Chapter 2 Background
2.7 Related Works
2.7.3 The Study of a Mobile Collaboration Learning System for Chinese Language
This research presents Student Partner, a mobile learning system designed
specifically to promote collaboration among Chinese Language Learners with capabilities including GPS, camera, messaging and recording. The main system of Student Partner is divided into four frames: the top left frame holds categories for accessing learning content.
Once a category has been selected, subcategories appear in the right frame and content appears in the central frame. As the mobile device can connect with GPS, it allows learners to annotate maps of the area with audio, video, text, and photos that they create.
Learners can share their experiences with one another. A teacher can assign
homework that includes information gathering. The wireless capabilities of the mobile device on which Student Partner runs allow information to be transmitted to a screen and to other users. This allows learner to collaborate with other learners and to interact with teachers outside class hours.
As the availability of teachers could be limited, assistants can be selected. A phone call, text message, or entry on a form could alert others that there was a request for more information. The learners could collect data that represented things in the world that they were not sure about. They could send this information to others for discussion and
clarification. This information could be in the form of photos, videos, sound clips, or text and it could be geocoded with data from GPS [14].
CHAPTER 3: SYSTEM OVERVIEW AND IMPLEMENTATION
This chapter discusses the requirements, use cases and the architecture of the system according to the problems and solutions shown in the previous chapter. The system shall be designed and tested at National Chiao Tung University particularly catering to the
International Students.
3.1 Requirements
This section shows the necessities of the system and what the user expects from the system to do. The requirements are divided to user and system requirements/components.
Both were described after several meetings with the teacher who assisted with the project.
3.1.1 User requirements
The users of the system are the students; however, to a lesser degree of the teachers as well. The user requirements were distinguished as following:
Students
Translate any word or phrase at any particular place or time.
Solve particular words and phrases in a given type of puzzle using different contexts in any given translation.
Answer and solve questions in any given translation.
3.1.2 System Requirements
The system requirements are that each user must have a cellular phone or a
Smartphone in order for the system to be functional which is why a mobile phone is required;
hence it has to be a Nokia based cellular phone or Smartphone because of its capabilities.
Furthermore, internet connection particularly wireless LAN connection is needed also for the system to be functional; hence, its access technology has to be online.
3.2 Use Cases
This diagram shows the use case for a student based on user requirements and system specifications as well. A use case depicts the interaction a user has with the system.
Respond : Answer to Quiz/Word Puzzle for Learning Assessment
Learn: Learn/Translate Words and Traditional
Phrases
Search: Search for words and phrases
Figure 6: Use Case of a Student
3.3 System Architecture 3.3.1 Main Components
The architecture of the mobile learning system is divided into three major
components which are the Translation Engine, Word Search Puzzle and Multiple Choice Quiz Engine. However, a communication technology is required for this system to be functional.
Figure 7: System Architecture.
Figure 8: Main Menu of the Application
3.3.2 Translation Engine
The objective of the translation engine for this system is to translate any given word or phrase with the only mode of English to Traditional Chinese Translation. Traditional Chinese is the official Language of Taiwan. The translation engine of the mobile learning system was implemented using the core source of "google translate" which is a free
statistical machine translation service provided by Google; therefore, an internet connection is needed. In any scenario, the user will enter any word he or she wants to convert, the default setting for the translation mode is English to Traditional Chinese; therefore, a user can convert from an English word or phrase to a Traditional Chinese word or phrase.
Figure 9: Translation Engine in QT SDK Framework
3.4 Word Search Puzzle
Word Search Puzzle is another component of the mobile learning system that was implemented. Word Search Puzzle is very interactive and entertaining as well. This component of the system is divided into three categories:
English to Traditional Chinese Word Search Puzzle
Pinyin to Traditional Chinese Word Search Puzzle.
Traditional Chinese to English Word Search Puzzle.
