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Article Citation - WoS: 10Citation - Scopus: 16Student Engagement Research Trends of Past 10 Years: a Machine Learning-Based Analysis of 42,000 Research Articles(Springer, 2023) Gurcan, Fatih; Erdogdu, Fatih; Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Cagiltay, KursatStudent engagement is critical for both academic achievement and learner satisfaction because it promotes successful learning outcomes. Despite its importance in various learning environments, research into the trends and themes of student engagement is scarce. In this regard, topic modeling, a machine learning technique, allows for the analysis of large amounts of content in any field. Thus, topic modeling provides a systematic methodology for identifying research themes, trends, and application areas in a comprehensive framework. In the literature, there is a lack of topic modeling-based studies that analyze the holistic landscape of student engagement research. Such research is important for identifying wide-ranging topics and trends in the field and guiding researchers and educators. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze student engagement research using a topic modeling approach and to reveal research interests and trends with their temporal development, thereby addressing a lack of research in this area. To this end, this study analyzed 42,517 peer-reviewed journal articles published from 2010 to 2019 using machine learning techniques. According to our findings, two new dimensions, "Community Engagement" and "School Engagement", were identified in addition to the existing ones. It is also envisaged that the next period of research and applications in student engagement will focus on the motivation-oriented tools and methods, dimensions of student engagement, such as social and behavioral engagement, and specific learning contexts such as English as a Foreign Language "EFL" and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math "STEM".Article Moocs and Economic Disadvantage: a Path Analysis of 3.5 Million Mitx Learners(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2025) Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Toker, Sacip; Cagiltay, KursatMassive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) are offered by universities and companies to provide quality education to anyone, anyplace and at any time. The impact of economic disadvantage on these courses has not been fully explored despite several studies. This study aimed to investigate the impact of country's income level on the success of 3,523,692 learners from 204 countries enrolled in 174 MITx MOOCs. The countries were classified as low- and lower-middle-income (L&LM) or high- and upper-middle-income (H&UM). A structural equation modelling with multigroup analysis conducted. The findings revealed that learners in the L&LM group performed better academically. Completion rates were 66% for L&LM and 25% for H&UM, and certification rates were 95% for L&LM and 99% for H&UM. This shows that L&LM learners may be more motivated because they believe MOOCs might help their careers. These results are essential for creating MOOCs that fit diverse learner demographics.Article Citation - WoS: 6Citation - Scopus: 6Understanding the Effect of Handedness on Both-Handed Task Performance: an Experimental Study Based on a Haptic-Controlled, Simulation-Based Surgical Skill Training Scenario(Taylor & Francis inc, 2019) Topalli, Damla; Eyuboglu, Burak Gokberk; Cagiltay, Nergiz ErcilUnderstanding the performance on both-handed tasks, such as endoscopic surgery, is critical to better organize and develop appropriate instructional systems to improve the necessary skills of surgeons. However, in the literature, only a limited number of studies have investigated the effect of handedness on both-handed task performance. This study aimed to provide an understanding of the participants' performance differences while performing both-handed tasks through a haptic user interface in a simulated virtual environment specifically developed for surgical training purposes. Twenty-four surgeons attending a medical school in Turkey voluntarily participated in the study. The duration, accuracy, and collision measures were automatically recorded by software. The results revealed that the left-handed participants performed the both-handed tasks (camera: nondominant hand, tool: dominant-hand) in a significantly shorter time than the right-handed participants. This study also showed that haptic-controlled simulation-based surgical skill training systems can potentially provide measures for better understanding the individual behaviors and deliver alternative training environments specific to individual requirements.Article Citation - WoS: 22Citation - Scopus: 37Performing and Analyzing Non-Formal Inspections of Entity Relationship Diagram (erd)(Elsevier Science inc, 2013) Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Tokdemir, Gul; Kilic, Ozkan; Topalli, DamlaDesigning and understanding of diagrammatic representations is a critical issue for the success of software projects because diagrams in this field provide a collection of related information with various perceptual signs and they help software engineers to understand operational systems at different levels of information system development process. Entity relationship diagram (ERD) is one of the main diagrammatic representations of a conceptual data model that reflects users' data requirements in a database system. In today's business environment, the business model is in a constant