Learning Strategy and Students’ Perception of Different Learning
Options in a Blended Learning Environment
A Case Study of a First Year Engineering Course
B. Schmidt
Mads Clausen Institute, University of Southern Denmark, Alsion 2, 6400 Sonderborg, Denmark
Keywords: Blended Learning, Learning Styles, Active Learning, Students’ Satisfaction, Engineering Dynamics.
Abstract: This case study presents a teaching strategy for an engineering dynamics course using a range of different
learning options supporting different learning styles. The teaching strategy was implemented in a blended
learning environment by combining traditional lectures with online resources. A set of questionnaire was
given to evaluate the students’ perception of the different learning options. The study shows that the
students found online pencasts very useful as a means to increase the outcome of studying a traditional
textbook. In addition, the implementation of an electronic audience response system to enhance active
learning by peer instruction in combination with traditional lecturing was highly appreciated by the students.
Finally, the study indicates that according to the students the proposed teaching strategy leads to increased
motivation and engagement in their study.
1 INTRODUCTION
Helping young students to become skilled and
innovative engineers is not an easy task. One of
many issues is how to transfer knowledge earned in
a theoretical course into useful competencies when
dealing with real engineering problems. The Faculty
of Engineering at the University of Southern
Denmark has tried to address this problem by
assigning 1/3 of the student’s work load each
semester to a specific semester project comparable
to a real-life engineering problem. The idea is that
the students learn how to use the theory discussed at
the more traditional courses, thereby finding the
theoretical courses relevant and in fact crucial for
their education. In spite of all good intentions with
these semester projects, it does not always work that
ideal! For instance, when talking engineering
dynamics, it is striking that while students might be
good at solving text book exercises, this does not
imply that they are able to use their knowledge in
more realistic engineering problems that they
encounter in a semester project (Schmidt, 2012). As
an attempt to overcome this challenge the teaching
strategy in a theoretical course in fundamental
engineering dynamics was changed by setting up a
blended learning environment.
With the advancement of technology the use of
blended (or hybrid) learning at university level has
developed a lot over the last decade. This teaching
strategy can be defined as ‘a mix of several didactic
methods and delivery formats’ (Kerres and de Witt,
2003). Moebs and Weibelzahl (2006) advocate for
blended learning being the integrated learning
activities such as a mixture of online and face-to-
face learning. In this context we will adopt to a type
of blended learning where different traditional
teaching styles are combined with different kinds of
e-learning - a definition that seems to be more often
used in the literature (Oliver and Trigwel, 2005).
The increased use of blended learning is a
consequence of not only the progress in technology
but also of the economical and political conditions
for educational institutions and of the globalization
in general. Many universities face a reality where
they have to teach more students with fewer teachers
(Peercy and Cramer, 2011). Blended programmes
have been suggested as a way to increase cost-
effectiveness in education, i.e. the learning outcome
is maintained or even increased despite a reduction
in teaching costs (Graham et al., 2005). The
increased access and flexibility offered in a blended
learning environment enhances distance learning,
too, and thereby gives a possibility to reach a larger
321
Schmidt B..
Learning Strategy and Students’ Perception of Different Learning Options in a Blended Learning Environment - A Case Study of a First Year Engineering
Course.
DOI: 10.5220/0004382003210330
In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2013), pages 321-330
ISBN: 978-989-8565-53-2
Copyright
c
2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
student volume with a positive influence on cost-
effectiveness as a result.
On the other hand there are a range of reasons of
more pedagogical nature, why blended learning by
some have been proposed even as the ideal teaching
concept for the future (Cortizo et al., 2010 and
Granic et al., 2009). This is due to the fact that as
student population growths the teachers find
themselves with an impossible task: to choose the
optimum teaching style for the students. Even if all
the relevant teaching styles are known, it is not
possible to implement all these teaching styles
simultaneously at class to meet the students’ needs
(Felder and Brent, 2005). Students who have
different needs, different background levels of
knowledge and different learning styles are equally
not satisfied with traditional teaching and learning
environments (Limniou and Smith, 2010).
Implementation of blended learning is seen as a
promising strategy to address this problem, since it
allows integration of traditional learning with web-
based or computer-based learning tools and
combinations of a number of pedagogical
approaches (Dzakiria et al., 2006).