Figure 10: Main Menu of Word Search Puzzle
3.4.1 English to Traditional Chinese Word Search Puzzle
: In this system, an English word is given on top of the word search puzzle and the user must find thecorresponding meaning inside the puzzle which consists of traditional Chinese characters.
After the user completes this type of puzzle, a congratulatory message is shown signaling that the user completed the puzzle successfully. If the user does not complete the puzzle, it must be redone over from the beginning.
Figure 11: English to Traditional Chinese Word Search Puzzle
3.4.2 Pinyin to Traditional Chinese Word Search Puzzle
: Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet to teach in Taiwan. In this scenario, a Pinyin character is given on top of the word search puzzle and the user must find the corresponding meaning of the pinyin character inside the puzzle which consists of traditional Chinese characters. After the user completes the puzzle of finding the meaning from pinyin to traditional Chinese, a congratulatory message is shown signaling that the user completed the puzzle successfully. If the user did not complete the puzzle, the puzzle must be done over for successful completion.Figure 12: Pinyin to Traditional Chinese Word Search Puzzle
3.4.3 Traditional Chinese to English Word Search Puzzle
: In this scenario, the traditional Chinese character is given on top of the word search puzzle and the user must find the corresponding meaning of the traditional Chinese character inside the puzzle which consists of English words. After the user completes the puzzle of finding the meaning from traditional Chinese to English characters, a congratulatory message is shown signaling that the user completed the puzzle successfully. if the user did not complete the puzzle, the puzzle must be done over for successful completion.
Figure 13: Traditional Chinese to English Word Search Puzzle.
3.5 Multiple Choice Quiz Engine
The last component of the system is the multiple choice quiz engines. This engine consists of two categories:
English to Mandarin Multiple Choice Quiz Engine
Mandarin to English Multiple Choice Quiz Engine.
Figure 14: Main Menu of Multiple Choice Engine.
3.5 .1 English to Mandarin Multiple Choice Quiz Engine
: When the user selects this mode from English to Mandarin to complete some multiple choice questions, the user must select what type of mode he or she wants to answer. The two types of mode used in the format of the quiz engine is either Easy or Difficult. When the user selects whatever mode he or she selected, the user starts to answer the following multiple choice questions. There are 10 questions in each lesson whereby the English characters are shown and the user must find the corresponding answers in Mandarin Characters which are shown as options that the user must complete. After the user completes the multiple choice questions, a congratulatory message is shown indicating that the user completed the multiple choice questionssuccessfully. If the user did not complete the multiple choice questions, it must be done over for successful completion.
Figure 15: English to Mandarin Multiple Choice Quiz Engine
3.5.2 Mandarin to English Multiple Choice Quiz Engine
: When the user selects this mode from Mandarin to English to complete some multiple choice questions, the user must select what type of mode he or she wants to answer. The two types of mode used in the format of the quiz engine is either Easy or Difficult. When the user selects whatever mode he or she selected, the user starts to answer the following multiple choice questions. There are 10 questions in each lesson whereby the Mandarin characters are shown and the user must find the corresponding answers in English characters which are shown as options that the user must complete. After the user completes the multiple choice questions, acongratulatory message is shown indicating that the user completed the multiple choice questions successfully. If the user did not complete the multiple choice questions, it must be done over for successful completion.
Figure 16: Mandarin to English Multiple Choice Quiz Engine
CHAPTER 4: EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
This chapter discusses the experiment methods and the final results. Furthermore, many steps during these experiments were conducted for 4 months to test the usability of the system. During the testing, there were some problems that occurred and solutions were made for continuous reliability and availability for the users.
4.1 Method
4.1.1 Participants
30 International Students, 10 females and 20 males at National Chiao Tung University were selected and participated in these experiments because they have a basic level of the Chinese language while some of these participants had beginner level of the Chinese Language.
