Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Impressum
Publication name
Proceedings of MAC-ETeL 2016
Conference date and venue
August 5th - 6th 2016 in Prague
Publisher
MAC Prague consulting Ltd.
Chudenicka 1059/30
Prague 10 - 102 00
Czech Republic
Contact
e-mail: info@mac-prague.com
web: www.mac-prague.com
Editors
Jiri Vopava, Czech Republic
Vladimir Douda, Ph.D., Czech Republic
Radek Kratochvil, Czech Republic
Mario Konecki, Ph.D., Croatia
Programme Committee
Radek Kratochvil, Czech Republic
Sanjay Tirbhon, MSc, United Kingdom
Doc. PhDr. Mria Jneov, CSc.
Prof. Otto Pastor, Ph.D., Czech Republic
Ass. Prof. Vit Fabera, Ph.D., Czech Republic
Mario Konecki, Ph.D., Croatia
Organizing Committee
Jiri Vopava, Czech Republic
Vladimir Douda, Ph.D., Czech Republic
Mario Konecki, Ph.D., Croatia
Technical publishing board
Jiri Vopava, Czech Republic
Radek Kratochvil, Czech Republic
Vladimir Douda, Ph.D., Czech Republic
Mario Konecki, Ph.D., Croatia
ISBN
ISBN 978-80-88085-08-9
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Table of Contents
THOMAS SCHALOW
HUMAN LEARNING CULTURE IN AN AGE OF ADVANCED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ............................. 1
DIETER GRASEDIECK
NOT COMPUTERS, ONLY TEACHERS CAN MAKE EDUCATION EXCITING ............................................... 7
DARIGA BAKTYGEREYEVA
A MONOLOGUE OVER A DIALOGUE AS A NARRATIVE DEVICE ........................................................... 61
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SELIM UYLAS
EVALUATION OF TEACHER EFFICACY, CONSTRUCTIVIST INSTRUCTION AND DIDACTIC INSTRUCTION
IN EDUCATIONAL PROCESS .............................................................................................................. 65
EYP ELK
MEDIATING AND MODERATING ROLE OF SENSATION SEEKING IN THE RELATION BETWEEN SELFCONCEALMENT AND LIFE SATISFACTION IN ADOLESCENTS ............................................................... 74
LUK KRABEC
EDUCATION PROBLEMS OF TURKS IN GERMANY .............................................................................. 75
BURCU ATES
VOICES FROM FORMER TESOL DISTANCE EDUCATION GRADUATE STUDENTS ................................... 82
APINYA INGARD
THE INFLUENCE OF LEARNING MANAGEMENT WITH ICT AND USING ICT ON ICT KNOWLEDGE OF
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS.......................................................................................................... 90
SHAZIA MALIK
A REVIEW OF THE EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED LEARNERS AT TERTIARY
LEVEL IN PAKISTAN ......................................................................................................................... 99
JOHNNY K.W. WONG; TIMOTHY O. OLADINRIN; CHRISTABEL M.F. HO; ERIC GUILBERT; ROY KAM
ASSESSMENT OF E-LEARNING IN CONSTRUCTION MEASUREMENT COURSE .................................... 114
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MALIKA SAHEL
THE BRITISH EDUCATIONAL PRESENCE IN ALGERIA ........................................................................ 123
JOOYOUNG R PARK
MATH IN ART & DESIGN EDUCATION: EXPLORING MATHEMATICAL CREATIVIY IN DESIGN PROCESS......
..................................................................................................................................................... 140
NAJAT AL KALBANI
STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHING EVALUATIONS: FRUITFUL OR A WASTE OF TIME? ................ 148
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MALIKA SAHEL
THE BRITISH COUNCILS POST-COLONIAL EDUCATIONAL INVESTMENT IN NIGERIA: ENGLISH
LANGUAGE TEACHING................................................................................................................... 174
ELEONRA RICZK MA
THE ROLE OF THE DIGITAL BOARD AND THE INTERNET IN GETTING A HIGHER LEVEL OF DIGITAL
AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCES.......................................................................................... 180
SEMSEDDIN GUNDUZ
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL NETWORKS ADOPTION AND ACADEMIC SELF EFFICACY OF
PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS................................................................................................................. 186
EMRE NL
PARENT MPLEMENTED PROGRAM FOR SUPPORTING HOME AND INSTITUTION BASED TOILETING
SKILLS ........................................................................................................................................... 187
MARSHA A. MAXWELL
IDENTIFYING SOCIAL ASPECTS OF GAME MECHANICS THAT CAN ENHANCE LEARNING IN THE
MODERN HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM ............................................................................................ 195
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Abstract
Scientific journals and the popular press enjoy speculating about when artificial
intelligence (AI) will exceed human intelligence. It is not necessary to accept the thesis of
artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence in its entirety in order to debate its
implications. We are already able to see evidence that technology is changing the means for
delivering and our definition of education. This paper considers what type of education will
be appropriate in an age of advanced artificial intelligence.
The future challenge for humanity in an age of advanced artificial intelligence will be
to imagine a curriculum and education that does more than merely transfer tacit skills from
one individual to another. It is likewise important to examine the appropriate function of
education in promoting a collective human intelligence that benefits both the individual and
humanity as a whole.
Keywords: AI, curriculum, pedagogy, deep learning
Main Conference Topic: Education, Teaching and E-Learning
1.
INTRODUCTION
It would be comforting to assume the high rate of unemployment we see in many
countries today is a temporary phenomenon and all can be made well by improving the labor
force through appropriate education. The facts, however, suggest that former US Treasury
Secretary Lawrence Summers [1] and authors such as Martin Ford [2] are correct when they
say we have entered an era characterized by extremely high levels of prolonged, structural
unemployment. Computer algorithms are now eliminating service jobs formerly done by
highly trained individuals while robotics and automation continue to displace industrial
workers. Welcome to Stanley Aronwitzs [3] Jobless Future! In this future an educational
system designed to train workers for employment will become as incongruous and obsolete as
the jobs it was designed to train for. We need, therefore, to create an educational system and
curriculum that prepares us for life in an age of advanced artificial intelligence.
It would be difficult to overstate the effect the advent of human level artificial
intelligence (HLAI) will have on our lives. Few people are prepared to accept the idea and
implications that humanity will one day join other biological organisms as a lower form of
intelligence. We do not need to accept the idea in its entirety, however, in order to embrace
the conviction that education needs to be more than it is today. In our present age education
functions more to instill values of obedience and obligation, designed to maximize economic
growth and societal harmony, than to promote individual development. People have until now
accepted narrow training rather than broad education because it seemed to guarantee a
secure and prosperous future. Take away the reward of a job, however, and much of education
seems pointless, condescending and abusive. The present educational system has trapped us in
Max Webers iron cage, encouraging us to live efficient lives based on conformity.
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2.
CHALLENGE OF ADVANCED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR
HUMANITY
Bostrom [4] notes that computer scientist Donald Knuth once observed artificial
intelligence has now succeeded in doing essentially everything that requires thinking, but
has failed to do most of what people and animals do without thinking. Computers such as
Deep Blue today play chess better than chess grandmasters and a computer named Watson has
even succeeded in defeating human champions in the television trivia game Jeopardy.
These achievements may appear insignificant but they were once considered impossible for
computers to attain. The same was also said about human speech recognition, facial
recognition and just about any other advanced human skill one can imagine. Computers now
drive cars, write news stories, and trade equities on world stock exchanges. If a skill can be
conceptualized an algorithm able to accomplish it can be written.
The success of computers in these narrow domains requiring high levels of expertise
should be of concern to anyone presently training for a career. It may not be too far in the
future when job advertisements read Humans Need Not Apply, as suggested by the title of a
popular YouTube video. Software such as Knewton is being developed to ensure that teachers
will be included in this group of redundant humans. It has been suggested this could occur as
soon as 2020, when the teacher will no longer be able to function as the mediator between an
expert-level knowledge base and the student. [5]
The reasoning behind these predictions is simple: knowledge creation and dissemination
today occurs at a rate making it impossible for one person to be aware of all relevant and
important research in even a narrow field of study. If a teacher is merely an agent to transmit
knowledge or transfer tacit skills to a student, as many assume, the teachers job can better be
done by an artificial intelligence. In fact, any job requiring a high level of expertise may be
better accomplished using AI. It is no wonder, therefore, that the previously mentioned
computer known as Watson has accepted a new challenge to become the only physician
human beings would ever need to consult.
The Internet and connectivity to a network ensures that no more than one expert will
ever be required for any one domain of knowledge, and that expert will be an artificial rather
than a human intelligence. Human beings have the unfortunate need to localize a knowledge
base in one finite mind, and that need for a physical brain to contain knowledge puts us at an
extreme disadvantage when compared with a networked system of computers. In most cases
human skills and knowledge can only be synchronously accessed by one other person, which
is the reason we waste so much time today on actions such as waiting to be seen by a doctor at
a clinic. Online AI physicians, or teachers, can be accessed by any number of people, at any
time of day. They can be replicated and duplicated to provide infinite versions of themselves,
and each will have the most recent and complete database of research and information
available. No human being can challenge this depth or breadth of knowledge.
I understand why many people will reject the argument that AI can ever replace
humans, as the potential implications are seemingly too frightening to be entertained. Human
beings likewise find it difficult to conceive of the idea that we would ever use nuclear bombs,
again, or that we would fail to act in the face of catastrophic climate change, as the
implications are so horrific. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves we know these things could
happen. In this article I would like to suggest, therefore, we merely assume human level
artificial intelligence, and eventually even what Oxford Universitys Nick Bostrom describes
as Superintelligence, might be a possibility. We will then be able to ask what education can do
and needs to become in order to prepare us for a world where we are a lesser intelligence.
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need no longer consist of training for a job or the socialization required for adapting to the
workplace.
In the absence of the constraints we faced in the past due to the need to work, we will
once again discover the only truly essential skill humans or any other species need possess is
the ability to adapt and respond to change in the environment. We must therefore teach and
learn how to change, and particularly learn how to easily shift between different frames of
reference. When we are no longer the dominant species we will no longer be able to define
what our environment will be, but we will need to survive no matter what conditions are
presented to us. Education therefore needs to proceed from the premise that what needs to be
learned does not remain static. The ability to reproduce answers that were correct or relevant
in the past does not constitute intelligence. Since much of present education consists almost
entirely of this skill there will be much to change in our understanding of education.
Another premise education needs to be based upon is the idea that the only true form of
understanding is deep learning. Deep learning requires that learners be able to look for
patterns and underlying principles within information and examine alternate possibilities and
ideas. The importance of this type of learning explains the paradox Neisser [11] observed
when he noted that individuals who perform well in academic settings did not necessarily
thrive in real-world settings. Students were often not prepared to deal with problems outside
an academic setting because in schools they had learned only how to solve problems that were
1) well defined 2) already formulated by others 3) complete in the information required to
solve the problem 4) defined by one correct answer and one correct method of arriving at that
answer and 5) simplified in order to make solving the problem easier. In contrast, everyday
practical problems in non-academic settings tend to be unformatted or in need of reframing,
contain incomplete information, and are characterized by multiple possible solutions, with
none of the solutions obviously optimal. Solving these types of problems is certainly
something we need to emphasize.
Human education evolved to enable humans to solve problems human problems. AI
will certainly change the world as we know it, but AI does not yet and perhaps never will
grasp the human concept of the problem itself. It is the human being that assigns value to
information and the phenomena of nature. It is the human being that recognizes problems to
be solved. These are not characteristics of the AI we know today. Google, as AI rather than as
a company, does not know how to solve problems of poverty, hunger, or disease because it
does not recognize these as problems. It merely records their existence. I expect we will
continue to need to solve our own problems in the future because AI will either not
understand the nature of our human problems or not care about them.
AI also does not yet understand wisdom, and it is this concept I hope our future
education will focus on. Training an animal to do circus tricks does not make the animal more
intelligent or raise its consciousness. Humans have not become more intelligent merely
because they have learned how to perform tasks that have some economic significance.
Education can accomplish more than mere circus tricks if we focus on raising the
consciousness of the human species through wisdom. We might choose to define this wisdom,
as does Vaughan [12], as a type of spiritual or existential intelligence involving a search for
the meaning of life. It may, though, be something as prosaic as Sternbergs [13] quest for
knowledge mediated by values designed to achieve a common good, balancing personal and
collective needs for the benefit of all.
5. CONCLUSIONS
If a species could anticipate what adaptation or skill set would be required to survive
there would be no extinction. Learning the same skill set that was valuable to the survival of a
species in a past context does not guarantee the continued success of the species. It is the
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ability to change and conceive of a radically different future that allows for the possibility of
continued success.
Since adaptation to a changing environment always occurs incrementally it serves only
to keep the individual or species in a state of equilibrium. When the rate of change becomes
too rapid or the degree of change too great for previous adaptations to compensate either
extinction or radical evolution occurs. I believe we are approaching that moment in our
pursuit of advanced artificial intelligence.
The most successful species are those that exhibit pre-adaptation. This occurs when a
species has developed an adaptation or skill set that, by chance, becomes useful in a new
environment that did not previously exist. However, since we can never know what that
environment might be, it is prudent for a species to allow for diversity rather than opting for
efficiency and conformity in training its young for the future.
Education today is primarily designed to achieve competence. Unfortunately, we can
never absolutely define competence for a task until after the fact. Competence is determined
by what others, and our environment, define it to be. With a different context or a different
group of actors there will be a different level of competence. As Edwin G. Boring [14]
concluded in 1923, intelligence can best be defined as what the test tests. Learning and
education disassociated from the concept of competence allows us to create an educational
system based once again on the humanities and a search for wisdom and goodness.
The mere fact that we are able to entertain the possibility of a world that is different
from our present world gives me hope for the future of humanity. Imagination is a skill other
biological life forms do not seem to possess, and one that artificial intelligence has not yet
developed. I believe it also offers us the opportunity to evolve into something more and better
than we are today, ending our need to engage in trivial pursuits regarding jobs. It gives us the
freedom to seek the occupation of living a good life.
Biography
Thomas R. Schalow is a graduate of Princeton University in America. He received his
Ph.D. in 1989. He has previously served as a lecturer at the National University of Singapore
and is presently a professor in the Department of Information and Economics at the University
of Marketing and Distribution Sciences in Kobe, Japan. He has published extensively on the
topics of learning and artificial intelligence and is a member of various organizations devoted
to the study of these disciplines in Japan, Europe and America.
REFERENCES
[1] Summers, Lawrence. Lawrence H. Summers on the Economic Challenge of the Future:
Jobs, The Wall Street Journal. July 7, 2014.
[2] Ford, Martin. The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the
Economy of the Future. Acculant Publishing, 2009.
[3] Aronwitz, Stanley. The Jobless Future. Second Edition. Minneapolis, University of
Minnesota Press, 2010.
[4] Bostrom, Nick. Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford, Oxford
University Pres, 2014.
[5] Zovko, Vtroslav. Long Range Prospects of Education - From Now Until
Singularity, Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems. Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 161175, 2014.
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[6] Yampolskiy, Roman V. and Fox, Joshua. Artificial General Intelligence and the Human
Mental Model, Singularity Hypothesis: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment. Amnon
H. Eden, James H. Moor, Johnny H. Soraker, and Eric Steinhart, eds. Springer-Verlag,
Heidelberg, pp. 129-146, 2012.
[7] Reznikova, Zhanna. Animal Intelligence: From Individual to Social Cognition.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
[8] Tooby, John and Cosmides, Leda. The Psychological Foundation of Culture, The
Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Jerome H. Barkow,
ed. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 19-136, 1992.
[9] Fox, Joshua and Schulman, Carl. Superintelligence Does Not Imply Benevolence,
ECAP10: VIII European Conference on Computing and Philosophy. Klaus Mainz, ed.
Verlag, Munich, pp. 456-462, 2010.
[10] Veal, A. J. The Elusive Leisure Society, 4th Edition, School of Leisure, Sport and
Tourism Working Paper. University of Technology, Sydney, 2009.
[11] Neisser, Ulric et. al. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, American Psychologist.
Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 77-101, 1996.
[12] Vaughan, Frances. What is Spiritual Intelligence?, Journal of Humanistic
Psychology. Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 16-33, 2002.
[13] Sternberg, Robert J. Why Schools Should Teach for Wisdom: The Balance Theory of
Wisdom in Educational Settings, Educational Psychologist. Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 227-245,
2001.
[14] Boring, Edwin G. Intelligence as the Test Tests It, New Republic. Vol. 36, No. 444,
pp. 35-37, June 6, 1923.
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At the
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in
enterprises
and
new
practical
skills
must
be
developed.
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indicate possibilities, consult and encourage. Nevertheless, this partial functional change of
teachers is not connected with a falling support level needed by the learners, as often
emphasized. (see Klein o. J: 4).
Self-organized learning is not only an aim of educational efforts, but also a condition and
method of innovative teaching-learning processes (see Sembill/Seifried 2006: 93). Thus the
existence of the competences that the learners need to be able to steer the learning process
efficiently and independently, should on no account be simply assumed. They must rather be
systematically developed, which means the learners competences to plan, design, implement
and
evaluate
their
independent
learning
http://lehrerfortbildung-bw.de/unterricht/sol/
process
need
04_organisation
firstly
/
be
2009).
taught
(See
Self-organized
learning, operational practice and the theoretical knowledge of the universities can be
connected by means of Bachelor or Master theses about practical problems of the economy or
industry. Through the close collaboration with the economy the students get to know the
operational practice and a manager can convince himself of the new ideas, the engagement
and the motivation of the students and take this into consideration in future personnel
planning. This procedure is offered to the students at many German universities and in the
economy. Thus, students can apply for bachelor or master's theses on the Internet. For
example, about 400 students are writing their theses at the companies Continental and
Porsche (MHP).
3.3. ADDITIONAL OFFERS FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES
The economy in a digitized Europe needs broad knowledge in economics and engineering
because of the complex challenges in the various operating departments. Along a supply
chain not only commercial skills are required, but also specialists and general knowledge
beyond the department's borders. Economics students should acquire interdisciplinary
expertise during the Bachelor's or Master's program. A closer cooperation and coordination of
the study programs of the various faculties at universities will become more and more
indispensable in the future. It would be desirable if students of economics could also visit
study programs in information technology or humanities and the already existing degree
programs would find higher acceptance. How can the guidelines of the teaching process the
connection between theory and practice, self-organized learning and interdisciplinary studies
- be implemented in schools or universities?
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supervising the learners. Because of the lack of time to care for each individual student at the
desirable extent, the use of tele-tutoring methods could bring advantages: the student can email his partial results to the teacher every two weeks, which allows the teacher then to think
of and prepare suggestions. If then the teacher and the student meet at a fixed date for the
regular computer and telephone meeting, the discussion time can be used more meaningfully
and purposefully. Both sides can start from the same level of preparation and thus have more
time to solve individual problems of each student, for which the teacher could prepare in
detail in advance.
4. 2. APPLICATIONS FOR TELE-TUTORING IN UNIVERSITY MASTERS COURSES
Another way of meaningful use of tele-tutoring would be to offer university master's degree
programs completely in this way. The idea behind this proposal refers to the trend to consider
the bachelor's degree according to the Anglo-Saxon model as the first university degree. The
governments of the EU Member States have laid the foundations by launching the Bologna
Process. In the UK or the US, the bachelor's degree is the normal university degree. A
master's exam is usually acquired only in the course of a PhD, so on the way to the doctorate
degree.
Additional pressure to take action arises in Europe due to the increasing shortage of skilled
workers. It is therefore due to this background, that we can see a broad interest in paving the
way for graduates with academic qualifications into the labor market already after the
bachelor's degree program, at the same time allowing them to get the qualification of a
Master's program while also working. Again, tele-tutoring may be helpful in these cases.
Specifically, the following sequence for one academic year is conceivable: The student is
present at the University on two weekends in January. At the end of this phase he receives a
creative task, which he concludes in the next two months at home. In the middle of this
phase, so after four weeks, the student sends the teachers his preliminary work. The teacher
gives suggestions for improvement and other comments and returns the file. He then calls the
students to discuss the progress of the work. The investigations of Grasedieck from 1979 and
1990 and the interviews of students at the Babes-Bolyai University and the University of
Bochum in 2007 show, that tasks and study work, which make use of the creativity of the
students by promoting less repetition and serving rather as an independent preparation for the
teaching process, should be evaluated as the most efficient method in terms of learning
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5.
CONCLUSION:
ONLY
PERSON-TO-PERSON
LEARNING
ENSURES
THE
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6. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Prof. h.c. Dr. Dieter Grasedieck, Dipl. Ing., Principal at College of Vocational Education
(1980 1994), Adjunct Professor at the University Wuppertal (1975 1982), at Babes Bolyai
University in Cluj Napoca (2005 today) and at University Essen Duisburg (2005-2014),
Member of the German Bundestag (1994 2009).