As pointed out by Peercy and Cramer (2011),
successful blended learning cannot be a mish-mash
of traditional lecturing with some online content but
needs to involve a thoughtful redesign course
pedagogy implying meaningful new interactions
with students. This paper reports how a blended
learning structure was established in a second
semester engineering dynamics course. Special
emphasis was put on facilitating several learning
styles and on increasing the learning output by
stimulating active learning. At the end of the
semester a survey was carried out in order to
measure the students’ perception of the efficiency of
the different learning options as a first indication of
the strength of the proposed learning environment.
In addition it was possible to track the number of
students viewing the online materials and in this way
getting data on the use of these materials.
2 RELATED WORK
When designing a course structure to benefit from
blended learning it is important to strive for the
blend to involve the strengths of each type of
learning environment and none of the weaknesses.
Osguthorpe and Graham (2003) have identified six
general goals to aim for in this context: (1)
pedagogical richness, (2) access to knowledge, (3)
social interactions, (4) personal agency (learner
control), (5) cost effectiveness, (6) ease of revision.
It is crucial to consider how or to what extend these
goals can be achieved when blended learning is
implemented into a course design.
In engineering educational research quite some
work on how to use a blended learning strategy has
been published, but not particularly in engineering
dynamics. Boyle (2005) shows how such a strategy
used in an introductory programming course can
address a common problem dealing with the abstract
nature of certain programming concepts. Here a
development of multimedia learning objects enabled
the students to engage visually with these concepts
and hence overcome the problem of abstraction.
Another study on a blended learning approach in a
computer programming course for first year
engineering students indicate that online tools can be
very beneficial for the students, and it improves the
student satisfaction with the course (El-Zein et al.,
2009). Groen and Carmody (2005) found that in
teaching first year engineering mathematics the
blend more closely mirrors the professional practice
and is more likely to encourage a deep approach to
learning. The majority of the students responded
favourably to the blend. Similar results on positive
student feedback and especially regarding improved
student motivation in engineering mathematics has
been reported by Wan Ahmad et al. (2008). A
particular interesting approach to design a
mathematics course within a blended learning
framework has been suggested by Markvorsen and
Schmidt (2012). They consider the technology
enhanced learning of first year engineering
mathematics and especially the application of
different e-learning objects and principles. Because
of a yearly intake of 750 students at this course, it
has been possible to allocate a significant amount of
resources into producing introductory videos,
interactive web-based tutorials, online textbook
materials, pencasts, and podcasts of the lectures etc.
Even though the effect of their non-linear
multimedia technology and e-learning principles is
not yet fully analyzed, they can report that it
strengthens and enhances the students’ desire and
ability to prepare for teaching, and they have
received positive response from the students
regarding the facilitation of different learning styles.
In engineering education it has been explained
that e-learning in general is most effective when
used as a supplement to more traditional strategies
rather than a replacement for them (Lux and
Davidson, 2003). In fact, traditionally the science-
and mathematics-based engineering courses are the
hardest to teach online because of the need for
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laboratories and equation manipulation (Bourne et
al., 2005). Newer research shows that to improve the
success of blended learning the teacher should adopt
strategies that promote not only teacher-student
interactions, but also enhances class attendance,
student-student interactions and motivation
(Martínez-Caro and Campuzano-Bolarín, 2011).
These findings agree with a study on students’
perspectives on learning in a blended environment
(Limniou and Smith, 2010), where students stated
that their learning output could be improved by
using a more interactive teaching approach with the
use of collaboration tools and receiving individual
feedback. A method to facilitate a more interactive
learning frame is to include peer-instruction in the
classroom. This teaching style has been found to be
very efficient also in a mathematics-based topic as
dynamics and in physics in general (Mazur, 1997).
Peer-instruction can be enhanced by introducing an
electronic audience response system like ‘clickers’
in the teaching (Fies and Marshall, 2006; Nagy-
Shadman and Desrochers, 2008). Some results on
students’ satisfaction with clicker-induced learning
in engineering dynamics has been reported by Fang
(2009), who found that students appreciate this
teaching approach and the exam performance
seemed to be enhanced, too. Another study on peer
instruction supported by clickers in an engineering
dynamics course revealed that it led to an increased
learning output, especially regarding the students’
conceptual understanding of the subject.
