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Inspired by the development of eco-friendly flexible electronics, this paper aims to present a series of paper-based electronics drawn by pencils, which can be used as favorable sensing elements in daily life.

Pencil traces are deposited on the porous surface of Xerox paper by the mechanical exfoliation during writing process, which can be used as basic components to construct functional electronics for daily sensing applications. By changing pencil grade, the obtained traces can work as conductive wires, electrodes, resistors and piezoresistive gauges.

The experimental results confirm their practical applications in sensing several daily activities, including finger motion, touching and the temperature of water in paper cup. Moreover, the used electronics can be easily handled and recycled.

The shortage in functionality, reliability and performance consistency induced by manual operation is an evident challenge, which makes the pencil-on-paper devices more suitable to work as a temporary solution to satisfying the demands from emergency circumstances.

The pencil-on-paper devices, motivated by the electroconductibility and piezoresistivity of pencil trace, can be explored as sensing prototypes in detecting daily activities. Meantime, their advances in easy accessibility, rapid fabrication, low cost and eco-fitness endow them excellent capacity of meeting the “on-site, real-time” demands.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the assessment methods used in higher education to assess students' learning, and to investigate the effects of college and grading system on the used assessment methods.

This descriptive study investigates the assessment methods used by teachers in higher education to assess their students' learning outcomes. An instrument consisting of 15 items (each item is an assessment method) was distributed to 736 undergraduate students from four public universities in Jordan.

Findings show that traditional paper‐pencil test is the most common method that is used to assess learning in higher education. Results also show that teachers in colleges of science and engineering and colleges of nursing use different assessment methods to assess learning, besides traditional testing such as: real life tasks (authentic assessment), papers, and projects. Also, the results show that teachers use the same assessment methods to assess learning, despite the grading systems (letter or numbers) used at their institutes.

The sample of the study was limited to undergraduate students and teachers' points of views about the frequent use of assessment methods were not studied.

Higher education institutes should encourage teachers to use new and modern assessment methods as well as traditional paper‐pencil testing, and study the reasons for not using these new methods.

The paper should alert the higher education institutes about the important of developing the assessment process, through knowing their students' points of view about the assessment methods. This will help to get students involved in the learning process.

Purpose — In the context of evaluating transportation and carbon emission policies, improve weekly activity and mobility scheduling survey methodology in order to enhance data quality while reducing costs and decreasing respondent burden for designing continuous self-administered surveys that are predominantly passive (or computer-assisted).

Approach — Evaluate a set of functionalities deployed in a web travel survey interface (2009) and compare with a pencil-and-paper survey (2002–2003) deployed in Quebec City that sought similar data about weekly mobility. The first used a pencil-and-paper approach complemented by interviews and telecommunications. The second used applets developed in Java, and Google Maps in order to assist geocoding of activity places and the reporting of actual trips into a relational database, while using email to recruit and support respondents.

Implications — Both of these surveys had to address specific technical and privacy challenges during deployment, making their comparison relevant for discussing some of the impacts of information technologies on spatiotemporal data quality, conviviality of survey procedure, respondents' motivation and privacy protection.

Limitations — While neither of these surveys employed movement-aware mobile devices, such as GPS loggers, some of the lessons learnt are relevant to the design issues raised by the increasing deployment of such devices in travel surveys, and by the growing need to manage complex surveys over extended observation periods.

This paper aims to adapt and computerize the Trail Making Test (TMT) to support long-term self-assessment of cognitive abilities.

The authors propose a divide-and-combine (DAC) approach for generating different instances of TMT that can be used in repeated assessments with nearly no discernible practice effects. In the DAC approach, partial trails are generated separately in different layers and then combined to form a complete TMT trail.

The proposed approach was implemented in a computerized test application called iTMT. A pilot study was conducted to evaluate iTMT. The results show that the instances of TMT generated by the DAC approach had an adequate level of difficulty. iTMT also achieved a stronger construct validity, higher test–retest reliability and significantly reduced practice effects than existing computerized tests.

The preliminary results suggest that iTMT is suitable for long-term monitoring of cognitive abilities. By supporting self-assessment, iTMT also can help to crowdsource the assessment processes, which need to be administered by healthcare professionals conventionally, to the patients themselves.

This paper examines the validity standards applied to paper and pencil questionnaires by four social science roles: academic researchers, expert consultants, teachers, and organization development (OD) process consultants. These roles, influenced by their key stakeholders (e.g., clients, reviewers, students), employ different validity standards and socialize firm beliefs about these standards. The resulting divergence of attitudes toward measurement inhibits learning from other roles and slows social science advancement. This paper examines the assumption that each role must apply the same validity standards.

To examine the impact of emotional, social, and cognitive intelligences on the dimensions of transformational leadership using both paper‐and‐pencil measures and assessment center dimensions.

Multiple measurement methodologies were used to conceptualize emotional, cognitive, and social intelligence. Subordinate ratings of three dimensions of transformational leadership were used as the criteria. Correlation analysis and a series of multiple hierarchical regressions were used to determine the relationship between the multiple intelligences and three dimensions of transformational leadership.

