Enhanced Learning and Forgetting Behavior for Contextual Knowledge Tracing

Knowledge tracing (KT) is based on modeling students' behavior sequences to obtain students' knowledge state and predict students' future performance. The KT task aims to model students' knowledge state in real-time according to their historical learning behavior, so as to predict their future learning performance. Online education has become more critical in recent years due to the impact of COVID-19, and KT has also attracted much attention due to its importance in the education field. However, previous KT models generally have the following three problems. Firstly, students' learning and forgetting behaviors affect their knowledge state, and past KT models have yet to exploit this fully. Secondly, the input of traditional KT models is mainly limited to students' exercise sequence and answers. In the learning process, students' answering performance can reflect their knowledge level. Finally, the context of students' learning sequence also affects their judgment of the knowledge state. In this paper, we combined educational psychology theories to propose enhanced learning and forgetting behavior for contextual knowledge tracing (LFEKT). LFEKT enriches the features of exercises by introducing difficulty information and considers the influence of students' answering behavior on the knowledge state. In order to model students' learning and forgetting behavior, LFEKT integrates multiple influencing factors to build a knowledge acquisition module and a knowledge retention module. Furthermore, LFEKT introduces a long short-term memory (LSTM) network to capture the contextual relations of learned sequences. From the experimental results, it can be seen that LFEKT had better prediction performance than existing models on four public datasets, which indicates that LFEKT can better trace students' knowledge state and has better prediction performance. © 2023 by the authors.

Cross-cultural validation of 'Students' knowledge and use of digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic' questionnaire to the Peruvian context

To obtain useful, valid, and reliable results, it is essential to carry out a cross-cultural adaptation process when using measurement instruments developed in other cultures, contexts, and populations with a different language from the original one. An instrumental study was conducted to determine the validity and reliability of the 'Students' knowledge and use of digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic' questionnaire, developed in another context and different culture from the original one. The participants were 139 students of the Communications program of a private higher education institute in Lima, selected by non-probabilistic convenience sampling. The study presents a proposal consisting of eight factors and 56 items, as opposed to the original structure composed of seven factors and 77 items. The analyses show that the instrument is valid and reliable among the population under study. © 2022 IEEE.

Experiences in the use of a unique open-book exam paper for every student in a cohort

Accounting and Finance is a core module for undergraduate students taking the Bachelor or Integrated Undergraduate Masters in Electronic Engineering with Business Management and in the taught Masters in Engineering Management at. the University of York. It is also a popular option module for all Electronic Engineering undergraduate programmes. It is traditionally assessed by a 2 question from 4 closed book exam testing students' knowledge and understanding of the subject at its application to Engineering business problems. One of the many consequences of Covid was the inability to hold closed book exams and a switch mas made to an open book exam where students were required to answer 4 from 4 questions. This change had the advantage of testing more of the module learning outcomes but the disadvantages of opening the module up for cheating and a doubling of the marking load. With the cohort size just under 200 students the issuing of all students with a unique exam was trialed together with automatically marking as much as possible. The pilot was successful in that a unique exam was sent to 94% of the students and most questions could be marked automatically. The paper describes the automation process and provides recommendations on how this could be improved up. © 2022 IEEE.

Socio-demographic Heterogeneity in Prevalence of SARS-COV-2 Infection and Death Rate: Relevance to Black College Student Knowledge of COVID-19 and SARS-COV-2.