Contact: fam.grasedieck@tonline.de
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Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationsip between instructors power sources
and students identification with school and to reveal the current situation. The research was
conducted over 66 undergraduates chosen from students taking pedagogy courses at the
Faculty of Sports Sciences during 2015-2016 academic year at Hacettepe University. In the
study The Students Identification With School Scale developed by Voelkl (1996) and
The Instructors Power Use Scale developed by Schrodt, Witt and Turman (2007) were
used in order to collect the data. At the end of the study it was found that instructors display
expert power at most and coercive power at the least; students identification with school
is at the Agree level. Besides, it was confirmed that there is a low level and a positive
correlation between reward power, referent power, expert power and legitimate
power and students identification with school. Also, there is a low level and a negative
relation between coercive power and students identification with school.
Key words: Power use, identification with school.
Main Conference Topic: Teaching
Introduction
One of the many communication factors that affect interpersonal relationships is the
exertion of social influence or interpersonal power. In the classroom, teacher power is
evidenced when a teacher communicates in ways that influence students to achieve desired
individual and class goals. For example, teachers use social influence to persuade students to
comply with their requests (Richmond and McCroskey, 1984). The power in general terms
can be defined as the ability people use in order to influence others in social life.
Concordantly the phenomenon of power is a kind of communication which can be observed
at each step of the communal living such as between the teacher-the teacher, the principal-the
teacher, the doctor-the patient, the soldier-the commander and the employee-the employer
(Aslanargun and Eri, 2013).
Individuals use power sources to influence others (zdemir, 2013). French and Raven
(1959) stated that individuals including teachers use five different power sources in order to
affect others. These are referent power, legitimate power, coercive power, reward power and
expert power.
Reward power flows from students perceptions that the teacher can provide them
with positive benefits or rewards. Manifestations of reward power in the classroom may
include tangible benefits such as bonus points or extra credit, psychological rewards such as
receiving affirmation from the teacher, and relational rewards such as being complimented by
the teacher before ones classmates. When students perceive that a teacher can potentially
offer such rewards, they may be more inclined to accept the teachers direction and influence
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in regard to the course (Schrodt, Witt and Turman, 2007). This kind of power gets its
influence from appeal of rewards and fair distribution of rewards (Hoy and Miskel, 2010).
Coercive power reflects students awareness that the teacher can potentially punish
students through negative outcomes such as grade penalties, being criticized or disciplined
before ones classmates, or losing favor with the teacher. When students perceive that a
teacher has the power to issue such punishment, they may be more willing to comply with the
teachers requests. Thus, the teachers power over the students stems from their desire to
avoid unpleasantness (Schrodt, Witt and Turman, 2007). The coercive power generally can
be used if there is a discipline problem and when teachers are confronted with detrimental
behaviors (Hoy & Miskel, 2010).
Legitimate power relates to the teachers authoritative role in relation to students.
Social norms assign to persons who hold positions of legitimate authority a certain right to
oversee or influence others. In the classroom, for example, society generally grants to
teachers the legitimate right to exercise authority over students. The teachers influential
power resides in students acceptance of the hierarchical roles of teacher and student, and the
perception that teachers have the right to direct students in matters related to the course
(Schrodt , Witt and Turman, 2007). Nevertheless, teachers dont use legitimate power
overmuch because students may not want to obey the teachers who use legitimate power
unnecessarily (elik, 2005).
Referent power reflects a students positive regard for and personal identification with
the teacher, as evidenced by perceptions of similarity or interpersonal affinity. This form of
power may be manifest by the students feeling of oneness with the teacher, or the desire to
have such an identity. When students admire the teacher or perceive them as a person with
whom they wish to be associated, they may naturally be more receptive to the teachers
influence and suggestions (Schrodt , Witt and Turman, 2007). The referent power is the
teachers ability that help students identify with their teachers. An individual who has referent
power is someone that is respected, admired and taken as a model. The source of this kind of
power is the individuals different personality and communication skill (Horan & Myers,
2009).
Expert power emanates from the teachers knowledge or expertise as an educator in
the subject area of the course. In the classroom, students may recognize the teachers
professional background and superior understanding of the course material, as well as the
skillful use of course delivery methods. The teachers influence over the students emanates
from their perception of the teacher as an expert educator who has superior intellectual
knowledge of the course content (Schrodt , Witt and Turman, 2007).
Schrodt , Witt and Turman (2007) state that referent, expert, and reward power are
viewed as prosocial forms of power and are positively associated with cognitive learning,
affective learning, and student motivation, while legitimate and coercive power are viewed by
students as antisocial forms of power and are negatively associated with these same learning
outcomes according to the results obtained from the researches related to the power sources.
The task of negotiating power between students and instructors affects how both
parties choose to communicate and respond to each other (Goodboy, Bolkan, Myers & Chao;
2011). McCroskey and Richmond (1983) noted that, the types of power that instructors exert
in the college classroom have a significant impact on the quality of instructor-student
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communication. Considering its vital role in the teaching and learning process, without
teacher-student communication it is quite difficult to achieve educational aims. According to
Hurt, Scott and McCroskey (1978), there is a difference between knowing and teaching, and
that difference is communication in the classroom.
It is a considerable effort that instructors are seeking for the ways that make students
identified with schools, because, strengthening the relationship between students and school
is hard. One of the most common troubles faced is the difficulty to make students identified
with their schools (zdemir, 2013). Therefore, the fact that the possibility of instructors
power sources may have a prominent effect over sudents identification with school should
be considered.
Voelkl (1997) defined identification with school as having two components: (1)
feelings of belongingness and (2) valuing of school and school related outcomes. According
to her, belongingness involves a sense that the student is an integral part of the school, a
feeling of being accepted, valued, and included, a feeling of being proud of being a part of the
school. Valuing involves considering the school important as a social institution, personally
important to the student, and as an avenue for accomplishing future life goals.
Osborne (1997) defined identification with school as the extent to which academic
pursuits and outcomes form the basis for global self-evaluation. According to Steele (1997),
identification with school is forming a relationship between oneself and the domains of
schooling. Identification has been defined as affiliation, involvement, attachment,
commitment and bonding and in negative terms such as alienation and withdrawal with the
difficulty of surrounding the concept of identification with school (Finn, 1989). It has also
been discussed as the psychological perception of school membership and relatedness
(Goodenow, 1992; Wehlage, 1989).
Several investigations have confirmed that there is a relationship between
identification with school and positive student behaviors. For example, it was seen that
identification is positively related to participation, disciplined behavior, preparedness for
class and attentiveness in school according to the results of the study of a representative
sample of 5945 students in the USA (Finn, 1992). Other researchers have demonstrated that
feeling of belongingness in school is related to level of engagement; persistent effort in
schoolwork and a significant predictor of measures of academic motivation, including
expectations for success, valuing schoolwork and general school motivation and interest
(Goodenow, 1993; Goodenow and Grady, 1993).
Valuing school relevant outcomes that is, the belief that schoolwork is important also
has been associated with student engagement, persistence in schoolwork and performance
(Pintrich and DeGroot, 1990); identification with school is essential for students engagement
and achievement in academic work (Newmann, Wehlage and Lamborn, 1992) and that
student identification is a crucial factor in the prevention of school dropout (Wehlage, Rutter,
Smith, Lesko, ve Fernandez, 1989).
Finn (1989) and Goodenow (1993) stated that students who identify with school and
are academically successful dont present a problem for educators. Hovewer, those students
who dont like school are less likely to succeed and more likely to be associated with
negative learning behaviors, such as lower degrees of classroom participation and
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involvement in academic activites, lower academic motivation and attention, verbal and
physical abuse of school, skipping classes and truancy, disruptive behavior in the classroom
and dropping out of school.
The fields of education, sociology, anthropology and psychology have all identified
school identification and recognized the problem of alienation from school as an important
social issue (Voelkl, 1996). Its thought that the study of the school identification having
critical role over students school life and academic performance will provide a support to the
solution of alienation problem seen as a social trouble.
In the literature review, it was observed that the issue of identification with school
was studied abroad by some researchers (Voelkl, 1996; Mitchell and Forsyt, 2004; Koning
and Boekaerts, 2005; Parson, 2012; Radziwon, 2009), but there has been no research about
that subject in our country.
In his study, measuring students identification with school, Voelkl (1996), identified
that female students exhibited higher degrees of identification with school than male students
did. Mitchell and Forsyt (2004) found that socioeconomic status wasnt related to student
identification with school in thier research trust, the principle and student identification.
Koning and Boekaerts (2005) determined that gender was not a significant determinant of
School-Identification in their study Determinants of students' school-identification in
secondary vocational education.
In his doctoral dissertation themed Relationship among urban students identification
with school and students, teachers and parents perceptions of academic press and safety
and reading achievement
Parson (2012) found that there was a positive and significant
relationship between identification with school and academic achievement. Radzivon (2009)
identified that female students had higher levels of identification with school than male ones,
also there was a positive and significant relationship between identification with school and
academic achievement in his research The Effects of Peers' Beliefs on 8th-Grade Students'
Identification With School.
While there are some independent researches over teachers power use (Schrodt , Witt
and Turman, 2007 Orbash, 2008; Golish and Olson, 2000; Richmond and McCroskey, 1984;
zdemir, 2013; Aslanargun and Eri, 2013; zer, Uurlu, Sincar, Yldrm and Beyciolu,
2014), it was seen that students identification with school, one of the most prominent items
of education system, and power use of teachers/instructors, another important item of
education system, werent investigated together in the same study.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between instructors power
sources and students identification with school and to reveal the current situation. The
questions below will be answered in the scope of the study.
1.
What are the levels of instructors power use?
2.
What is the level of students identification with school?
3.
Do instructors power use and students identification with school change in
terms of gender and family income status?
4.
Is there a significant relationship between instructors power use and students
identification with school?
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Point
1
2
3
4
Options
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree
Data Collection
The survey questions were answered by the students in the classroom. The purpose of the
study was explained to the students during implementation. Questionnaire forms filled by
students were collected by the researchers.
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Data Analysis
For data analysis, frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, independent samples Ttest for paired comparisons, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for multiple
comparisons and Pearson Correlation Coefficient were used.
FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATION
The findings obtained from tests are presented and interpreted below.
Table 2. Findings related to the levels of instructors power sources
Coercive Power
Reward Power
Referent Power
Legitimate Power
Expert Power
N
66
66
66
66
66
2,77
3,32
3,09
3,23
3,52
Sd
4,161
3,892
3,838
3,762
4,608
As it was seen in the table about findings related to the levels of instructors power sources,
instructors display expert power at most X = 3,52 and coercive power at the least X =
2.77. nstructors display the other power sources respectively at the reward, legitimate and
referent factors.
Since undergraduates enter university after a LYS exam and have a good level of academic,
educational and cultural background, displaying expert power at most is so prominent for
instructors. Coercive power, if its used often, can cause some troubles for teaching activities
and the relationship between student and the instructor because the undergraduates are aware
of their rights and responsibilities in addition to their readiness level.
In his research themed The relationship between the instructors power sources and teacher
candidates organizational identification Ozdemir (2013) found that instructors display
expert power at most and coercive power at the least. The finding obtained from the
current study corresponds to this finding in the literature.
Table 3. Findings related to the level of students identification with school
Identification with
school
Sd
66
2,78
3,885
As it was seen in the Table 3, students identification with school is at the Agree level ( X =
2,78). In this regard, it can be inferred that undergraduates see themselves as an integral part
of the school and they are proud of being a part of this institution. Besides, it can be stated
that undergraduates perceive the school as an institution in which they can realise their targets
for future.
Table 4. Results of independent samples T-test related to the students opinions about the
instructors power sources in terms of gender.
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Gender
Male
Female
Total
N
32
34
66
95,41
95,79
Sd
15,55
12,09
df
64
t
,93
p
,926
As it was seen in the Table 4, the difference between the students opinions about the
instructors power sources and gender isnt significant (p>.05). Namely, there is a similarity
between male students and female students opinions about the instructors power sources.
Table 5. Results of One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) related to the students
opinions about the instructors power sources in terms of family income status.
Source of
Sum of Squares
Variance
443,108
Familiy Between Groups
Within Groups
9975,983
Income
Status
Total
10419,091
p> .05, : Low=1, Middle =2, High =3
df
Mean Square
2
63
65
221,554
158,349
1,399
,254
According to the findings in the table 5, the difference between the students opinions about
the instructors power sources and family income status isnt significant statistically (p>.05).
In other words, family income status doesnt have a significant effect over the students
opinions about the instructors power sources.
Table 6. Results of independent samples T-test related to the students identification with
school in terms of gender.
Gender
Male
Female
Total
N
32
34
66
42,66
45,07
Sd
4,579
3,617
df
64
t
1,985
p
,051
In terms of the findings in the table 6, the difference between students identification with
school and gender isnt significant statistically (p>.05). Namely, male students together with
female ones display similar attitudes about identification with school.
In their research, Koning and Boekaerts (2005) confirmed that gender isnt a significant
variable over identification with school. The finding obtained from the current study has
parallelism with that finding in the literature.
Table 7. Results of One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) related to the students
identification with school in terms of family income status.
Source of
Sum of Squares
Variance
2,089
Familiy Between Groups
Within Groups
979,183
Income
Status
Total
981,273
p> .05, : Low=1, Middle =2, High =3
23
df
Mean Square
2
63
65
1,045
15,543
,067
,935
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Identification
with School.
R
P
N
Power
Sources
(Total)
,084
,503
66
Coercive
Power
Reward
Power
Referent
Power
Legitimate
Power
Expert
Power
-,018
,886
66
,009
,443
66
,126
,313
66
,045
,721
66
,080
,521
66
Pearson correlation coefficient between school identification and instructors power sources
is ,084; at the dimension of coercive power it is -,018; at the dimension of reward power it is
,009; at the dimension of referent power it is ,045 and at the dimension of expert power it is
,080 (Table 8).
Pearson r correlation coefficients show that there is a low level and a positive correlation
between all sub factors of the instructors power sources without coercive power and
students identification with school; also they show that there is a low level and a negative
correlation between coercive power and students identification with school.
A positive correlation between reward power, referent power, expert power and students
identification with school is an expected result. It can be understood that the reward power
that means receiving moral and material positive feedback, the expert power that shows the
confidence of instructos authority over their own field and teaching method and the referent
power that shows the respect towards instructors personality has a positive effect over
students identification with school. Hovewer, the positive correlation between identification
with school and legitimate power is a remarkable situation. Students awareness about
instructors legitimate power based on the legal ground could possibly strengthen students
beliefs in a way that this kind of power is one the most prominent componants organizing the
relationships among individuals. Concordantly, the legitimate power that people can possibly
face both in education life and career is a fact. Therefore, its thought that the legitimate
power may have a role over students to identify with their school and over employees to
identify with the organization they may work at in their professional life. Besides, its
believed that the negative correlation between identification with school of undergraduates
who are aware of their rights with responsibilities and coercive power is so meaningful.
In his research, zdemir (2013) found that there was a low level and positive correlation
between teacher candidates organizational identification and reward, referent and expert
power; also, a negative and insignificant correlation between teacher candidates
organizational identification and coercive power. The finding obtained from the current study
correspond to this finding in the literature.
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CONCLUSION
In this study, the relationship between instructors power sources and students identification
with school was investigated in terms of some personal traits and the current situation was
revealed.
In the research it was revealed that the instructors display expert power at most and coercive
power at the least among the power sorces. Instructors displaying the expert power that
proves instructors aouthority over their own field against undergradutes having a good level
background of education and culture shows that they are aware of the meaningless of using
coercive power often towards that kind of students profile.
Moreover, according to the results obtained from the research it was determined that the
students identification with school is at the Agree level. This grade shows us that the
undergraduates participated in this study see themselves as a part of their school and they are
attached to it in terms of the words belongingness and valuing the school stressed in the
definition of identification with school; also, this grade proves that the undergraduates
perceive the school as an institution in which they can realise their targets for future.
Furthermore, it was found in the study that students opinions about the instructors power
sources dont change in terms of gender and familiy income status. Undergraduates opinions
related to the instructors power sources werent affected from the differences concerning
gender or family income status.
The other result obtained from the research is that there is no significant effect of gender and
family income state over students identification with school. Both male and female students
display similar attitudes about identification with school. Besides, the students arent affected
from family income status about their opinions related to identification with school.
Finally, after the investigation of the relationship between the instructors power sources and
students identification with school it was confirmed that there is a low level and a positive
correlation between reward power, referent power, expert power and legitimate
power of The Instructors Power Use Scale and students identification with school. In this
context, it was revealed that the power sources demonstrated by the instructors provide a
positive support to the students identification with school. Moreover, it was seen that there is
a low level and a negative correlation between coercive power and students identification
with school. This result revealed that the coercive power displayed in order to remove the
troubles and discipline the students can have a negative effect over students identification
with school and can alienate from it.
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REFERENCES
Aslanargun, E and Eri H.M. (2013). The Scale Development of Power Sources that
Lecturers Applied in Class Management at Higher Education. Atatrk University. Magazine
of Social Sciences. 2013 -17 (2): 207-220.
elik, V. (2005). Classroom Management. Ankara: Nobel Publishing House.
Finn, J. D. (1989). Withdrawing from School. Review of Educational Research, 59, 117-143.
Finn,J.D. (1992). School Engagement and Students at Risk (National Center for Education
Statistics Research and Development Reports.
French, J. R. P., and Raven, B. (1959). The Bases of Social Power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.),
Studies in Social Power (pp. 150_167). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Goodboy, A. K., Bolkan, S., Myers, S. A., & Zhao, X. (2011). Student use of relational and
influence messages in response to perceived instructor power use in American and Chinese
college classrooms. Communication Education, 60 (2): 191209.
Goodenow, C. (1992) School Motivation, Engagement, and Sense of Belonging among
Urban Adolescent Students. Paper Presented At The Annual Meeting Of The American
Research Association.
Goodenow, C. (1993). The Psychological Sense of School Membership among Adolescents:
Scale Development and Educational Correlates. Psychology in the Schools, 30, 79-90.
Goodenow, C. and Grady, K.E. (1993). The Relationship of School Belonging and Friends
Values to Academic Motivation among Urban Adolescents Students. Journal of Experimental
Education 62, 60-71.
Horan, S. M., and Myers, S. A. (2009). An exploration of college instructors use of
classroom justice, power, and behavior alternation techniques. Communication Education 58
(4), 483-496.
Hoy, W. K., and Miskel, C. G. (2010). Educational Administration-EitimYnetimi. (Edit.:
Selahattin Turan) Ankara: Nobel Yayn Datm.
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Hurt, H. T., Scott, M. D., & McCroskey, J. C. (1978). Communication in the classroom.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Koning, E. and Boekaerts, M. (2005). Determinants of students' school-identification in
secondary vocational education. European Journal of Psychology of Education 2005.
Volume, XX., 3. 289-308.
McCroskey, J. C., and Richmond, V. P. (1983). Power in the classroom I: Teacher and
student perceptions. Communication Education , 32, 175_184.
Mitchell, R.M. and Forsyth, P.B. (2004). Trust, the Principal, and Student Identification A
Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of The University Council for Education
Administration Kansas City, Missouri.
Newmann, F.M., Wehlage, G.G., ve Lamborn, S.D. 1992). The Significance and Sources of
Student Engagement. n F.M. Newmann (Ed.), students engagement and achievement in
American secondary schools (pp. 11-39). New York: Teachers College Press.
Osborne, J. W. (1997). Race and academic disidentification. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 89, 728-735.
zdemir, A. (2013). The Relationship between the Power Sources of the Lectures and the
Organizational Identification of the Prospective Teachers: The Mediator Role of the Intrinsic
Motivation. GEFAD/GUJGEF 33(2):269-291 (2013).
Parson, K.A. (2012). Relationship among urban students identification with school and
students, teachers and parents perceptions of academic press and safety and reading
acievement. Doctoral thesis. The Faculty of the School Of Education. The College Of
William and Marry.
Radziwon, C.D. (2009). The Effects of Peers' Beliefs on 8th-Grade Students' Identification
with School. Journal of Research in Childhood Education. ISSN: 0256-8543 (Print) 21502641 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujrc20
Pintrich, P.R, and DeGroot, E.V. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning
components of classroom academic performance. Journal of educational psychology, 82,3340.
Richmond, V. P., and McCroskey, J. C. (1984). Power in the classroom II: Power and
learning. Communication Education, 33, 125_136.
Schrodt, P., Witt, P.L. and Turman, P.D. (2007). Reconsidering the Measurement of Teacher
Power Use in the College Classroom. ISSN: 0363-4523 (Print) 1479-5795 (Online) Journal
homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rced20
Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and
performance. American Psychologist, 52(6), 613-629.
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Abstract
Loneliness, hope and life satisfaction are widely examined variables related to well-being.