Furthermore, the data showed the students to be very
satisfied with this teaching style and they gave high
rankings on several parameters, which are important
to the learning process (Schmidt, 2011).
Hence, there is a wide range of learning options
that can be facilitated in a blended learning
environment. However, it is important to keep in
mind that the course structure should be very
transparent to the students in order to help the
students managing their time in such environments
and maintaining their self-motivation (Marino,
2000). Since the development of a range of learning
options is a resource demanding process, this will
usually be a limiting factor, and especially for
smaller classes. This was very much the case for the
course considered in this paper. The blended
learning environment developed here is outlined in
the next section.
3 BLENDED STRUCTURE IN AN
ENGINEERING DYNAMICS
COURSE
3.1 Course Setup
The course studied was a second semester
engineering dynamics course. Topics were dynamics
of rigid bodies and it was a follow-up on an
introductory course on particle dynamics at the first
semester.
A total number of 56 students from three
different engineering programmes were enrolled at
the course. By the study administration the students
were divided into two classes because of the use of
two teaching languages (Table 1). Both classes were
taught by use of the same blended learning approach
and by the same teacher, hence in this work all 56
students are treated as belonging to just one sample.
Lectures of 90 minutes were given once a week to
each class. The students were evaluated for their
final grades at an oral examination.
Table 1: Demographic data.
Language
Engineering
programmes
Number of
students
English class
Mechatronics
Innovation &
Business
Interaction Design
42
Danish class Mechatronics 14
3.2 Learning Options and Resources
The following study materials were offered to the
students. All materials were available online at the
course web-page, except for the textbook.
Pencasts. A pencast is a computerfile where a
hand-written note is recorded along with the
instructor’s vocal explanations. This file can be
watched by the student in real-time. One advantage
is that the student can repeat difficult steps over and
over and hear the instructor’s explanations for
exactly this part as many times as wanted. To each
lecture a pencast of 6-9 minutes were developed
telling about the main concepts of the week and how
they were related to each other and to previous
discussed concepts.
Lecture notes. These were hand-written pdf-files
consisting of theory and examples for the week’s
topic. The purpose of the lecture notes was a two-
fold: To prepare the student before reading the
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textbook and save time at the lectures because
students did not have to takes notes all the time.
Textbook. The textbook used was a standard
engineering dynamics textbook by Meriam and
Craige (2008).
Voting Tests. These tests consisted of six to nine
multiple choice questions for each lecture. The
questions were made to challenge the students’
general understanding of the topic and their
conceptual understanding in particular. At the
lectures the students voted (by use of clickers) on the
answers they found to be correct and the results were
used to stimulate peer-discussions. Mainly, the
voting tests were uploaded in order to give the
students the possibility of working with the test
questions not only at class but after class, too.
Hints and Answers. To each lecture a number of
exercises were recommended for individual study or
group work. To encourage students to work on these
exercises a file with hints and answers were
uploaded to the web-page each week.
Discussion Boards. The students had to hand-in
three individual assignments during the course and
to each of the assignments a discussion board was
created in order to facilitate student-to-student
interactions regarding this work.
Other Materials. Occasionally, the students were
given links to existing online materials, youtube
clips, etc. and online materials suggested by the
students were distributed on the web-page, too.
3.3 Suggested Learning Strategy
At the beginning of the course the students were
carefully presented for the range of learning options.
They were recommended to start up applying the
learning strategy sketched in Figure 1 as this was
seen as a strategy that probably would suit a
majority of students.
As shown in Figure 1 the students were
suggested to start a new topic by watching the
pencast. This should prepare them to achieve a better
outcome when studying the textbook before
attending class. The lecture notes were supposed to
help the students with this task, too.
Hence, when students met in the classroom, they
had already studied the subject and gone through
some sample problems in the textbook. For this
reason, the teacher gave only a short presentation to
cover the most important parts of the topic (typically
10-15 minutes).
Figure 1: Suggested blended strategy.