Results indicate that a multiple intelligences framework is a useful approach to predict transformational leadership. Correlation analyses and multiple regression results indicated that the multiple intelligence framework explained between 10 and 25 percent of the variance in perceptions of transformational leadership and that assessment center dimensions explained additional variance beyond paper‐and‐pencil measures in transformational leadership.

This paper extends previous research by examining the impact of cognitive, emotional, and social intelligences on transformational leadership using multiple measurement methodologies. The results of this study provide a useful framework for practitioners interested in assessing precursors to transformational leadership, with a focus on assessment centers as a useful tool for predicting transformational leadership.

This study aims to examine a comparative analysis of electronic- and paper-based data collection methods.

Survey research approach was adopted to conduct the study. A total of 500 library and information science (LIS) researcher/information professionals selected randomly from seven states in Nigeria represent the sample for the study. A self-designed questionnaire was used to gather data from the respondents. Six objectives were developed to guide the study.

The findings reveal that there is preference for paper-based than the electronic-based data collection methods, and similarly, respondents indicated they cannot use any other data collection methods other than paper-based. Electronic data collection method is beneficial in terms of gathering a representative sample within a short period compared to the paper-based method. The researcher has control over access to the survey in the paper-based method compared to the electronic method, and there is opportunity to monitor the progress of the research and clarify ambiguity by the researcher. The electronic method is limited in terms of collecting data from only the respondents who are computer-literate with good Web skills, while the paper-based method is limited by higher attrition rate, money and time consumption.

The study did not consider the time needed to gather data with each method or the amount of time needed for data entry, cleaning and coding. It is possible that a time-motion study would reveal clear superiority of either one method or the other. The total sample of participants in the study is also limited, considering the total number of LIS researcher/information professionals in Nigeria.

The study has underlined the value of electronic/Web-based collection as a cost- and time-saving instrument in modern LIS research. Regardless of method and trial, electronic data collection could fulfill in all examined parameters, its promises, realizing cost savings of up to a 50 per cent in comparison with the paper-based data collection method.

The paper is solely the idea of the author.

Purpose — In order to analyse applicability, comparability and limitations of GPS technology in travel surveys, different mobility survey techniques were tested in an Austrian pilot study.

Methodology/approach — Four groups of voluntary respondents recorded their travel behaviour over a time period of three consecutive days. The groups were assigned to three different and combined methods of data collection: Paper–pencil trip diaries, passive GPS tracking, active GPS tracking and prompted recall interviews.

Findings — The resulting mobility parameters show that self-reported paper– pencil surveys yield accurate sociodemographic information on the respondents as well as trip purposes and modes of transportation, although too few trips are reported. Passive GPS-based methods minimize the strain for respondents. Methods that combine GPS-based data collection and questionnaire provide the most reliable mobility data at the moment.

Research limitations/implications — Due to funding restrictions the sample sizes had to be relatively small (235 participants). Further development in research methodology will increase the effectiveness of automated data analysis, for example more accurate detection of activities and transport modes. The usefulness of GPS-based data collection in a large-scale surveys is planned to be tested in the next Austrian national travel survey.

Originality/value of paper — The pilot study allows a detailed comparison of traditional and GPS-based travel survey methods for the first time, due to data collection combined with prompted recalls.

The performance of hand‐held computer terminals was compared with that of paper and pencil data collection methods. The study was carried out on two wards, with a comparative study in the medical audit unit at Rampton Hospital, one of three special hospitals managed by the Special Hospitals Service Authority. These were analysed, focusing on time factors, error rates, ease of use and financial implications. Findings showed that the electronic system saved time, reduced staffing costs and errors and had unit‐wide potential. The electronic data collection contributed to a cost‐effective and flexible data‐processing system for use in auditing.

This study investigates the impact that software utilization may have on students' knowledge acquisition of the accounting cycle. Differences in knowledge acquisition are examined between three groups of students: those who completed an accounting case manually using the traditional pencil and paper approach, using software, and first manually and then using software. The main research question is: “To what extent does using computers to study the accounting cycle lead to better knowledge acquisition?” This paper aims to inform changes in accounting education.

The survey method was employed to collect information from accounting students in a Canadian business school. A total of 1,053 usable questionnaires were returned. Declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge are the theoretical underpinnings.

The results indicate that students who first completed the case manually and then completed the same case using accounting software experienced the best knowledge acquisition. This suggests that the best manner for students to acquire concrete knowledge of the accounting cycle is by completing cases using both methods. The results also indicate that students who completed the case using only the software experienced better knowledge acquisition than did students who completed the case only manually. This suggests that software can be effectively utilized and integrated in class to improve knowledge acquisition of accounting information systems.

Little investigation has been performed on the usefulness and impact accounting software utilization may have on students' level of learning. The findings may benefit students and faculty members by helping in curriculum design changes, course design, and computer implementation decisions. The findings of this study have the potential to make a difference in the way that educators teach and business students learn. Business education may be improved by the judicious use of software in the classroom.