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As in most countries worldwide, Sub-Saharan African countries are striving to build their human capital so they can compete for jobs and investments in an increasingly globalized world. In this region, which includes the largest number of countries that have not yet attained universal primary schooling, the ambitions and aspirations of Sub-Saharan African countries and their youth far exceed this basic goal. Over the past 20 years, educational levels have risen sharply across Sub-Saharan Africa. Already hard at work to provide places in primary schools for all children, most countries of the region are also rapidly expanding access to secondary and tertiary levels of education. Alongside this quantitative push is a growing awareness of the need to make sure that students are learning and acquiring the skills needed for life and work. Achieving education of acceptable quality is perhaps an even greater challenge than providing enough school places for all. Thus, Sub-Saharan African countries are simultaneously confronting many difficult challenges in the education sector, and much is at stake. This book gives those concerned with education in Sub-Saharan Africa an analysis of the sector from a cross-country perspective, aimed at drawing lessons that individual country studies alone cannot provide. A comparative perspective is useful not only to show the range of possibilities in key education policy variables but also to learn from the best performers in the region. (Although the report covers 47 Sub- Saharan African countries whenever possible, some parts of the analysis center on the region's low-income countries, in particular, a sample of 33 low-income countries). Although countries ultimately must make their own policy choices and decide what works best in their particular circumstances, Sub-Saharan African countries can benefit from learning about the experiences of other countries that are faced with, or have gone through, similar development paths. Given the large number of countries included in the analysis, the book finds that Sub-Saharan African countries have more choices and more room for maneuver than will appear if attention were focused on only one or a few country experiences. Countries can make better choices when understanding the breadth of policy choices available to them. They are well advised, however, to evaluate the applicability of policy options to their contexts and to pilot and evaluate the results for performance and subsequent improvement.

In higher education, low teacher-student ratios can make it difficult for students to receive immediate and interactive help. Chatbots, increasingly used in various scenarios such as customer service, work productivity, and healthcare, might be one way of helping instructors better meet student needs. However, few empirical studies in the field of Information Systems (IS) have investigated pedagogical chatbot efficacy in higher education and fewer still discuss their potential challenges and drawbacks. In this research we address this gap in the IS literature by exploring the opportunities, challenges, efficacy, and ethical concerns of using chatbots as pedagogical tools in business education. In this two study project, we conducted a chatbot-guided interview with 215 undergraduate students to understand student attitudes regarding the potential benefits and challenges of using chatbots as intelligent student assistants. Our findings revealed the potential for chatbots to help students learn basic content in a responsive, interactive, and confidential way. Findings also provided insights into student learning needs which we then used to design and develop a new, experimental chatbot assistant to teach basic AI concepts to 195 students. Results of this second study suggest chatbots can be engaging and responsive conversational learning tools for teaching basic concepts and for providing educational resources. Herein, we provide the results of both studies and discuss possible promising opportunities and ethical implications of using chatbots to support inclusive learning.

Faculty perspectives on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education are crucial for AI’s meaningful integration into teaching and learning, yet research is scarce. This paper presents a study designed to gain insight into faculty members’ ( N  = 122) AI self-efficacy and distinct latent profiles, perceived benefits, challenges, use, and professional development needs related to AI. The respondents saw greater equity in education as AI’s greatest benefit, while students and faculty members’ lack of AI literacy was among the greatest challenges, with the majority interested in professional development. Latent class analysis revealed four distinct faculty member profiles: optimistic, critical, critically reflected, and neutral. The optimistic profile moderates the relationship between self-efficacy and usage. The development of adequate support services is suggested for successful and sustainable digital transformation.

The Internet has made online learning possible, and many educators and researchers are interested in online learning courses to enhance and improve the student learning outcomes while battling the shortage in resources, facilities and equipment particularly in higher education institution. Online learning has become popular because of its potential for providing more flexible access to content and instruction at any time, from any place. It is imperative that the researchers consider, and examine the efficacy of online learning in educating students. For this study, the researchers reviewed literature through meta-analysis as the method of research concerning the use of ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation) framework for designing and developing instructional materials that can provide wider access to quality higher education. This framework can be used to list generic processes that instructional designers and training developers use (Morrison et al., 2010). It represents a descriptive guideline for building effective training and performance support tools in five phases, as follows: 1.) Analysis, 2.) Design, 3.) Development, 4.) Implementation, and 5.) Evaluation. The researchers collected papers relating to online learning courses efficacy studies to provide a synthesis of scientifically rigorous knowledge in online learning courses, the researchers searched on ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), ProQuest databases, PubMed, Crossref, Scribd EBSCO, and Scopus. The researchers also conducted a manual search using Google Scholar. Based on the analysis, three main themes developed: 1.) comparison of online learning and traditional face-to-face setting, 2.) identification of important factors of online learning delivery, and 3.) factors of institutional adoption of online learning. Based on the results obtained 50 articles. The researchers examine each paper and found 30 articles that met the efficacy of online learning courses through having well-planned, well-designed courses and programs for higher education institution. Also, it highlights the importance of instructional design and the active role of institutions play in providing support structures for educators and students. Identification of different processes and activities in designing and developing an Online Learning Courses for Higher Education Institution will be the second phase of this study for which the researchers will consider using the theoretical aspect of the ADDIE framework.