Then the voting test was carried out. After
presenting a question on the screen, the students
were asked to answer the question on their own and
give in their answer anonymously through a clicker
handed out to each student at the beginning of the
lecture. Automatically, the distribution of given
answers were shown on the screen to motivate the
students for the following peer-discussion. After
some minutes of discussions, the students were
asked to vote again on the same question. Normally,
the second voting showed much better agreement as
a result of the peer-discussions. A concise
conclusion to the question was stated by either one
of the students or the teacher. Usually, this voting-
session took up 30-40 minutes. The remaining part
of the lecture was held in a more traditional form
with focus on working out examples and problems,
some of them covered by the lecture notes and some
not in order to give possibility to have class-
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discussions on different problem solving strategies.
Occasionally, experiments were carried out at class
to demonstrate specific concepts and to relate to real
world examples.
The students were urged to work on the
recommended exercises after class, either on their
own or in study groups. If they were able to solve
these exercises the students could see this as an
indication of him or her mastering the topic! Only
the mandatory assignments were handed-in and to
these assignments the students received written
feedback on the problem solving skills and
presentation of the solution methods.
4 DATA COLLECTION
In order to collect information on how the students
used the different learning options and how
beneficial they found them, the students filled out an
online questionnaire at the end of the course.
For each learning option the students were asked
two questions:
(1) How often did you use the [learning option]?
(2) When you used [learning option] how effective
(learning outcome per minute you spend) did you
find it?
Answers were given on a 5 point likert-scale (1 =
‘Never’/’Not effective at all’ to 5 = ‘Every week’/
‘Extremely effective’ for question (1) and (2),
respectively).
In addition the students were given the
opportunity to answer two essay questions: One
regarding the student’s explanation on why some
learning methods work well for him or her, and
another one where the student should explain why
some learning methods do not work for him or her.
Data from the questionnaire was gathered
electronically and thus answers were given in fully
anonymity. A total number of 50 students responded
to the questionnaire (corresponding to 89%). The
amount of qualitative data from the essay questions
was quite significant since 45 students (90% of the
respondents) gave input through this channel.
Finally, the number of students viewing the
online materials was tracked as a means to monitor
to which extend the different materials were used
and also to track when they were accessed.
Figure 2: Average scores on use and efficiency.
5 RESULTS
Figure 2 shows the average scores for the different
learning options regarding how much the different
materials have been used as well as the students’
perception of the efficiency. In general it shows that
the students gave the highest ranking to the activities
that took place at the lectures (presentation of
theory, voting tests/peer-discussions and examples).
Reading lecture notes and watching pencasts are
considered quite beneficial too, while the use of the
voting test questions outside of classes, discussions
boards and ‘other materials’ are found to be more
rarely used and with poorer efficiency.
Even though not documented here, when
comparing the scores on the use of the different
materials given by the students and the tracking of
the number of views they seem to agree well. Hence,
the results on the use shown in Figure 2 are
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considered quite reliable. Regarding the data on
efficiency, being of a more subjective nature, it is
unfortunately not possible to make any kind of
comparison in order to validate the data.
As an example of the kind of data received from
tracking the number of students viewing the online
materials, the student views of the pencasts during
the semester is shown in Figure 3.
Results from the essay question will be part of
the discussion in the following section.
Figure 3: Number of student views of the pencasts during
the semester. (Data from the English class).
6 DISCUSSION
6.1 Learning Options before Class
There were three main learning options for the
students to work with before class: pencasts, lecture
notes and the textbook. Figure 2 gives a very clear
indication that while the pencasts and the lecture
notes were found to be very useful and efficient, the
textbook was found to be one of the learning options
with poorest efficiency of them all. Presumably for
this reason, the students did not use the book very
often. This view on textbook and lecture notes
reading was stressed by students’ comments on the
essay questions:
‘Reading in books is just naturally so slow and
boring.’
‘Personally, I can’t learn properly in a book. Some
texts are too strange and difficult to read.’
‘I read every week the lecture notes - they are really
good because they have a nice overview and
structure.’
