Interdisciplinary Journal of Virtual Learning in Medical Sciences
Volume:11 Issue: 1, Mar 2020

Constructivist teaching is deemed beneficial across most educational contexts, and is particularly valued and utilized in tertiary settings. Yet to date, no tools have been made available for measuring and evaluating the construct.This study aimed at developing and validating a scale to evaluate the proactive teaching (based on Constructivism) in higher education.  The present research is an exploratory mixed methodology. The statistical population of the present study included all students of psychology, education, social sciences, medicine and management of University of Tehran during the 2015-16 academic years. The first phase of the research involved developing a tool within a framework of qualitative methodology and phenomenology based on semi-structured interviews collected from 100 students selected through purposeful sampling. The second phase incorporated the data collected from 500 students selected by stratified random sampling to validate the six-dimension scale through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis.  The result was the conceptualization of six dimensions of active learning: self-organization, constructivism, cognitive involvement, participation and cooperation, teacher as facilitator, and constructivist evaluation. The results showed that the Proactive Teaching Scale (which includes 6 components and 42 items) has adequate properties to evaluate this teaching method in higher education explaining 53.48% of the total variance. Ordinal Theta coefficient (0.86 - 0.92) indicated good internal validity.  The Proactive Teaching Scale provides a valuable tool to evaluate constructivist teaching, and contributes to improved teaching and learning practices in higher education.

Due to the importance of self-regulated learning in distance education (especially online learning environments), researchers are constantly looking for a suitable instrument to evaluate it more accurately. The purpose of this study was to investigate validity and reliability of the Barnard’s et al (2009) Online Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire in Iranian context. The study was a descriptive survey that implemented a correlational research design. The population of this study were all postgraduate students enrolled in the online courses at universities located in Tehran in the academic year 2017-2018. A sample of 450 students were selected by Cluster random sampling and responded to the Barnard et al (2009) Online Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire, of which, 418 questionnaires could be analyzed. The findings showed that the questionnaire had acceptable formal and content validities. The results of exploratory factor analysis by the principal components method, confirmed six factors named goal setting, environment structuring, task strategies, time management, help seeking and self-evaluation. These six factors account for 56.78 % of the overall variance. To determine the factor validity, a confirmatory factor analysis was used, and the results showed that the model appropriately fit to data. All of the tests confirmed the model. (Χ2/df=1.930<3, RMSEA=0.064, GFI=0.94, NFI=0.92, CFI=0.94). The results of this study showed that Cronbach’s alpha coefficient ranged from 0.84 to 0.94 and Intraclass correlation coefficient and Pearson correlation coefficient of test-retest were 0.77 and 0.78, respectively. The instrument appears to be appropriate for assessing self-regulated online learning among Iranian students for research or intervention purposes.

Raising awareness among pregnant mothers and their participation in self-care can reduce the complications and risks of pregnancy. One of the ways to acquire information for pregnant women is through the Internet and websites. The purpose of this study was to determine the quality of Persian educational websites for pregnant mothers. This was a descriptive survey study. The study population consisted of Persian educational websites for pregnant mothers. Sampling method was Available websites. The first 5 pages of two common search Engines, Google & yahoo, were searched using the keywords “pregnancy” & “education website”. A total of 20 out of 86 websites matched the criteria and were included in the study. The data collection tool was the standard Checklist WebMedQual assessment tool created by Provost in 2006. The validity and reliability of this tool was verified in its original version and then in the localized version based on the frameworks of the template websites in previous studies. The websites were directly observed and evaluated by 9 trained experts in January 2017. The agreement coefficient between the two checklists was completed in groups based on Kappa 0.78 coefficient. The websites were evaluated based on information content indexes, resource validity, design, availability, usability, links, user support and information confidentiality, with the scores ranging from 0 to 85, and the ideal score was considered 60. SPSS 16 was used for data analysis and using one-sample t-test the results were presented as mean score and optimal score. The findings showed a significant difference between the average availability and utilization index of the websites under study (P<0.001), and the mean score (6.2±0.61) was higher than the average score (4.5). Persian websites were less favored in the criteria of content, validity, design, links and support, and their ratings were lower than the average rating of the study. Also, none of the reviewed websites received the total score. Persian websites for pregnancy education are not high in quality. Therefore, pregnant mothers need to seek guidance from specialist doctors and midwives. Website administrators are also advised to consider website evaluation criteria and improve their websites.