Flexible learning addresses students’ needs for more flexibility and autonomy in shaping their learning process, and is often realised through online technologies in a blended learning design. While higher education institutions are increasingly considering replacing classroom time and offering more blended learning, current research is limited regarding its effectiveness and modifying design factors. This study analysed a flexible study programme with 133 courses in a blended learning design in different disciplines over more than 4 years with a mixed-methods approach. In the analysed flexible study programme, classroom instruction time was reduced by 51% and replaced with an online learning environment in a blended learning format (N students = 278). Student achievement was compared to the conventional study format (N students = 1068). The estimated summary effect size for the 133 blended learning courses analysed was close to, but not significantly different from, zero (d = − 0.0562, p = 0.3684). Although overall effectiveness was equivalent to the conventional study format, considerable variance in the effect sizes between the courses was observed. Based on the relative effect sizes of the courses and data from detailed analyses and surveys, heterogeneity can be explained by differences in the implementation quality of the educational design factors. Our results indicate that when implementing flexible study programmes in a blended learning design, particular attention should be paid to the following educational design principles: adequate course structure and guidance for students, activating learning tasks, stimulating interaction and social presence of teachers, and timely feedback on learning process and outcomes.

This study provides an overview of research on teachers’ use of artificial intelligence (AI) applications and machine learning methods to analyze teachers’ data. Our analysis showed that AI offers teachers several opportunities for improved planning (e.g., by defining students’ needs and familiarizing teachers with such needs), implementation (e.g., through immediate feedback and teacher intervention), and assessment (e.g., through automated essay scoring) of their teaching. We also found that teachers have various roles in the development of AI technology. These roles include acting as models for training AI algorithms and participating in AI development by checking the accuracy of AI automated assessment systems. Our findings further underlined several challenges in AI implementation in teaching practice, which provide guidelines for developing the field.

BackgroundThe Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) is widely used in online teaching and learning, especially in STEM education. However, educational research on using Moodle is scattered throughout the literature. Therefore, this review aims to summarise this research to assist three sets of stakeholders—educators, researchers, and software developers. It identifies: (a) how and where Moodle has been adopted; (b) what the concerns, trends, and gaps are to lead future research and software development; and (c) innovative and effective methods for improving online teaching and learning.The review used the 4-step PRISMA-P process to identify 155 suitable journal articles from 104 journals in 55 countries published from January 2015 to June 2021. The database search was conducted with Scopus and Web of Science. Insights into the educational use of Moodle were determined through bibliometric analysis with Vosviewer outputs and thematic analysis.ResultsThis review shows that Moodle is mainly used within University STEM disciplines and effectively improves student performance, satisfaction, and engagement. Moodle is increasingly being used as a platform for adaptive and collaborative learning and used to improve online assessments. The use of Moodle is developing rapidly to address academic integrity, ethics, and security issues to enhance speed and navigation, and incorporate artificial intelligence.ConclusionMore qualitative research is required on the use of Moodle, particularly investigating educators’ perspectives. Further research is also needed on the use of Moodle in non-STEM and non-tertiary disciplines. Further studies need to incorporate educational theories when designing courses using the Moodle platform.

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) have a great potential to effectively transform teaching and learning. As more efforts have been put on designing and developing ITSs and integrating them within learning and instruction, mixed types of results about the effectiveness of ITS have been reported. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate how ITSs work in real and natural educational contexts and the associated challenges of ITS application and evaluation. Through a systematic literature review method, this study analyzed 40 qualified studies that applied social experiment methods to examine the effectiveness of ITS during 2011–2022. The obtained results highlighted a complicated landscape regarding the effectiveness of ITS in real educational contexts. Specifically, there was an “intelligent” regional gap regarding the distribution of countries where ITS studies using social experiment methods were conducted. Compared to learning performance, relatively less attention was paid to investigating the impact of ITS on non-cognitive factors, process-oriented factors, and social outcomes, calling for more research in this regard. Considering the complexities and challenges existing in real educational fields, there was a lack of scientific rigor in terms of experimental design and data analysis in some of the studies. Based on these findings, suggestions for future study and implications were proposed.

With the rampant pandemic of COVID-19, an increasing number of people are acquiring knowledge through online learning approaches. This study aims to investigate how to improve online learning effectiveness during this special time. Through a mixed design, this study revealed the effect of educational levels, gender, and personality traits on online learning outcomes. It was concluded that postgraduates (N = 599) outperformed undergraduates (N = 553) in online learning, learners (N = 1152) with strong personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to a new experience outperformed those with strong extraversion and neuroticism. Future research could improve interpersonal interactions and encourage learners to post words in the online discussion forum, focus on how to design scaffolding online learning and how to improve the quality and dynamic of the online contents, and highlight blended learning rather than either merely online or traditional face-to-face learning.

Both complex systems methods (such as agentbased modeling) and computational methods (such as programming) provide powerful ways for students to understand new phenomena. To understand how to effectively teach complex systems and computational content to younger students, we conducted a study in four urban middle school classrooms comparing 2-week-long curricular units—one using a physical robotics participatory simulation and one using a virtual robotics participatory simulation. We compare the two units for their effectiveness in supporting students' complex systems thinking and computational thinking skills. We find that while both units improved student outcomes to roughly the same extent, they engendered different perspectives on the content. That is, students using the physical system were more likely to interpret situations from a bottom-up (\"agent\") perspective, and students using the virtual system were more likely to employ a top-down (\"aggregate\") perspective. Our outcomes suggest that the medium of students' interactions with systems leads to differences in their learning from and about those systems. We explore the reasons for and effects of these differences, challenges in teaching this content, and student learning gains. The paper contributes operationalizable definitions of complex systems perspectives and computational perspectives and provides both a theoretical framework for and empirical evidence of a relationship between those two perspectives.