The online lecture notes were found to be very
popular among the students. This can be explained,
at least partly, by the lecture notes being much easier
read compared to the textbook. It is important
though, in order to create the optimal learning, that
focus is put on the lecture notes being a tool helping
the students to benefit from studying the textbook
rather than being an alternative to the book. A study
by Fitzpatrick et al. (2010) indicates that students
regard a good set of notes a requirement for a well-
taught module, but in general the students are not
convinced that this is sufficient. Hence, providing
such lecture notes is not seen as an alternative to the
textbook in this context. Since most careers in
engineering in the future will be based on life-long
learning, it is crucial that the students are provided
with the skill to benefit from reading a traditional
textbook.
Next to lecture notes specially produced video
films have been suggested to help to prepare
students for studying a textbook (Markvorsen and
Schmidt, 2012). Since video production is a rather
expensive solution, in this work it was chosen to
make use of the pencast technology. Easily and
inexpensively created with a digital pen with a
build-in audio recorder, pencasts are very useful not
at least for a course topic of mathematical nature.
The pencasts made for this course was meant as
‘appetizers’ before reading the textbook but also to
achieve direct learning, mainly in the sense of
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creating an overview of the subject. Figure 2 shows
that the students found the pencasts very efficient.
Some students’ comments on pencasts were:
‘The pencasts are very great. They are short and
precise - and the best thing: you can repeat every
explanation until you’ve got it all!’
‘Pencasts were new to me. It’s a cool idea.’
‘Pencasts work well for me because of the “listen-
to-anywhere-anytime” function. Repeat. Repeat.
Repeat!’
In addition, the pencasts might also enhance the
students’ motivation to read the textbook:
‘The pencasts I also think was a good idea to help
me kickstart on new theory and made reading the
book easier.’
A similar observation has been made for the video
introductions by Markvorsen and Schmidt (2012).
An unexpected use of the pencasts can be
deduced from figure 3 exploiting the number of
students’ views on the pencasts during the semester.
Right from the beginning of the semester, the
pencasts had quite a lot of hits. The decrease in
students’ views in a part of March was due to
cancellation of lectures and a spring break. When the
teaching period ended in the beginning of May the
students did not access the pencasts very much
anymore, but approximately one week before
examination (starting June 12) there was a lot of
activity again. Hence, even though the pencasts were
made in order to be an option to be used before
reading the textbook, the students used them quite a
lot in preparation for examination.
6.2 Learning Options at Class
All three main elements when the students met at
class: the teacher going through theory, voting tests
and discussion of examples received high scores in
efficiency, well above 4 on the 5-point scale. That a
majority of students finds the teacher lecturing
beneficial to their learning is in accordance with
Fitzpatrick et al. (2010), who conclude that students
require lectures as well. A lot of effort was put in to
lecture on theory and applications in close
connection to what the students had seen in the
pencasts, in the lecture notes and in the textbook, but
always so that the lectures added something new, a
new idea, a new point of view etc. to give a further
perspective to the subject. According to Fitzpatrick
et al. (2010) these are very important factors
regarding the students’ perception of the efficiency
of a lecture. This was supported by students’
comments in the present study:
‘I think the exercises we did in class and the
explanations are very good. I like to work with
examples. Then it is easier to remember.’
‘Lectures and exercises at class build well upon the
lecture notes as they both teach and challenge
students. Personally, I appreciate the teaching style
because it shows me how to visualize and approach
physics problems effectively without tiring me by
overloading me with grey theory that has long lost
connection to the “real” world. The classes help me
to apply theory flexibly with a fair understanding of
what is actually going on.’
The voting test sessions at class were considered
very efficient by the students, too. Previous work
(Schmidt, 2011) has shown that using clickers to
stimulate peer instruction can improve the learning
outcome and student satisfaction in courses like
engineering dynamics. In addition, the present case
study indicates that the students themselves assess
the efficiency to be quite high. Comments from the
students on the voting tests gave credit to this
teaching style to enhance satisfaction and motivation
as well as to expose students’ insight into the core of
the learning process:
‘Voting tests have satisfied me tremendously as they
put the learned theory to test right away and helped
me widening the view of physical implication around
us.’
‘Voting tests inspire students to use each others’
knowledge of a given subject, and sometimes their
way of seeing a problem differs from the teacher’s.’
Facilitating peer instruction is one way to engage
the students at class and stimulating active learning.
