Abstracts - Earli

The usage of learner control and program control in a web-didactics based LMSChristian Swertz, University of Vienna, AustriaThis paper reports on the statistical analysis of the usage of learner control and program controltools in an educational metadata based online LMS. The research is founded by the theory ofevolutionary dialectics, that understands learning as a process of transferring cultural matter. Inthis process an agreement between teacher and learner is achieved not only on the knowledge, butalso on way the knowledge is achieved. From this point of view program control and learnercontrol are not a contradiction, but take place at the same time. This is operationalised through theeducational metadata vocabulary "Web-Didactics" that supports learner control and programcontrol at the same time. Using log files from the LMS InLearn (www.lerndorf.at) it is analysedwhether learners prefer program control or learner control depending on course size, gender andlevel of experience with LMS. The data are collected in regular university courses. Data from1.500 users and 700.000 page accesses are considered.Learner control and learners’ confidence in instructional animation: Exploring the “falseconfidence” hypothesisBeatrice Susanne Hasler, University of Zurich, SwitzerlandBeat Meier, University of Bern, SwitzerlandThe study addresses the "false confidence" hypothesis in instructional animation, and examines theinfluence of learner-control, item difficulty, and gender on learners’ confidence regarding theirunderstanding of an instruction. Three versions of an audio-visual computer animation and anarration-only presentation were used to teach primary school students the determinants of dayand night. The animations were either system-paced using a continuous animation, learner-pacedusing discrete segments or learner paced using "stop" and "play" buttons. The students in both thelearner-paced groups were more often over-confident, whereas the students in both the systempacedgroups were more often under-confident. This effect was only found in easy questions butnot in difficult questions. Male subjects were significantly more often over-confident compared tofemale subjects who were more often under-confident. Again, this effect was only found in easyquestions but not in difficult questions. The interaction effect of experimental group and genderwas not significant.Learner control and task variability: Improving transfer and task involvement on geneticsproblemsGemma Corbalan, Open University of the Netherlands, NetherlandsLiesbeth Kester, Open University of the Netherlands, NetherlandsJeroen van Merriënboer, Open University of the Netherlands, NetherlandsThis research examines the influence of shared control (a combination of system and learnercontrol) and task variability over surface features on transfer of learning. It is assumed that sharedcontrol increases learners’ willingness to invest effort, having a positive influence on taskinvolvement and yielding higher transfer. In addition, variability over surface features is believedto trigger schema formation through induction from experience with various examples, increasingtransfer. Eighty-six students participated in a 2x2 factorial design experiment with the factorscontrol (system, shared) and variability (low, high). It is hypothesized that shared control willresult in a higher task involvement and a higher transfer performance as compared to systemcontrol. In addition, a high task variability is expected to lead to a higher transfer performance as– 419 –