Design and assessment of the impact of an e-textbook in the engagement towards the learning of Discrete Mathematics

PROCEEDINGS Cádiz 18-20 OCTOBER 2017 I Proceedings Fifth International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality Cádiz, Spain October 18th 20th, 2017 Editors: Juan Manuel Dodero María Soledad Ibarra Sáiz Iván Ruiz Rube University of Cádiz is organized by the Software Process Improvement and Formal Methods (SPI-FM), Evaluation in Formative Contexts (EVALfor) and GRoup in InterAction and eLearning (GRIAL) research groups with the support of the University of Cádiz. II Fifth International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing ) University of Cádiz Calle Ancha, 16 11001 Cádiz, Spain Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701 New York New York 10121-0701 ISBN: 978-1-4503-5386-1 Applied computing Computer-assisted instruction; Interactive learning environments The Ministry of Higher Education of the Republic of Cuba is the governing body of university centers and careers in the country. In 2016 began a process of improvement of Higher Education, aimed to orient the training process closer to learning rather than teaching. All of this with the objective of raising student´s commitment and prominence and to favor their cognitive independence and creativity through the widespread use of computer programs, interactive platforms, virtual laboratory practices, among others. At the University of Informatics Sciences (UIS) in Havana, the degree of Engineering in Computer Science (ECS) is studied, whose object of profession is the process of computerization of society, being understood as such, the one related to its participation in the redesign of the processes of the organizations, according to the needs for its computerization. Within the subjects that are taught, Discrete Mathematics (I and II) is studied during the first year. This subject develops a logical and algorithm thinking; an essential element of the specialty of Computer Science. The objectives of Discrete Mathematics are directed to the modeling and the simulation of structures and processes that take part in the computational solution of problems. The academic performance of students in Discrete Mathematics (DM) subjects in the ECS is not the expected, during the last academic years the percentage of students who did not exceed the subject in their ordinary examination is not Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. TEEM 2017, October 18-20, 2017, Cádiz, Spain © 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. TEEM 2017, October 18-20, Cádiz, Spain Alién García-Hernández and Teresa González-Ramírez 2 insignificant. If we analyze the official data of the institution, in the last five academic years, we see that more than 35% of the students need at least another opportunity to approve the subjects. From this information, we should ask the following question: Are these levels of academic performance related to tion and commitment to learning, or simply to the assimilation of highly complex content? It is worth noting that the level of stu ir learning is not the desired. For this reason as a background of this research and with the intention of investigating possible causes of this thesis of this investigator we analyze the main limitations of the teaching-learning process of Discrete Mathematics in the UIS from 2009 to the present. Some of the difficulties detected were: 1. Insufficient use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the teaching-learning process of the subjects, which distances the student of Engineering in Computer Science from the object of its profession. 2. Low use of the study materials of the subject. These materials do not fully conform to the objectives and abilities of the subjects; they also do not take into account graphing, interactivity and descriptions of step-by-step procedures to facilitate student learning. The difficulties expressed have inf commitment to the learning of Discrete Mathematics, and therefore, in the low levels of motivation and commitment for their academic performance. Precisely several studies on student´s motivation and commitment point to a relatively young concept in education: engagement, which is invited to be studied by experts in higher education [36]. It is good to note that in Cuba we did not identify published studies on this subject. Most foreign investigations focus on the confirmation of the incidence of the concept and the factors that influence its existence in the students [15, 16, 22, 29, 38]. The scientific community advocates designing study materials with high levels of technological interaction that will help students cope with acceptable levels of engagement in the teaching-learning process of highly complex subjects [22]. Among the most used and preferred study materials by students and teachers are textbooks [12]. It is considered that a textbook can be an outstanding help in the teaching-learning process, however, the accelerated development of technologies and the presence of subjects with a high scientific rigor, among other causes, require