| dc.description.abstract | E-assessment, refers to the evaluation of the knowledge or skills of students in a computer-based environment. However, traditional E-assessment may lack guidance or support so students may have low learning motivation, which may negatively affect their learning performance. On the other hand, scaffolding is one of effective learning tools, which can address the aforementioned problem. Among various types of scaffolding, hint is a mechanism that can give support to students based on their needs so hints are applied to support English learning in this study.
English learning covers a wide range of issues, among which the usage of academic English would be stricter and more logical than general English. More specifically, accuracy, clarity and simplicity are key elements in academic English. Moreover, the usages of some vocabularies, e.g., “argue”, “suggest” and “approach” are different from those used in general English. Thus, there is a need to provide academic English courses. In general, academic English courses includes several subtopics, among which English phrases and English grammar are the most important because they make it possible to exchange information in English. The concepts of English phrases are simpler while those of English grammar are more complex during thinking process. This is due to the fact that the thinking process of English phrases is static while that of English gramma is dynamic. Thus, students can learn how to apply phrases by just memorizing their meaning and the usage. Conversely, students need to not only memorize various grammar rule, but also have to understand how to use these rules correctly
Due to such differences, this research attempted to identify how students learn English phrases and English grammar with hints. In addition to differences between English phrases and English grammar, individual differences also existed among students. In particular, cognitive styles greatly affect student learning. Hence, two empirical studies were conducted. The participants of these two studies were recruited from students who studied in the College of Engineering at the National Central University in Taiwan. Study One is to identify how cognitive styles affect students to learn English phrases via hints in the context of E-assessment? The results of Study One demonstrate that Holists more frequently used the hints than Serialists. Moreover, Serialists’ task scores were positively related to the frequencies of using Chinese hints as well as those of using synonym hints and they took more time to complete the task, in the conditions which provided fewer hints or no hints. Additionally, Holists demonstrated an iterative behavior when using hints. In other words, Holists takes an iterative approach to gain more thought while Serialists’ need additional support.
On the other hand, Study Two was to investigate how cognitive styles affect students to learn English grammar via hints in the context of E-assessment. The results of Study Two suggested that Holists’ task scores were negatively related to the frequencies of using intermediate hints and detailed hints in the IH condition Additionally, Serialists demonstrated an iterative behavior in using hints. Moreover, Serialists in the MH condition significantly spent more time completing the tasks than those in the IH condition but Serialists in the MH condition obtained higher task scores than those in the IH condition. More specifically, the design features of the MH condition mismatched with the characteristics of the Serialists but they obtained higher task scores in the MH condition. Therefore, the mismatching condition may be useful to improve Serialists learning performance.
In summary, the results from the aforementioned two studies demonstrated different outcome. More specifically, behavior that each cognitive style demonstrated in Study One (i.e, the context of English phrases) reflected their characteristics whereas behavior that each cognitive style group showed in Study Two (i.e., the context of English grammar) did not echo their characteristics. Thus, this research contributes a new understanding, which means that subject topics may change people’s cognitive styles. In other words, people’s cognitive styles may not be always consistent with all of subject topics. | en_US |