change which creates highly dynamic data requirements which also requires additional processes like modifications of ERD. However, in the literature there are not many measures to better understand the behaviors of software engineers during designing and understanding these representations. Hence, the main motivation of this study is to develop measures to better understand performance of software engineers during their understanding process of ERD. Accordingly, this study proposes two measures for ERD defect detection process. The defect detection difficulty level (DF) measures how difficult a defect to be detected according to the other defects for a group of software engineers. Defect detection performance (PP) measure is also proposed to understand the performance of a software engineer during the defect detection process. The results of this study are validated through the eye tracker data collected during the defect detection process of participants. Additionally, a relationship between the defect detection performance (PP) of a software engineer and his/her search patterns within an ERD is analyzed. Second experiment with five participants is also conducted to show the correlation between the proposed metric results and eye tracker data. The results of experiment-2 also found to be similar for DF and PP values. The results of this study are expected to provide insights to the researchers, software companies, and to the educators to improve ERD reasoning process. Through these measures several design guidelines can be developed for better graphical representations and modeling of the information which would improve quality of these diagrams. Moreover, some reviewing instructions can be developed for the software engineers to improve their reviewing process in ERD. These guidelines in turn will provide some tools for the educators to improve design and review skills of future software engineers. (c) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Article Citation - WoS: 6Citation - Scopus: 10Comparison of the Discussion Sections of Phd Dissertations in Educational Technology: the Case of Turkey and the Usa(Springer, 2018) Karsli, Meva Bayrak; Karabey, Sinem; Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Goktas, YukselIn academic studies, the discussion section is important in which the effect of the results of the study on the existing literature is highlighted and interpreted. The aim of the current paper is to compare the discussion sections of Turkish and American PhD dissertations in the field of Educational Technologies, taking into consideration the basic features that should be found in an effective discussion section. For this purpose, a content analysis was carried out using a checklist developed to examine the basic components, the presentation of the results, the interpretation of the results, and the overall language of 120 PhD dissertations published in this field. The study showed although there were strong aspects, the contribution to the literature and limitations of studies were only included in some of the Turkish PhD dissertations; however, they were included in the majority of American PhD dissertations. Almost all of the dissertations explained the findings and their significance; however, there was no emphasis on the significant and interesting findings in Turkish PhD dissertations. The number of pages of the discussion section in Turkish and American PhD dissertations was almost the same, and the relationship between the number of pages of the discussion section and the quality of the discussion section was rather weak in the dissertations from both countries. The results obtained from the study were evaluated in general and suggestions to consider when writing the discussion section are given.Article Citation - WoS: 72Citation - Scopus: 98Mapping Human-Computer Interaction Research Themes and Trends From Its Existence To Today: a Topic Modeling-Based Review of Past 60 Years(Taylor & Francis inc, 2021) Gurcan, Fatih; Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Cagiltay, KursatAs it covers a wide spectrum, the research literature of human-computer interaction (HCI) studies has a rich and multi-disciplinary content where there are limited studies demonstrating the big picture of the field. Such an analysis provides researchers with a better understanding of the field, revealing current issues, challenges, and potential research gaps. This study aims to explore the research trends in the developmental stages of the HCI studies over the past 60 years. Automated text mining with probabilistic topic modeling has been used to analyze 41,720 journal articles that are indexed by the SCOPUS database between 1957 and 2018. The results of this study reveal 21 major topics mapping the research landscape of HCI. By extending the discovered topics beyond a snapshot, the topics were analyzed considering their developmental stages, volume, and accelerations to provide a panoramic view that shows the increase and decrease of trends over time. In this context, the transition of HCI studies from machine-oriented systems to human-oriented systems indicates its future direction toward context-aware adaptive systems.Article Citation - WoS: 136Citation - Scopus: 187Improving Programming Skills in Engineering Education Through Problem-Based Game Projects With Scratch(Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, 2018) Topalli, Damla; Cagiltay, Nergiz ErcilNowadays, programming skills are receiving widespread attention for different age groups alongside occupational education programs to better prepare