of the respondents being the first results to be presented. Figure 65.1 presents the size of the sample clustered by gender, and Fig. 65.2 presents the average age clustered by gender. As shown in Fig. 65.1, 50% of the sample are males and other 50% are females. Figure 65.2 shows the average age of the sample is 38 years. The average age of males is 47.2 and the females are 28.6. Figure 65.3 presents the education degree of hoteliers’ responses, and Fig. 65.4 presents the location of the hotels in Algarve, Portugal. Figure 65.3 shows that three hoteliers have secondary education, five hoteliers have a bachelor’s degree, and two hoteliers have a master’s degree. As shown in Fig. 65.4, we have observations from seven cities in Algarve as follows: Albufeira, Alvôr, Faro, Lagos, Portimao, Quarteira, and Vilamoura. Figure 65.5 presents the jobs of hoteliers’ responses to the hotel, and Fig. 65.6 shows how many stars in the hotels. As shown in Fig. 65.5, we have responses from receptionists, operations manager, marketing intern, HR coordinator, general manager, events manager, and director of operations. Fig. 65.1 Gender chart
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Fig. 65.2 Age clustered by gender
Fig. 65.3 Education chart
Figure 65.7 shows the number of effective employees in the hotels, and Fig. 65.8 presents the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that is used in hotels. Table 65.1 shows the reasons for using CRM software. In terms of the CRM used, it was found that Sales Force is the most used, since it was indicated by 3 out of 10 hotels, Table 65.1 complements these values since it presents the reasons related to the choice of CRM indicated by each hotel. Figure 65.9 presents some important information about security and IAM, shows that 20% of the hoteliers had any security problems associated with the guests at a
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Fig. 65.4 Location of hotels chart
Fig. 65.5 Jobs in hotel chart
hotel, 90% of hoteliers asked their tourists to provide some personal information at the hotel, 70% of hoteliers heard about IAM before, and they were concerned about the potential misuse of biometric data in tourism. Figure 65.10 presents the hoteliers concerned about the privacy of tourists’ personal information, and Fig. 65.11 shows how extent the hoteliers think IAM can help improve security and privacy. As shown in Fig. 65.10, we can conclude that 70% of hoteliers are concerned about the privacy of tourists’ personal information. Figure 65.11 shows 80% of hoteliers think IAM can help improve security and privacy.
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Fig. 65.6 Stars of hotels chart
Fig. 65.7 Number of effective employees chart
Figure 65.12 presents how hoteliers are interested in using IAM, and Fig. 65.12 presents the importance for hoteliers of using IAM. As shown in Fig. 65.12, we can infer that 80% of hoteliers are interested in using IAM, and Fig. 65.13 shows 80% of hoteliers think it is important of using IAM in hotels. Figure 65.14 presents how hoteliers offer access to IAM for their tourists, and Fig. 65.15 presents the affordability for hoteliers to pay the costs of IAM. As shown in Fig. 65.14, we can conclude that 40% of hoteliers offer access to IAM for their tourists by website and 20% of hoteliers offer access by mobile app. Figure 65.15 shows that 80% of hoteliers can afford to pay the costs of IAM.
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Fig. 65.8 Type of CRM used chart
Table 65.1 Reasons for using CRM No.
Why are you using this CRM?
1
Because it has advanced data analysis features
2
Because it has built-in project management features
3
Because it is an affordable and easy-to-use customer management software
4
Because it is an intuitive and easy-to-use platform
5
Because it is indispensable for our day-to-day
6
Because it offers a simple and intuitive interface
7
Because it offers a wide range of client management features
8
Because it offers a wide range of customizable features
9
Because it’s an affordable customer management tool
10
Because it’s easy to integrate with other tools
Figure 65.16 presents the biggest security threats to tourists, and Fig. 65.17 presents the knowledge of hoteliers about authentication. As shown in Fig. 65.17, we can conclude that 70% of hoteliers are familiar with authentication. Figure 65.18 presents the satisfaction of hoteliers using digital IDs for their tourists. From Fig. 65.18, we can notice that 80% of hoteliers are satisfied with using digital IIDs for their tourists. With regard to the AMI techniques used in each hotel, Table 65.2 presents the techniques answered.
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Fig. 65.9 Security and IAM chart. Notes Q:a: Have you ever had any security problems associated with your guests at your hotel? Q:b: Do you ask your tourists to provide some personal information (such as name, date of birth, and passport number) to access certain tourist attractions or services? Q:c: Have you heard of identity and access management (IAM) before? Q:d: How concerned are you about the potential misuse of biometric data in tourism?