Life engagement has similar conceptual nature with hope and life satisfaction in terms of
well-being. In the current work, it is aimed to test the epiphenomenal effect of dispositional
hope and life satisfaction in the relationship between loneliness and life engagement with
serial mediation model. Data were obtained from 226 (132 female) undergraduate students.
The result of the correlation analysis demonstrated that life satisfaction and dispositional
hope positively related to life engagement, but loneliness negatively related to life
engagement, life satisfaction and dispositional hope. Before the mediation analysis regression
analysis was performed, and it was found that loneliness significantly predicted life
engagement. The result of the serial mediation analysis demonstrated that the epiphenomenal
effect of dispositional hope and life satisfaction decreased negative effect of loneliness on life
engagement.
Keywords: Loneliness, dispositional hope, and life satisfaction, life engagement and
serial mediation model
"This study was funded by the Commission of SAU Scientific Research Projects. (Project No: 01606-10-001)"
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Abstract: Digital badgesrepresent an important and relatively new technology that facilitates
recognition and credentialing of different skills and learning achievements.
Thispaperpresentsthesoftskills' badgingaccomplishedwithinthe EU LLP researchproject
Gradingsoftskills,
at
one
partner
institution.
Thepapergivesanoverviewofthebadgingconcept,
startingfromthedefinitionofskillsthatwillbeinthefocusofbadging,
continuingwiththe
development
ofpedagogicalapproachandbadging
system,
andfinallyconcludingwithevaluationofthewholeprocess.During the evaluation of the badging
process, students reported that the badging process motivated them to think deeply about the
importance of soft skills for future employment and that they are very satisfied with the
whole. Interesting outcome of the evaluation is the fact that students do
notfeelcomfortablewhenitcomes to gradingeachotherandprefer to begradedbyteacher.
Keywords: education, digitalbadge, openbadge,technicalsciences
ConferenceTopic: Learning / TeachingMethodologiesandAssessment
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therebyestablishing
a
technical
standard
for
themetadataindigitalbadges.
Thefirstopendigitalbadgeswerecreatedfor theSchoolofWebcraftandincludedskillbadges (e.g.,
Javascript, PHP), valuebadges (e.g., Accessibility), andpeer-to-peerbadges[4].
A
searchoftheterm
openbadges
on
Web
of
Scienceshowsthattheworldwideinterestinthetermdatesfrom1998 andincreases.In year 2015,
there are 14 publishedpapersthat use term openbadges. Total amountofpublished papar is
48 (Fig. 1).Becausebadgesseem to haveimportantimpacts on motivation for
learningandcantransparently display achievementlevel, theresearchimplications are
quitebroadandvaried. Thepotentialseems to behigh for a transformative moment
inthehistoryoftechnologyinteachingandlearning [5].
Fig. 1. Number of published items using term open badges on Web of Science
2. BadgingwithintheGRASS Project
This paper presents the results accomplished within the EU LLP research project Grading
soft skills, at one partner institution University of Zagreb, Faculty of Textile technology.
The whole GRASS project focuses on representing soft skills of learners in a quantitative,
measurable way, so these skills can become the subject of formal validation and
recognition.Theoverallobjectiveofthisprojectis
to
createmechanismsthatenable
to
continuouslysupport, monitor, assess, andacknowledge development oflearners'
softskillswiththehelpofstate-of-the-art
ICT
toolsinresolvingtheabovestatedchallenges,
thusleadingtheOBsconcept to itsfullpotential[6].
This wider objective encompasses the following specific objectives:
to develop novel pedagogical approaches to support continuous development of
learners' soft skills,
to incorporate these approaches in daily practices, at multiple levels of education,
to develop a rich,structured set of soft skills metrics to collect from learners' activities
as dynamic indicators of the learners' ability to apply, develop and improve their soft
skills,
to develop the corresponding new model and ICT framework for measuring,
assessing, benchmarking, and evaluating learners' soft skills used in their activities,
and generating appropriate feedback,
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to develop, as part of the new model and framework, specific mechanisms for
acknowledging, grading, awarding and recognizing learners' achievements in
developing their soft skills, clearly reflecting their different education levels and
to develop incentive policies for teachers for initiating and maintaining the practice of
monitoring development of learners' soft skills at all levels of educational institutions
and across these different levels [6].
3. BadgingInfrastructure
At thebeginningofthewholeprocess, itwasimportant to definewhichsoftskills are most
important for the profile ofthestudentsthatstudy at the University of Zagreb, FacultyofTextile
Technology
and
are
participantsinthisstudy.Itisdecided
to
focus
at
badgingofthefollowingsoftskills: creativity, communicationandcolaboration [7, 8]. For
eachdefinedsoftskillisclearlyspecifiedanimportancestatement,
pedagogicalapproachandspecificmetric.
Detailedschemesofwork
are
designed
to
aidinthelessonplanningprocessbyoutliningtheentireoverarching plan of a courseofstudy.
In order to grade soft skills with open badges, the following badges are designed: Creative
individual, Communicator, Collaborator (to be given after one successfully completed task),
as well as Exceptionally Creative individual, Great Communicator and Perfect collaborator
(to be given to students with 3 badges earned for the same skill). The constellation of
designed badges is shown on the Figure 2.
Fig. 2. Badgeconstelation
The badging is conducted within the two phases. In the first phase, i.e. the pilot phase, the
BadgeOS is used to develop, publish and issue badges. Although the experience of work in
BadgeOS was positive, the intention was to incorporate the use of badges into the platforms
that are widely used for e-learning at the University of Zagreb. Therefore, in the second
phase, the badges are maintained and issued through the Moodle system, i.e. Croatian version
entitled Merlin.
In the grading process participated MSc students attending the course Methods of Textile
Making I. Within the course, the professor taught the regular content, but gave additional
effort to motivate students to develop their soft skills in the context of the course. Students
are requested to work on different tasks either in small groups (3-4 members) or individually
and to present the outcomes in the classroom. The task is to be done in 3-4 classes (i.e. 135-
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180 minutes), or within a week (if the task is to be done at home). Before the start of the task,
teacher shows students similar tasks completed by previously enrolled students, with no
further guidance. Students show completed task in the front of all students and upload it to
the course webpage (if applicable).The skill level is discussed and assessed both by professor
and students. The level is assessed by filling in a questionnaire with 5 point scale. The
guidelines to be followed during next task are given by teacher, who also gives open badges
to the most successful students.
4. Students' reactions to student-centeredassessment
In
order
to
evaluatethestudents'
reactions
to
student-centeredassessment,
aquestionnairehasbeenprepared.
Thequestionnaireconsistsof
10
questionsthatshouldbeansweredusing 5-point Likertscale, but eachquestionisalsoopen-ended,
sostudentscangiveadditionalcomments. Thequestions are groupedinthreecategories:
students' overallreaction (questions Q1 - Q4),
reactionstowardsbadgingandquestionnaires (questions Q5 Q7) and
reactions to the role ofteacherintheassesment (questions Q8 Q10).
Thestudentsfilledoutthequestionnaire
at
theendofthesemester,
afterthecompletationofthebadgingprocess.
The indicators of descriptive statistics for each of 10 questions is given in the Tables 1-3 and
shown on the Figures 3-5.
4.1. Students' overall reaction
As the results of the survey indicate, students believe that the assessment made them think
more deeply about soft skills and that they realised how soft skills are important for the whole
educational process (average grade 4,73; variance 0,21). They also reported that the badging
process motivated them to think deeply about the importance of soft skills for future
employment (average grade 4,20; variance 0,60). Moreover, a number of students started to
think about enrolment into courses that will improve their soft skills. According to their
inputs, it seems that the whole purpose of badging is well accepted by students and the
purpose of the assessment is clear (average grade 4,33; variance 0,38). Regarding the
recommendations for the improvements of badging process, it seems that students are quite
satisfied. An average grade related to the satisfaction with process is rather high (average
grade 4,87; variance 0,12) and there was no additional comments or recommendations for
improvements.
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4.87
4.33
4.20
4.73
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
Overallreact
ion
4,73
4,20
4,33
4,87
4
3
3
4
5
5
5
5
0,21
0,60
0,38
0,12
0,46
0,77
0,62
0,35
9,67
18,44
14,24
7,23
Std.
Err.
0,12
0,20
0,16
0,09
4.2. Reactionstowardsbadgingandquestionnaires
According to students' responses, the range of used badges is appropriate for a single course
(average grade 4,87; variance 0,12) and the use of the badging platform is rather intuitive
(due to the fact that Merlin is the official platform at University of Zagreb). From the aspect
of a teacher, it should be pointed out that, at certain points, students were not very satisfied
with filling up the evidences in the form of questionnaires. This fact is also seen from the
results of evaluation, i.e. students feel that filling up the questionnaires is time consuming
(average grade 3,47).
3.47
3.93
4.87
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
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Reaction
towards
badging
4,87
3,93
3,47
4
3
3
5
5
5
0,12
0,64
0,41
0,35
0,80
0,64
7,23
20,31
18,46
Std.
Err.
0,09
0,21
0,17
4.20
4.73
1.47
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
Reaction
to roles
1,47
4,73
4,20
1
4
4
3
5
5
0,41
0,21
0,17
0,64
0,46
0,41
43,63
9,67
9,86
Std.
Err.
0,17
0,12
0,11
5. One stepforward
Anotherintentionofthe
GRASS
projectis
to
sharepositiveexperienceofworkwithotherteachersandindividualsinterestedinbadging.
Therefore, intensiveactivities are carriedoutinorder to produce a nuberof video
tutorialsthatwillexplainthewholeprocessofbadgingandfacilitate
development
ofotherbadginginfrastructures. All videos are available at GRASS Youtubechannel [9].
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a.
b.
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AKNOWLEDGEMENT
This paper is a result of the project GRASS - Grading soft
skills, Project No. 543029-LLP-1-2013-1-RS-KA3-KA3MPthat
has been funded with the support of the Lifelong Learning
Programme of the European Union.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be
held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained
therein.
References
J. Jovanovi, and V. Devedi, Open badges: Novel means to motivate, scaffold and
recognize Learning, Technology, Knowledge and Learning, vol. 20(1), pp. 115-122,
2015.
Open Badges, Badges/onboarding-issuer, https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/Onboardingissuer#A._ Mozilla_Open_Badge_Infrastructure_.28OBI.29
I. Glover, Open Badges: A visual method of recognising achievement and increasing learner
motivation, Student Engagement and Experience Journal, vol. 2(1), 2013.
C. Casilli, and D. Hickey, Transcending conventional credentialing and assessment
paradigms with information-rich digital badges, The Information Society, vol 32(2),
pp117-129, 2016.
D. Gibson, N. Ostashewski, K. Flintoff, S. Grant and E. Knight, Digital badges in
education, Education and Information Technologies, vol. 20, pp. 403-410, 2015.
Grading
Soft
Skills
GRASS
Project,
2014,
available
at:
https://sites.google.com/site/llpgrassproject/
M. Stracenski Kalauz, I. Salopek ubri, and G. Hudec, Perception of soft skills in textile
designers' education,Global Journal on Humanities & Social Sciences, vol. 1 (1), pp. 3337, 2015.
I. Salopek ubri, M. Stracenski Kalauz, and G. Hudec, Soft skills' evaluation in textile
engineering and design, Proceedings of ICED 2014 - Educational Development in
Changing World, pp. 1-9, 2014.
GRASS videos, available at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-R4VQRgVD2RRtqVUb24T0g/videos
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foundational work was the assertion that although teaching was largely an individual activity,
shared examination of practice could prove fruitful. However, other research found teachers
work to be highly individualized (Lortie, 1975) and privatized (Little, 1990), and
opportunities for collaborative practice were absent in most schools (Hargreaves & Dawe,
1990; Hord, 1987). In response to these findings, Sergiovanni (1994) argued that
collaboration was unlikely to emerge absent formal structures designed to foster collaboration
and collegial practice.
McLaughlin and Talbert (1993) introduced the construct of professional community
as an organizing theory for developing a supportive and engaging work environment in which
educators might concentrate on improving pedagogy. The professional community was
characterized by a focus on student learning and collaborative professional inquiry and
reflection. However, McLaughlin and Talbert suggested that even within a structure designed
to foster change, traditional practice was difficult to mitigate. Distinguishing between
learning communitieswhere work was focused on reinventing practice and shared
professional growthand traditional communitywhere work was focused on coordinating
effort to reinforce conventional practiceMcLaughlin and Talbert noted that improvement
was more likely to be found as educators attentions focused on their own learning.
Therefore, it is not insignificant that the word learning gained importance as the
construct evolved from professional community to professional learning community (Feger &
Arruda, 2008). As Huggins, Scheurich, and Morgan (2011) note, in the PLC educators
become continuous learners who seek and share knowledge (p. 69). Central to the
definition of the PLC is the proposition that educators are to be engaged in reflective,
specialized learning with the intent to enhance student learning, achievement, progress, and
well being (Stoll & Louis, 2007). Yet, an understanding of how educators might exhibit high
learning capacity is not fully or clearly understood (Kruse & Johnson, 2016). This work seeks
to explore the utility of theory and research on high reliability organizing to support educators
develop high learning capacity.
High Reliability OrganizationsHRO
Weick uses the term high reliability organizing for instances where high learning
capacity has been exhibited within organizations. Work by Weick and colleagues (Vogus &
Sutcliffe, 2012; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2007) outlines five defining features or processes of
organizations that consistently achieve their intended outcomes despite challenging
conditions, which is what makes HROs of interest to a growing number of researchers
including those in educational leadership (Bellamy et al., 2005; Hoy, 2003). First, HROs
exhibit a healthy preoccupation with failure. This focus is expressed in substantive and
ongoing discussions of threats to organizational performance and how these can be
eliminated or their effects minimized. Second, HROs are characterized by a reluctance to
simplify interpretations of these threats to performance. A culture exists that promotes a
healthy skepticism of operating assumptions and of existing organizational structures and
processes. Third, HROs are further distinguished by a heightened sensitivity to the link
between organizational processes and outcome. In this way, organizational members attend to
the ways their work results in valued products or results. Fourth, HROs are marked by a
resilience that assumes the inevitability of failure, yet at the same time, is tenaciously
committed to learning from failure. This defining commitment promotes a robust culture of
learning. Finally, HROs embrace approaches to problem solving that defer to expertise rather
than formal authority. HROs not only promote team approaches to learning but flatten
coordinating structures as well.
Literature on HROs suggests organizational members employ these processes as they
facilitate recognition, development, and implementation of new ways of working given the
consequences of failure for HROs tend to be catastrophic by impacting a large number of
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people or are considered unacceptable for mistakes that harm a few. Researchers find the five
processes generate innovation in performance (Cannon & Edmondson, 2001; Carmeli &
Gittell, 2009). Weick and Sutcliffe (2007) assert findings on HROs are relevant for nonHROs as In all organizations, people do things that they expect to continue doing reliably
and for which unexpected interruptions can eventually turn disastrous (p. 19). HROs are not
unique in needing continuous improvement either. New dispositions, skills, and procedures
must be introduced, examined, and adopted for organizations to remain relevant. The
capacity to effectively engage in performance-directed learning must be developed.
Orientation toward acceptance of and reflection on past failures must be advanced. In short,
organizations must become mindful about the work they do and how they do it.
Mindfulness
Organizational mindfulness is a concept initially introduced and developed by Weick
and Roberts (1993). Theorizing about mindfulness includes attention to organizational
dispositions, skills, and processes. When conceived of as a disposition, organizational
mindfulness refers to the collective orientation of members toward learning in the ongoing
quest for effective and reliable performance. As an organizational skill set, mindfulness
includes the capacity of an organization to effectively engage in purposeful, directed learning.
As a process, organizational mindfulness refers to those institutionalized activities that reflect
and build collective capacity.
Portraying mindfulness as organizational dispositions, skills, and processes provides a
useful, but limited, conceptualization of the construct. It suggests the kinds of artifacts and
actions that might be observed within a mindful organization however (Hernes & Irgens,
2013); it neglects the ways in which mindfulness is surfaced in practice and as practice
(Gates, 2015; Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2012; Weick & Putnam, 2006). Derived from Buddhist
thought, in practice/as practice perspective draws attention to awareness of the moment a
quality of awareness that facilitates an ability to hear, observe, and learn from experience as
lived, unfolding, and open to multiple interpretations, perspectives, and possibilities. This
interdependence of mind and body, known as embodiment, surfaces sense-making as a
critical component of organizing (Weick, 2006).
As leaders work to craft informed responses to the demands before them, it is argued
that such mindfulness places them in a position to maximize learning from the experiences of
the moment by being receptive to what unfolds before them (Weick & Putnam, 2006). Brown
and Ryan (2003) posited that leadership which is informed by attentive listening and nonjudgmental observation contributes to heightened awareness about the work to be completed
as well as the context in which the work is completed. It fosters a curiosity as to what is
happening and why it occurs, promoting questioning about events, activities, causes, and
effects. The proclivity to question, rather than accept things as they are, enhances a leaders
understanding of the world.
Findings from research into mindfulness stress that mindful leadership extends the
focus from the technical toward the interpersonal (Gates, 2015; Vogus & Sutcliffe, 2012;
Weick & Sutcliffe, 2007). The technical aspects of leadership work are strengthened through
strong relations among members of organization. Cultivating strong relations with others is a
purposeful component of mindful behavior as compassion toward others is a hallmark of
mindful action. A tangible outcome is the development of trust and psychological safety
(Carmeli & Gittell, 2009).
A final tenant of mindfulness suggests that practice enhances ones ability to respond
with wisdom as challenges present themselves. Ray and colleagues (2011) argue that
organizational mindfulness is evident when leaders create cultures that encourage rich
thinking and a capacity for action. In this way, mindfulness draws leaders attention to both
how they think about their work as well as how they go about doing the work. As leaders
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grow in their awareness of the thinking/doing relationship they are better able to make their
decisions both transparent and public. In this way, the application of mindful practice in the
school organization enhances, but does not guarantee, valued outcomes and goal attainment.
Therefore, understanding that mindful leadership practice is then not a solution in and of
itself but rather a critical piece of the leadership puzzle matters.
PLC as Mindful Practice
As has been argued elsewhere (Kruse & Louis, 2007; Murphy, 2013), the construct of
PLCs has transformed from one rooted in deep cultural understandings of how educators
engage in shared and individually meaningful work, to one that suggests the PLC can be a
broadly implemented program. The distinction between viewing the PLC part of school
culture and viewing PLC as a program matters because when viewed as a cultural orientation,
PLC serves as a means by which educators work together to achieve desired goals (Gates,
2005). When educators focus on PLC as a means by which collective responsibility for
shared goals (e.g., student well-being) is fostered, the school is altered in ways that invites
mindful leadership. In turn, the school is better able to adaptively respond to the challenges it
faces. We assert that the institutionalization of mindfulness practice into PLCs orients the
school toward cultural change that is embodied in a collective attention that orients the work
of its members.
Similarly, when regarded simply as a program, the PLC can become an end in itself, a
structure that organizes participants but lacks the necessary goal orientation for actors to
engage in purposeful work resulting in meaningful school outcomes. In this way, PLC
implementation becomes an example of mindlessness in school organization (Caron &
Langer, 2006; Hoy, 2003). For example, mindlessness may be extant when PLC
implementation is oblivious to the context of the school, or leadership fails to acknowledge
how conflicting organizational perspectives may be barriers to PLC (e.g., emphasis on
individual rather than group performance). In this way, mindlessness practice may result in
context confusion and premature commitment to strategy and action that undermines the
goals PLCs where designed to achieve.
Mindfulness in Leadership Action
Our argument suggests that what gets lost in mindless adoptions of the PLC is the
purposeful use of the structure to further meaningful organizational outcomes. Clearly, the
organizational life of schools is made up of an ongoing series of interactions many of which
require school leaders to simultaneously reflect and respond (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, &
Wahlstrom, 2004). Such thinking comprises the work of mindfulness in action, where choices
and decisions made in the moment create new insights. As the work of Boyatzis and McKee
(2005) suggest, being present allows leaders to engage more fully with the heart of an
problem, discern the context-specific appropriate actions, and make judgments about
decisions and actions.
When one registers that an event requires an immediate response, mindful action
suggests that the focus remains on the subject and event at hand. The willingness of the
leader to engage with what presents itself requires more than the application of a rehearsed
set of actions; it requires the willingness to engage in a dialogue with the event itself, forcing
the leader to create an improvised response to new stimuli. Such effort requires that cognition
becomes embedded in daily practice and, in turn, is mediated by ones participation in the
day-to-day events of the organization. It requires that leaders are active participants in the
daily teaching and learning decisions made within the school. Simply put, mindful practice
requires leaders to apply what they know in the context of their own organization and be able
to respond in the mist of ongoing activity by employing cognitive and organization
knowledge in tandem.
