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This study investigates the effectiveness of using augmented reality (AR), combined with guided inquiry and the Pecha Kucha technique, on students’ academic outcomes when learning meiosis. The main objective was to analyse whether this combination presents significant differences in the academic performance of students in the experimental group (EG) compared to the control group (CG), who did not use AR. The research employed a quasi-experimental design involving three 11th-grade classes from a secondary school in Lisbon. Knowledge tests were administered post-intervention and at follow-up to assess the impact. To ensure the normality of the distributions, a Shapiro–Wilk test was applied and, to guarantee the homogeneity of variances, a Levene test was utilised. Independent and paired sample t-tests were performed. The results indicated that the innovative approach, combining AR with guided inquiry and Pecha Kucha, enhanced student engagement and led to improved academic performance. The study highlights the importance of teacher support during guided inquiry, showing that proper guidance maximises learning outcomes. Findings suggest that integrating active methodologies and current technologies can enrich Biology teaching and improve understanding of complex concepts like meiosis. This research contributes to existing literature by demonstrating the potential of AR, guided inquiry, and the Pecha Kucha technique in enhancing educational outcomes.

This paper reports the first results of an experimental research, carried out in a private school with 9th grade students, where the 4C/ID-model was used for teaching and learning electric circuits. The authors describe the principles and features of the instructional model, that is suitability for the teaching and learning of complex knowledge and skills and yet their permeability to develop digital educational resources and learning environments. The authors analyse the preliminary experimental results in terms of students' performance (both reproduction and learning transfer), mental effort and instructional efficiency. They also suggest clues to future research.

Using digital technologies as a means to promote parental involvement has been a practice used in projects in different countries. Parental involvement has been studied as a factor contributing to the academic achievement of learners, although some ethnic minorities face barriers to this involvement. This article presents the current state of a research, carried out in the context of a PhD. It used the digital technologies that are present at schools, as a privileged means of training parents of African minorities in the scope of the language of schooling, in order to support their involvement in the school life of their children. The authors used an action-research methodology with a variety of data collection instruments: biographical interviews, naturalistic observation, research diary and field notes. The results show that parents became more involved in their children's school activities and began to better understand their lives inside school.

This study was designed to investigate the effects of two instructional approaches (4C-ID versus conventional) on learners’ knowledge-acquisition and learning transfer of the electrical circuits content in Physics. Participants were 129 9th graders from a secondary school in Lisbon, M = 14.3 years, SD = 0.54. The participants were divided in two groups: an experimental group constituted three intact classes (n = 78); and a control group constituted two intact classes (n = 51). The experimental group was taught using a digital learning environment designed with the 4C-ID model principles while the control group learned the same contents through a conventional method. We assessed the students’ performance (knowledge-acquisition and transfer), the perceived cognitive load, and the instructional efficiency. Results indicated that the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group on a knowledge-acquisition test and in a learning transfer test. They also perceived a less cognitive load in the transfer test and the learning environment developed with the 4C-ID model proved to be more instructional efficient than the conventional method.

Microworlds are simulations in computational environments where the student can manipulate objects and learn from those manipulations. Since their creation, they have been used in a wide range of academic areas to improve students learning from elementary school to college. However, their effectiveness is unclear since many studies do not measure the acquired knowledge after the use of microworlds but instead they focus on self-evaluation. Furthermore, it has not been clear whether its effect on learning is related to the teaching method. In this study, we perform a meta-analysis to ascertain the impact of microworlds combined with different teaching methods on students’ knowledge acquisition. We applied a selection criterion to a collection of 668 studies and were left with 10 microworld applications relevant to our learning context. These studies were then assessed through a meta-analysis using effect size with Cohen’s d and p-value. Our analysis shows that the cognitive methods combined with microworlds have a great impact on the knowledge acquisition (d = 1.03; p < 0.001) but failed to show a significant effect (d = 0.21) for expository methods.

This paper reports the first results of an experimental research, carried out in a private school with 9th grade students, where the 4C/ID-model was used for teaching and learning electric circuits. The authors describe the principles and features of the instructional model, that is suitability for the teaching and learning of complex knowledge and skills and yet their permeability to develop digital educational resources and learning environments. The authors analyse the preliminary experimental results in terms of students' performance (both reproduction and learning transfer), mental effort and instructional efficiency. They also suggest clues to future research.

This paper presents an approach to the initial programming learning using the four components instructional model and the Alice software. The quasi-experimental design was developed with two groups of students that attended two schools with very different socioeconomic status and school retention levels. The differences obtained in the mean of the programming knowledge test when co-variated with the Logical Development Scale score were positive in the two groups, with no statistical significance in the difference between both (p = 0.05). The differences obtained in the Logical Development Scale score (Échelle Collective de Devéloppement Lógique [ECDL]), before and after the experimental treatment, revealed positive differences in the experimental group with no statistical significance (p > 0.05), and in the control group with statistical significance (p < 0.05). These results suggest that the Alice software when combined with the 4C-ID instructional model has positive effects in programming learning and in logical reasoning.

Difficulties in learning computer programming for novices is a subject of abundant scientific literature. These difficulties seem to be accentuated in students whose academic choice is not computation, like architecture students. However, they need to study programming, since it is part of the new academic curricula. The results presented here are part of a PhD research, which investigates the achievement motivation and the acquisition and transfer of programming knowledge from an online environment designed on the basis of the 4C-ID instructional design model. These results are a sociodemographic analysis, and the technological competence of these subjects. We concluded that most of the students of our sample do not know how to auto assess their ICT expertise level, because they believed that they had sufficient computational knowledge for their needs. However, most of them told that they had difficulties creating codes. However, they recognized the importance of learning to program, thought it was valuable for architectural students, and felt motivated to acquire this new skill.

The four-component instructional design model (4C/ID) has been increasingly used in face-to-face and online learning environments. We present a meta-analysis on the use and effect on performance of educational programs developed with the 4C/ID model after more than 20 years of its application and research in different academic areas and technical training. We performed the meta-analysis through the combination of effect sizes from studies using Cohen’s d. The combination of the studies suggests that the use of educational programs developed with 4C/ID has a high impact on performance (d = 0.79 standard deviations), regardless of the academic area, the design of the study and the outcome (knowledge and complex skills). The grade under study was a significant moderator on the effect, showing that the higher-education level is more suitable for application of the 4C/ID model. Our results suggest that the use of the 4C/ID model should be prioritized as an instructional model in college and university learning environments.

Neste artigo é apresentado o processo de adaptação e validação do Questionário de Satisfação Académica (QSA), desenvolvido para estudantes portugueses e brasileiros do ensino superior, para estudantes portugueses do 3.º ciclo do ensino básico (versão QSA-EB) e estudantes do ensino secundário (versão QSA-ES). A adaptação foi autorizada pelos autores da versão original e feita pelos dois autores do artigo. O processo de validação consistiu em determinar as qualidades psicométricas destas duas novas versões do questionário, através dos indicadores estatísticos de Sensibilidade dos itens, Análise Fatorial Exploratória (AFE) e Precisão de cada fator que emergiu após a realização da AFE. Os resultados foram todos positivos para a sensibilidade dos itens, a AFE fez emergir as dimensões teóricas do constructo e os índices de precisão de cada fator, determinado através do Alfa de Cronbach, podem ser considerados bastante fiáveis e fiáveis.