January 25, 2010

Report on Research Activities in 2010 (Jan. 2011)

At CRET's Advancement of Testing Technology Department, we have been engaged in the following research with the objective of "pursuing basic research to develop a new testing methodology and environment, as well as applied research with commercialization in perspective.":

1. The relationship between electronic textbooks and note-taking:
The purpose of this research was to demonstratively verify whether the parallel use of paper notebooks was necessary when e-textbooks were introduced to schools. Our conclusion was that the use of paper notebooks did not influence the academic achievements of the students. The e-textbook we used, however, was based on the tablet PC enabling manual writing. Therefore, we can assume that the results would be different with a PC without manual writing functionality. There was feedback that it was cumbersome to change the pen for writing on the tablet PC and the paper notebook.

2. A comparison of character effects on testing:
Recently, manga and character cuts are used in tests and teaching materials to motivate and sustain learning. In this research, cuts and 'moe'-type anime characters which often appear in teaching materials were used. Encouraging words were inserted between tests to identify different effects. Our findings were; "gender differences exist," "different effects are shown depending on the types of characters used," and 'moe'-type characters enhance the correct answers."

3. A comparison of paper and digital media for manga text:
The research objective was to develop support software to enable the usage of educational manga as digital text. A comparative experiment was conducted for two groups: one with paper manga text and the other with digital text, using the Enter key to display each frame with PowerPoint. The result showed that the paper manga group could read faster, but the digital group scored higher in questions testing memory and comprehension of the content.

4. An analysis of characters preferred by university students:
Three types of textbook cover display methods were used: "displaying only the title letters," "with illustrations," and "with photographs." A questionnaire was carried out among university students. The results showed that "photo display" was the most favored. We have also extracted several elements characterizing favorite human illustrations for university students.

5. Comparative cognitive research between paper and CBT:
Three types of devices: paper, a tablet PC and a PC were used for the PISA test questions. A comparative analysis of the test outcome and questionnaire was implemented. The result is under analysis now.

6. Applied research with commercialization in perspective:
Focusing on research information accumulated with a particular emphasis on the cognitive effects on learning resulting from different media, we have summarized the applied research for commercialization and pragmatic research. Past research literature was also compiled.