Fig. 65.10 Privacy of tourists’ personal information chart
65.5 Discussion and Conclusion IAM is an essential aspect of any organization, including the tourism and hospitality sector. Recent techniques of IAM, such as MFA, IF, RBAC, and AI/ML, have been increasingly adopted in the tourism and hospitality industry to improve security, manage employee access, and protect guest information. The use of these IAM techniques has shown promising results in reducing the risk of data breaches, enhancing
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Fig. 65.11 IAM can help improve the security and privacy chart
Fig. 65.12 Interested to use IAM chart
user experience, and improving overall security in the hospitality industry. This paper investigates how hotels use IAM using a questionnaire addressed to hoteliers from ten hotels located in Algarve, Portugal. Moreover, we showed that recent techniques of IAM, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), identity federation (IF), authentication techniques, and identity management systems (IMS) software have been increasingly adopted in hotels to improve security and privacy. Also, we found that hoteliers offer access to IAM for their tourists through the website and mobile app. In addition, we show that hoteliers are interested in using IAM, believe it is important in using IAM and can afford to pay the costs of IAM in the hotels. Moreover, we show that the hoteliers have no knowledge of specific recent techniques such as
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Fig. 65.13 Importance of using IAM chart Fig. 65.14 Offering access to IAM chart
role-based access control (RBAC), encryption techniques, authorization techniques, and user behavior analytics (UBA). We offer implications to the hoteliers to learn and use more recent IAM techniques in order to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data. We found that CRM software has a profound effect on hotels by enhancing the guest experience through personalized services based on guest preferences, stay history, and feedback. It enables efficient guest communication with centralized tools for email templates, automated messaging, and guest messaging platforms. CRM software also facilitates targeted marketing and upselling by segmenting guest
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Fig. 65.15 Afford to pay the costs of IAM chart
Fig. 65.16 Security threats chart
databases and creating tailored campaigns. Moreover, it improves operational efficiency by centralizing guest information, reservations, and requests, while integrating with other hotel systems. By fostering guest loyalty through personalized incentives and rewards, CRM software enhances customer retention. Additionally, it enables data-driven decision making by providing valuable insights into guest behavior and trends. CRM software also empowers hotels to deliver exceptional experiences, optimize operations, and stay competitive in the hospitality industry.
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Fig. 65.17 Authentication chart
Fig. 65.18 Using digital ID chart
Table 65.2 Using the hotels IAM techniques IAM techniques
Examples
No. (%)
Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
Yes (%) 70
Password, smart card, code SIM
30
Identity federation (IF)
80
Google, Facebook, PayPal
20
Authentication techniques
100
Authorization techniques
10
Amazon web services
90
0
Identity management systems (IMS) software
70
Okta, Google cloud identity, Auth0
30
Results also indicated that hoteliers have a significant responsibility to prioritize the privacy of tourists’ personal information. This is crucial not only from a legal and ethical standpoint but also for maintaining trust and preserving their reputation within the hospitality industry. By safeguarding guest data, hoteliers build confidence and demonstrate their commitment to protecting sensitive information such as contact details, payment details, and preferences. Additionally, compliance with privacy laws
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and regulations is imperative to avoid severe penalties and legal consequences. Given the attractiveness of hotels as targets for cybercriminals, it is vital for hoteliers to implement robust security measures to mitigate the risk of data breaches and protect guests’ personal information. In terms of IAM system, it was found that it plays a significant role in enhancing security and privacy within hotels. IAM enables hoteliers to exercise control over access to guest data and sensitive systems. By defining roles and access levels for employees, IAM ensures that only authorized personnel can access guests’ personal information, thereby reducing the risk of unauthorized access and internal data breaches. IAM incorporates strong authentication mechanisms, such as two-factor authentication or biometrics, to verify user identity, further enhancing security. Moreover, IAM solutions enable hoteliers to monitor user activities through audit trails, allowing them to identify suspicious behavior and respond promptly to any security incidents. Encryption capabilities provided by IAM systems protect sensitive information both at rest and in transit, ensuring that even in the event of a data breach, guest data remains unreadable to unauthorized individuals. Through the implementation of IAM systems, hoteliers can strengthen security measures, minimize data breach risks, and demonstrate their commitment to guest privacy. The limitation of this research is the sample size. In terms of future work, a new study and a new survey will be prepared to find out the guests’ perception of IAM in the various hotels in different cities and countries. Acknowledgements This paper is financed by National Funds provided by FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology through project UIDB/04020/2020 and project Guest-IC I&DT nr. 047399 financed by CRESC ALGARVE2020, PORTUGAL2020, and FEDER. We thank Dengun for collecting the data used in this research.
Appendix: Software for Identity and Access Management (IAM) in Hotels Survey 1. Respondent profile Gender Age Location of hotel Job in hotel Qualifications (basic, secondary, bachelor, master, doctorate) How many stars is the hotel? Number of effective employees in the hotel? Volume of business (continued)
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(continued) Gender Type of CRM used Why are you using this CRM?
2. About IAM Have you ever experienced any security issues (Yes/no) for your tourists staying in a hotel? Do you ask your tourists to provide some personal information (such as name, date of birth, and passport number) to access certain tourist attractions or services?
(Yes/no)
How concerned are you about the privacy of tourists’ personal information?
(Very concerned/somewhat concerned/natural/ not very concerned/not concerned at all)
Have you heard of identity and access management (IAM) before?
(Yes/no)
Do you think IAM solutions could help (Strongly agree/somewhat agree/natural/ improve security and privacy for travelers and somewhat disagree/strongly disagree) tourists? If you were offered an IAM solution for your hotel, would you be interested in using it?
