Children's online experience, especially the risks to which they might be exposed, is an increasingly important policy and research concern. This article reports an analysis of the amount, nature and range of empirical research concerning children's online experiences across 18 European countries. Research teams in each country have collaborated, as part of the 'EU Kids Online' network, to identify, code and compare studies. In all, 235 studies were identified and coded in a publicly accessible data repository. All countries had some available evidence regarding children's online risky experiences, with strengths mainly in relation to research into access and use; several countries were found to have a richer evidence base encompassing research into online learning, literacy, participation, parental mediation and so forth. Regarding risks, more research focused on potentially harmful content than on risky forms of contact. Key research gaps included research on younger children, into mobile online platforms, and into certain types of online risk. The article concludes by observing the challenges facing researchers in this field, including the time-sensitivity of research that quickly dates, the difficulty of tailoring research to meet the needs of a demanding policy agenda, the complexity of designing projects that recognise the contextual and contingent factors that mediate children's online activities, and the ethical considerations that apply when asking children about private, transgressive or upsetting experiences.

Risky experiences for children online: charting European research on children and the Internet

In recent years, using game concepts for educational purposes in digital environments has become continually more popular and relevant. Games can be used to motivate and engage users in regular system use and, in the end, support learners in achieving better learning outcomes. In this context, different kinds of game concepts exist, such as gamification or serious games, each with a different perspective and usefulness in digital learning environments. Because developing and using with game concepts in digital learning environments has recently become more important, and developing them is still not fully established, questions arise about future research directions involving games in digital learning. Therefore, this study aims to identify the state of the field and determine what is relevant when using game concepts in digital learning. To achieve this goal, we present the results of a bibliometric analysis considering more than 10,000 articles between 2000 and 2019 and summarize them to develop a research agenda. This agenda supports researchers and practitioners in identifying avenues for future research. We contribute to theory by providing a detailed understanding of the relevance of game concepts in digital learning. We propose a research agenda to assist researchers in planning future approaches with and about gamification concepts in digital learning. Practical implications are proposed by demonstrating what should be considered when using game concepts in learning environments.

Two decades of game concepts in digital learning environments – A bibliometric study and research agenda

The introductory programming course (IPC) holds a special significance in computing disciplines as this course serves as a prerequisite for studying the higher level courses. Students generally face difficulties during their initial stages of learning how to program. Continuous efforts are being made to examine this course for identifying potential improvements. This article presents the review of the state-of-the-art research exploring various components of IPC by examining sixty-six articles published between 2014 and 2020 in well-reputed research venues. The results reveal that several useful methods have been proposed to support teaching and learning in IPC. Moreover, the research in IPC presented useful ways to conduct assessments, and also demonstrated different techniques to examine improvements in the IPC contents. In addition, a variety of tools are evaluated to support the related course processes. Apart from the aforementioned facets, this research explores other interesting dimensions of IPC, such as collaborative learning, cognitive assessments, and performance predictions. In addition to reviewing the recent advancements in IPC, this study proposes a new taxonomy of IPC research dimensions. Furthermore, based on the successful practices that are listed in the literature, some useful guidelines and advices for instructors have also been reported in this article. Lastly, this review presents some pertinent open research issues to highlight the future dimensions for IPC researchers.

Introductory programming course: review and future implications

Gamification is a thriving technique that has attracted attention in higher education. Despite the increasing number of studies published in recent years, the problem is that the relationships between gamification and students' knowledge, engagement and satisfaction have not yet been theoretically and empirically explored in the same piece of research in the literature. As an added value to the literature, our study provides, for the first time, a complete conceptual framework for the implementation of a global gamification strategy in higher education, which leads to an improvement in the teaching-learning process -The 8-Pointed Higher Education Gamification Star-. This conceptual framework is concretized in a detailed gamified instructional activity -The ECOn+ Star Battles-ready to be replicated in any other higher education context that would be interested in adopting it. Furthermore, our research is supported by a quantitative analysis based on the PLS-SEM data analysis technique proposing The Higher Education Gamification Measurement Scale-HEGx+ and providing statistically significant results that shed light on the influence of gamification on students' knowledge, engagement and satisfaction. Our results conclude that gamification directly influences students' engagement and knowledge. At the same time, gamification does not directly affect students' satisfaction; it indirectly affects it through knowledge and engagement. These results are particularly relevant in a gamified instructional design in higher education where without student satisfaction, gamification and the advantages it can bring to the teaching-learning process are not sustainable in the long term. 

Gamification in higher education: The ECOn+ star battles

Digital Design is a laboratory course, and the educator must focus on the students’ need to know why they study the theory and mainly on the transition from knowledge-based learning to competency-based learning. This study consists of five surveys that were conducted during 2017–2021. First, we evaluated students’ learning outcomes in order to define possible learning problems. According to the literature, gamification can have a positive impact on students’ motivation and learning outcomes. Therefore, we used ready-made digital games in order to evaluate students’ satisfaction and willingness toward their integration in the educational process. This process was repeated in the next academic year. The feedback we received from the previous surveys has helped us to adapt to the new approaches of teaching due to the current pandemic caused by COVID-19. We proposed an online holistic environment based on Keller’s (1987) ARCS model and Malone’s (1981) motivational model, which was applied in distance learning. Each student participated in a student-centered learning experience. He took an active role and was self-manager of his learning process. He was given the opportunity to develop capabilities and strategies through practice and engagement in higher-order cognitive activities, acquire self-learning skills, learn how to solve problems, and participate in teamwork. This study’s innovation is that students experienced a combination of learning approaches: (a) a virtual lab consisting of simulation-based activities, which allowed students to access new laboratory experiences, (b) a project-based digital game without a processor, which developed their motivation, creativity, and hands-on ability, as opposed to the other relevant studies that use ready-made games, and (c) asynchronous videos as feedback, which ensured the educator’s emotional support and social presence. Finally, this study developed research to evaluate the effectiveness of this online holistic environment and used a questionnaire, which was created based on Keller’s Instructional Materials Motivation Survey tool. The results showed that its integration in distance learning is probable to motivate students to learn and affect positively their attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction.

