Investigating the effect of using the social semantic tagging-based learning guidance on science learning

Abstract

Enhancing prior knowledge has been recognized as an important learning strategy in enhancing the learning experience and performance for students. Past studies on enhancing prior knowledge have focused on reading materials that are manually generated by website administrators and educators. This is time-consuming and expensive process, such that prior knowledge cannot instantly correct and effective way to adaptive aid students in the learning process. To cope with these problems, this paper proposes a social semantic tagging-based learning guidance approach to obtaining relevant prior knowledge and the presented study examines the impact of using the social semantic tagging-based learning guidance on science learning. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, an experiment was conducted by assigning 56 students to participate in this learning activity. The students in the experimental group adopted the social semantic tagging-based mobile learning approach, while those in the control group learned with the conventional mobile learning system. The experimental results show that the proposed approach not only promoted the students’ learning achievements and motivations, but also improved their learning self-efficacy and socialization. The proposed approach with prior knowledge construction provides additional help for students and teachers in conducting and participating in interactive English reading learning activities.