(Yes, definitely/yes, maybe/natural/no, probably not/no, definitely not)
How important is the ease of use in an IAM solution for you?
(Very important/somewhat important/natural/ not very important/not important at all)
How do you offer access to an IAM solution for your tourists?
(Mobile app/website/physical kiosk)
Would you be willing to pay for an IAM solution to enhance the tourists security and privacy?
(Yes, definitely/yes, maybe/natural/no, probably not/no, definitely not)
How likely are you to recommend an IAM solution to other hotels?
(Very likely/somewhat likely/natural/somewhat unlikely/very unlikely)
In your opinion, what are the biggest security threats facing travelers today?
(Theft or robbery/cybercrime (such as hacking or identity theft)/terrorism/natural disasters or accidents/other (please specify))
How familiar are you with biometric authentication technologies (such as facial recognition or fingerprint scanning)?
(Very familiar/somewhat familiar/natural/ somewhat familiar/not at all familiar)
Would you be willing to ask your tourists to provide biometric data (such as a facial scan or fingerprint) to access tourist attractions or services?
(Yes, definitely/yes, maybe/natural/no, probably not/no, definitely not)
How concerned are you about the potential misuse of biometric data in tourism?
(Very concerned/somewhat concerned/natural/ not very concerned/not concerned at all)
Have you ever used a digital ID (such as a mobile boarding pass or e-passport) for your tourists?
(Yes/no)
(continued)
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(continued) Have you ever experienced any security issues (Yes/no) for your tourists staying in a hotel? How satisfied were you with using a digital ID (Very satisfied/somewhat satisfied/natural/ for your tourists? somewhat dissatisfied/very dissatisfied)
3. About using recent techniques of identity and access management Recent techniques of IAM
Yes/ no
Specify which one
Multi-factor authentication (MFA). MFA involves the use of multiple authentication factors, such as a password, biometric data, or a smart card, to verify the identity of users Identity federation (IF). IF enables users to access resources and services across multiple organizations using a single set of credentials Role-based access control (RBAC). RBAC involves assigning users to roles based on their job functions, and then providing them with access rights based on those roles Authentication Techniques are used to ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive data Authorization Techniques Authorization is the process of granting access to specific resources, data, or information based on the user’s identity and level of access Encryption Techniques to ensure the confidentiality of sensitive data. For example, using homomorphic encryption (HE) Identity management systems (IMS) are software systems that manage the authentication and authorization of users. For example, using cloud-based identity management systems (CIMS) User behavior analytics (UBA) is the process of analyzing user behavior to detect anomalies and potential security threats. For example, using machine learning (ML)
References 1. Sharma, A., Sharma, S., Dave, M.: Identity and access management—a comprehensive study. In: 2015 International Conference on Green Computing and Internet of Things (ICGCIoT), pp. 1481–1485 (2015) 2. Almulla, S.A., Yeun, C.Y.: Cloud computing security management. In: 2010 Second International Conference on Engineering System Management and Applications, pp. 1–7 (2010) 3. Thakur, M.A., Gaikwad, R.: User identity and access management trends in IT infrastructure-an overview. In: 2015 International Conference on Pervasive Computing (ICPC), pp. 1–4 (2015) 4. Dasgupta, D., Roy, A., Nag, A., Dasgupta, D., Roy, A., Nag, A.: Multi-factor authentication: more secure approach towards authenticating individuals. Adv. User Authentication 185–233 (2017)
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5. Liu, X.M.: A risk-based approach to cybersecurity: a case study of financial messaging networks data breaches. Coast. Bus. J. 18(1), 2 (2021) 6. Mohammed, I.A.: Cloud identity and access management–a model proposal. Int. J. Innovations Eng. Res. Technol. 6(10), 1–8 (2019) 7. Sagar, G., Syrovatskyi, V.: Information security: safeguarding resources and building trust. In: Technical Building Blocks: A Technology Reference for Real-world Product Development, pp. 275–324. Apress, Berkeley (2022) 8. Gao, N., Han, D., Weng, T.H., Xia, B., Li, D., Castiglione, A., Li, K.C.: Modeling and analysis of port supply chain system based on Fabric blockchain. Comput. Ind. Eng. 172, 108527 (2022) 9. Mohammed, I.A.: The interaction between artificial intelligence and identity and access management: an empirical study. Int. J. Creative Res. Thoughts (IJCRT) 2320(2882), 668–671 (2021) 10. Sestino, A., De Mauro, A.: Leveraging artificial intelligence in business: implications, applications and methods. Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manage. 34(1), 16–29 (2022)
Chapter 66
Attitudes and Values of Portuguese School Principals Concerning Social Justice Nuno Paula Santos , Sofia Gonçalves , Estrela Paulo , Rosa Martins , and João Pascoinho
Abstract School leaderships and all the elements that integrate it differ in their attitudes and values toward Social Justice. In the current national and international context, with intense echoes on schools’ life, the importance of assessing the attitudes and values of school leaders concerning behaviors related to Social Justice, but also other constructs that may be associated, becomes essential. The present study aims to evaluate the school leader’s perception of in the Portuguese territory concerning Social Justice. Data Collection: The perceptions of 22 schools/clusters principals were collected using the Social Justice Scale developed by (Torres-Harding et al. in Am J Commun Psychol 50(1–2):77–88, 2012 [21]). Findings: In general, the results strongly support toward a positive attitude regarding Social Justice and to a greater agreement of the subjects regarding the dimension of personal attitudes toward Social Justice, concerning the perceived behavioral control dimensions, to subjective norms regarding justice and to behavioral intentions to engage in Social Justice.