Black and Brown communities are affected disproportionately by COVID-19. In an attempt to learn if young Black college students unknowingly contribute to the spread of the COVID-19 in their communities, using surveys, this pilot study gauges the general safety knowledge and basic scientific knowledge of Black college students about SARS-COV-2 virus and COVID-19 at an HBCU. We also investigated whether students enrolled in chemistry courses designed for STEM (Science, Technology, and Engineering Majors) majors displayed increased knowledge of SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19 in comparison to their non-STEM major peers. Two sets of surveys with multiple choice questions, one with 25 and the other with 34 questions, were designed to assess general safety knowledge and basic scientific knowledge of the students about COVID-19 and the SARS-COV-2 virus. Survey questions were administered through Blackboard learning management system to one hundred eighty-seven (187) students in the summer of 2020 to two freshman non-science majors and in the fall of 2020 to one freshman non-science-major class, two freshmen STEM-major classes, and one senior STEM-major class. All students self-registered in the 6 chemistry classes at North Carolina A&T State University at random with no predetermined criteria. Results of the study show that regardless of their year of study, majority (> 90%) of the students possess basic scientific knowledge and are aware of the safety precautions concerning SARS-COV-2 virus and COVID-19. Majority of non-science major freshmen answered the basic safety questions correctly but were not able to choose the correct answers for the more specific scientific questions concerning SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19. Surprisingly, there was no significant difference in basic scientific knowledge regarding SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19 between STEM and non-STEM student populations, and first year STEM students were just as knowledgeable as senior STEM students. Based on these data, we speculate that students surveyed here have an acceptable basic understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted, and therefore, they may not be a source of COVID-19 transmission to Black and Brown communities as this study confirms they are receiving accurate information about SARS-COV-2 and COVID-19. Possession of crucial timely and accurate knowledge about the health and safety is important in fighting racism and to gain equity within the society at large. By sharing the acquired knowledge, students can serve as positive role models for others in the community thus encouraging them to pursue science. Education brings equity, sharing the acquired knowledge encourages others to continue their education and succeed in obtaining higher degrees and better jobs as remedies for social inequality. Spread of accurate knowledge on various aspects of COVID-19 will also help remove fears of vaccination and hesitation towards visits to health clinics to resolve health issues. Relying on the results of this pilot study, we plan to explore these important factors further in our next study.

Hybrid Authentication Combining Student Behavior and Knowledge for E-Evaluation Transparency and Equity Over E-Learning Platform

COVID-19 has forced academic organizations to migrate rapidly to distance education or online (electronic) learning (e-learning) owing to its ben-efits, mainly offering innovative teaching and transparent evaluation. However, e-learning stakeholders, faculties, staff, and students have evoked evaluation security concerns regarding authenticating takers during the electronic evalua-tion (e-evaluation) comprising electronic assessment (e-assess) and examination (e-exam). This paper presents a hybrid scheme that resolves this challenge using a dynamic authentication method for supervising e-evaluation. This approach builds an active student profile employing students' information and behavior gathered during the courses' activities and uses them for managing unethical conduct during e-evaluation. The proposed scheme ensures continuous authen-tication using active questions made using operational students' profiles with-out a need for added components and extra cost. The student answers to the set of random queries developed dynamically, in terms of time and information, to ensure real-time authentication with e-evaluation transparency and equity. A mathematical model is developed and employed utilizing students' and courses' contents to enable a dynamic authentication algorithm throughout e-evaluation. The obtained results of the simulation work show that the authentication require-ments are guaranteed at a low cost regardless of student number, e-evaluation content, anytime, and anywhere.

Co-construct Learning Spaces to Sustain Collaborative Knowledge Building During COVID-19

This study draws on a learning ecologies framework to explore how the teachers and students in a Grade 5 knowledge building (KB) community co-constructed new learning spaces to sustain their science inquiry during COVID-19 school closures. Using an interactional ethnographic approach, we conducted detailed analysis of observation notes, videos of whole-class meetings, and students' online discourse. Our analysis indicated students showed sustained engagement in KB discourse during the school closures, which took place in new learning spaces co-constructed by the teachers and students. The co-construction of learning spaces involved replacing some of the critical classroom-based elements with new options, accommodating the limitations they faced while drawing on new opportunities for students to conduct inquiry in the broader world. Student KB was sustained by a learning culture and activity system formed around the principles of KB and use of relational resources. © ISLS.

