Educational Research

1. Authors:
Cristian-Mihai Bârcă
Alexandru-Cătălin Bujor
Coordinator:
Asist. drd. Simona Găbureanu

2.  An immense number of titles, probably running into
the thousands, were developed and released from the
mid-1990’s onwards, aimed primarily at the home
education of younger children.
 The design of educational software programs for
home use has been influenced strongly by computer
gaming concepts – in other words, they are designed
to be fun as well as educational. However as far as
possible a distinction should be drawn between proper
learning titles (such as these) and software where the
gaming outweighs the educational value.

3.  Courseware is a term that combines the words
'course' with 'software'. Its meaning originally was
used to describe additional educational material
intended as kits for teachers or trainers or as tutorials
for students, usually packaged for use with a
computer. The term's meaning and usage has
expanded and can refer to the entire course and any
additional material when used in reference an online
or 'computer formatted' classroom.
 The courseware itself can be in different formats,
some are only available online such as html pages,
while others can be downloaded in pdf files or other
types of document files.

4.  In a broader sense, the term eduitment describes an
intentional merger of computer games and educational
software into a single product (and could therefore
also comprise more serious titles described above
under children’s learning software). Software of this
kind is not structured towards school curricula, does
not normally involve educational advisors, and does
not focus on core skills such as literacy and numeracy.
 Educational software = Courseware +
Edutainment

5.  In this project we proposed to gather information
and to discuss about the use of educational
software in Romanian school. In this purpose we
used an electronic survey (with 15 questions) and
we posted it on several high-school forums. After
several days we gather almost 60 answers and
we made the summary report.

6. 1. At how many lessons that used educational software have you taken part in
the last semester?
% of
Respondents
Number of
Respondents
None 14.29% 8
Between 1 and 5 66.07% 37
Between 5 and 15 14.29% 8
More then 15 5.36% 3
Number of respondents 56
Number or respondents who skipped this question 0
2. Do you use educational software in your independent studies?
% of
Respondents
Number of
Respondents
Yes 29.09% 16
No 70.91% 39
Number of respondents 55
Number or respondents who skipped this question 1
3. Have you ever bought any of the educational software packages available
on the market?
% of
Respondents
Number of
Respondents
Yes 16.07% 9
No 83.93% 47
Number of respondents 56
Number or respondents who skipped this question 0

8. 7. What features impressed you in an educational software?
animations, experiments, interactivity, nice chemistry/physics phenomena simulation, graphics,
evaluation tests, accessibility, accuracy
Number of Respondents 31
Number or respondents who skipped this question 25
8. What features would you like to find in an educational software?
“search and discover by yourself”, virtual reality, simulation of things hard to realize/observe in
real life, dictionary, printable information, more experiments/simulations/animations, user friendly
interface, clear examples and solutions, video materials
Number of Respondents 26
Number or respondents who skipped this question 30
9. Give an example of two colors that could be the theme color for an educational software.
blue & white,blue & green, green & white, blue & orange, dark grey & white;
Number of Respondents 39
Number or respondents who skipped this question 17

10. 12. Do you consider that the use of educational software should be
compulsory in domains in which this mode of teaching is suitable?
% of
Respondents
Number of
Respondents
Yes 47.27% 26
No 52.73% 29
Number of respondents 55
Number or respondents who skipped this question 1
13. What educational software developers do you know?
Siveco,Softwin,Oracle,Adobe, Varox, Edison3, Mela, Kehes, Euler, 3D Fiz,Infomedia,etc.
Number of Respondents 35
Number or respondents who skipped this question 21
14. Would you use educational software developed for mobile
phone?
% of
Respondents
Number of
Respondents
Yes 58.18% 32
No 41.82% 23
Number of respondents 55
Number or respondents who skipped this question 1
15. Would you contribute without being paid to the development of
an educational software package that should include lessons (respecting
the school curriculum) knowing that can be used by each student /
teacher from Romania?
% of
Respondents
Number of
Respondents
Da 82.14% 46
Nu 17.86% 10
Number of respondents 56
Number or respondents who skipped this question 0

11. 0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Not at all Less Average Much Very Much
Question 6 - statistics
Learning definitions
Ilearning formulas
Solving theoretical problems
Performing experiments
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
34
5
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Biology
Chemistry
Economy
Physics
Geography
Informatics
History
RomanianLanguage
ForeignLanguage
Mathematics
Psychology
Question 10 - statistics
1
2
3
4
5

12.  Most of students/teachers spent between 1 and 5 hours in the last semester using
educational software.
 Not many students use educational software in self-education purpose.
 Not many students/teachers buy/bought educational software.
 An educational software it is very useful for performing experiments.
 The most impressive features ever seen in an educational software were:
◦ animations, experiments, interactivity, nice chemistry/physics phenomena simulation, graphics,
evaluation tests, accessibility, accuracy
 Great features for an educational software would be:
◦ “search and discover by yourself”, virtual reality, simulation of things hard to realize/observe in real
life, dictionary, printable information, more experiments/simulations/animations, user friendly
interface, clear examples and solutions, video materials
 Two colors that could be the theme color for an educational software are: blue &
white, blue & green, green & white, blue & orange, dark grey & white;
 Educational software is very useful and important for domains like physics, chemistry,
biology.
 Even if the educational software would be free to purchase, not many
students/teachers would use it.
 Many considered that the use of educational software shouldn’t be compulsory in
domains in which this mode of teaching is suitable.