Creating Interactive E-Books through Learning by Design: The Impacts of Guided Peer-Feedback on Students' Learning Achievements and Project Outcomes in Science Courses

With the rapid progress of technology, the popularity of tablet computers and the development of e-book applications have brought the use of e-books as a learning tool under the spotlight. In the meantime, the aim of school education lies not only in providing students with knowledge but also in encouraging them to construct knowledge actively. Consequently, in this study, an approach of integrating the guided peerfeedback strategy into e-book design was proposed. An experiment was conducted on an elementary school natural science course to explore its effectiveness in comparison with the conventional e-book development activity. It was expected that the guided peer-feedback approach could engage students in knowledge organizing and in-depth thinking while stimulating more innovative ideas. To assess the impacts of this approach, a quasi-experimental design method was adopted. The students were divided into two groups: the experimental group, in which the students learned with the guided peer-feedback strategy together with the e-book development approach, and the control group, in which the students learned with the conventional ebook development approach. The experimental results indicated that the integrated guided peer-feedback and e-book development strategy had significant impacts on the students’ learning achievements and ebook project outcomes while reducing their cognitive load and increasing their innovative thinking tendency in the design process.