4.1.2 Experiment Procedures
There were 2 experiments that were conducted. The first experiment was conducted for 6 weeks from March 11 to April 22 2011 while the system was still at its development and implementation stage. Majority of the international students at National Chiao Tung University selected for these experiments had a Nokia-based mobile phone at their possessions. During that period of 6 weeks, these international students used the mobile learning system for their everyday use of learning. Each of the students spent about 15-20 minutes solving the puzzles and answering the multiple choice questions. After the 6 weeks expired, they were given survey questions to evaluate the mobile learning system during its
implementation stage; furthermore, they also gave comments about the system and what modifications were needed.
The second experiments was conducted for another 6 weeks from April 29 to June 10 2011 with the full functionality of the system; furthermore, problems were solved by
comments made about the system from the international students. The main reason for the second phase of this experiment was to evaluate the usefulness of the system after it was fully developed and compare it to the first phase of the experiments. The students were also given survey questions after the experiment was finished.
4.2 Results
As aforementioned above, Survey Questionnaires and statistical analyses were used to get responses from the international students about the mobile learning system. These survey questionnaires were used to target the usability and effectiveness of the system.
4.2.1 Statistical Analyses for First Phase of Experiment (March 11 to April 22 2011)
Before the first phase of the experiment was conducted, international students were asked what their level of Chinese Proficiency was. Figure 18 shows the responses.
Figure 17: Level of Chinese Proficiency.
In Figure 18, it shows that 63% of the international students at National Chiao Tung University were at the beginner level of Chinese Proficiency while 37% were basic level.
The objective of this experiment was only to focus on the beginner and basic level students.
After the first phase of the experiment was completed, the participants were given survey questions to evaluate the system during its developmental stage. These survey questions were used from CSUQ (Computer System Usability Questionnaire (Lewis, 1995)) which was developed by IBM and was designed to evaluate the usability of a computer system. It contains 19 questions, each being a statement that the user has to rate on a (1-7) scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". The CSUQ were divided into categories of System Usefulness, Information Quality, Overall Satisfaction and Interface Quality. The corresponding questions that comprise the 4 categories of the CSUQ are shown in Table 1of appendix A .The likert scale for the survey questions is scored from 1 being the lowest to 7 as the highest.
Category Items Overall Satisfaction Questions 1-19
System Usefulness Questions 1-8 Information Quality Questions 9-15
Interface Quality Questions 16-18
Table 1: CSUQ Categories and Corresponding Questions
Overall Satisfaction means the overall perception of the system while System Usefulness defines the trend of the usefulness of the system. Information Quality means assessing the satisfaction with the quality of the information associated with the system while Interface Quality means assessing the satisfaction with the quality of interface associated with the system. Furthermore, the results for overall satisfaction, system usefulness, information quality and interface quality are shown in Table 2 for the first phase of the experiment.
Categories Average( Out of 7) Standard Deviation Overall Satisfaction 3.96 0.58
System Usefulness 3.99 0.46
Information Quality 3.92 0.47
Interface Quality 3.83 0.39
Table 2: Average and Standard Deviation of the First Phase of Experiment
In order for better readability, a percentage diagram was made to distinctly evaluate the numbers during the first phase of the experiment in Figure 18.
Figure 18: Percentile Usability Results for the First Phase of Experiment.
In the following diagram, it showed that during the developmental stages of the system, the highest category was System Usefulness at 57.1% indicated that the international students in the experiment believed that the system was useful. The second highest category was Overall Satisfaction at 56.5% indicated that the international students in the experiment believed that the interface of the system was clear.
Information Quality was registered at 56% indicated that the international students were satisfied with the information content of the system while Interface Quality was registered at 54.8% which the lowest category as indicated by the international students was believed that the interface was clear and precise. However, knowing that the results displayed at the first phase of the experiment was during the developmental stage of the system, a room
of improvement was needed as indicated that the average category should be at 70% and above for the system to be successful and beneficial for the international students as stated;
therefore, a second experiment was performed another 6 weeks after improvements.