N. P. Santos Agrupamento de Escolas de Escolas Professor António da Natividade, Mesão Frio, Portugal Research Center in Basic Education (CIEB-IPB), Bragança, Portugal N. P. Santos e-mail: [email protected] S. Gonçalves · E. Paulo · R. Martins · J. Pascoinho (B) Center for Research, Development and Innovation (CIDI-IEES), Fafe, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] S. Gonçalves e-mail: [email protected] E. Paulo e-mail: [email protected] R. Martins e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8_66
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66.1 Introduction From the perspective of the different reforms of secondary education, which date back to Passos Manuel (nineteenth century), the role of the school in approaching values, in a more or less explicit approach, has always been a concern on the part of the legislator [9]. This author [Alice Fontes] highlights the importance of including values and social issues approach in curricula content, contributing to the desirable critical spirit that students must have to fully experience their citizenship. In the same way that the teacher makes a difference, in the classroom, in valuing and integrating ethical, social, technological, and environmental aspects, so does the school principal (also a teacher), can make a difference in the territory where exerts its influence. On the consequences of ideas, actions, and words, Bogotch [5] emphasizes the fact that “whenever educators act, according to their passionate beliefs, it can, and does, make all the difference”. From this point of view, the relevance of (re)centering the discussion on the importance of educational leadership is inferred, allowing to articulate theory and practice, making education fairer and more equitable, since educational leadership generates different responses and reconfigures different meanings of justice—educational and social. Globalization imposes a new way of seeing and discussing the meaning of Social Justice. Transversal to different cultures and societies, the idea of Social Justice came from immemorial times, influencing philosophical, ethical, and religious thoughts, leading to the definition of social conduct codes with a view to creating and maintaining fairer societies [13], and these authors emphasize the growing role that leadership and Social Justice assume in educational management in recent years, although they highlight the need for a comprehensive review of research carried out on this topic. Approaches to transformative leadership for inclusion, equity and Social Justice can accommodate and promote fairer practices. UNESCO, through the International Institute for Educational Planning, highlights the importance of school leaders in promoting equality and equity [22]. As emphasized by this international organization, the implementation of practices that ensure Social Justice in education must aim at promoting a school climate where all students, regardless of their background, can have equal opportunity to access in an equitable manner to education and highquality standards of education. Social Justice promotion, in formal and informal way, as envision by Freire [12] is emphasized by Torres-Harding [21] research as essential, to help students become aware and develop critical spirit in the face of social inequalities and the need for justice. Researchers and educators endorse a broader vision for school leadership, not limited to the achievement of defined management objectives, but conversely strengthen moral values and Social Justice, considering that this should contribute to the construction of a more fair and sustainable society [18]. The concern regarding Social Justice will not be for less. The growing threats to peace and stability in Europe (taken for granted since the end of the last worldwide war), combined with local conflicts in other regions worldwide; all the inherent economic implications of
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this instability, associated to the needs of migrants from conflict zones, requiring integration; a growing number of environmental issues, associated with anthropogenic activities impact; the aging of our communities… all of these challenges are presented to school leaders compelling them to be increasingly aware in order to respond and allocate resources—human and material [20]. As above described, a myriad of challenging issues is thrown at the school organization and its leadership, ranging from management of ethnic conflicts, passing through differences in cognitive terms, and culminating in the transformations of society and issues of gender equality and rights; thus, it becomes relevant to define Social Justice. When conducting a literature review to establish a definition of Social Justice, [7, 11, 12, 15, 17, 21], we quickly became aware of the difficulty in finding a consensual definition. Moyo [15] concludes that many authors end up not explaining how this concept is applied in a specific context; as for its definition, Moyo underlines the fact that many authors do not define it, as they consider it as given, whose definition is inferred by the recipient. On the other hand, Prilleltensky [17] points out that Social Justice implies the fair and equitable allocation of negotiating powers, access to resources, and social obligations, considering the needs, capabilities, and the lower power that certain people might have. The inclusion of marginalized groups and/or individuals in this definition is proposed by Constantine et al. [7] when mentioning the groups that do not exercise equal power in society, highlighting here the link between Social Justice and Multicultural Skills; these authors refer to groups/individuals whose ethnic, racial, age, religious belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, among others, place them in a position of subordination visà-vis dominant groups. Finally, we present the concept advocated by Fouad et al. [10] who considers Social Justice as “the guarantee of equity in the distribution and access to opportunities and resources within society, and that individuals and social groups work in the sense of guaranteeing this equity, when resources are not equally distributed/available”. Social Justice, according to the definitions mentioned above, has in common the assumption of a value or a perception, along with equity in access to resources and compliance with the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Torres-Harding [21] highlights as common aspects to the different definitions of Social Justice, the idea that structural and social inequalities must be mitigated, and that society must work toward the inclusion of disadvantaged groups; these authors emphasis Social Justice as a fundamental value associated with the field of social psychology, which emphasizes the fight against social oppression and promotes well-being. This implies the need for increasing awareness, changing attitudes, and developing skills on the part of many school principals, which will allow them to act, primarily in a preventive manner and, if necessary, in a mitigating manner, in order to guarantee the equity in terms of Social Justice; nevertheless, as Bogotch [5] points out, Social Justice will not be fully perceived or fully achieved; however, it is up to the role of educational leadership to recreate and reconstruct different meanings of educational and Social Justice.