When school leaders engage in systematic reflection, resultant practice can be
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deepened and a shared language of and for practice can be developed. In turn and even more
powerful, are the ways in which deep cultural change occurs when school leaders make
public these efforts. As leadership is practice publically and purposefully models mindful
leadership behaviors, a leaders capacity to identify, execute, and revise organizational
practice and strategy is enhanced. In turn, when leadership is evidenced as mindful practice,
endless opportunities are presented within the daily life of schools for authentic collective
learning.
This, however, assumes change on multiple levels. Conceptually, mindfulness needs
to be recognized as a social process that involves all members of the community in sensemaking as a shared process. When dialogues that engage teachers and school leaders in
generating new understandings related to teaching and student learning are developed, new
ideas can be substantively employed to catalyze thinking and test nascent conclusions. When
considered from a cultural lens, collaborative theorizing sets the stage for new cultural
practices, routines and methods for reflecting on experience, and for sharing, using, and
storing knowledge.
Clearly, the PLC is an optimal location within a school to house such opportunities
for mindful practice. Yet when PLC activity is unguided, the ideals on which it was
foundeddeveloping sustained working relationships, focusing on shared purposes, and
providing mutually understood and accepted data-driven decisionsfail to deliver. Even with
the best intentions, mutually beneficial learning partnerships are hard won. This is, in part,
why a structure such as a PLC is necessary to foster organizational change. However, as
practices are learned and refined, the structures once used to guide practice tend to disappear
from focus. The venue of the work becomes less important than the work itself.
Implications for Practice
At a time when educators across the globe are under extreme pressure to produce
results, it is increasingly important that we understand how we might develop strong and
sustainable leadership practice. Embracing an HRO perspective for thinking about schooling
suggests that educators need to better understand how leadership engages in purposeful,
result-oriented work. Yet, identifying purpose, even within a policy environment focused on
reducing student failure, is difficult for schools. In schools, purposes span any number of
arenas including student academic achievement, health, and citizenship as well as host of
others. Schools do not have the luxury of choosing a central purpose and often these purposes
are at odds.
Absent clarity of purpose, a leader may engage in activities designed to address the
problems at hand but the reason for doing these activities remains unclear or fails to compel.
Yet, when consequence is linked to purpose, empowerment is nurtured. When actions are
purposeful, intentions are clear, and the value placed on the work becomes evident. Deep
cultural understandings of why we do what we do underscore development of shared
purpose. When actions are purposeful, it is harder to act dishonestly or unethically, and it is
easier to build trust and respect. Purpose reinforces meaning to what can otherwise become
lost due to stress and mistaken pressure. Yet, the development of an HRO orientation to
practice is not an individual pursuit. Individual purpose is not enough to secure reliability.
Communal purpose must also be explicitly present. When used as venue for mindful,
purposeful practice within the school, the PLC can serve to sustain strong communal
leadership practice. As has been argued across the literature, school leadership is simply too
complex for any one person to accomplish all that needs to be done. Deep and lasting change
requires that many people share in the work. By intensifying communal leadership capacity
through the application of the HRO lens, schools can deliberately broaden meaningful
involvement with the intent of attaining shared outcomes. Communal approaches to
leadership open the boundaries to include a wide variety of participants in decision making
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roles, generating new procedures and practices rather than simply carrying out existing
functions. In this way, intensified communal leadership acknowledges that expertise is
distributed across the school and beyond (Kruse & Louis, 2009).
Furthermore, the application of the HRO lens to the intensification of leadership
within a school must include attention to a real time orientation to communal learning. At the
root of HRO practice and organizational mindfulness is communal learning focused toward
the development of shared meaning and action. Schools cannot function effectively or
efficiently if the work is not coordinated and harmonized. Whereas, the PLC construct
assumes that it is within the PLC venue new understandings are developed, not all group
learning occurs in organized meetings, and HRO thinking emphasizes the uncertainty of
predicting which structures and experiences will produce a learning moment. As such, an
orientation to real time communal learning focuses on the ways in which new ideas are
brought forth, how they are considered and evaluated, and the ways in which educators retain
and use the knowledge generated from them.
Conclusion
In this paper we have presented an understanding of how the application of the tenants
of HROs can inform school leadership specifically as it is manifested in fostering PLC
outcomes. It has been argued that when school leaders create PLC cultures that encourage
rich thinking and intentional practice, organizational outcomes are enhanced. Yet, the
presence of organizational structure does not ensure attainment of goals. Instead, we assert
that the institutionalization of HRO processes within PLC practice orients the school leader
toward cultural change; embodied in a collective attention that orients the work of its
members. We argue that to do so requires attention to deeply developed explanations of
activities within the school setting, opportunities for reflective mindfulness, and real time
orientation to communal learning.
Author Bios
Sharon D. Kruse is Professor and Academic Director at Washington State University
Vancouver. Her scholarship broadly addresses two concerns, (1) to help teachers and school
leaders better understand the key role leadership plays in schools and (2) to explore how
education is currently structured and influenced by social and organizational complexity. By
focusing on the ways issues are framed, decisions are made and problems are identified she
seeks to understand how schools can better educate and meet the needs of students. Her
recent books include Building Strong School Cultures and Decision making for educational
leaders: Under-examined dimensions and issues.
Gordon Gates is Professor and Academic Director at Washington State University Spokane.
His research focuses on the emotional aspects of leadership, with particular emphasis on
stress and coping, mindfulness and resilience, and the distributive aspects of leading.
Currently, he is investigating teacher and administrator practice concerned with addressing
problems and barriers to improving school outcomes and how resilience is developed for
managing uncertainty, preventing mishaps, and improving safety. He is co-editor for the
Journal of Research on Leadership Education and series editor for Research on Stress and
Coping in Education.
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Bellamy, G., Crawford, L., Marshall, L., & Coulter, G. (2005). The fail-safe schools
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Abstract
The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between students English
achievement and student variables. The study group of the research is eighth grade students
in public schools in Turkey. The sample of this research consists of 855 students. Path
analysis was used to test the model regarding the contributions of independent variables
which are related to students characteristics to the prediction of English achievement and to
determine the relationships between the independent variables. The LISREL 8.80 software
has been used for model test. The findings of the research show self-confidence in English
which has direct unmediated effect on the students' English achievement had the strongest
effect on the outcome variable. There is a positive significant relationship between selfconfidence in English learning and liking for English. There is also a positive significant
relationship between number of English books, taking private lessons, getting help for
English and time spent on English learning. However, home facilities had a negative
significant relationship with time spent on English. In addition, being bilingual was
negatively correlated with the outcome variable.
Keywords: English language, English achievement, path analysis, self-confidence,
Main Conference Topic: Language Education
Introduction
Human being has always needed to communicate and language is the most important
tool used for this communication. Up to now, a lot of languages have been spoken by
different nations and even today more than one thousand languages exist worldwide
(Katzner, 2002).
Considering the last three decades, English language has come into prominence and it
has become the language preferred by millions when lingua franca is needed. Because of the
fact that English language has been spoken by many countries and it has been accepted as an
international communication language, various institutions were established and tests were
developed to measure and improve English language skills. Test of English as a Foreign
Language (TOEFL) is one of these tests. According to the results of this test, countries
participated in this test have a different level of English language skills (TOEFL,
2009;2010;2013) Turkey is one these countries participated in this test. Considering the
results of this test, among 44 countries, Turkey is one of the countries that have the worst
results in terms of English language level. Besides, when national exams in Turkey were
scrutinized, English levels of the students were found insufficient.
As English has an essential part in communication worldwide, its improvement has to
be taken into consideration. Therefore, determining student variables that affect their English
achievement and scrutinizing the relationship between these variables are important in terms
of understanding English language achievement. The purpose of this research is to investigate
student variables affecting English language achievement.
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Related works
There are various studies performed to investigate English achievement. Chou (2007)
investigated the perspectives of English language learners (ELLs) about the importance of the
five factors, learning environment, learning strategies, motivation, beliefs, and linguistic
distance related to learning English and to determine the relationship between these factors
with ELLs' language learning and their language proficiency. Abdallah and Ahmed (2015)
investigated the impact of self-confidence on EFL Sudanese tertiary level students. Farooq,
Chaudhry, Shafiq and Berhanu (2011) examined different factors influencing the academic
performance of secondary school students on English and mathematics. Kim (2005)
investigated the effects of a constructivist approach on academic achievement, self-concept
and learning strategies, and student preference. Bilsay (2012) investigated the factors that
affect the success of foreign language English grades of seventh grade students. The factors
in this study are family property (education level of parents and their English knowledge and
students learning time), education material (number of books at home, existence of computer
at home, computer software supporting English learning, English dictionary, and English
support books) property. Ekmekyermezolu (2010) determined the effect of the factors on
students academic successes at English class. The variables are birth places of student and
birth places of parents of the student, educational levels of parents, professions of parents,
monthly income level of the family, total number of persons in the family, the number of
siblings studying, having a study a room and Internet, the frequency of students visiting
foreign language websites on Internet, listening to foreign music, reading foreign books,
watching foreign movies, watching the foreign channels, parents speaking foreign languages
and the language they speak, helpful books-materials available at home for language
education, the frequency of meeting of parents with English teachers, the frequency of family
members helping students with English lesson, whether students go to private teaching
institutions or not and take private classes or not, daily work capacity for English lesson and
whether they want to work in any area of foreign language in the future or not, effect the
academic successes of the students at English class. Considering the previous studies, only
student variables were taken into consideration for the study.
Model
The model is shown in Figure 1.
Watching English
movies
Self-confidence in
English learning
Students Home
Facilities
Mothers
Educational Level
Taking Private
Lesson
Fathers
Educational Level
Being Bilingual
Number of English
Books
English
Achieveme
nt
Time Spent on
English Learning
Figure1. Theoretical model for the relationships between English achievement and students'
characteristics.
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Fig. 1 demonstrates causality model for English achievement using research variables. In this
model, Parents educational levels, watching English movies, number of books, taking
private English lessons, getting help for English lesson, being bilingual, taking private
English lessons and students home facilities are exogenous variables. Variables of liking for
English, self-confidence in English and time spent on English learning are endogenous
variables in this model.
Implementation
This study was performed to investigate the relationship between student variables and
their English achievement. The sample of this research consists of 855 (461 female and 394
male) students at 8th grade in seven different cities of Turkey. The data obtained at the end of
the application were analyzed using SPSS 21.0, R Studio and LISREL 8.80.
Path-analysis was used to (a) test the model regarding the contributions of independent
variables which are related to students characteristics to the prediction of English
achievement, (b) determine the relationships between the independent variables which were
defined before and (c) assess the most impact of independent variables on students English
achievement which is outcome variable.
First of all, an English achievement test was developed in order to measure students
English language levels. English achievement test consists of 26 multiple-choice item. While
achievement test was being developed, pilot study was conducted with 198 students. After
pilot study, item analyses were done and investigated. The values of the item discrimination
and item difficulty for pilot study ranges from 0,38 to 0,62 and 0,29 to 0,60 respectively. The
data obtained from pilot study were investigated for unidimensionality. It was concluded that
the test was unidimensional. The same procedure was applied for the final study that was
performed with 863 students. The item discrimination and item difficulty values for the final
study range from 0,30 to 0,57 and 0,26 to 0,54 respectively. It was also investigated for
unidimensionality and it was found unidimensional.
There are two scales in the study, Liking for English scale and Self-confidence in
English Learning scale. The first scale consists of five items and the second scale consists of
nine items. These scales were investigated by exploratory factor analysis and they were found
unidimensional. The eigenvalue of Liking for English is 2,94 and explained variance rate is
58,96% and the eigenvalue of self-confidence in English Learning scale is 5,43 and explained
variance rate is 50,35%. The factor loadings of Liking for English and Self-confidence in
English learning range from 0,62 to 0,86 and 0,62 to 0,77 respectively. Besides, students
home facilities scores obtained from these questions: Have you got a separate room?,
Have you got a desk?, Have you got a computer?, Have you got the Internet
connection? and Have you got an English dictionary?. The scores obtained from the
answers (Yes/no) were transformed into factor scores and included in the analysis.
Both categorical and continuous variables were used in the analysis. To measure
achievement in English, English achievement test was used and the data obtained from this
test were considered the outcome variable. So the students English achievement scores are
continuous variable (0-100). Also liking for English, self-confidence in English learning and
students home facilities are continuous variables, too. Taking private English lesson, being
bilingual, watching English movies, number of English books, getting help for English lesson
are recoded as dichotomous variables. Parents educational levels and the time spent on
English are the ordinal variables.
Maximum likelihood method for testing parameter estimatation, R2s of endogenous
variables, and chi-squares were obtained using LISREL. Also correlation matrices were used
as input in testing the model.
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Model testing was conducted using Root Mean Square Error of Approximation
(RMSEA), Normed Fit Index (NFI), Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI), Comparative Fit Index
(CFI), Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) and Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI).
Results
Table 1 shows fitting indicators of the structure model for Fig. 2. Null hypothesis indicates
that the model is available in the population.
114,0
4
26
4,49
0,97
0,98
0,96
0,92
0,93
0,06
df
/df
CFI
GFI
NFI
NNFI
AGFI
RMS
EA
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Figure2. Path plot of the theoretical model for relationships between English achievement
and students' characteristics.
In Figure 2, medulvl, fedulvl, gethelp, biling, watchm, nbooks, prvles, timeeng, likeng, selfef
and achvmnt correspond to mothers educational level, fathers educational level, getting help
for English, being bilingual, watching English movies, number of English books, taking
private English lessons, time spent on English, liking for English, self-confidence in English,
home facilities respectively.
According to the analysis findings, standardized path coefficients () were ranged from.-0,08
to 0,69. Despite the fact that some of the coefficients had low values, all of them were
significant at the 95% confidence interval (p<0,01).
When the path modeling in Figure 1 was examined, it can be said that being bilingual, the
time spent on English, self-confidence in English learning, parents educational level has a
direct unmediated effect on the students' English achievement. All these unmediated variables
explained about 20% of the English achievement ( 2 =0,20). In addition, the regression
coefficients indicated that the self-confidence in English learning, the time spent on
English and mothers educational level were more strongly related to the English
achievement.
We also extended our analysis by examining the indirect effects from the latent constructs.
The results revealed that self-confidence in English and liking for English were the most
associated variables and had positive correlation (=0,69). taking private English lesson
had the most strongly effect on explaining the variance of time spent on English learning.
When taking private English lessons, number of English books and getting help for
English increase, the time spent on English increases ( 2 =0,19). But being bilingual was
negatively correlated with English achievement.
Conclusion
The aim of this study is to identify students' characteristics for predicting students English
achievement using path analysis. For this purpose, following substances were completed: (a)
testing the model regarding the contributions of independent variables which are related to
students characteristics to the prediction of English achievement, (b) determining the
relationships between the independent variables which were defined before and (c) assessing
the most impact of independent variables on students English achievement which is outcome
variable.
The proposed model in this study was verified and it was concluded that, self-confidence in
English, mothers educational level and the time spent on English variables which had
direct unmediated effect on the students' English achievement had the strongest effect on the
outcome variable. According to this finding, when self-confidence in English learning,
mothers educational level and the time spent on English increase, students' English
achievement increases. However, state of being bilingual a negative was negatively
correlated with the outcome variable so it had negative path coefficients in the proposed
model. The reason for this negative correlation is that the sample of this research consisted of
bilingual students whose native languages were Arabic and Kurdish. They mostly learn
Turkish at primary school and then they learn English as a foreign language.
The results show that there is a positive significant relationship between self-confidence in
English learning and liking for English. Therefore, one can say that the more students like
English learning the more self-confidence they have. In contrast, low liking for English has
negative impact on self-confidence in English learning. There is likewise a positive
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significant relationship between liking for English and the time spent on English. So, the
more student like English the more they spend time on English.
According to results, students English achievement can be improved many activities which
can develop to self-confidence on English. Also, when these activities increase, it will
increase the time spent on English.
References
[1] Abdallah, S. A. A., & Ahmed, A. G. A. (2015). The impact of self-confidence on efl
Sudanese tertiary level students. International Journal of Information Research and
Review, 2(9), 1093-110
[2] Bilsay, G. . (2012). The factors affecting the success of foreign language English in
accordance with the results of the national level determination exam. Master Thesis.
Hacettepe University, Social Sciences Institution, Ankara.
[3] Chou, C. T. E. (2007). Factors affecting language proficiency of english language
learners at language institutes in the United States. Doktora Tezi, Texas Womans
University, TexasBackus, J., Lakshminarasimhan, Y. O., & Estrin, D. (2002). Dirl:
Improvement of the memory bus. In Proceedings of the Conference on Random,
"Fuzzy" Modalities, pp. 301-311.
[4] Ekmekyermezolu, N. (2010). Socio-cultural factors effecting academic successes of 8th
grade students of primary education at English class Master Thesis. nn University,
Education Sciences Institute. Malatya.
[5] Farooq, M. S., Chaudhry, A. H., Shafiq, M. & Berhanu, G. (2011). Factors affecting
students quality of academic performance: A case of secondary school level. Journal of
Quality and Technology Management. 7(2), 01-14.
[6] Katzner, K. (2002). The languages of the world (3rd Edition). ABD: Routlegde.
[7] Kim, J. S. (2005). The effects of constructivist teaching approach on student academic
achievement, self-concept, and learning strategies. Asia Pacific Education Review, 6(1),
7-19.
[8] TOEFL (2009). Test and score data summary for TOEFL internet-based and paper-based
tests.
Downloaded
from
https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/test_score_data_summary_2009.pdf.
[9] TOEFL (2010). Test and score data summary for TOEFL internet-based and paper-based
tests.
Downloaded
from
https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/TOEFL-SUM2010.pdf.
[10] TOEFL (2013). Test and score data summary for TOEFL iBT tests. Downloaded from
https://www.ets.org/s/toefl/pdf/94227_unlweb.pdf.
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Abstract
The study aims to investigate the satisfaction of the learners who are taking part in the online
education and the factors affecting their satisfaction. The factors that are taken into
consideration are perceived usefulness, feeling of flexibility, feeling of security, active
participation, feeling free for asking questions, instructor response time, perceived ease of
use, parents satisfaction, belief in contribution to success, support for study habits, and
essence of counselling. A survey investigating the factors affecting learners satisfaction in eLearning and a scale for perceived e-learner satisfaction were conducted. Students enrolled
in an online educational institution in Turkey are the subjects of the study. Data were
analysed using multiple regression analysis. The results revealed that students, regardless of
gender, who think that online education is useful and promotes active participation during
lessons as well as believe that it contributes their success are more satisfied on online
education. Support for study habits, feeling of flexibility and security are significant
predictors for male learners only. Also, flexibility and security of online education system
have positive effect on male learners satisfaction. Different from boys, instructor response
time, perceived ease of use and parents satisfaction are significant ones together with
common significant predictors for girls.
Keywords: E-learning, learner satisfaction, online education
Main Conference Topic: Distance Education / E-Learning
Introduction
Online education has become prominent during recent years as the technology
develops. In online education, the information is delivered to the learners via
telecommunication technology. Internet has been so rapidly expanded and can be reached by
many people around the world. So, it is inevitable to use it as a course delivery platform.
Online learning is learning and communication via networked computers (online distance
education). In this respect, that online learning platforms are becoming important in teaching
and learning is an increasing trend (Volery & Lord, 2000).
There are some factors promoting online education. First one of them is economic
trend because lifelong learning becomes a competitive necessity. Higher education is also a
kind of need in order to have more chances of job. Secondly, academic trend in which
knowledge and information are growing exponentially is another important factor. There are
many educational institutes and they provide many courses to meet learners needs. Last one
is technology trend. Technological devices are so common and more people from all
socioeconomic levels and age groups are using them more competently now (Cetron &
Daview, 2003). Based upon these factors, more courses, universities and additional
teaching/learning activities are becoming available through online education programs. Using
internet for distance education makes the interaction between teacher and learners possible.
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In Turkey internet and other technological devices are also used for educational
purposes. There are some university programs which have online courses and a few
institutions that have complementary courses for primary and secondary education. These
institutions are basically for the need of preparation for selection exams for next education
level. In Turkey there are secondary school/high school entrance exams for primary school
students and university entrance exams for secondary school students. In this study the focus
is on these complementary online courses provided by a private educational institution after
the routine school time so that the students can get extra preparation for these exams. Thus,
the study aims to investigate the satisfaction of the learners who are taking part in the online
education and the factors affecting their satisfaction. The factors that are taken into
consideration are perceived usefulness, feeling of flexibility, feeling of security, active
participation, feeling free for asking questions, instructor response time, perceived ease of
use, parents satisfaction, belief in contribution to success, support for study habits, and
essence of counselling.
Related work
A different learning environment from the traditional classroom setting has been
created by online education and there are many thoughts related to its substance and
outcomes (Barber, Taylor & Buchanan, 2014). Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia and Jones
(2009) stated that online learners performed better than face to face learners. In addition, they
determined that the outcomes can be influenced by the content and teacher performance.
