E-Learning, E-Education, and Online Training by Giovanni Vincenti Alberto Bucciero Markus Helfert & Matthias Glowatz

Author:Giovanni Vincenti, Alberto Bucciero, Markus Helfert & Matthias Glowatz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

3 Teaching Syllogistics Using Syllog

The Syllog system generates syllogisms at random, and the user is supposed to evaluate them using the system. The activities of the students when working with the system are logged, and the log-data from the use of the system may give rise to very interesting learning analytics. Figure 1 shows the interface of one the Syllog versions.

Fig. 1.Gamified quizzing with syllog.

A student’s ability to do syllogistic reasoning can be analysed in terms of the score calculated on the basis of log-data from the use of Syllog. This score is calculated as: Score = correct answers/answer count.

The score measures how well the user is doing in evaluating the validity of syllogistic arguments. Logic teaching is at least in part aimed at raising this score. The statistical analyses of the scoring data were performed using standard methods from descriptive statistics and statistical testing. An interesting question concerns the students’ competence to evaluate the validity of syllogisms before receiving formal training on this subject [6–8]. In the previous studies we have provided evidence to the effect that the students’ ability to distinguish between valid and invalid syllogisms before the teaching starts is significantly higher than the level of guessing. The value of this early score appears to be rather stable from year to year during the period 2012–2015. The studies suggest 0.608 as the value of this early score.

This kind of information is clearly valuable for teachers who want to design a course in basic logic. However, it is certainly also interesting to measure the average score after some logic teaching. The study based on data from the 2012 version of the course showed that there is no or very limited improvement in the score if it is measured after a traditional course in basic logic (with traditional work with exercises on paper during Period 3). No significant improvement of the average score was detected in this case (see [6]).

In the user interface shown in Fig. 1 it should be noted that “The number of correct answers in a row” is displayed. Using this facility it is in fact possible to establish a competition between the groups and this rather simple gamification element actually turns out to work as a motivation in the practical setting. This effect of simple gamified quizzing was studied based on the data from the course in 2013 and further studies in 2015. This study showed that the use of gamification elements can have some positive effects on the motivation to learn, and in combination with a traditional course on syllogistics it can lead to a an increased understanding of logical validity in the sense that the student’s ability to evaluate the validity of an arbitrary syllogism becomes better (see [7, 9]).

During Period 3 of the 2014 version of the course the students could do exercises in small groups using a version of Syllog including the deduction rules presented in Sect. 2. The rules were presented on the screen in terms of the CGIF formalism after a general introduction to the formalism (a lecture).

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