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Due to the small number of studies on school leadership oriented for Social Justice carried out in the Portuguese context, it seemed important to understand the perception that school principals have concerning Social Justice,1 namely: personal attitudes toward Social Justice, perceived behavioral control regarding Social Justice, subjective norms with respect to Social Justice, and behavioral intentions to engage into Social Justice.
66.2 Method The Social Justice Scale (SJS) developed by Torres-Harding [21] demonstrated to be the instrument that better responded to the purposes of our investigation since it was developed, enhanced, and validated, concerning behaviors toward Social Justice, having Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior theory of planned behavior [2] as a framework. The SJS is not intended to be a performative assessment of behaviors; it is a tool designed to assess the connection between attitudes toward Social Justice and related behaviors. The SJS used in the present study comprises 24 items, aggregated into four subscales: personal attitudes toward Social Justice; perceived behavioral control toward Social Justice; subjective norms regarding Social Justice; and behavioral intentions to engage into Social Justice. Respondents positioned their opinion/ perception, according to a seven-point Likert-type scale (1 = Strongly Disagree; 2, 3, and 4 = Neutral; and 5, 6, and 7 = Strongly Agree), resulting in a maximum score of 168 and a minimum score of 24 points. SJS was translated into Portuguese and was validated, by consensus on all items, by four Portuguese university professors, fluent in English and with professional experience of working and training with school leadership. Based upon the translation validation, a completely anonymous online survey was prepared, and the link was sent to a group of 60 Portuguese school principals. Ensuring issues of ethics and anonymity, we followed the recommendations of Oliveira [16], having clarified, in the email addressed to the school principals, and the description of the investigation, its objectives and in the online survey, was included in the option of voluntary participation. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to determine whether the scale was a valid instrument. For data processing, SPSS statistical software (v. 23.0) was used.
66.3 Results We obtained 22 answers, which correspond to 36.7% of the selected sample. Distribution by gender was equitable. The age range oscillates between 42 and 64 years, and the mean age in male subsample was slightly higher when compared to the 1
In the present study, we have translated and adapted the scale and subscales developed by TorresHarding [21] to assess the school principals’ perception toward to Social Justice.
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Table 66.1 Profile of participations Gender Level of education Number of years as school principal
Female
Male
11 (50%)
11 (50%)
Bachelor
M.Sc.
6 (27.3%)
9 (40.9%)
Ph.D. 7 (31.8%)
Less than 5
5–10
11–15
16–20
More than 20
6 (27.3%)
4 (18.2%)
6 (27.3%)
3 (13.6%)
3 (13.6%)
female subsample (males = 62.8 ± 6.9; females = 54.3 ± 4.2).2 The profiles of the participants are reported in Table 66.1. Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency coefficients were calculated for the overall scale and its subscales. The internal consistency value was high (α = 0.88) for all 24 scale items; the obtained values are in accordance to the consulted references [1, 8, 14, 21] which consider values equal or greater than (0.70) satisfactory, in terms of internal consistency, thus ensuring the instrument’s reliability. When comparing the present study with the research conducted by Torres-Harding [21], the Cronbach’s alpha computed (α = 0.88) is within the range of values computed by the authors for the original version of the scale (0.82 < α < 0.95). Cronbach’s alpha was also computed for each subscale. Observed alphas were (personal attitudes α = 0.76; perceived behavioral control α = 0.82; subjective norms α = 0.73; and behavioral intentions α = 0.87) revealing a satisfactory consistency for all four subscales. The average score for the translated version of the SJS was 150 (SD = 10.80), for a maximum scale score of 168, which indicates a strongly positive attitude of the participants toward Social Justice. Mean and standard deviation values for each scale item are shown in Table 66.2. Statistically significant differences were found between the subscale personal attitudes toward Social Justice (Mean = 6.64; SD = 0.37) and the remaining subscales, reflecting a greater agreement of the subjects with the dimension of values, objectives, and behaviors concerning the remaining dimensions: perceived behavioral control (mean = 6.06; SD = 0.59; p = 0.001), subjective norms regarding Social Justice (mean = 5.78; SD = 0.75; p = 0.000); and behavioral intentions to engage in Social Justice (mean = 5.89; SD = 1.04; p = 0.001), according to the Wilcoxon sign test. Among the remaining subscales, no statistically significant differences were found (Wilcoxon sign test).
2
(Mean ± standard deviation).