Storck and Sproull (1995) also showed that there is little or no difference in students
performance between video instruction and face to face instruction. Webster and Hackley
(1997) suggested that effectiveness of these technology based systems need student
involvement and participation, cognitive engagement, technology self-efficacy (i.e., belief
that one is capable of interacting with a given technology), perceived usefulness of the
technology employed, and the relative advantage or disadvantage of online delivery.
Capability of using technology also influences the feeling of satisfaction of online
education. McIntyre and Wolff (1998) noted that: One of the powers of interactivity in a
Web environment is the capability to engage by providing rapid, compelling interaction and
feedback to students. Engagement is an important element for teaching and learning and it
motivates learners. Teacher and learner characteristics also plays an important role in online
courses. The teacher should perform interactive teaching styles and s/he should encourage
interaction between the students and with the teacher. One of the most important learner
characteristics influencing online education is the gender of learners (Volery & Lord, 2000).
Being able to use computer easily is another variable which can have an interaction with
gender (Kay, 1992).
There are some studies in which the learners satisfaction and its influencers are the
focus directly. Table 1 taken from Sun et al. (2007) has shown the related studies
summarized. Additionally, in their own study, a survey was conducted to investigate the
critical factors affecting learners satisfaction in e-learning. The results revealed that learner
computer anxiety, instructor attitude toward e-learning, e-learning course flexibility, elearning course quality, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and diversity in
assessments are the critical factors affecting learners perceived satisfaction. Sun et al. (2007)
also stated that these results show institutions how to improve learner satisfaction and further
strengthen their e-learning implementation.
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Table 1 Related references about the critical factors that affect learners satisfaction
Author(s)
Arbaugh
(2000)
Piccoli et al.
(2001)
Stokes (2001)
Arbaugh
(2002)
Arbaugh and
Duray (2002)
Hong (2002)
Thurmond et
al. (2002)
Kanuka and
Nocente
(2003)
Factors
Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, flexibility of e-Learning,
interaction with class participants, student usage, and gender
Maturity, motivation, technology comfort, technology attitudes, computer
anxiety, and epistemic beliefs, technology control, technology attitudes, teaching
styles, self-efficacy, availability, objectivist and constructivist, quality,
reliability, and availability, pace, sequence, control, factual knowledge,
procedural, knowledge, conceptual knowledge, timing, frequency, and quality
Students temperaments (guardian, idealist, artisan, and rational)
Perceived flexibility of the medium, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of
use, media variety, prior
Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, perceived flexibility
Gender, age, scholastic aptitude, learning style, and initial computer skills,
interaction with instructor, interaction with fellow students, course activities,
discussion sessions, and time spent on the course
Computer skills, courses taken, initial knowledge about e-Learning technology,
live from the main campus of the institution, age, receive comments in a timely
manner, offer various assessment methods, time to spend, scheduled discussions,
team work, acquaintance with the instructors
Motivating aims, cognitive modes, and interpersonal behaviors
Model
In this study, learners satisfaction measured by a five-item scale. Eleven factors
thought to be predictors of satisfaction were involved. The model is shown in Figure 1.
Perceived usefulness
Feeling of flexibility
Feeling of security
Active participation
Perceived
e-learner
satisfaction
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Methodology
The Subjects and the Data
Kresel Online is an educational institution in Ankara/ Turkey catering online courses for the
primary school 2nd level and secondary school students in order to prepare them for the next
educational level entrance exams. They have students all around the Turkey. For this study,
the data were gathered from primary school 2nd level students (age of 11-14) of this
institution. For this level almost 1500 learners actively participate to the courses and other
activities provided by the online education system. The surveys were distributed via the
institutions online platform to the learners. 929 e-learning learners attended the study. After
outliers were excluded, 779 learners data were used for the analyses. 347 of them are boys
and the rest, 432, are girls. There were five items for the perceived e-learner satisfaction and
eleven items for the factors that predict the satisfaction of the learners.
Implementation
SPSS 22 was used to analyze data for this research. Firstly, for the satisfaction scale
exploratory factor analysis was conducted in order to prove its validity. The results show that
it has one dominant factor (KMO = 0,82; factor loadings: 0,47-0,72; total explained variance
= 62,92%). Factor scores are calculated for each learner showing their amount of satisfaction.
Then whether the data gathered from boys and girl are different or not was investigated. For
sampling distribution of mean difference, ANOVA was conducted in order to show whether
these two group are different. However, test of homogeneity of variance was significant,
which means the violation of an assumption of ANOVA. So, nonparametric version of it,
Mann-Whitney U, was conducted. The results show that the distribution of factor scores is
not the same across categories of gender. Therefore, subsequent analyses were done
separately for the girls and the boys. Lastly, multiple regression analysis with enter method
was used to prove the significance of the variables. Eleven predictor variables were applied
as independent variables, while perceived e-learner satisfaction was used as a dependent
variable. Assumptions for the regression analysis were summarized below.
Test of Assumptions
Variable types: All predictor variables must be quantitative and categorical (with two
categories) and the outcome variables must be quantitative, continuous and unbounded. In
this study, predictor variables have three categories and the outcome variable is
continuous.
Outliers: There should be no significant outliers, high leverage points or highly
influential points. In order to detect outliers, Mahalanobis and Cook distance are
calculated. Critical 2 value with 11 (number of predictors) degree of freedom at = 0.01
is 24.725. Cases whose Mahalanobis value are greater than 24.725 and Cooks distance is
greater than 1 were excluded from analysis. At the end, 779 of 929 students data were
used for multiple regression.
Non zero-variance: The predictors should have some variation in value. While range of
variance is between 0.130 and 0.755 for the data of boys, it is between 0.045 and 0.300
for girls. Therefore, it can be said that predictors have non zero variance.
No perfect multicollinearity: There should be no perfect relationship or high correlation
between two or more predictors. In order to test this assumption, VIF values are used. If
this value is between 1 and 10, there is no multicollinearity problem. VIF values for the
data of boys range between 1.826 and 3.264. VIF values for the data of girls range
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between 1.247 and 1.890. Therefore, it is concluded that there is no perfect relationship
which can mislead the results.
Homoscedasticity: At each level of predictor variables, variance of residual terms should
be constant. The studentized residuals against the unstandardized predicted values are
plotted and examined. For both data, points along the line of best fit remain similar as
moved along the line. This shows that variance of residual terms changes slightly.
Independent errors: For any two observations residual terms should be uncorrelated. This
assumption can be tested by using Durbin-Watson test. The test statistic can vary between
0 and 4, where 2 or close to 2 indicates adjacent residuals are uncorrelated. For both boys
and girls data, values of 2.131 and 1.907 show that residuals are
uncorrelated/independent.
Normally distributed errors: It is assumed that residuals in the model are random and
normally distributed with a mean of 0. Normal Q-Q Plot of the studentized residuals were
examined for both data and it has been seen that residuals lay along the best fitting line.
Linearity: The mean values of the outcome variable for each increment of predictors lie
along a straight line. In order to test the assumption, partial regression plots are drawn.
For both data, predictors and the outcome variable have linear relationship.
Results
Multiple regression analyses were conducted for the data of girls and boys separately in
order to test if independent variables significantly predicted the dependent variable, namely
perceived e-learner satisfaction.
The results of the regression for boys indicated the predictors explained 70.5 % of the
variance (adjusted R2 = .695, F(11, 335) = 72.826, p<.01). Table 2 presents the results of
multiple regression analysis for boys.
Table 2. Results of multiple regression analysis for boys (n=347)
Predictors
Perceived usefulness
Feeling of flexibility
Feeling of security
Active participation
Feeling free for asking questions
Instructor response time
Perceived ease of use
Parents satisfaction
Belief in contribution to success
Support for study habits
Essence of counselling
Note: *p<.05; **p<.01.
Standardized
coefficient ()
.262
.093
.105
.111
-.011
.018
.065
.024
.257
.122
-.013
t value
6.012**
2.168*
2.020*
2.606**
-.260
.442
1.221
.445
4.843**
2.384*
-.327
When looked at the table, it can be seen that among eleven predictors, six are
significant with p value less than .05. These are perceived usefulness, feeling of flexibility,
feeling of security, active participation, belief in contribution to success and support for study
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habits. Especially, it was found that belief in contribution to success significantly predicted elearner satisfaction ( = .257, p<.01), as did perceived usefulness ( = .36, p<.01).
Furthermore, active participation, support for study habits, feeling of flexibility and security
have positive influence on students satisfaction. However, those are relatively small affect
compared to belief in contribution to success and perceived usefulness.
The results of the regression for girls illustrated the predictors explained 57.8 % of the
variance (adjusted R2 = .567, F(11, 420) = 52.294, p<.01). Results of multiple regression
analysis for girls are given in Table 3.
Table 3. Results of multiple regression analysis for girls (n=432)
Predictors
Perceived usefulness
Feeling of flexibility
Feeling of security
Active participation
Feeling free for asking questions
Instructor response time
Perceived ease of use
Parents satisfaction
Belief in contribution to success
Support for study habits
Essence of counselling
Note: *p<.05; **p<.01.
Standardized
coefficient ()
.079
.001
.061
.190
-.061
.079
.268
.233
.199
.083
.038
t value
2.070*
.030
1.691
4.599**
-1.488
2.236*
7.314**
5.839**
4.571**
1.940
1.045
When looked at the table, it can be said that among eleven predictors, six are significant
with p value less than .05. These are perceived usefulness, active participation, instructor
response time, perceived ease of use, parents satisfaction and belief in contribution to
success. Especially, it was found that perceived ease of use ( = .268, p<.01) as well as
parents satisfaction ( = .233, p<.01) significantly predicted e-learner satisfaction.
Furthermore, active participation and belief in contribution to success have also relatively
high influence on learners satisfaction. However, perceived usefulness and instruction
response time have significant but small affect compared to other predictors.
Conclusion
Multiple regression analysis was used to test which student characteristics significantly
predicted their satisfaction on online education. Analyses were carried out with respect to
gender. As expected, results differed from each other. When the results for boys and girls are
compared, there are three predictors which are significantly effect on e-learner satisfaction in
common. Those are perceived usefulness, active participation and belief in contribution to
success. In other words, students, regardless of gender, who think that online education is
useful and promotes active participation during lessons as well as believe that it contributes
their success are more satisfied on online education. Furthermore, variance in the outcome
explained by predictors in the data of boys are higher than explained variance in girls online
education satisfaction.
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In addition to common significant predictors for boys and girls, support for study
habits, feeling of flexibility and security are significant predictors for male learners. Students
who think online education supports their study habits have higher satisfaction on online
education. Also, flexibility and security of online education system have positive effect on
male learners satisfaction. Different from boys, instructor response time, perceived ease of
use and parents satisfaction are significant ones together with common significant predictors
for girls. It can be concluded that female students whose parents are satisfied with online
education are more satisfied with the system. Moreover, interface of online education system
affects female students satisfaction because students who can use it easily are more satisfied.
For girls, getting response in time is very important for their satisfaction with online
education system.
References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
Cetron, M. J., & Davies, O. (2003). Special report: 50 trends shaping the future.
Bethesda, MD: World Future Society.
Barber, W., Taylor, S & Buchanan, S. (2014). Empowering Knowledge-Building
Pedagogy in Online Environments: Creating Digital Moments to Transform Practice.
Electronic Journal of E-Learning. 12 (2): 128-137.
Kay, R. (1992). An analysis of methods used to examine gender difference in
computerrelated behaviour. Journal of Educational Computing Research, No. 8, pp.
277-90.
McIntyre, D.R. and Wolff, F.G. (1998). An experiment with WWW interactive learning
in university Education. Computers & Education, No. 31, pp. 255-64.
Storck, J. and Sproull, L. (1995). Through A Glass Darkly What People Learn In
Videoconferences? Human Communication Research. No. 22. pp. 197-219.
Sun, P. -C. et al. (2007). What drives a successful e-Learning? An empirical
investigation of the critical factors influencing learner satisfaction. Computers &
Education, doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2006.11.007
Volery, T. & Lord, D. (2000) Critical success factors in online education. International
Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 14 Iss: 5, pp.216 - 223
Webster, J. and Hackley, P. (1997). Teaching Effectiveness In Technology-Mediated
Distance Learning. Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 40 No. 6, pp. 1282-309
McIntyre, D.R. and Wolff, F.G. (1998). An experiment with WWW interactive learning
in university Education. Computers & Education, No. 31, pp. 255-64.
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audience, though silent, is involved in a dialogue with the speaker. But how to make sure that
this dialogue has become purposeful and effective?
In the monologue an orator addresses his speech to the audience with the aim to influence
their minds and feelings. In essence, the monologue is also a process of active thinking and
problem solving. Moreover, when speaker introduces his thoughts as if he came up with
them at the moment of talking makes us believe in his sincerity.
And indeed, if he identifies and solves the problem together with the audience, searches for
reasons of specific behavior and actions; if he tries to relate to the audience emotionally, he
will hold an audience spellbound. Together with him the audience thinks, gains new
experience, comes to the conclusion and takes an action.
Excited emotional state during audience interaction drives the entire psycho-physical
mechanism of thoughts and feelings.
Therefore a monologue must contain different number of characteristic features:
It is saturated with questions, the answers to which show a desire of a speaker to explain
the situation not only to the audience, but also to understand it himself, to solve the problem.
Search activity creates assumptions, arguments, statements, evidentiary negation of
erroneous statements, etc.
The process triggers images, associations, comparisons, that makes logical argumentation
especially tangible.
Vivid images, analysis by comparing and contrasting, asking questions, exclamations in
the monologue are impossible without the use of certain speaking techniques.
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This means that our perception of the reality is not static, but dynamic, in "motion".
But creation of images is not only visual perception of the subject. We perceive a situation or
an object with all the senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, etc.The sensations received from a
particular object might not be the same: a feeling that at the moment acts stronger outstands
other feelings more clearly and sharply.
So, while describing life events, a speaker sees as the complex of feeling. Of course, he
selects images that could affect the audience. You should choose the facts and pictures that
will not leave an audience untouched. This enable a speech to have an emotional impact on
the listener.
Attitude of a speaker towards the stated material is an expression of his outlook and life
stance, and is the source of believes and values. The stance of a speaker on a particular topic
determines him as an individual.
An orator might seek answers to questions and immerse himself in a solution of any problem.
While describing a problem and searching for a solution he has an internal monologue aloud.
In that case, listeners begin to seek answers, to think, to solve problems with the speaker. He
attracts their attention to his own thoughts and engages them into the process of solution
seeking.
In another case, conviction in the rightness of his judgments leads to the need to address the
audience directly, to share his views, and to see whether the audience agrees or disagrees
with him.
In the third case, he draws a discussed object as he sees it. The speaker uses images and
information prepared in edvance, but makes it look as if he comes up with them at the
moment of speaking.
Importance of pre-planning
A speech must look like a natural conversation that a performer has with an audience, rather
that pepared written essay. A speaker shouldn't just express his ready-made judgments,
findings, conclusions, but try to think, search and solve along with the listener right there and
then.
Nevertheless, this doesn't mean that a speech shouldn't be pre-panned. Very often a speech
suffers from the lack of a clear structure and practice. An orator has to understand precisely a
purpose of a speech and the structure.
When a speaker starts to perform it is necessary to keep a conclusion in mind. Sometimes one
spend too much time introducing himself and his topic to an audience, or exploring it in the
main part. This might affect his performance, thus an orator might not have enough time to
develop his ideas and will simply rush into conclusion. Therefore a speaker has to have a
clear perspective and understanding of what he wants to accomplish at the given time.
The performance quality might also be affected by delivery flaws. Sometimes speakers start
to speak too emotionally and nervously, indicating a lack of knowledge of the perception
laws of public speaking. An itroduction should be designed to capture attention of an
audience. The basic tone of a speech has to be emotional, relatable and good-natured. In order
to avoid making this kind of mistakes one should first indicate own flaws and then try to
improve them. This could be achieved by self-analysis and constant practising.
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Conclusion
A monologue is an important part of a performance, when a speaker is able to share his
feelings with an audience. However, very often listeners do not perceive the information.
There are various factors that lead to this result, one of them inability of a speker to build
rapport with the audience.
This paper examined traits and approaches a speaker must possess, and as the outcome we
came to the conclusion that a key component of a speech writing and delivering process is an
interior dialogue.
This paper shows an importance of an interior monologue and self-analysis as a useful
technique to gain listeners attention and make allow them to perceive the information to the
fullest extent.
References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
, . ., & , . . (1989). :
. . .
.. (1969). .
Vygotski, L. S., Hanfmann, E., & Vakar, G. (2012). Thought and language. MIT press.
, . . (1993). .
, 2.
Osborn, M., & Osborn, S. (2000). Public speaking. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH).
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Abstract
This study aims to analyze the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of Teacher Efficacy,
Constructivist instruction and Didactic instruction Scale (TCDS) (Nie, Tan, Liau, Lau & Chua, 2012).
Participants were 206 teachers of different district of Sakarya . The results of confirmatory factor
analysis described that the 27 items loaded three factor and the three dimensional model was well
fit (x=787.19, df=321, RMSEA=.084, NFI=.87, NNFI=.91, CFI=.92, IFI=.92, SRMR=.078). All findings
showed that this scale is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring teachers tendencies for
efficacy in instruction, constructivist instruction and didactic instruction.
Introduction
Self-efficacy is an acceptance about what an individual can do against the judgement of ones
character. (Zimmerman & Cleary, 2006 ; A.J. White,2014)It was Bandura who firstly state
self-efficacy as persons sensation and trust in his/her talents to achieve his/her goals
(A.Gkolia, D.Belias, A. Koustelios,2014).How much people will struggle and how long they
will sustain in the face of obstructions and deterrent experience are determined by efficacy
expectations (Bandura,1977)People are afraid and likely to refrain intimidating situations
they believe overrun their coping skills,whereas they take part in activities and treat assuredly
when they judge themselves talented for handling situations that would otherwise be
threatening (Bandura,1977).
The believes of teachers in their capabilities to instruct learners and affect students
performance are very vigorous indicators of eduational effectiveness (Bandura, 1997; Y.Cerit
). The teachers with a distinctive sense of efficacy are open to new notions and also much
more enthusiastic to try out new methods to better fulfill the needs of their students (Berman
et al., 1977; Guskey, 1988, Stein & Wang, 1988),and they are also motivated to show greater
planning and organization Allinder, 1994; Tschannen-Moran, M., Woolfolk Hoy, A. & Hoy,
W. K. ,1998). Further study by Gibson and Dembo in 1984 stated that teacher efficacy is a
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belief that instructor can support or infuse the most difficult or unmotivated students(T.H.
Waco, 1992). In spite of different definitions,however, it is widely accepted that teacher
efficacy is concerned with such factors as student success, student motivation, teachers
acceptance of innovation, teacher ability, and theachers classroom management strategies
(Woolfoik and Hoy 81; T.H. Waco, 1992). It is emphasized that teacher efficacy is related to
teachers attitudes in classroom, their being open to recent notions, and their behaviours
toward teaching. (Tschannen-Moran, M., Woolfolk Hoy, A. & Hoy, W. K. ,1998). Many
studies shows that teachers perception on efficacy to be substantially depend on student
success (T.H. Waco, 1992).
It has been described as Teacher efficacy is the degree that the teacher think s/he has the
capability to influence pupil success (Berman, et al., 1977; Tschannen-Moran, M.,
Woolfolk Hoy, A. & Hoy, W. K. 1998).
Constructivisims roots may be based on the writtings of the eighteenth-centurys
little known philosepher Giambattista Vico who supposed that a learner wise up just
cognitive structure s/he has constructed (von Glasersfeld,1989; L. L. Liang & D. L.
Gabel,2012). It is accepted by most constructivist approaches that constructivism is a learning
or meaning-making theory (Virginia Richardson,1997 ). Construction of knowledge may be
done via cognitive processing by the individual learner and social transaction by negotiation
and interplay with others through langauage (Y. Nie & S.Lau,2008). Learnings
psychological theories have long affected educational practises. In recent years,
constructivism, as a prepondered theory of learning, has recieved so much attention in
educational innovation worldwide. Utilizing constructivist concepts of recognising and
learning, a great deal of educaters recommend that education should retain learners in
information construction in exact-world conditions, apply sociablely negotiated task
( Y. Nie ,G. H. Tan , A. K. Liau , S. Lau ,B. L. Chua, 2012). Brunner (1996) helping young
people to utilize the instrument of meaning-making and reality establishing to better adapt to
the world in which they devise themselves and to assist in the process of changing it as
required (Brunner,1996; J. Watson,2000). The best part of constructivist would also accept
that the conventional aproach to information transfering model-support neither the interplay
between previous and new knowledge nor the conversation which are required for
internalization and deep comprehention (Virginia Richardson,1997 ).