Impact of lab experiences on student knowledge and confidence

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the sophomore class of 2021 spent very little time on campus as freshmen and missed the benefits and advantages of in-person learning. Three labs were added to a required sophomore biomedical engineering (BME) course, Biochemistry and Molecular Engineering. The objectives of these labs were three-fold: (i) reinforce the content presented in the online lecture, (ii) provide students with hands-on laboratory skills, and (iii) offer students engaged in an online course in-person experiences and the corresponding academic and social benefits. The objective of this course is to develop critical thinking, teamwork and collaborative skills, as well as the ability to use physical laboratory equipment to obtain and analyze data. We eliminated some of the homework problems to account for the time spent in preparation for lab, the lab sessions, and writing the post-lab reports. The labs accounted for 10% of the total grade and included a prelab quiz, a post-lab report, and one or two exam questions for each lab. The three labs were: 1. Introduction to Pipetting 2. DNA Extraction, PCR, and Gel Electrophoresis 3. Bacterial Transformation with a Plasmid After completing the labs, a student survey indicated that over 80% of students agreed or strongly agreed that they felt confident using all these techniques. Comparing confidence levels, 63% of the students were somewhat familiar with pipetting prior to Lab 1 which increased to over 90% post-lab. After Lab 2 (DNA extraction, PCR, and gel electrophoresis), confidence levels more than doubled, from 40% in pre-lab survey results to 86% afterwards. Student confidence in the final lab, which involved using a plasmid for genetic transfection of bacteria, went from 33% pre-lab to 81% post-lab. While the prelab census indicated that a significant percentage of the students had some prior lab proficiency in high school, a quarter of the students lacked experience in pipetting and a majority of the students were unfamiliar with PCR/gel electrophoresis and plasmids. As one student noted, “The labs were a good way to build basic lab skills and exposure for students who were previously unable to work in a college lab”. By the end of the course, 87% agreed or strongly agreed that “Gaining hands-on lab skills is an important part of this course. I believe it should be continued, possibly with more labs, in future years.” In addition to gaining hands-on laboratory experience, students enjoyed working with their classmates in-person and benefited from “learning by doing”. Student comments strongly indicated that the labs reinforced the lecture content. The labs “helped me retain the information better than simply reading about it.” The combination of replacing homework with labs, and reducing the total amount of time per week students spent on the course, did not result in significant differences in the quiz scores from pre-pandemic years. Given the success of this year's lab experiences, we plan to update the labs and include additional topics for future course offerings. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Knowledge, attitude, and hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccine among university students of Bangladesh

Global vaccination coverage is an urgent need to recover the recent pandemic COVID-19. However, people are concerned about the safety and efficacy of this vaccination program. Thus, it has become crucial to examine the knowledge, attitude, and hesitancy towards the vaccine. An online cross-sectional survey was conducted among university students of Bangladesh. Total of 449 university students participated. Most of these students used the internet (34.74%), social media (33.41%), and electronic media (25.61%) as a source of COVID- 19 vaccine information. Overall, 58.13% and 64.81% of university students reported positive knowledge and attitude towards the COVID-19 vaccine. 54.34% of these students agreed that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective. 43.88% believed that the vaccine could stop the pandemic. The Spearman's Rank correlation determined the positive correlation between knowledge and attitude. The negative correlation was determined between positive knowledge and hesitancy, and positive attitude and hesitancy. University students with positive knowledge and attitude showed lower hesitancy. Multiple logistic regression analyses determined the university type and degree major as the predictors of knowledge, whereas only degree major was the predictor of attitudes. 26.06% of the study population showed their hesitancy towards the vaccine. University type and degree major were also determined as predictors of this hesitancy. They rated fear of side effects (87.18%) and lack of information (70.94%) as the most reasons for the hesitancy. The findings from this study can aid the ongoing and future COVID-19 vaccination plan for university students. The national and international authorities can have substantial information for a successful inoculation campaign. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Mobile e-Learning Platform for Audio-Tactile Graphics Presentation

The use of multimedia in education means that more and more information is presented graphically. However, it limits the education of blind people, especially in science, where graphical content is the most often way of presenting the information. One of the commonly used alternative forms of graphic presentation is tactile graphics with descriptions in braille. Nonetheless, in the case of complex pictures, this form of presentation is insufficient for a blind student, and reading the tactile pictures often requires an assistant’s help. In the paper, we present a developed e-learning platform for audio-tactile graphics presentation for the blinds dedicated to standard Android tablets, whose advantage is the automatic adaptation of interactive audio descriptions to the student’s level of knowledge. The platform also enables the automatic assessment of the student's knowledge and exercise selection assigned to the appropriate knowledge level. The paper also presents the research results regarding the effectiveness of self-learning using our platform on two age groups of blind students while solving math exercises. The obtained research results show that the developed platform and the proposed method of verifying students’ knowledge and selecting exercises positively influence the improvement of learning effectiveness. The platform can be used during the traditional lesson at school and also for self-learning which makes it especially desirable during the Coronavirus pandemic. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Knowledge of Mucormycosis among Undergraduate Nursing Students of AIIMS New Delhi