4.3 Redesign Issues
After analyzing the statistical data during the first phase of the experiment, it was noted that the system needed to be improved while it was at its developmental stage. Some of the comments noted by the students after the first phase of the experiment was done was that the words in the menu buttons of the system were not identical to some parts of the
application, difficulty in using the system and installing the system, the translation engine does not convert the words whether it is from English to Chinese or Chinese to English.
4.4 Statistical Analyses for Second Phase of Experiment (April 29 to June 10 2011)
The system was improved and given to the international students to test for another six weeks. After the second phase of the experiment was completed, the participants were given survey questions to evaluate the system. Furthermore, after analyzing the statistical data for the second phase of the experiment, it showed some improvements in all categories of the system.
The results for overall satisfaction, system usefulness, information quality and interface quality are shown in Table 2 for the second phase of the experiment.
Categories Average ( Out of 7) Standard Deviation Overall Satisfaction 5.29 0.64
System Usefulness 5.36 0.58
Information Quality 5.44 0.74
Interface Quality 5.15 0.52
Table 3: Average and Standard Deviation of The Second Phase of Experiment.
In order for better readability, a percentage diagram was made to distinctly evaluate the numbers during the first phase of the experiment in Figure 19.
Figure 19: Percentile Usability Results for the Second Phase of Experiment
In the following diagram, it showed some improvements in all categories of the system. System Usefulness was registered at 76.7% which indicated that the international students in the experiment believed that the system was useful, effective and easy for them to learn. Interface Quality registered at 73.6% which indicated that the international students in the experiment believed that the interface of the system was clear and improved.
The overall satisfaction of the system was registered at 75.6% which indicated that the international students were satisfied with the system while Information Quality registered at 77.8 which indicated that the international students believed that the information of the system was clear and precise due to the improvements of adding more lessons contents. The difference between the statistical analysis of both the first and second phase of the
experiments showed that there was vast improvement in all aspects of the system. In the end, the main idea behind these experiments was to accomplish the percentile average of 70% and above for the system to be successful and beneficial for the international students as stated.
5. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS
5.1 CONCLUSION
Mobile learning Systems in the educational development has continued to grow and evolve in Information and Communication Technologies; therefore, it continues to execute and accomplish the mounting demands for constant learning opportunities that facilitates learners especially students to “learn while you are on the go”.
The implementation and realization of a cross-platform mobile language learning system in a QT SDK Framework has shown vast signs in learning. Majority of the International Students at National Chiao University during this research showed positive and encouraging stance towards mobile learning and are keen to learn Chinese using their mobile phones.
Furthermore, results from this research showed that this QT-Based Mobile Language learning system could be also employed for learning other languages and Smart Mobile Phones could have a affirmative outcome in learning Chinese as a second language at all levels of Chinese learning for International Students in national Chiao Tung University.
This system provides International Students with effortless and resourceful access to translating any given word at any time; in addition, the different interactive learning games not only assist these International Students learn well but also entertaining. International Students can learn and occupy themselves on the system anytime and anywhere.
Finally, Mobile Chinese Learning is at its preeminent in Hybrid approach when enhanced with Traditional Chinese Learning; additionally, it has showed that this system with its ease and handiness features makes it ideal for International Students to learn.
5.2 FUTURE WORK
The experiments conducted and directed towards the International Students at National Chiao University by the implementation of the system showed great assurance for future alterations. Even though, there was a great reception of the system from the International Students at National Chiao Tung University, experiments shall be performed in other institutions for international students as well in using the system and examine their main attitude towards it.
This system will persist to grow and the future work will include improving the content of the system, creating more assortments of interactive learning options for the system to make it more knowledgeable, code optimization, and Performance enhancement of the system to continuously suit the learners’ needs and establishing different frameworks to implement the system. Furthermore, allowing teachers to send their own questions into the system is also considered for future works considering the fact that the experiments was mainly about the students' view of the system.
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