Leveraging mobile technology to engage college students in scientific research

Oren Zuckerman, Ayelet Gal-Oz, Oran Peretz, Orad Weisberg, Ricardo Tarrasch

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

College students in the social sciences are required to learn quantitative research methods and statistics. Unfortunately, many fail to see the relevance of these courses, and are often anxious about them. In an effort to increase students' engagement in the research process, we developed Ruzo - A mobile scientific inquiry platform. Ruzo enables instructors and students to create research projects as custom mobile apps, collect data on the go, and visualize the data using a web-based interactive tool. Ruzo was designed based on five guidelines, derived from interviews with domain experts: guide students through all stages of research; reduce anxiousness; encourage active learning; connect to students' everyday lives; and adapt the system to the needs of the instructor. A user study showed that Ruzo was easy to use, and students expressed interest in research, thereby demonstrating the potential of mobile technology to scaffold scientific inquiry.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMobileHCI 2015 - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services
Pages470-477
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781450336529
DOIs
StatePublished - 24 Aug 2015
Event17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, MobileHCI 2015 - Copenhagen, Denmark
Duration: 24 Aug 201527 Aug 2015

Publication series

NameMobileHCI 2015 - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services

Conference

Conference17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, MobileHCI 2015
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityCopenhagen
Period24/08/1527/08/15

Keywords

  • Higher education
  • Mobile learning
  • Research methods
  • Scientific inquiry

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Information Systems
  • Software
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Human-Computer Interaction

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