Didactic instruction concentrate on transfering of information as indicated in
curriculum and textbooks, learning of student concentrate on the inactive acceptance of
information, intensified through drill and practice (Y. Nie & S.Lau,2008). It is progressively
realized that common teacher-orriented didactic aproaches to teaching might not utilize and
enhance learners competence to be effective, imaginative, and reflective self-directed
students in a novelty-centered and rapidly developing world. Different from this, the learnerorriented consructivist approaches for teaching have been recomended in instructional
novelties worldwide (e.g., Guthrie et al. 2000; Hacker and Tenent 2002; Newmann et al.
1996b; Y. Nie ,G. H. Tan , A. K. Liau , S. Lau ,B. L. Chua, 2012).Even though there is a long
historical strain between the information-transfering model and the information construction
model of learning, strain in essence has constantly compromised in practice (Berliner &
Calfee,1996; Y. Nie & S.Lau,2008)
.
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Method
Participants
206 teachers took part in this research. 110 female and 96 male participants were involved in
the study. Their ages ranged from 20 to 51. It is seen that partipants ages are more frequent
at the level of 20-30 ages.
Procedure
For utilizing the scale to adapt into Turkish the communication has been set with Nie via email who developed the scale,and also the required permission to adopt the scale has been
obtained. Teacher Efficacy, Constructivist instruction and Didactic instruction Scale has been
translated into Turkish by five English teacher that are expert in their branches,and the
translation has been analyzed and the required regulation has been done.Then, the Turkish
form has been examined according to meaning and grammar and also the required regulation
has been done.Later the Turkish form has been obtained. Before starting to study of validity
and reliability the structure validity of Efficacy, Constructivist instruction and Didactic
instruction Scale has been analyzed as validity study.For structure validity,confirmative
factor analyse (DFA) has been done. The reliability of Efficacy, Constructivist instruction
and Didactic instruction Scale analyzed with the techniques of internal consistency and testretest, on the other hand factor analysis has been examined with adjusted factor total
correlation.
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Results
Item-Total Correlations for the Turkish Version of the scale are displayed on Table 1.
Table 1. Item-Total Correlation for the Turkish Version of Scale (Turkish version of the
scale)
Items
.33
.49
kullanabilyorsunuz ?
,409
,387
,412
,492
Olanak salayc renme ortam oluturabilmek iin snf kurallarn ne kadar iyi
oluturabiliyorsunuz ?
,566
,600
,421
10
,449
11
,537
12
,573
13
,495
14
,563
15
,530
16
,452
17
,475
rencilerinizi ne sklkla var olan bir fikri sorgulamak ya da bu fikre kar mcadele etmek iin
18
19
20
21
,558
cesaretlendirirsiniz ?
rencilerinizden ne sklkla organizasyon ve entegre bilgi gerektiren bir grev yapmasn
istersiniz ?
zgn cevaplar ne sklkla desteklersiniz ?
,520
,470
rencilerinizden yeni bir bilgi oluturmalarn ne sklkla istersiniz ? (geleri anlaml bir btn
haline getirme ; yeni bir rnek oluturmak iin geleri tekrar organize etme. )
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22
Mfredattan ziyade rencileriniz iin kiisel anlam tayan derslere ne sklkla odaklanrsnz ?
,398
23
,467
24
,427
25
,505
26
27
,361
,538
Construct Validity
Confirmatory factor Analysis is clearly useful for the investigators to handle apparent
hypotheses about a scale like the number of the factors or extents underlying its items,
between definite items or certain factors and the link between factors. That is to say,
investigators evaluate measurement hypothesis in terms of scales internal structure by
means of CFA. Furr and Bacharach (2008) offered that CFA provides investigators to
measure the degree to which their assessment hypotheses are consistent with the factual data
of the scale. As a conclusion, confirmatory factor analysis showed that the three-dimensional
model was well fit (x=787.19, df=321, RMSEA=.084, NFI=.87, NNFI=.91, CFI=.92,
IFI=.92, SRMR=.078).
Factor loadings and path diagram for Turkish version of scale are displayed in Figure 1.1
Figure 1.1: Factor Loadings and Path Diagram for the scale
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Reliability
The Cronbachs Alpha internal consistency reliability coefficients of the scale were
calculated as .90 for whole scale.
Conclusion
This research aimed to adapt the Teacher Efficacy, Constructivist instruction and Didactic
instruction Scale into Turkish and analyze its psychometric attributions. Confirmatory factor
analysis indicated that the factor form was fit with the factor form of the original scale. Thus,
the structural model of this
appropriately suited to the Turkish culture. The internal consistency reliability coefficients of
the scale were high, taking into account this item total correlations having a value of .30
(Bykztrk, 2010). The outcomes of confirmatory factor analysis showed that 27 items
loaded on three factors and the three-dimensional model was well fit (x=787.19, df=321,
RMSEA=.084, NFI=.87, NNFI=.91, CFI=.92, IFI=.92, SRMR=.078).
The original scale was constructed with the combination of three scales by Nie, Tan, Liau,
Lau & Chua (2012); Teacher Efcacy Beliefs Scale (OSTES) which was developed by
Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001), Constructivist instruction scale adapted from
Hamilton et al. (2003), Smerdon et al. (1999).Mullis (2000), Newmann et al. (1996a), and
Nie and Lau (2010), and Didactic instruction scale adapted from Nie and Lau (2010). It was
stated in the original of the study that Cronbachs alphas of the scales which were used in the
study were .92 for self-efcacy scale, .90 for constructivist instruction, and .77 for didactic
instruction. It was also stated that the factorial validity of the scales were good. Three-factor
conrmatory factor analysis was carried out, and displayed good model-data t: 2(61, N =
2139) = 1763.36, TLI=.949, CFI=.954, RMSEA=.046.
Y.Nie and S. Lau studied in 2008 in Singapour to examine the relation of constructivist and
didactic instruction on students motivational, cognitive and achievement results in English
classrooms. They applied the Constructivist and Didactic Instruction scale to students. The
result showed that constructivist teaching was a remarkable affirmative predictor of students
profound processing strategies, task value and self-efficacy and achievement of English . On
the other hand didactic intsruction was a remarkable affirmative predictor of students
superficial processing strategies and a negative predictor of English achievement .
It is seen in the Daughertys study (2005) results of multivariate analysis of variance
showed that there were group differences between educational level and years of experience
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with respect to teacherssense of efficacy. These analyses demonsrated that instructors with
more years of experience had a tendency to offer higher levels of teacher efficacy. They also
showed that teachers at younger educational levels had a tendency to offer higher levels of
teacher efficacy. These studies show that experiences on the job and educational level have
an impact on teachers self efficacy. Also,teachers with higher level of self-efficacy are open
to innovations and dont hesitate to be renewed.
It can be understood by the definition of Richardson (1997) that constructivism is a learning
or meaning-making theory. In his study Yesilyurt points out that according to views of the
teacher candidates it has been identified that the goals in the Constructivist Learning Based
Curriculum should be suitable with the level of students revelance and needs,and also with
cognitive,affective, psychomotor developing levels of the students.They support that
Constructivist Learning Based Curriculum should be appropriate to daily life,curriculum
should be specified by students (Yesilyurt,2011). Arslan defines that the success of the
programme depends on the capability of the practitioner. Teacher training programmes
should be reviewed and teacher candidates should be trained in the form of constructive
instruction (Arslan,2007). It is progressively realized that common teacher-oriented didactic
aproaches to teaching might not utilize and enhance learners potential to be
effective,imaginative,and reflective self-directed students in an innovation-oriented and
swiftly changing world. Differently from this,the learner-centered consructivist approaches
for teaching have been recomended in instructional innovations worldwide (e.g., Guthrie et
al. 2000; Hacker and Tenent 2002; Newmann et al. 1996b; Partnership for 21 Century Skills
2009; Y. Nie ,G. H. Tan , A. K. Liau , S. Lau ,B. L. Chua, 2012).
Some limitation are there in this current study. One of the limitations is the sample size of the
present study. That is to say, further studies should check up on the same questions with a
larger group. Some correlations may be clarified with a larger sample size and so it may
increase the validity of the findings. Additionally, carrying on this research in different
countrified areas of Turkey might indicate whether these outcomes could be universalized to
a wider population. The other one is that the representative was composed of teachers
restricting the findings to be generalized. Thats why it may be important to check up on the
relationship of these variables with another sample groups. It was indicated with overall
findings that this scale had high validity and reliability scores and that it can be used as a
valid and reliable instrument in order to define the individuals tendency to Teacher Efficacy,
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Constructivist instruction and Didactic instruction. Nevertheless, future studies using TCDS
are important for its measurement effectiveness.
References
[1] Bandura,A.(1977). Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change
[2] Cerit, Y. (2010). retmen z-Yeterlik leinin Geerlik Ve Gvenirlik almas Ve
Snf retmeni Adaylarnn z Yeterlik nanlar. Eitimde Kuram ve Uygulama
[3] E.Yesilyurt. (2011). An Evaluation of the Views of Teacher Candidates on the
Development of a Constructivist Learning Based Curriculum
[4] Gkolia, A., Belias, D., & Koustelios, A. (2014). Teacher's Job Satsfacton And
Selfeffcacy: A Revew. European Scientific Journal, 10(22)
[5] Ling L. Liang & Dorothy L. Gabel.(2012). Effectiveness of a Constructivist Approach to
Science Instruction for Prospective Elementary Teachers
[6] M.Arslan. (2007). Constructivist Approaches in Education
[7] Nie,Y. & Lau,S. (2008). Differential relation of constructivist and didactic instruction to
students cognition, motivation and achievement.
[8] Nie, Y., Tan, G. H., Liau, A. K., Lau, S., & Chua, B. L. (2013). The roles of teacher
efficacy in instructional innovation: its predictive relations to constructivist and didactic
instruction. Educational Research for Policy and Practice
[9] Richardson, V. (1997). Constructivist teaching and teacher education: Theory and
practice. Constructivist teacher education: Building a world of new understandings, 3-14.
[10]
Waco
.T.
H.
(1997).
The
Relationship
Between
Teacher
Efficacy,
for Learning
[14]
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Literacy may be one of the most important skills for enhancing quality of life. Students with
severe and multiple disabilities have challenges about literacy due to their physical, cognitive
or sensitive problems. This challenge is more serious for especially students with severe
intellectual disabilities with additional visual impairment. In order to eliminate this learning
problems need using adapted materials and systematic instruction in special education
services to the children with multiple disabilities include visual impairment. The readings
materials which are made suitable to the learning characteristics of children with profound
and multiple disabilities just as the children with regular development support them to
participate in the activities basing on the reading that supported their cognitive and
communicational skills in a more active manner. "Multisensory stories" are one of the
materials that addresses to more than one sense.
Multisensory stories may be defined as the stories which are told by focusing on the social
interaction and sensory experiences that are organized on an individual basis for the
individuals who have a profound mental disability and/or multiple disabilities. Simply we can
be defined as stories that we experience with all our senses. These are stories you can see,
you can hear, you can smell, you can touch, you can even taste. The story is based on Fuller's
Bag Books. Then they were developed by PAMIS. Using mmultisensory storytelling,
children can utilize tactile, kinesthetic, smelling and tasting learning as well as the auditory
and visual learning during the reading activities and also they actively attended to learning
environment. In this study, it is handled listening comprehension that one of the important
literacy skills. The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of the multisensory
storytelling with constant time delay procedure on the improve of listening comprehension of
the student with multiple disabilities include visual impairment. This aim was evaluated via a
multiple probe design across participants. Three participants had both are visually impaired
and have an additional disability (autism), aged between 12-15 have attended to the research.
At the end of the research, multisensory storytelling provided with constant time delay
procedure has been found that all of the students improved listening comprehension of the
story.
Keywords: Special Education, Multisensory Storytelling, Multiple Disabilities
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Abstract:
This study deals with the problems of education of Turks in Germany. Thanks to numerous
studies and expertise issued on this subject recently there are identified some key issues in the
integration of Turks, one of which important is the question of their education. It shows that
the Turks have, thanks to the majority bad social situation and a higher unemployment rate,
significantly worse conditions for obtaining quality education. Similarly problematic are also
their language skills, which is another big barrier to integration. The problem begins here
with large reluctance of Turkish families to give their children to nurseries. Yet the research
shows that it is important for the Turks that their children dominated German language.
Introduction:
According to recent statistics, which is led by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees,
lived in Germany in the year 2013 2 793 000 Turks, out of which 1 549 808 lived in that year
on the territory of the former Federal Republic of Germany (ie. Old Lnder). In the same year
33 246 Turks immigrated to Germany. [3] The number between 20 and 30 thousand of
immigrants from Turkey every year is typical for each year. Turks thus represent a vital and
influential group of German population, but they have not been officially recognized by the
state as an ethnic minority yet. People considered as Turks are people with Turkish
backgrounds and origins, who gradually acquired German citizenship. There is probably
more people with this origin in Germany, it is spoken about up to three million. These people
came to Germany in large part as "gastarbeiter", i.e. labor migrants. In 1938 about 3,300
Turks lived in Germany, in the year of 1961 it was 6 800. In 1971 it was 652 000 and ten
years later it was 1 546 000. Thus it is evident when there was the largest increase in their
number. [1]
Turks were originally supposed to be only the people, who were expected to work for a shortterm or even a long-term, but who were supposed to come and go. However, this did not
happen, most of them remained and are still living in Germany. [2] Due to their number, but
also, for example, due to the high concentration in some cities, respectively in some
neighborhoods of these cities, it is a great problem of contemporary integration policy of the
Federal Republic of Germany. This signifies the overall relevance of this topic for a wider
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context of social sciences, including pedagogy. There are really a lot of problems, we will
focus here mainly on education. The first part will bring the basic characteristics of the
population of Turkish origin living in Germany. In the second chapter, the study will focus on
naming some of the major integration challenges faced by the members of this minority and
the third chapter will fully concentrate on the main theme of this study, which are the current
problems of education of Turks in Germany.
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foreigners into German society. Further studies came to similar results. For example,
according to the Federal Office for Political Education it shows that "the Turkish population
in Germany" presents such a heterogeneous group "that creating some balance for the
integration of this group is virtually impossible." There are also serious concerns about
whether the Turkish population and its Muslim diaspora are capable of integration. [12]
These discussions are then guided precisely with regard to the integration abilities of
Muslims. After all, also the Turks often dream of going back to their homeland. [2]
According to the recent research, the proportion of those Turks who are considering this, is
between 40 and 45 percent. It emerges, for example, from a survey of the Institute Info
GmbH which recently interviewed 10 000 Turks. The main reason for 63 percent of those
who plan to go back is the belief that Turkey is their homeland and that they belong there.
For more than half Turkey is the clear choice for spending their retirement. In contrast, only 6
percent want to move there and work there. Turks want to work in Germany and secure a
good living here, including savings, then they plan moving to Turkey to retire. [9] [1]
The results of this study are somewhat torn. On one hand, there is evidently a growing
number of persons who are in Germany either already integrated or who want to integrate
here, but at the same time the proportion of those who reject it increases. The study pointed at
two rather disturbing findings: on one hand, the Turks themselves point to religious
intolerance which they are faced by the German majority, on the other hand, however, a large
number of them declared that they were attacked for their ethnic origin. Between 2009 and
2013 this opinion doubled, from 8 percent to 16 percent. From this study, but also from other
studies, there is certain ambivalence when a considerable part of them wants to integrate, but
others strictly reject it and emphasize the religious differences which stand in the way of such
integration tendencies. [1] [10]
Turks consider Germany less and less as their home. Only 15 percent feel here to be at home,
for 45 percent home is both Germany and Turkey. The positive thing is that the strongest
perception of Germany as their home country is with the youngest generation of Turks, who
are less than 30 years old. With age there is growing sense of alienation. Another interesting
thing is the way Turks assume an attitude to their integration. As many as 79 percent of them
see Germany as a very open country, on the other hand, 87 percent express an opinion that
the local community should take more into account cultural and mainly religious specifics of
Turks.
This, however, is again only one side of the coin: at the same time, 18 percent of them
believe that the Jews are "inferior people", 25 percent regard as inferior atheists and 8 percent
Christians. If we look at Turks in the age group under 30, 55 percent of them believe that
more mosques should be built in Germany. [12] For 72 percent of them only Islam is the right
religion. Thus we see that it is the religion which is the strong ingroup sign of their
belonging. The proportion of those people, now regardless of their age group, who describe
themselves as solid members of the Muslim faith, is around 37 percent. What is interesting
here is that among the youngest ones up to the age of 30 years this proportion is doubled and
reaches 64 percent. For this age group it is interesting that two-thirds of them support, for
example, the distribution of the Koran among Turks. For 68 percent of them, however, it is
necessary to distinguish between the state and the religion.
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From the surveys, however, beside the strong religious unity it is also evident the increase of
their desire to integrate: 78 percent of them declare that they want to integrate here. Three out
of four of them want to be a part of the German public. On the other hand, for about twothirds of them an ideal option is if, for example, a Turkish woman was married to a Turk. In
matters of discrimination it showed that in 2010, it was still experienced by 42 percent. They
complained that because they look different they are cursed for it negatively. Currently, this
number reduced to 29 percent.
Another problem is the overall economic situation of Turks. [9] Their families have very low
earnings and are, considerably more often than Germans, dependent on welfare. About 40
percent of households and thus roughly the same number of people live below the poverty
line. From various reports of the German government, there are problems Turks have to deal
with: it is high unemployment, but also a really minor relationship of Turks towards German
schools. Half of Turks does not have any savings, not to mention pension savings (in the case
of Germans, it is 35 percent). [13]
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Here, they can thrive, and this is mainly due to bad knowledge of German language. It is also
determined by the fact that these children are not brought up in their families at least partly in
German. The relationship between unemployment and those who do not have good language
knowledge is then clear. Illiterate people are not an exception, even illiterates both in Turkish
and German. These people actually lack some higher education in one of these languages.
Only 14 percent of Turks in Germany have the opportunity to study at university. This means
they have completed appropriate secondary education. However, only a small number of
them studies in German universities, the number is about 15 000. It is a negligible number
which shows that higher education is virtually out of question for the Turkish population in
Germany.
The problem in the Turkish minority in Germany is also the position of women within their
communities. There are, in this context, numerous clichs about how they are in a
subordinate role etc. Statistics, however, confirm that only to a certain extent. If we look at
the first generation of women, between 35 and 64 years, only 35 percent have really good
knowledge of the German language.
Another major problem, which is long-term and poses a problem, is that the proportion of
persons aged 25-35 years, who do not have at least vocational education, has increased
between 2001 and 2006, and that is from 44 to 57 percent. [11]
Conclusion
Education of Turks in Germany is crucial for improving their life and social situation. It is
also an essential prerequisite for their integration into German society. [10] Yet, there occur
several problems. First, it is probably their mistrust in the educational system in Germany, or
there may be other reasons as well, but the result of this is that many of them do not send
their children to kindergartens, for example. Thus, they deprive them of the possibility to
learn the German language in the preschool age and this problem then stretches throughout
their subsequent studies at elementary school. Besides, ignorance of the language is also the
second big problem of educating this population group. Even a variety of integration
programs does not help, even though it is obvious that with each new generation the situation
improves. The third problem is a generally worse social situation of Turks in Germany which
is a barrier to their further education. For example now, only a small number of the total is
currently studying at universities.
Education of Turks in Germany, for example, must deal with these problems which are of a
long-term character and which can be removed, respectively rather moderated only in a
difficult way.
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References:
[1] Baier, D. et al. (2010). Kinder und Jugendliche in Deutschland. Zweiter Bericht zum
gemeinsamen Forschungsprojekt des Bundesministeriums des Innern und des
Kriminologischen Forschungsinstituts Niedersachsen. Hannover: Bundesministerium des
Innern und des Kriminologischen Forschungsinstituts Niedersachsen, 2010.
[2] Bltken, F. (2000). Soziale Distanz und rumliche Nhe. In Alba, R., Schmidt, P.,
Wasmer, M.
(eds.). Deutsche und Auslnder: Freunde, Fremde oder Feinde? Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, s.
147194.
[3] De Destatis (2013). 5,1 % mehr Einbrgerungen im Jahr 2012. Online
https://www.destatis.de/DE/PresseService/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2013/08/PD13_281_12
511.html#Fussnote1.
[4] Deutsch-Trkische Nachrichten (2013). Weg aus Deutschland: Fast 200.000 Trken
gehen in vier Jahren. Online http://www.deutsch-tuerkischenachrichten.de/2013/03/470905/weg-aus-deutschland-fast-200-000-tuerken-gehen-in-vierjahren/
[5] Eryilmaz, A. (1998). Wie geht man als Arbeiter nach Deutschland? In Eryilmaz, A.,
Jamin, M. (eds.). Fremde Heimat: Eine Geschichte der Einwanderung. Essen: Klartext,
DOMiT.
[6] Greiffenhausen, M. (1997). Politische Legitimitt in Deutschland. Bonn: Bundeszentrale
fr politische Bildung.