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Table 66.2 Principals’ personal perception concerning attitudes and values toward Social Justice Item
Mean
SD
1. I believe it is important to promote individual and group physical and emotional well-being
6.91
0.43
2. I believe it is important to help individuals and groups achieve their chosen life goals
6.86
0.35
3. I believe it is important to respect and value the diversity 6.77 of people’s social identities
0.53
4. I believe it is important to try to change the social conditions that cause individual suffering and impede well-being
6.77
0.53
5. I believe it is important to act for Social Justice
6.68
0.72
6. I believe it is important to allow people to have a meaningful input in decisions that affect their lives
6.59
0.67
7. I believe it is important to ensure that individuals and groups define and describe their problems, experiences, and goals in their own terms
6.59
0.80
8. I believe it is important to support community organizations and institutions that help individuals and groups achieve their goals
6.55
0.51
9. I believe it is important to ensure that all individuals and 6.55 groups have an equal chance to speak out and be heard traditionally ignored or marginalized groups
1.14
10. I believe it is important to allocate to the fair and equitable promotion of bargaining powers, obligations, and resources in society
6.50
0.60
11. In the future, I will do everything possible to ensure that all individuals and groups can speak and be heard
6.36
0.90
12. I believe it is important to talk to others about social systems of power, privilege, and oppression
6.32
0.89
13. I am confident that I can have a positive impact on the lives of others
6.18
0.66
14. I am sure that if I try, I can have a positive impact in my 6.09 community
0.75
15. I feel confident in my ability to talk to others about social injustices and the impact of social conditions on health and well-being
6.09
0.81
16. If that is my intention, I can influence others in promoting justice and equality
6.05
0.58
17. Others around me are aware of issues of social injustice 6.05 and power inequalities in our society
0.79
18. I am certain that I have the ability and skills to work 5.91 with individuals and groups in ways that empower them
0.97
19. Others around me support efforts that promote Social Justice
0.71
5.86
(continued)
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Table 66.2 (continued) Item
Mean
SD
20. Others around me feel that it is important to talk about social injustices
5.86
0.83
21. In the future, I intend to work collaboratively with other 5.82 people so that they can expose their own problems and develop skills for their resolution
1.05
22. In the future, I intend to get involved in activities that promote Social Justice
5.73
1.42
23. In the future, I plan to talk to people about social power 5.64 inequalities, social injustices, and the impact of social forces on health and well-being
1.43
24. Others around me are engaged in activities that address 5.36 social injustices
1.50
Results for each of the 24 items for SJS—mean and standard deviation
66.4 Discussion and Final Considerations Social Justice is a Social Psychology research field with a growing interest in schools’ leadership. The concept of leadership, by itself, has experienced constant mutation and has been subject to multiple interpretations. Antunes and Silva [3] and Caixeiro [6] mention to the profusion of definitions of this concept, agreeing that there are as many definitions as there are people who tried to define it. Once it is not our purpose to add another definition, we choose to cogitate on school leadership, which encloses itself the inheritance of representations inculcated by the society or dominant group of the society, and that objectively will condition the leaders’ attitudes, behavioral control, subjective norms, and intentions toward Social Justice. In the Portuguese situation, the school principal/director is a single-person body, as defined by law, which conditions furthermore the relevance of its role concerning Social Justice leadership. Araujo [4] states that being part of a social unit and, at the same time, assuming different functions and degrees of functional specialization, to guarantee the normal functioning of societies, comprises a puzzling reality regarding functions and purposes recognized to education—the integrating function and simultaneously differentiating. The social dimension results, as can be seen, from a fragile equilibrium of multiple intergenerational and intragenerational influences, from primary (within the family) and secondary (at school and extra-family relationships) socialization which ultimately will end to shape the character and personality of individuals; therefore, school assumes a central role in Social Justice-driven education. The research findings show that the theory of planned behavior, despite the strength and validity already demonstrated, cannot fully explain the reason why the appreciation of the principals’ personal attitudes toward Social Justice does not translate itself into the same level of response to the behavioral intentions for engagement in Social Justice; perhaps the theoretical model of basic values, proposed by Schwartz [19], may justify and complement some of the observed differences.