professional training very complex to give by the traditional textbook [12, 24, 32]. This justifies the need of designing interactive textbooks that guarantee a learning of Discrete Mathematics more adjusted to the complexity of this subject, where students require study environments in which graphing, visualization and interaction play a primary role [4, 25]. Design and assessment of the impact of an e-textbook in the engagement towards the learning of Discrete Mathematics TEEM 2017, October 18-20 2017, Cádiz, Spain 3 TEEM 2017, October 18-20, Cádiz, Spain Alién García-Hernández and Teresa González-Ramírez 4 Design and assessment of the impact of an e-textbook in the engagement towards the learning of Discrete Mathematics TEEM 2017, October 18-20 2017, Cádiz, Spain 5 Independent variable: academic performance. Logistic regression model 0,04 0 2,091 0,00 0 0,338 0,30 6 1,247 0,00 7 0,257 0,04 5 0,758 0,20 2 0,963 TEEM 2017, October 18-20, Cádiz, Spain Alién García-Hernández and Teresa González-Ramírez 6 [1] English Language Teaching. 10, 3 (2017). [2] Abdul Gafoor, K. and Sarabi, M. 2015. Relating Difficulty in School from Kerala. National Conference on Mathematics Teaching-Approaches and Challenges (Mysuru, 2015), 1 16. [3] demic Performance in the Education College at Dammam University. Education Journal. 6, 2 (2017), 77 83. [4] SNA ) in OnlineCourses. International Review of Research in Open an Distance Learning. 4, 3 (2013), 1 26. [5] Care, E. et al. 2016. Assessment of Collaborative Problem Solving in Education Environments. Applied Measurement in Education. 29, 250 (2016), 264. [6] Castellanos, V. et al. 2017. Modelo Explicativo del Desempeño Académico desde la Autoeficacia y los Problemas de Conducta. Revista Colombiana de Psicología. 26, 1 (2017), 149 161. [7] Chang-Hyun, J. 2014. Adoption of e-book among college students: The perspective of an integrated TAM. Computers in Human Behavior. 41 (2014), 471 477. [8] Chen, B. et al. 2017. Combinatorial optimization: theory, computation, and applications. Discrete Applied Mathematics. 217, 1 (2017), 1 78. [9] Colás-Bravo, P. et al. 2015. El uso de las nuevas tecnologías en las aulas como factor predictivo del engagement en los estudios. XXIII Jornadas Universitarias de Tecnología Educativa (2015). [10] Cozad, L.E. and Riccomini, P.J. 2016. Effects of Digital-Based Math Fluency Interventions on Learners with Math Difficulties: A Review of the Literature. The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship. 5, 2 (2016), 12 2016. [11] difficulties in doing proofs and causes of their struggle with proofs. Bayburt University Journal of Education Faculty. 10, 2 (2015), 315 328. [12] Elias, E. et al. 2012. E-books in the classroom: A survey of students and faculty at a school of pharmacy. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning. 4 (2012), 262 266. [13] Flores-Hernandez, F. et al. 2016. Modelo de predicción del rendimiento académico de los estudiantes del ciclo básico de la carrera de medicina a partir de la evaluación del desempeño docente. Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa. 21, 70 (2016), 975 991. [14] Gafoor, K.A. and Kurukkan, A. 2015. Why High School Students Feel UGC Sponsored National Seminar on Pedagogy of Teacher Education- Trends and Challenges (2015), 1 6. [15] of Motivation , Strategies , and Perceived Factors Hindering Liberian Junior and Senior High School Students Learning. Education Research International. 2017, (2017). [16] Glaría, R. et al. 2016. Burnout y engagement académico en fonoaudiología. Investigación en educación médica. 5, 17 (2016), 17 23. [17] interdisciplinary. Higher Education Research & Development. 33, 5 (2014), 921 934. [18] González-Ramírez, T. and Reyes, S. 2015. Características de las aulas universitarias que generan engagement desde la perspectiva de los estudiantes. Investigar con y para la sociedad. 691 704. [19] Gueudet, G. et al. 2016. Collective design of an ecollective documentation. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education. 19, 2 (2016), 187 203. [20] Gueval, J. et al. 2015. Implementing e-books: Faculty and student experiences. Teaching and Learning in Nursing. 10 (2015), 181 185. [21] Haviger, J. 2011. Are types of memory critical for students success in tests of discrete mathematics? Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 29 (2011), 964 968. [22] Henrie, C.R. et al. 2015. Measuring student engagement in technologymediated learning: A review. Computers & Education. 90 (2015), 36 53. [23] Hinrichs, C.P. et al. 2016. Relación entre el Bienestar Académico de Estudiantes de Kinesiología de una Universidad Tradicional de Chile y su Percepción del Ambiente Educacional. Formación Universitaria. 9, 1 (2016), 109 116. [24] Huang, R. et al. 2014. The New Development of Technology Enhanced Learning. Springer. [25] Jones, D. et al. 2016. The Presentation of Technology for Teaching and Teachers. 17, (2016), 53 79. [26] Jou, M. et al. 2016. A study on the usability of E-books and APP in engineering courses: A case study on mechanical drawing. Computers & Education. 92-93 (2016), 181 193.