[7] Herbert, U. (2001): Geschichte der Auslnderpolitik in Deutschland. Saisonarbeiter,
Zwangsarbeiter, Gastarbeiter, Flchtlinge. Beck, Mnchen 2001.
[8] Knortz, H. (2008): Diplomatische Tauschgeschfte. Gastarbeiter in der westdeutschen
Diplomatie und Beschftigungspolitik 1953-1973. Kln: Bhlau Verlag.
[9] Schnwlder, K. (2001). Einwanderung und ethnische Pluralitt. Politische
Entscheidungen und ffentliche Debatten in Grobritannien und der Bundesrepublik von den
1950er bis zu den 1970er Jahren, Essen: Klartext.
[10] SpiegelOnline (2009). Migranten-Studie: Trken sind mit Abstand am schlechtesten
integriert. Online http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/migranten-studie-tuerken-sindmit-abstand-am-schlechtesten-integriert-a-603294.html
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[11] SpiegelOnline (2012). Umfrage: Viele Deutsch-Trken fhlen sich in Deutschland nicht
zu Hause. Online http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/studie-zu-deutsch-tuerkenintegrationswillen-steigt-religiositaet-auch-a-850429.html
[12] die taz (2010). "Muslime sind nicht integrierbar". Online "Muslime sind nicht
integrierbar". Online http://www.taz.de/1/archiv/?dig=2002/09/10/a0132
[13] Die Welt (2010). Trken sind die Sorgenkinder der Integration. Online
http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article7222075/Tuerken-sind-die-Sorgenkinder-derIntegration.html
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Abstract
With the advancement of technology in the last decade, online TESOL (Teaching
English to Speakers of Other Languages) certificate and masters degree programs have
increased profoundly to better address and meet the need for quality ESL and EFL teachers
around the world. Practicing English language teachers may not always have the time and
resources to take time off from work to enroll in a full-time masters program (Garton &
Edge, 2012). Yet online education potentially means anywhere/anytime learning, continued
employment (e.g., teaching position) while studying, and continued residence (Nunan, 2012).
Since online education is a quickly expanding area in MA/M.Ed. TESOL programs, recent
discussion has been geared toward helping faculty and students navigate this program.
As a program coordinator/advisor of an online masters TESOL program and faculty
who predominantly teaches online this presentation will share the voices of 22 graduates who
completed a fully online TESOL masters degree program at a university in the south central
U.S. with the audience. An open-ended question survey e-mailed to participants was used for
data collection. Through thematic analysis we found the overarching themes to provide
recommendations that we hope not only future online TESOL students and faculty could take
into consideration but others who are also involved in distance education.
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Abstract
The current studys aim is to look for the relation between problem solving and creative
cognition. The Creative cognition scale and Problem Solving Style Questionnaire were
applied to 241 Gifted-Talented students. This relationship was investigated using correlation.
According to results problem solving is positively related to creative cognition and the twodimensions of prolem solving predicted positively creative cognition. The literature was
taken in consideration while discussing the results.
Keywords: Creative, cognition, problem solving
Introduction
During recent years, the term of problem is argued by researchers. There are many
identifications of problem. A person wants to do something but cant find any explicit way to
make it real and this situation is defined as a problem (Newell & Simon, 1972). A problem is
clarified as lacking the knowledge of accurate steps to get what you want. There are four
elements of a problem. These are respectively: givens, what we have at the beginning of the
problem situation; goals, our aim for end condition; obstacles, handicaps for exact solution
and operators, methods used for solving the problem. (Andre, 1986; Mayer, 1983; Newell &
Simon, 1972).
People encounters many problems in their daily and professional lives and they have to
solve them so problem solving is the most significant thing in life. Problem solving is defined
as the action of finding a way to deal with a problem (Wehmeier ,2000). Jonassen (2000)
expresses that problem solving is a cognitive activity interested in problems in daily life.
These problems are made up of the mental and behavioral activities.
Problem solving is a skill that should be learned and obtained. Since it is
multidirectional; it combines intelligence, emotions, desire, and action in itself with creative
(reflective) thinking (Bingham, 1958). Further, problem solving requires trying new
strategies to obtain the result and eliminating those who are unsuccessful (Thornton, 1998).
Problem solving may involve thinking (cognitive) components, emotional or motivational
components, and behavioral components (Andre, 1986, p. 171). Problem solving is any
goal-directed sequence of cognitive operations (Anderson, 1980) which operations have two
critical attributes. One of them is mental representation and second is activity-based
manipulation of the problem space (Jonassen,2000)
Solving a problem is effectual in daily life and has a main role in psychological theories
of intelligence (Sternberg, 1985). Researchers and educators have been debating in many
fields if problem solving can be taught or not since the last century and an exact answer to
this question is not found up to now. (Norman, 1998) claims that generalizable or transferable
problem-solving skills cannot be taught but (Nathanson,1994) claims that these skills not
only transferable but also teachable to different contexts. Why do some people get clever
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ideas, make inventions, and discoveries when they are faced with problems? What happens,
what are the processes that lead to such solutions? What can be done to help people to be
creative when they are faced with problems? (Luchins & Luchins, 1970: 1).Perhaps the most
obvious way to improve problem solving performance is to teach the basic skills. The general
procedure is to analyze each problem into the cognitive skills needed for solution and then
systematically teach each skill to mastery. (Mayer, 1998).
Researchers study on problem solving strategies of gifted children recently. Gifted
children is different from same-age children comparatively in cognitive abilities. Therefore
they require different educational experiences (Kleine & Webb, 1992). Gifted children are at
a higher level of personal maturity than their peers at similar stages of intellectual and
emotional development (Hoeksema,1982; Gross, 1993).
The gifted children are superior problem solvers. They have Intelligence Quotient (I.Q)
tests, which mostly investigate problem solving abilities, and get higher grades than the rest
of the people.(Gorodetsky,2003;Klavir,2003) Gifted children use Encoding, Comparison, and
Combination that are the three essential cognitive components responsible for the correct
solution of comprehension problems (Sternberg & Davidson, 1983).However, sometimes,
considerable problems may occur because people show lack of understanding or encourage
for gifted children and sometimes they have inconstancy and contradiction to them (Webb &
Kleine, 1993).
Creative Cognition
In the last century, many researchers in different science branches describe creative
cognition in different ways but a clear description cannot be done because creativity is an
extremely complex term (Meissner, 2006).
According to Sawyer (2006) creativity is a capability of creating a product that not only
original but also useful. Craft (2003) explains creativity as a lifelong skill apart from art and
describe creativity as expressing yourself, capacity of using intelligence and imagination.
There are some researchers who uphold the idea that everyone has a sum of creativity and the
creativity level can be improved at varying rates (Beetlestone, 1998; Lubart & Sternberg,
1995). While Slochower commenting bilaterally creative process as inspiration with
subconscious and symbolism with preconscious (Yavuzer, 1989) according to Maslow
who is one of the humanist theorist, creativity is described as reflecting your own in
everything as a work, activity, personality and process (Savieski, 2004)In time, creative
cognition ,the expression of the creative thinking techniques, is started to use and realist
interview forms are improved to quantify the usage of creativity in the process
(Moneta&Rogaten, 2015).Besides expressing individual talent zone, creativity is affected
many factors involving cultural structure. However, mental process is accepted as core and
carrier engine of creative effort by numerous researchers (Sternberg, 1988). Even if there are
plenty of approach to explain the complicated structure of the creativity term that compound
of many factors, creative cognition that focuses on the underlying structure and scientific
process is the most well accepted term. Creative cognition approach aims to improve the
creative process percept by the means of methods and cognitive science and reach extensive,
concrete information about its formation and development by analyzing creativity in the
process (Finke, Smith, and Ward, 1992). These studies, which can be described as finding out
extraordinary and useful products by means of performing basic cognition process to
available information, focuses on combining different terms on common works (Ward, 2007).
Creative cognition oriented studies in education shows that the term is not an innate quality
and it is possible to improve creative cognition features with a suitable education in a suitable
environment (Emir, Ate, Aydn, Bahar, Durmu, Polat & Yaman, 2004). Snmez (1993),
thinks that every person without genetic problem, carries creative cognition features and it is
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possible to improve these features by education. Sak (2014), asserts creative persons
imagination and original, extraordinary, logical and critical thinking skills differentiate and
make them specific in terms of cognition. The current studys aim is to look for the relation
between problem solving and creative cognition.
Method
Participants
The sample of this study is made up of 241 Gifted-Talented students. 119 of them were
female, 122 were male.
Instruments
Problem Solving Style Questionnaire; The results of confirmatory factor analysis
demonstrated that the 14 items loaded on two factors and the two-dimensional model was
well fit (x=146.40, df= 76, RMSEA=.06, NFI=.92, NNFI=.96, AGFI=.89, CFI=.96, IFI=.96,
and SRMR=.057). The internal consistency coefficients was .78 for the overall scale. Overall
findings demonstrated that this scale is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring GiftedTalented students disposition to problem solving process.
Creative Cognition Scale:
It is seen that reliability level of the test, which was found 71 for high school sample, is
enough as a result of internal consistency analyses. The results of item discrimination and
confirmatory factor analysis showed that original one factor structure of the scale is
appropriate for Turkish sample. (x2= 19.15, sd= 6, RMSEA= 0.096, NFI= .92, NNFI=.91,
CFI= .94, IFI= .95, SRMR= .09). It is thought that this scale is a valid and reliable instrument
that can be used to evaluate creative cognition process for Turkish sample group in giftedtalented students.
Procedure
While selecting participants, convenience sampling was used. Participants are selected in
terms of their conveniency and accessibility by researchers in convenience sampling so it is a
non-probability sampling technique. Convenience sampling technique reduces the external
validity so it is not possible all the while to generalize the results of the study to the whole
population. Students do not introduce themselves while completing the scales.
Results
Correlation analysis in Table 1 showed that two-dimensions of prolem solving predicted
positively creative cognition. Concreteness related positively (r=.32), and reflection related
positively (r=.18) to creative cognition.
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics and Inter-Correlations of the Variables
Creative
Variables
Concreteness Reflection
Cognition
Creative Cognition 1
Concreteness
.32**
1
Reflection
.18**
.47**
1
Mean
20.7
34.0
33.8
SD
3.8
5.6
6.4
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Conclusion
The aim of the current study was to detect the relationship between problem solving
and creative cognition. According to the results there is a positive relation between
concreteness (r=.32), and reflection is related to creative cognition. Besides, problem solving
is an important determinant of creative cognition.
The positive correlation between creative cognition and problem solving isnot in line
with the previous studies.
Dealing with this perception, findings including educational studies about creative
cognition and problem solving of gifted-talented students were investigated.
Threlfall and Hargreaves (2008)investigated the problem solving methods of
mathematically gifted and older average attaining students with the special questions that
written for mathematically gifted 9 years old as part of the World Class Tests Project. As a
result of this study, many of the mathematically gifted children give similar responses and
they seem approximately the same in their problem solving approaches as students of average
ability. Another research read up on by Kuo, Maker, Su and Hu (2010) The Enrichment
Program for Cultivating Problem Solving Abilities and Multiple Intelligences for Gifted
Preschoolers (PSMIGP program) is applied to young gifted children in Taiwan in 3 years.
They get the conclusion that the children whether gifted or not cannot get the pleasure of
making progress unless they do not find and develop their potentials.
Besides, alkan and Yenilmez (2011) detected a positively meaningful but poor
relation between creative thinking level and visual spatial intelligence, musical-rhythmic
intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, interpersonal-social intelligence and
intrapersonal intelligence in the study investigating the relationship between multiple
intelligence zones and creative thinking level of secondary school students.
There are some limitations of this research and it is very crucial to explain them. First
of all, this study proposes a remarkable relationship between creative cognition and problem
solving so findings are illustrative. Hence, it is need to be tested other samples in order to
take the findings as definite. Secondly, the findings are not generalizable since the study
involves only a sample from gifted-talented students. Therefore, the variables of this research
is supposed to be investigated. If ddifferent demographic variables like gender, age, ethnicity,
and socio-economic status are taken into consideration in future studies on the link between
creative cognition and problem solving, findings would be more generalizable..
References
[1] Andre, T. (1986). Problem solving and education. In G. D. Phye and T. Andre (Eds.),
Cognitive classroom learning: Understanding, thinking, and problem solving (pp.
169-204). San Diego, CA: Academic Press
[2] Beetlestone, F.(1998).Creative Children, Imaginative Teaching. Philadelphia: Open
University Press.
[3] Bingham, A. (1958). Improving Childrens Facility in Problem Solving (A.F.
Oguzkan, Trans.). New York, NY: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College,
Columbia University.
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[4] Craft, A. (2003). Creative thinking in the early years of education. Early Years, 23(2),
143 54.
[5] Document Reproduction Service NO. ED 235 923.
[6] Duff, A. (2004). A note on the problem solving style questionnaire: An alternative to
Kolbs learning style inventory. Educational Psychology, 24:5, 699-709
[7] Duff, A., & Duffy, T. (2002) Psychometric properties of Honey and Mumfords
Learning Style Questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 33, 147-163
[8] Emir, S., Ate, S., Aydn, F., Bahar, M., Durmu, S., Polat, M. & Yaman, H. (2004).
retmen adaylarnn yaratclk dzeyleri. Abant zzet Baysal niversitesi Sosyal
Bilimler Enstits Dergisi, 2 (9), 105116.
[9] Finke, R.A., Smith, S.M. & Ward, TB. (1992). Creative cognition: Theory, research
and applications. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
[10]
[11]
(ERIC
[12]
48(4) , 63-85
[13]
Kuo, C.C. , Maker, J, Su, F. L. , Hu, C. Identifying young gifted children and
cultivating problem solving abilities and multiple intelligences. Elsevier, 20, 365-379
[15]
Theory and data. In S. M. Smith, T.B. Ward, & R.A. Finke (Eds.) The creative
cognitionapproach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[16]
Problem Solving and Thinking (Vol. 1). Albany, NY: State University of New York.
[17]
[18]
Freeman
[19]
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[20]
5 (1), 65-72.
[21]
115-133
[25]
[28]
ratrma.
Yaynlanmam doktora tezi. Gebze leri Teknoloji Enstits Sosyal Bilimler E
nstits.
[29]
mathematically gifted and older average-attaining students. High Ability Studies, 19,
83-98
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[35]
Webb, J.T., & Kleine, P.A. (1993). Assessing gifted and talented children. In
J. Culbertson and D. Willis (Eds.), Testing young children (pp. 383-407). Austin, TX:
PRO-ED.
[37]
University Press.
[38]
[39]
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Part 1: The questionnaire about learning management with ICT. There are 14 question
items in 5 levels of rating scale. The weighted score is counted from 1 score which means the
opinion is at the little level or strongly disagree, to 5 scores which mean the opinion is at the
much level or strongly agree.
Part 2: The questionnaire about using ICT for learning. There are 18 question items in
8 levels of rating scale. The weighted score is counted from 0 score which means the
performance is never done per week, 1 score which means the performance is at one time per
week, to 7 scores which means the performance is every day.
Part 3: The structured questionnaire about knowledge about using ICT. There are 3
aspects:1) using programs for communication, 2) using computer programs, and 3) searching
information and using databases, included 17 question items in 5 levels of rating scale. The
weighted score is counted from 0 - 4 score which means the knowledge is at the 0 (minimum
score) to 4 (maximum score).
Content validity of the questionnaire was checked. There were studying of theories
and related research studies, specifying the questionnaire framework and the operational
definition, drafting questions according to the operational definition to cover all elements,
having working group with 3 experts to consider the improvement and selection of the items
and piloting with 90 undergraduate Silpakorn University students (these students were not
the sample group) to test the use of language, clarity of items, and the possible answers. Then
the reliability was analyzed by Alphas Cronbach coefficient, the result was between .891 and
.905. To test power of discrimination, t-test was used. The result of each item was statistical
significance with the level of 0.5. This showed that the research instrument reached the
standard criteria.
Sample procedures
The target population participated in the research study was undergraduate students in
public universities in Thailand, in the academic year 2013. The subjects were 27,395 students
who were in the fields of science-technology (Office of the Higher Education commission,
2013). From this population, a sample was selected using a multi-stage sampling method
from 5 regions; center of Thailand (Bangkok), South of Thailand, North of Thailand,
Northeast of Thailand, and East of Thailand.
Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, Tatham (2006) recommended a sufficient sample size
derived from the entirety of usable questionnaire. They introduced that the researcher would
not factor analyze a sample of fewer than 50 observations, and preferably the sample size
should be 100 or larger, and large sample size for structural equation modeling (SEM)
technique. Based on the previous review about sample size, found that sample size of 100 as
being poor, 200 as fair, 300 as good quality, 500 as great and 1,000 as outstanding for
conducting studies. In sum, it can be concluded that a sample size of 500 cases should be
appropriate for the study. Intentionally, we used data from 100 observations for seeking
answers of the first research objective, and another data from 100 observations used for
seeking answers of the second research objective.
Data analysis
In this study exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and structural equation modeling
(SEM) were applied in the current study to understand in accordance with research
objectives.
4. Results
4.1 results of the first research objective: To examine the key aspects learning
management with ICT and using ICT of undergraduate students.
Factor Analysis with exploratory used for the objective. Exploratory factor analysis
(EFA) with varimax rotation was employed to survey data to identify the dimensions of key
constructs of the conceptual model. The important assumptions of factor analysis were
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conducted by the Bartlett test of sphericity and the measure of sampling adequacy and the
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) overall measure of sampling adequacy. Items with factor
loadings of 0.55 or higher were considered as acceptable variables to measure constructs
(Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, Tatham, 2006). The factors with Eigenvalues greater than 1.0
were considered significant.
Learning management with ICT
Table 1: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) of undergraduate students learning
management with ICT in the science-technology field
Factor loadings
Dimensions of learning management with ICT
I.R.
I.S.
R.A.
The instructor has enthusiasm through teaching by using ICT
.809
equipment for the instruction.
The instructor stimulates and motivates the students to use ICT
.717
equipment for their learning.
The instructor efficiently manages the instruction with ICT
.711
equipment.
The students are persuaded to ask the questions/receive the
.709
answers through using ICT equipment.
The instructor has enthusiasm to instruct with ICT equipment.
.705
The university supports the instructor to instruct using ICT
equipment for instruction.
The university enhances the students to use ICT for learning.
.764
.725
.694
.763
.676
.798
.785
.763
.584
2.532
18.08
0.796
The KMO score of sampling adequacy was reported on 0.822 while the Barlett test of
sphericity had a value of 797.967, df of 120 (p value = 0.00). Both examinations indicated
that factor analysis was suitable for this study. This result showed that the data matrix was
appropriate to have factor analysis performed on it. By doing so, this method provides an
enhanced understanding of key subordinate dimensions toward learning management with
ICT that may more accurately describe the interdependency of the 16 items used to measure
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.798
.667
.572
.754
.647
.602
.828
.763
.685
.547
.558
.804
.525
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.724
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.626
.562
eigenvalue
4.111 2.706 2.447 2.079
% of variance explained (total = 63.017%)
22.84 15.03 13.59 11.55
Reliability Cronbachs Alpha
0.855 0.807 0.781 0.753
KMO = 0.771 , Barlett test of sphericity = 906.118, df = 153, p value = 0.000
T.C. = Data Transfer and Communication, S.D. = Search and Download, PR = Presentation,
CH. = Chat for study
The KMO score of sampling adequacy was reported on 0.771 while the Barlett test of
sphericity had a value of 906.118, df of 153 (p value = 0.00). Both examinations indicated
that factor analysis was suitable for this study. This result showed that the data matrix was
appropriate to have factor analysis performed on it. By doing so, this method provides an
enhanced understanding of key subordinate dimensions toward using ICT for Learning that
may more accurately describe the interdependency of the 18 items used to measure using ICT
for Learning of undergraduate students in the fields of science-technology. Based on the
scores of loadings of the factors, those factors derived are labeled as (1) data transfer and
communication (eigenvalue =4.111, explained variance =22.84%), (2) search and download
(eigenvalue =2.706, explained variance =15.03%), (3) presentation (eigenvalue =2.447,
explained variance =13.59%), and (4) chat for study (eigenvalue =2.079, explained variance
=11.55%). Those four factors with eigenvalues above one were extracted explaining 63.017%
of the overall variance associated with using ICT for Learning. In addition, the present study
employed a reliability analysis to determine the reliability and consistency of the
measurement scales used in this study. Cronbach's alpha was employed to assess the
reliability of the measurement scale of the study. Analysis findings indicated that the
Cronbachs alpha values for the various dimensions were as follows: 0.855 for data transfer
and communication aspect of using ICT for Learning; 0.807 for search and download aspect
of using ICT for Learning; 0.781 for presentation of using ICT for Learning; and 0.753 for
chat for study aspect of using ICT for Learning. All the dimensions proposed in this study
reached appropriate reliability levels (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). As illustrated in Table
2.