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The Social Justice Scale—SJS—applied to this specific context on school leadership and Social Justice proved to be globally consistent in terms of its 24 items, as well as in terms of the four subscales used. It is important to highlight that this was an exploratory work that used and adapted the SJS to the context of Portuguese school leadership, a field that still needs to be explored. Further investigations, for instance, concerning the principal’s participation in promoting structures/NGO that promote Social Justice or the relationship between theoretical discourse and practice should be addressed. In the original research work to assess convergent and discriminant validation, Torres-Harding [21] correlated the four subscales with external scales, namely Public Service Motivation Scale, the Global Belief in a Just World, the Symbolic Racism Scale, and the Neo-Sexism Scale. All subscales of Social Justice revealed positive correlation with the motivation to engage in public service, supporting the convergent validation; there was a negative correlation with the scales of neo-sexism, symbolic racism, and global belief in a just world, which supports the discriminant validation of the SJS. This validation allows to infer that a respondent with a higher score on the four subscales of the SJS will be less likely to admit that we live in an entirely fair world, to deny the existence of socioeconomic, racial, gender inequalities, to blame or reveal resentment toward migrant ethnic groups and gender issues. They will be more conscious of the inequalities, injustices, and lack of equity that exist in human societies. Succeeding this idea, our data reveal that the female subpopulation—female principals—obtained the highest mean percentual value 91.5% (mean score: 153.6 out of a maximum of 168 points), compared to the male subpopulation—male principals—who obtained the mean percentual value of 87.2% (mean score: 146.5 out of a maximum of 168 points). Nevertheless, data suggest homogeneity concerning Social Justice perceptions among male and female principals; the data also reveal consistency in terms of principals’ awareness, regarding Social Justice, which, according to the theory of planned behavior, could be an indicator of their involvement in behaviors related to Social Justice. This consciousness is primordial for present and future school leaders who seek to enhance administrative practice and the understanding of Social Justice leadership, to take actions against social inequalities in educational communities and being consistence between ideas and management practices. Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Center for Research, Development and Innovation (CIDI-IEES), and the Research Center in Basic Education (CIEB-IPB), who recently welcomed Nuno Paula Santos as Integrated Researcher. The authors express their deepest appreciation to all school principals who collaborated in the present study. Declaration of Conflicting Interest The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Author Index
A Acuña-Rodríguez, Mónica, 257 Aguiar, Micaela, 599 Aguilar, María Alejandrina Almeida, 373 Aizaga, Miguel, 305, 441 Albarracín, Wilmer, 633 Alejandra, Bustillos Peña Mayra, 97, 121, 153 Alfaro-Ponce, Berenice, 657, 689 Almeida, Clarinda, 357 Altamirano Paredes, Milton Patricio, 293 Alulima, Lidya, 405 Alves, José Matias, 335 Andrade, António, 335 Antamba-Guasgua, Jaime, 267 Antunes, Joaquim, 357 Araújo, Inês, 645 Araújo, Sílvia, 599 Arcos-Argudo, Miguel, 1, 13, 19 Arias, Carlos, 305 Arteaga-Alcívar, Yamileth, 267 Artemova, Inna, 657, 689 Ashqar, Huthaifa I., 713 Ashqar, Rashed Isam, 713 Avalos-Bravo, Vladimir, 131
B Ballesteros-Casco, Tamara, 267 Batista, Patrícia, 335 Becerra-García, Eulalia, 245 Becker, J., 621 Betty, Alejo Pastora, 97, 121 Buele, Jorge, 611 Bulnes, María Elizabeth Puelles, 45
Butt, Sabur, 555
C Cadenillas-Rivera, Dayanne, 45 Cancho-Rodriguez, Ernesto, 45 Cancino, Roberto Cortés, 345 Caridade, Cristina M. R., 565 Carpio-Jiménez, Lilia, 35 Carreño, Stalin, 187 Castillo, Kristian Armando Pineda, 373 Castillo-Salazar, David, 245 Ceballos, Hector, 555 Chacón-Castro, Marcos, 405 Chorão, Graça, 701 Cobos, Miguel, 457 Condori-Chacolli, Miriam Estefani, 535 Córdova Vera, Karen Stephany, 293 Coronado-Hernández, Jairo R., 257 Cortijo, Rene, 633 Costa, Adriano, 357 Cristi-López, Ricardo, 503, 545