English, as a foreign language, has become an essential part of educational curriculum in Iranian educational contexts. However, there has not been enough research in the domain of using technology in English classes in Iran to make learning easier and more accessible. The present study aims at investigating the effect of online interpretation of English lessons through Interactive White board on learning new vocabularies in an Iranian international school in the academic year 2017-2018. To achieve the goal, 60 female students were randomly selected as homogeneous learners after a placement test (Oxford Placement Test). Following a pre-test of vocabulary, all 60 participants were randomly assigned to 3 groups of 20 to be exposed to the experiment. The participants of all three groups received English vocabulary lessons on IWB screen while simultaneously receiving the online interpretation of each lesson through auditory, video, and pictorial annotations attached to the new words. In this process, the participants read the vocabularies and their usage in the texts. In the meantime, they were able to consult the data attached to them through IWB to find their definitions through auditory definition, pictures, or movies by touching the board. In order to measure the influence of whiteboard on their learning ability, the subjects of all three groups were given an immediate post-test after the lessons. The data was analyzed through ANOVA and the results indicated that the group who received video interpretation (m=5.27) outperformed the auditory (m=4.42) and pictorial annotation groups (m=4.20), and auditory group displayed a significantly better performance than pictorial group. The results provide significant implications for teaching English vocabulary in international schools. They highlight the role of English language syllabus designers and international school educators and instructors in providing electronic programs that can substantially improve the learning process.

Blended learning has recently become a widespread practice in industrial training. Accordingly, comparing the effectiveness of e-learning and blended learning in industrial environments is of utmost necessity. The purpose of this research was to compare the effectiveness of e-learning and blended learning in industrial training based on learning outcomes and course satisfaction. This study was conducted at Hepco Company in 2018, and a quasi-experimental design with a control group was used. The sample size included 90 employees randomized in three groups by means of random sampling method. 60 participants were assigned to the experimental groups (30 learners in e-learning group and 30 in blended learning group) and 30 of them went to the control group. Satisfaction questionnaire (Kirkpatrick, 2007) with 23 questions and 3 components was used for data collection. Components of this scale included the content component (8 questions), lecture component (9 questions) and organization-possibilities (6 questions). The reliability of the questionnaire was 0.92 based on the Cronbach’s alpha. To evaluate the learning outcomes a researcher made test with 30 questions was administered, and the CVR of the test for validity was 0.96. In terms of learning outcomes, the mean results in the blended learning group (M=22.96, SD=2.66) were higher than in the e-learning (M=19.48, SD=3.25) and face-to-face (M=18.13, SD=4.62) groups. There was a significant difference between of learning scores in the experimental group and control group (P<0.001). Also the results showed that the mean course satisfaction in blended learning group (M=71.19, SD=8.6) was higher than e-learning (M=43.88, SD=7.94) and face-to-face (M=59.65, SD=11.63) groups. The course satisfaction scores showed that the blended learning group expressed greater satisfaction than the e-learning and face-to-face groups (P<0.001). The results indicate that blended learning can improve the effectiveness of training. It is therefore suggested that curriculum developers and HR managers in companies can improve industrial training by developing blended learning courses.

Diabetes is a type of metabolic diseases whose common characteristic is the increase in blood sugar. It is dangerous and very common in the world, especially in Iran. Research on people’s awareness of this disease is scarce. The purpose of this study was to design a virtual-social educational environment for awareness of diabetes and its effectiveness on the knowledge and self-efficacy of male students’ mothers.

Multi-stage cluster sampling was used and a total of 30 mothers were selected. These mothers were divided into experimental and control groups. (Each group involved 15 people). A pretest of knowledge about diabetes and self-efficacy was given to all mothers qualified for the study. All mothers in the experimental group were given diabetes training in 12 sessions, and the control group did not receive any training. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, mean, frequency and standard deviation were used at the end of the training sessions. Covariance analysis was used in inferential statistics using SPSS version 25.

The results of the hypothesis review through covariance analysis indicate that the special virtual-social learning environment for diabetes awareness has an impact on the knowledge and Self-efficacy of Male Student’s mothers and has increased it at a significance level of 1%.

It was concluded that that the virtual social-educational environment raises people’s awareness of diabetes. Similar studies are recommended for other organizations like high schools, universities, public and private sectors. These studies can have a positive effect on psychological health of society.