To actively involve the students in the classroom is
an important parameter to improve the lecture,
according to students’ opinions (Fitzpatrick et al.,
2010). Findings in the present study indicate that
implementing voting tests and peer instruction at
class should be considered a recommendable
teaching style. In general, the essay answers from
students show that the blended environment was
quite appreciated by the students:
‘Good mix of learning strategies can be the most
useful way to learn new things and understand
them!’
6.3 Learning Options after Class
Following the suggested learning strategy the main
activity for the students after class was to work on
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the recommended exercises, either on their own or in
study groups if preferred. As experienced by the
teacher during the semester, the vast majority of
students did work on these exercises and this work
was seen as important by the students. To the
students’ disposal, in order to stimulate their work
on problem solving, the web-page offered some
hints and answers to all these exercises, but the
questionnaire reveals that these materials were not
accessed very much with an average score of
approximately 3 (corresponding to the answer ‘now
and then’). Some students stated that they learned
more from discussing and helping each other than
from consulting the ‘hints and answers’ since they
were found to be either too much or too little. Some
student comments indicated that it could improve
this learning option if it could be given a more
interactive form:
‘The hints the teacher gave for the exercises could
be more like, one hint, second hint, third hint and
then if you can’t solve it, use the forum...’
A similar result seems to be the case for the
‘discussion forum’ established for each of three
compulsory assignments. The discussion forums
were not used very much, and since the benefits in a
discussion forum totally depends on the input from
the users the forums were not perceived efficient
either. Even though the use of discussion forums has
been reported very useful in teaching engineering
(Brodie, 2009) it was not the case in the course
structure described here. Most likely, the reason was
that the student volume was too small to create a real
need for a discussion forum because most of the
students met at different classes every day anyway.
6.4 Limitations
There is a range of limitations in this study
appropriate to be mentioned. The small number of
students in the sample is reducing the strength of
data, even though the response rate was relatively
high. The novelty of the pencasts may have
produced a Hawthorne effect, which would have had
an influence on the students’ perception regarding
these. On the contrary, this is assumed not to be the
case for the voting tests using clickers, since this
teaching style was used with the same cohort of
students in the previous semester. The students
assessing the efficiency of a certain learning option
is a very subjective measurement and in some cases
it could be misleading. For instance, the students
might feel that listening to the lecturer is efficient
because they feel safe in that situation, where they
are not challenged personally on their learning
outcome. Some learning options may be efficient,
but may also require a certain level of use. Hence, it
is possible that students failed to acknowledge their
efficiency, because they abandoned them early. It
would be pertinent to include a comparison with the
students’ learning outcome directly, but it has not
been considered within the scope of this work.
7 CONCLUSIONS
The aim of the study reported here was to present a
teaching strategy for an engineering dynamics
course based on several learning options and
resources supporting different learning styles in a
blended environment. The students’ perception of
the use and the efficiency of the different learning
options offered were measured in order to optimize
the strategy for future courses. In general, students
were found to be positive to the blend, and they
perceived the chosen elements to be effective
regarding their learning outcome. Especially, the
students value the variation in teaching style and
indicate a positive influence in their motivation and
engagement in the course topics.
It was found that pencasts, being an inexpensive
and easy-to-adopt technology, can be a very fruitful
tool and enhance the outcome and motivation when
students are reading a traditional textbook. In
addition, the pencasts were found to be useful to the
students in their preparation for examination. The
online lecture notes were considered efficient by the
students too, and the students appreciated the close
connection between the notes and the topics
discussed at class.
The students found traditional lecturing very
efficient, but it is stressed that in this context
lecturing took up only a minor part of the time spent
at class. Voting tests using clickers as a means to
encourage peer discussion were implemented
consequently at class, and the students rated the
efficiency of such a teaching style high. A vast
majority of students valued the alternation between
the teacher lecturing, active learning through the
voting tests and problem solving through class
discussions.
In the present course setup the option of offering
hints and answers to exercises and discussion boards
on the course web-page were not used very much by
the students. The efficiencies of these tools were
relatively low, too. To increase these efficiencies it
will be considered to create more interactive
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instruments for the future in order to meet the
students’ demands.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank the BHJ Foundation
for financial support regarding presentation of this
work.
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