/pdf/a-game-based-learning-approach-in-digital-design-course-to-2u7en64n.pdf

A Game-Based Learning Approach in Digital Design Course to Enhance Students' Competency

Gamification is the use of game elements in domains other than games. Gamification use is often suggested for difficult activities because it enhances users’ engagement and motivation level. Due to such benefits, the use of gamification is also proposed in education environments to improve students’ performance, engagement, and satisfaction. Computer science in higher education is a tough area of study and thus needs to utilize various already explored benefits of gamification. This research develops an empirical study to evaluate the effectiveness of gamification in teaching computer science in higher education. Along with the learning outcomes, the effect of group size on students’ satisfaction level is also measured. Furthermore, the impact of gamification over time is analyzed throughout a semester to observe its effectiveness as a long-term learning technique. The analysis, covering both learning outcome and students’ satisfaction, suggests that gamification is an effective tool to teach tough courses at higher education level; however, group size should be taken into account for optimal classroom size and better learning experience.

The Impact of Gamification on Learning Outcomes of Computer Science Majors

Despite the increasing use of social media platforms for information and data collection, its immoderate nature often leads to the spread of rumors - unverified information. At the same time, the opening of social media platforms offers the opportunity to explore how users share and discuss input, as well as to automatically evaluate the assessment of their verification using techniques and different methodologies. To overcome these problems, this study aims to contribute effectively to the area of rumor verification by scraping the web and verifying the information provided. To this end, a Rumor Tracking System is proposed in which a web scraping technique is used to evaluate the news verification based on various sources and features for news checking. The proposed system automatically detects these sources and features on the websites and verifies the content by consulting an information matching algorithm and completing a truth table of the sources and features provided. A combination of information on all the sources and features gathered through the websites is maintained by the system, which is used to determine whether an article is based on rumor or not.

Searching for Truth in the Post-Truth Age

Online social networks have gained ubiquitous popularity in the last decade but despite the advantages, they have also raised privacy concerns for users. Many people have lost their jobs, relationships, and are stalked because of online privacy breaches. This situation is even more disturbing for young teens as they are in the process of learning emotional, social, and physical behaviors. Online predators take advantage of their immaturity and raise various threats to teens including aggression, rape, abduction, physical and emotional sadistic torture, and even human trafficking. Teens, on the other hand, do not have any mechanism to protect them against such threats. Therefore, this research addresses this overlooked need and proposes a trust model for the teen community, which can evaluate the trustworthiness of a stranger based on teens’ psychological and social needs. This paper first identifies various factors of teen psychology from literature, and then proposes a trust model for teens based on those factors. The model ensures the trustworthiness of a stranger through a two-dimension matrix consists of his reputation in other teens and reliability. The proposed model was simulated through colored Petri nets and implemented as a real-time trust evaluation application over Facebook. A user acceptance testing was also performed by teens, which suggests that 81.77% of teens were overall satisfied with the proposed approach.

/pdf/a-collaborative-method-for-protecting-teens-against-online-1nfwxvu032.pdf

A Collaborative Method for Protecting Teens Against Online Predators Over Social Networks: A Behavioral Analysis

Gamification—the use of game elements in serious contexts, has been prevalent to enhance users’ motivation and engagement in difficult activities. In the literature related to higher education, the use of gamification has emerged as a new pedagogical approach in order to improve students’ learning behaviors. On the other hand, traditional education research suggested that working in groups can enhance students’ learning behaviors. However, no study has been found in the literature that investigates these two distinct concepts in education domain. Therefore, this research aims to explore the effect of different group sizes and gamification on students’ learning behaviors. For this purpose, the study has explored the comparison between gamification and traditional classroom settings on students’ learning behavior with different group sizes: individual, small group, and large group settings. Further, the comparison of students’ learning behaviors in gamification environment within different group settings over time has also been investigated in this research. The analysis suggests that different group sizes can have varying impacts on students’ perception of the course in gamification environment over time. Moreover, it was observed that group size only affects students’ interest, comparison, and discouragement in gamification environment, but does not affect their effort, perceived choice, perceived competence, tension, or motivation. Also, it was found that gamification does not affect the perceived competence of students in any of the group settings. These results can be useful in future decisions about the optimal classroom size, group activities, and group sizes in other activities in larger classrooms.

Does one size fit all? Investigating the effect of group size and gamification on learners’ behaviors in higher education

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The Impact of Gamification on Learning Outcomes of Computer Science Majors

Searching for Truth in the Post-Truth Age

A Collaborative Method for Protecting Teens Against Online Predators Over Social Networks: A Behavioral Analysis

Does one size fit all? Investigating the effect of group size and gamification on learners’ behaviors in higher education