individuals for their future careers. However, introducing programming concepts in an appropriate manner is a challenge in higher education. The main assumption of this study is that enhancing the classical introduction to programming courses through real-life problem-based game development with Scratch programming environment potentially improves the learners' programming skills and motivation. Accordingly, in this study, during one academic semester period, the Introduction to Programming course for engineering students is enriched up to a certain level through real-life game development projects with Scratch. The students are followed within a four-year period starting from freshman until their graduation. The progress of the students who have taken the Introduction to Programming course in enriched or classical form in the fourth year Senior-project course are evaluated. The results show that by slightly improving the course curriculum through real-life game development projects in the Scratch environment, students' performance on the graduation projects improved significantly. As a conclusion, game-based learning, problem-based learning, visual programming and projects are technologies that can potentially help learners to perform better in the introduction to programming course, in turn affecting their performances in projects.Article Citation - WoS: 68Citation - Scopus: 82The Effect of Uncertainty on Learning in Game-Like Environments(Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, 2013) Ozcelik, Erol; Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Ozcelik, Nese SahinConsidering the role of games for educational purposes, there has an increase in interest among educators in applying strategies used in popular games to create more engaging learning environments. Learning is more fun and appealing in digital educational games and, as a result, it may become more effective. However, few research studies have been conducted to establish principles based on empirical research for designing engaging and entertaining games so as to improve learning. One of the essential characteristics of games that has been unexplored in the literature is the concept of uncertainty. This study examines the effect of uncertainty on learning outcomes. In order to better understand this effect on learning, a game-like learning tool was developed to teach a database concept in higher education programs of software engineering. The tool is designed in two versions: one including uncertainty and the other including no uncertainty. The experimental results of this study reveal that uncertainty enhances learning. Uncertainty is found to be positively associated with motivation. As motivation increases, participants tend to spend more time on answering the questions and to have higher accuracy in these questions. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Article Citation - WoS: 15Citation - Scopus: 21Software Engineering Education: Some Important Dimensions(Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2007) Mishra, Alok; Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Kilic, OzkanSoftware engineering education has been emerging as an independent and mature discipline. Accordingly, various studies are being done to provide guidelines for curriculum design. The main focus of these guidelines is around core and foundation courses. This paper summarizes the current problems of software engineering education programs. It also proposes some important dimensions as integral parts of software engineering education: interdisciplinary skills, practice experience, communication, skills on continuing education and professionalism. In the current guidelines and studies these dimensions are not addressed specifically. Although there could be other dimensions to be considered in software engineering education, we believe that the proposed ones are very crucial as software engineering is evolving more rapidly than any other engineering discipline. This study also provides a survey of some major universities' undergraduate software engineering programs to evaluate these dimensions.Article Citation - WoS: 8Citation - Scopus: 7The Underlying Reasons of the Navigation Control Effect on Performance in a Virtual Reality Endoscopic Surgery Training Simulator(Taylor & Francis inc, 2019) Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil; Ozcelik, Erol; Berker, Mustafa; Dalveren, Gonca Gokce MenekseNavigation control skills of surgeons become very critical for surgical procedures. Strategies improving these skills are important for developing higher-quality surgical training programs. In this study, the underlying reasons of the navigation control effect on performance in a virtual reality-based navigation environment are evaluated. The participants' performance is measured in conditions: navigation control display and paper-map display. Performance measures were collected from 45 beginners and experienced residents. The results suggest that navigation display significantly improved performance of the participants. Also, navigation was more beneficial for beginners than experienced participants. The underlying reason of the better performance in the navigation condition was due to lower number of looks to the map, which causes attention shifts between information sources. Accordingly, specific training scenarios and user interfaces can be developed to improve the navigation skills of the beginners considering some strategies to lower their number of references to the information sources.
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