D Dane, Brigita, 645 Danielien˙e, Renata, 645 Daugirdas, Donatas, 449 Dehnhardt, Macarena, 345 DelaCruz-VdV, Percy, 45 De la Torre Guzmán, José Javier, 109, 163 Del Carpio-Delgado, Fabrizio, 57 Desfrancois, Pierre Gilles Fernand, 77 Díaz-Iza, Harold, 633 Díaz-Iza, Henry, 633
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 A. Mesquita et al. (eds.), Perspectives and Trends in Education and Technology, Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies 366, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5414-8
741
742 Duarte, Pedro, 701
F Florez-Salas, Jorge Luis Tomas, 57 Furtado, Marco, 141
G Galarza, Fredy Cañizares, 27 Gallardo, Katherina, 555 Galvão, Ivam, 587 Garay, Ignacio Salamanca, 279 García-Cuéllar, Daysi Julissa, 419 García-García, Galo Geovanny, 395 Gatica, Gustavo, 87, 257 Goitia, José Manuel Gómez, 525 Gomes, Luís M. P., 493 Gómez, Federico Miguel Estrella, 27 Gonçalves, Sofia, 731 González, Alicia Inciarte, 257 Grigorescu (Pîrvu), Florentina Alina, 483 Grineviˇci¯ut˙e, Laura, 645 Guaña-Moya, Javier, 267 Guerrero, Patricio Jaramillo, 69
H Hector F Gomez A, 69 Hernández, Jairo Coronado, 87 Herrera, Grace Rocha, 87 Hidrobo, Francisco, 431
I Infante, Saba, 431 Ioanid, Alexandra, 483
J Jaramillo, Carolina, 211 Javier, Quintero Cordero Yolvy, 97, 121, 153 Jenkins, Marcelo, 513 Joo-García, Carlos Eduardo, 57
L Laura-De La Cruz, Bianca Daisa, 535 Laura-De La Cruz, Kevin Mario, 57, 199, 535 Leão, Izabela Ribeiro, 471 Lillo, Emilio Sagredo, 279 López, M. Xavier, 383
Author Index López, Yeferson Gómez, 87, 257 Lourenço, J., 621 Lucas, C., 621 Luis-Masabanda, José, 525 Lutsak, Eduardo Vladimir Azanza, 267
M Magalhães, Andreia, 335 Magaña, María Evilia, 373 Mantilla Falcón, Marcelo, 225 Manzur-Vera, Gabriela, 199 Maquen-Niño, Gisella Luisa Elena, 45 Marques, Célio Gonçalo, 645 Martínez, Alexandra, 513 Martínez, David, 383 Martins, Rosa, 731 Mena-Alvarado, Evelyn, 405 Méndez, Eric Ramos, 373 Mendoza-Del Valle, Luz Anabella, 199 Meneses, Alexandra Yakeline Meneses, 321 Miranda, Alba, 187 Moheno, Gerardo Arceo, 373 Molina-Espinosa, Jose-Martin, 657 Montenegro, Bolívar David Narváez, 27, 69 Montero, Anthony, 431 Morais, J., 621 Morales, Jessica Carvajal, 267 Morales-Urrutia, Elizabeth, 525 Morales-Urrutia, Ximena, 225 Moreno, Yaneth, 431 Moscoso-Zegarra, Giomar Walter, 535 Motz, Regina, 667 Muquis, Lorena, 211
N Neto, Roberto Mendes Finzi, 175 Nieto-Andrade, Kely, 19 Norma, Molina Prendes, 97, 121, 153 Núñez-Hernández, Corina, 611 Núñez-Naranjo, Aracelly, 525
O Ordóñez, Kruzkaya, 35 Ortega Naranjo, William Fernando, 163 Ortega, William, 211 Otoni, Antonio Vítor Souza, 175
P Palacio-Fierro, Andrés, 225 Palomino-Flores, Paola, 503, 545
Author Index Pantoja-Collantes, Jorge, 45 Pantoja-Diaz, Odette, 235, 395 Pascoal, Sara, 141 Pascoinho, João, 731 Pastora, Alejo Betty, 153 Paul, David, 545 Paulo, Estrela, 731 Pazmiño, Fausto, 383 Pereira, Cláudia, 493 Pereira, Verónica, 565 Pérez, Alexis Matheu, 345 Pérez Manosalvas, Héctor Sebastián, 109, 163 Pilco-Velasquez, Ruthy Merla, 535 Poceviciene, Rasa, 449 Poenitz, Ana Victoria, 321
Q Queiroz de, Daniel, 667 Quesada-López, Christian, 513 Quezada-Loaiza, Enith, 19 Quispe-Vargas, Miliam, 199, 535
R Ramos-Alave, Rosmery, 57 Ramos-Alvarez, Andrés, 235, 395 Ramos, Célia M. Q., 713 Ramos-Saira, Elizabeth Marina, 57 Reis, Ingrid Weingärtner, 587 Rincón, Liliana Canquiz, 257 Rivera, Ruth Patricia Maldonado, 27 Robalinho, Joana, 493 Rodrigues, Pedro Miguel, 335 Rodríguez, Mónica Acuña, 87 Rodriguez-Palumbo, Cynthia Karín, 199 Rogel, Jorge Edmundo Gordón, 321 Romero, María José Navarro, 87 Ruff, Claudio, 345 Ruiz, Marcelo, 345
S Sagredo-Lillo, Emilio, 677 Salamanca-Garay, Ignacio, 677 Salazar Jácome, Martha Elizabeth, 109, 163
743 Salazar, Jesús Victoria Flores, 419, 577 Salvador, Patricia, 457 Samaniego, Juan Manuel Garcia, 69 Sanabria-Z, Jorge, 657, 689 Sánchez Ocaña, Wilson Edmundo, 109 Santos, Nuno Paula, 731 Saravia-Molina, Nancy, 577 Scarlat, Cezar, 483 Souza Tavares de, José Jean Paul Zanlucchi, 175 Suing, Abel, 35
T Tallone, Laura, 141 Tavares, Célia, 701 Teixeira, João Paulo, 471 Terán, Marcelo Ramírez, 305, 441 Toasa, Renato M., 305, 383, 441 Toro-González, Jorge, 131 Torres-Mamani, Silverio Fausto, 199 Trujillo, Edwin Cristian Julián, 577 Tulcán, Ana Lucía, 235
U Ulbricht, Vania Ribas, 587 Umaña-Ibáñez, Samir F., 87, 257 Uquillas Jaramillo, Nancy Cristina, 293
V Valle Alvarez, Tatiana, 225 Vara, Tito Nelson Peñaloza, 419 Vega-Huerta, Hugo, 45 Velarde-Molina, Jehovanni Fabricio, 535 Velasco Jaramillo, José Alejandro, 293 Velazquez-Morales, Elizabeth, 131 Vera, Jordan, 187 Viera Muñoz, Fernanda, 245 Viola, María, 667 Vivas-Pachas, Jorge Luis, 419, 577
Y Yedra, Rubén Jerónimo, 373