"Mucor" is a fungus which is normally present in the environment and in soil. It causes disease only when immunity is critically low. Early detection and management of the Mucormycosis is very crucial. Delay reporting symptoms of the infection should be avoided and treatment should be initiated at the earliest AIM: The aim of this study is to assess the Knowledge of Mucormycosis among Undergraduate Nursing Students of AIIMS New Delhi". Method A descriptive cross sectional survey was adopted using online platform as direct contact with the participants is not possible during this period. An online questionnaire was used to assess knowledge of Mucormycosis among the undergraduate Nursing students of AIIMS, New Delhi. Population selected are B.Sc Nursing 2nd, 3rd and 4th year and post basic 1st and 2nd year students who are studying in College of Nursing, AIIMs, New Delhi using smart Phone and Whats app. Result: All the nursing students (N=230) had good and homogenous knowledge about mucormycosis with mean knowledge score 7.99 (minimum 3 and maximum10) and SD±1.1. Most of the students (88.7%) would like to include the topic in the syllabus as they would like to know in detail about the disease. 90% of the Students showed a greater appreciation and willingness to attend seminar/webinar on this topic of Mucormycosis. Conclusion: In the current study, although most of the study participants possess a good knowledge toward the prevention of COVID-19, it is surprising to know that the students are seeking formation from unverified sources such as social media and internet. These results are impactful and should be addressed through standardized training opportunities and distribution of official sources about mucormycosis .There is also a need to Constantly updated refresher training from authentic sources which will contribute to better performance of the student Nurses in clinical areas

Peruvian Students' Knowledge and the Use of Digital Technology during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The population, which lacks knowledge about COVID-19, is at higher risk of getting sick. There are few studies about the knowledge and attitudes that people have during epidemics in South America. This study aims to analyze the knowledge and use of digital technologies of Peruvian students about COVID 19. A 75-item survey was conducted among Peruvian students (N=39), whose ages range from 16 to 29 years. As a result, students have been informed about the evolution of the coronavirus via news, social networks, and search engines. It is relevant to know the use of digital technologies made by students in times of coronavirus since they spread knowledge about the virus worldwide. Information management is a crucial factor in fighting the pandemic. © 2021 IEEE.

Project-Based Learning Using Internet of Things as an Educational Tool in COVID 19 Era with a Hybrid Context for Engineering Students

Universities must develop disciplinary skills during the COVID-19 era due to virtual classes, even in laboratory practices. In this experiment, disciplinary skills during COVID-19 era are developed through Project-Based Learning (PjBL), which is a classroom approach to give students knowledge and skills, through projects focused on real world challenges and problems. The purpose of this study was to design PjBL using Internet of Things (IoT) to have quantitative evaluation, learning experience perception, course contents assimilation, perception of improvement in soft skills and critical thinking. The project consisted in the measurement and analysis of vehicle variables for an engine embedded in IoT with idle speed conditions. The vehicle variables to be measured and analyzed are: carbon oxide and dioxide gas emissions, gas emission temperature, engine bay temperature and humidity, engine RPM, oil temperature, engine inertial forces, engine block temperature, and accelerator pedal position. The results prove that PjBLs with IoT in a hybrid context improve the students' learning experiences in a similar way to the face-to-face context. The score grade before and during COVID-19 exhibited 1.59% of increment;the learning experience perception showed that the students preferred the hybrid (42.86%) model (remote and real) in similar percentage in comparison with the face-to-face (53.06%), the virtual model (remote) was not fully accepted (4.08%). The 81.6% of the students preferred to implement projects based on IoT for future courses or prototypes. © 2021 ACM.

Intelligent Knowledge Understanding from Students Questionnaires: A Case Study

Learning Analytics techniques are widely used to improve students’ performance. Data collected from students’ assessments are helpful to predict their success and questionnaires are extensively adopted to assess students’ knowledge. Several mathematical models studying the correlation between students’ hidden skills and their performance to questionnaires’ items have been introduced. Among them, Non-negative matrix factorizations (NMFs) have been proven to be effective in automatically extracting hidden skills, a time-consuming activity that is usually tackled manually prone to subjective interpretations. In this paper, we present an intelligent data analysis approach based upon NMF. Data are collected from a competition, namely MathsChallenge, performed by the University of Foggia. In 2021 the competition has been held, for the first time, online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.