4.2 results of the second research objective: To study the influences of learning
management with ICT and using ICT on knowledge about using ICT of undergraduate
students.
In this study, the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was applied to study
the influences of learning management with ICT and using ICT on knowledge about using
ICT of undergraduate students.
The measurement model was drawn in Figure 1 and was used to estimate the
reliability and validity. The hypothetical latent variables in the model were estimated by three
or more observed variables. The results revealed that the measurement model fitted the
overall sample well. The goodness-of-fit indices were: GFI = .969; CFI = .980; TLI = .956;
and RMSEA = .016. All standardized factor loadings in the measurement model showed in
the Fig. 1 were statically significant at 0.05 level. The composite reliabilities were all greater
than .70 (learning management with ICT = .86; using ICT for learning =.88; and knowledge
about using ICT = .82). The average variances extracted were also greater than .50 (learning
management with ICT = .54; using ICT for learning =.52; and knowledge about using ICT =
.51). The findings indicated that the CFA model in this study were reliable and valid.
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In the hypothesized model as Fig. 2, learning management with ICT was the one
independent latent variable which had direct effects on student knowledge about using ICT.
In addition, previous studies have suggested that learning management with ICT may be
indirectly related to knowledge about using ICT through its effect on using ICT.
To carry out the one group analysis, the accepted structural model for relations of the
latent variables should be demonstrated. The goodness-of-fit indices, similar loadings, and
explained variances indicated that the hypothesized model may be tenable and fitted with
empirical data. The hypothesized model was identified and adequately fit the data. The
goodness-of-fit indices for model were: GFI = .976; CFI = .995; TLI = .990; and RMSEA =
.029. All the coefficients showed in Fig. 2 are statistically significant (p<.05). In the model
accounted for approximately 65.1 % (R2 = .651) of the variance in knowledge about using
ICT.
.253
Instructor roles
.281
Institute support
.749*
.719*
Learning
manageme
nt with ICT
.743*
.257
Readiness &
Approachability
.284
.716*
.309
.692*
.161*
.710*
Presentation
.290
Using ICT
for learning
.226*
.761*
Search and
download
.239
.297*
.115
Computer
programs
.563
Programs for
communication
.317
.885*
Knowledge
about using
ICT
.537*
.683*
.427
.139
.566
.593* .823*
.241
Presentation
.454*
Search and
download
.632*
Institute support
.685*
Learning
manageme
nt with ICT
.585*
.324*
Knowledge
about using
ICT
R2 = .651
Readiness &
Approachability
96
Computer
programs
.488
Programs for
communication
.369
Searching and
using databases
.374
.307*
.760*
.721*
.264
.404
Using ICT
for learning
Instructor roles
.538*
.302
.625*
.630*
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INTRODUCTION
A child with impaired vision who does not have any further impairments, who is
supported and well nourished by his family and is assisted to counteract for his physical
impairment may able to grow as other normal children do. Several people have diverse views
on physical impairment and for this study visual deficiency (Korir, 2015).
All children must have education, as it promotes economic growth and therefore
people are able to live under better and comfortable living conditions,
individual parts in the state progress at large. Pakistan is an emerging nation, having weak
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economy; lacking governmental strength in the state. (Ahmad, Rehman, Ali, Khan, & Khan,
2014). Moreover, the state is in the control of increasing governmental disorder, increasing
extremism, persistent religious aggression, social uncertainty, and financial collapse. All such
evils are in every respect the outgrowth of a feeble, contradictory and incohesive learning
structure. At the moment Pakistan is confronted with several challenges, for example security
crisis, poverty, sectarianism and extremism. The causes of these evils are the absence of
acceptance, the absence of universal perception and illiteracy supported by an unproductive
learning method (Ahmad, Rehman, Ali, Khan, & Khan, 2014).
The dynamic part of education has been completely abandoned in Pakistan, which is
now occurring as a chaotic and disordered growth in all arenas of life. In the educational
system, the quality of education has been considered as a step child, which has entirely
debilitated the condition of the educational structure (Bowl, 2012). The schooling system,
therefore, has miscarried to rear the state economically, administratively and publicly. After
the passing of more than half a century and the implementation of over 25 vague educational
strategies, still the educational practice has severely flopped to take the country out of the
growing financial, administrative and societal dilemma (Ahmad, Rehman, Ali, Khan, &
Khan, 2014). However, no considerable and revolutionary effort has been made as yet
showing an absolute difference between oratory, policy design and service application.
Absence of defined law defending the civil rights of special needs youngsters to obtain
admission into conventional schools, additionally worsens the dilemma (Ahmad, Rehman,
Ali, Khan, & Khan, 2014). In spite of a few dotted models of finely performing schools in
Pakistan, the concept is rather experimental and still in its primary phases and the exclusive
consultants of the learning, inclusion seem to be undertaken by the private schools and NGOs
(Mujahid-Mukhtar, 2012).
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The paper also involves the integration of the Expanded Core Program concept which
focuses the understanding and abilities required by learners having a visual impairment
because of their exclusive infirmity and particular demands. The different capacities
embraced in the expanded core program deliver teachers with a method of focusing the
learners demands with visual deficiencies along with those individuals having other
infirmities. The learning needs of particular populace are not constantly satisfied as the
absence of vision is thought as "negligible", particularly when the youngster is harshly
influenced by physical and perceptive disabilities.
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under 15 years and over 12 million youngsters between 5 to 15 years; that are visually
impaired because of uncorrected refractive errors; 87% of the population around the world
are visually impaired and exist in the emerging states (Awan, Mahar, & Memon, 2015).
As stated in the Pakistan National Impaired Vision Review (Awan, Mahar, & Memon,
2015), the assessed figure of sightless people in 2003 was 1.25 million. The occurrence of
impaired vision among people was 0.9%. The gender and age, outlined the rate of impaired
vision, 2.7%., in grownups was 30 years and more. The assessed figures of individuals with
impaired vision are of age 30 and more. The data stated below includes the count of people
with impaired vision in all provinces of Pakistan.
Provincial dissemination of assessed figure of Pakistani adults with impaired vision
Province
Punjab
769,000
NWFP
114,000
Sindh
200.000
Balochistan
53,000
Total
1,140,000
Source: Postgraduate Institute of Ophthalmology, Karachi (Awan, Mahar, & Memon, 2015)
LITERATURE REVIEW
Stated by the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs
Education, every child has a vital right to obtain education and must be delivered the
chance to attain and continue a suitable level of learning those with special needs must
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have admission to regular schools, which should accommodate them within child centered
pedagogy capable of meeting these needs (Korir, 2015). The World Health Organization
states that the assessed sum of individuals is 285 million, suffering from blindness around the
globe, including an assessed number of 19 million youngsters under the 15 years of age.
These children with Visual Impairment encounter obstacles with educational and social
undertakings at their academic institute for instance, unreachability to instructive resources
and narrow social contact (World Health Organization, 2016).
The visual deficiencies, comprising full and fractional visual deficiency, are titled as
low occurrence debilities, the incidence of the infirmity is lesser in the school-age people. As
a low rate infirmity group, it is occasional that conventional community schools instruct
learners with visual deficiencies (Byrne, 2014). Since the rate of visual deficiency is small
matched to other debility kinds, for example, extreme rate infirmities, there is a scarcity of
study regarding this kind of learners who are appearing in the community educational
institutes (Schade & Larwin, 2015). The study has established that youngsters with visual
deficiencies feel contemptible as a result of their physical infirmity, absence of social
approval and underachievement in academics (Khurshid & Najeeb, 2012).
These blind individuals encounter social and psychological results of impaired vision.
Sightless people face social omission and are abandoned from the choice making practice. It
is supposed that the adverse leading views about impaired vision are the source of this public
elimination (Awan, Mahar, & Memon, 2015). Another element that impacts a sightless
persons public status is the capacity to add to domestic earnings. Visually restricted jobless
individuals experience more difficulty in being recognized in the native public. Furthermore,
absence of care from government and community organizations deters the delivery of a
favorable atmosphere for blind individuals to turn out to be a creative feature of the social
order (Awan, Mahar, & Memon, 2015). Undoubtedly visually reduced learners are not
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merely a part of the public, but also have equal rights to receive same quality education. They
want recognition at several levels involving family, public, and academic organizations, so
they might able to grow in a positive and effective character with the promise of a prosperous
future (Khurshid & Najeeb, 2012).
Latest analyses in Iran demonstrate that visual deficiency disturbs eminence of life of
individuals and diminishes their interactive abilities. For the past decade, the surveys and
examination, in the domain of vision and wellbeing emphasized the significance of social
associations which are not well-built in a blind individual (Sarabandi & Kamali, 2012).
Coaching blind youngsters are far more significant in Pakistan as the education structure, the
culture, communal attitude, public activities and socioeconomic domestic circumstances do
not offer any care for such incapacity (Ahmed, Khan, & Nasem, 2011).
In Pakistan, the course of action has been engaged to make education inclusive for physically
impaired students at a law-making level. In this respect, the National Policy for Persons with
Disabilities 2000 and National Policy Education 1998 have intended strategies for delivery of
education for physically impaired students (National Report on the Development of
Education, 2008).
The Higher Education Commission has steadily stressed and developed strategies for
inclusive schooling at a higher level. The goal of these strategies is to certify that physically
impaired students are delivered nourishing and responsive atmosphere particularly at higher
levels. The share system is prepared in academia to certify contribution of physically
impaired learners in higher education. Yet, the 2% allocated spaces for incapacitated learners
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is not a clear method and implicates challenges for these learners while taking admission and
also in later phases enhancing the dropout numbers. Similarly the share system mainly under
signified the huge amount of impaired learners. Furthermore, the process of enrollment is not
clear and fair. Consequently, despite such efforts at the policy level the problems of disabled
remain un-addressed since such policies remain on papers (Ali & Hameed, 2015).
Textbook Evaluation
The assessment, of course book has always been the fundamental part of instructive study,
which distributes course books into two key groups. Primarily, academic quality that contains
a summary of specific ideas with a precise order and degree. It also contributes to the
interaction, visuals, ideas vs. written meanings, inherent and precise communications and
their results. The study states that the approaches of textbook exploration could not appear
with extraordinary deepness and lucidity, though numerous tools were established to examine
the subject, language and text (Ali & Hameed, 2015).
One of the primary obstructions that visually impaired learners face was stated to
retrieve and comprehension of the curriculum material. The respondents interpreted that the
curriculum material was generally in a print document which was tough for the blind to
recognize. Some learners (6/10) stated that they were not provided the soft copy or Braille of
the reading resources. These learners looked very disheartened that the academia were paying
no heed to this severe issue (Ali & Hameed, 2015). The extracts from the study underlines
that the learners had to take individual attempts to conquer matters connected to their
education. The young learners, informed that they implicated the practice of a scanner,
computer and additional softwares which assisted them to increase retrieval of the class
lesson sources.
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There are probabilities that course books weaken the hard work of instructors and it
obstructs the effortless learning progression, however, it does not signify that course books
are an unsuccessful implement of the learning procedure. Course books can be planned
adhering to the instructor and the aptitude of the learner for easy perception. Additionally, the
usefulness of course books do not completely throw away the class material and other
resources, but to indicate that this is negative if notes substitute course books. More resources
and time is exhausted in developing countries, stressing on arrangement than the tangible
material of course books. Furthermore, the teaching methods lack the explanation of
concepts, insignificant text used and learners are demanded to learn the bookish text by heart,
which restrict the skill to learn and exercise particular perceptions. At this point, to develop,
course books in native languages be supported and reading habits may be upheld.
Researchers may perform to analyze and reshape the course book text, advance the learning
method and decrease cost (Praphamontripong & Prachayani, 2011). Formulation of course
books and their pattern must follow the conceptions and standards that would be presented
during the lesson; basically then the learning procedure can be beneficial.
The concern was not the mere inaccessibility of course sources, but the reluctance of
the involved individuals to assist the learners and to expedite them. Evidently such a
circumstance exposes the learner to annoyance and apprehension and unsurprisingly causes
inferior grades as they do not have adequate time to revise and get dissatisfied of the
dominant attitude.
Regardless of the element that Braille learning is significant to get work and full
involvement among the public, instructing visually weakened youngsters is not significant in
advancing republics involving Pakistan. In Pakistan, maximum institutes for visually
compromised are in an extremely meager condition, missing basic amenities. The figure of
learning organizations for visually compromised individuals and skilled Braille instructors in
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progressing nations is quite unimportant. The majority of the devices obtainable for visually
compromised individuals is either difficult to function, or expensive. The mainstream
residing in progressing states is surviving under $1.25 daily, difficult for the family to teach
their visually compromised offspring. The designed system serves as Braille writing and
reading tutor, so visually impaired people can enhance their Braille writing and reading skills
without the assistance of a Braille teacher. However, the designed Braille device receives the
response through Braille control panel and creates the output in a dialog. This device also has
the competence to read out the written text. It is assumed that by employing the devised
Braille method in the institutes and households, the Braille learning rate can be amplified and
visually compromised individuals can work and can completely contribute in society (Khidri,
Memon, & Jameel, 2014).
Methodological Design
The procedure for this review will be a content material examination of the course
books, as it would as the basis of the entire study. It is a qualitative study of the course books
to examine whether the social standards are combined through the literature. The numerous
expertise has been provided by The Ministry of Education that are believed to incorporate the
syllabus. An entire competency has been offered to support the societal elements and
standards in addition in the syllabus. This analysis is essentially a relative content review of
the course books at a primary level concerning the existence of social ethics. It is to find
whether the at course books have been planned as per the requirements of the community
pertaining to social standards chiefly to the recommended criteria. It presents a review about
the comparative content study of the course books of 'English' Class I-V chosen by the
Federal Board and Punjab Textbook Board. This textbook has been authored by the Punjab
Textbook Board while the Oxford Press New Active English has been chosen by Federal
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Board for Islamabad Model Educational Institutes. The entire lesson will be an element of
study. The content, subject and closing of the lesson have been composed through the data
(Bano, Akhter, & Anjum, 2013).
Methods
The detailed interviews from visually impaired students both men and women, helped to
collect data for this study from three universities in Islamabad involving the Quaid-e-Azam
University, International Islamic University, and National University of Modern Languages.
The nominated participants were registered in numerous departments and in diverse
curriculums. The participants belonged to various economic and local backgrounds to
overcome the variety of issues encountered by learners with visual deficiency in inclusive
learning.
Participants
The amount of learners registered at tertiary level was fairly small, whereas the chosen and
accessed universities did not have an accurate record of the learners with infirmity. The
researchers often experience such issues in order to pull out a sample size. However, the
expected accessible students in the nominated universities were 30 visually compromised
learners. Ten learners out of these were nominated for this analysis, observing numerous
aspects, as well as the process of review, such as Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
(IPA) and the readiness of the contestants to contribute to the study. Out of selected students
six were day students and four were hostel residents (Ali & Hameed, 2015).
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Measures/procedures
The non-probability sampling approach was chosen because of the type of the analysis in this
research and for data gathering purposive sampling method was used, since it is a time saving
and economical procedure. Within the model of purposive random sampling, to classify
more participants in the universities, a snowball sampling technique was engaged. To gather
data, semi-structured interviews were applied one of the most adaptable data gathering
instrument (Palinkas, et al., 2015).
Data Collection
As the sample size was little and the type of the analysis preferred comprehensive and
thorough descriptive explanation of the instances; the IPA has proven to be the most suitable
technique of review. It supported a comprehensive analysis of the contributors lives and their
individual involvements concerning and varying with phenomenological source and society.
IPA approved to identify the perspectives of the participants as they comprehend and
construe it. This technique produced an extensive variety of reactions and agreed to
unforeseen subjects because of its adaptability (Atkinson & Hutchinson, 2013). It also
allowed surveying the involvements of the contributors as supposed and known by them.
Through the study development endeavors were made to fathom the contributors' familiarities
in respect to the background where they lived (Ali & Hameed, 2015).
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as an indicator. There are 69 lessons incorporated into the Punjab Textbook Board, whereas
63 lessons were included in the Oxford University Press from class I to class V.
However, the main concerns met by the participants were associated with the process
of admission, lesson sources, assessments, housing, movement and the problem of handling
the disrespect from others through their study course which leave them to feel disregarded.
Some features of their lives were underlines during the interviews which the learners
mentioned as their asset. For instance, they valued to be part of the community units and
exalted in being capable to maintain powerful links, particularly when the common
awareness about individuals with disabilities was not very optimistic (Ali & Hameed, 2015).
Discussion
The learners with deficiencies, separated from the conventional and they are asked to
study in special need organizations. Research demonstrates that the approach of the visually
compromised to regular colleges often ostracizes the learners rather than enabling them.
Students with deficiencies do not feel comfortable to participate in the supposed inclusive
schooling systems as the numerous problems and hostile atmosphere usually leaves them
unwilling to carry on their education. In western countries, this was chiefly the instance
where deficient learners earlier separated in special institutes were then, combined with their
fellows in normal schools (Polat, 2011).
The review exemplified that learners with infirmity have admission to tertiary level
education in Pakistan via the open merit and share system. This specifies that actions are
being taken to instill inclusive education at the tertiary level. Besides discussions of inclusion
it is essential to certify fairness and equivalence at tertiary level and which must be done. As
the model size of this analysis was restricted, so this cannot be generalized to a wider student
population. Yet, the outcomes of the report can be exploited as a preliminary point to devise
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significant strategies concerning impaired learners. For instance, it is vital that academia must
have printed legal approaches for learners with debilities that would be thoughtful to the
students with the special needs. The teachers should be skilled to manage the requirements of
learners with debility and at the admission time special care should be delivered to these
learners to alleviate and simplify the admission procedure. The present facilities must be
revised to intensify the prospect for impaired learners to gain higher education.
Conclusion
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to confirm that the visually impaired are provided an approach to elementary civil rights to
enjoy their lives with self-respect and to be dynamic supporters of society and their families.
References
Ahmad, I., Rehman, K. U., Ali, A., Khan, I., & Khan, F. A. (2014). Critical Analysis of the
Problems of Education in Pakistan: Possible Solutions. International Journal of
Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE), 3(2), 79-84.
Ali, R., & Hameed, H. (2015, January-June). Dealing with Visual Impairment: Experiences
of Youth in Tertiary Education. Social Sciences Review: Bi-annual Research Journal,
3(1).
Atkinson, K. & Hutchins, J. O. (2013). Transition from higher education to National Health
Service for Visually impaired physiotherapist: An interpretative phenomenological
exploration. British Journal of Visual Impairment, 31, 32-46.
Awan, Z. H., Mahar, P., & Memon, M. S. (2015, January - June). Blindness and Poverty.
Social Sciences Review: Bi-annual Research Journal, 3(1).
Bano, H., Akhter, N., & Anjum, N. (2013). Analysis of Educational Facilities and
Opportunities for Students with Special Needs at University of the Punjab. Journal of
Educational Research, 16(1), 1-62.
Bowl, M. (2012). Post-compulsory higher education and training. (J. Arthur, & A. Peterson,
Eds.) London, United Kingdom: Routledge.
Byrne, B. (2014). Getting In and Getting On? The Experiences of Young People with Visual
Impairments and Hearing Impairments in Third-Level education. International
Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 61(2), 119-133.
Khidri, S. A., Memon, S. H., & Jameel, A. (2014, June-July). Blind Aid: A Self-Learning
Braille System for Visually Impaired. International Journal of Engineering Research
and General Science, 2(4).
Khurshid, F., & Najeeb, F. (2012). Perceived Social Acceptance Among Visually Impaired
Teenagers. Pakistan Journal of Education, 29(1&2), 1-11.
Korir, B. C. (2015). The Perception of Students and Teachers on the Integration Programme
of Students with Visual Impairment in Secondary Schools: A Case of Ainamoi Sub
County, Kericho County, Kenya. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(12).
Malik, S. (2015). Orientation and mobility training in special education curriculum on the
social adjustment problems of visually impaired children in family. Prague, Malaysia.
Mujahid-Mukhtar, E. (2012). Situation Analysis Of The Education Sector. Pakistan.
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Palinkas, L. A., Horwitz, S. M., Green, C. A., Wisdom, J. P., Duan, N., & Hoagwood, K.
(2015). Purposeful Sampling for Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis in Mixed
Method Implementation Research. Springer, 42(5), 533-44.
Polat, F. (2011). Inclusion in education: A step towards social justice. International Journal
of Educational Development, 31, 50-58.
Praphamontripong & Prachayani. (2011). Evaluating efficient textbooks for lower income
countries.
Sarabandi, A., & Kamali, M. (2012). The relationship between visual problem and quality of
life among blind people. Journal of Research in Rehabilitation Sciences, 8(6), 10151023.
Schade, B., & Larwin, K. H. (2015, September). The Impact of Visual Impairment on
Perceived School Climate. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in
Education (IJERE), 4(3), 101-105 .
World Health Organization. (2016). Global data on visual impairment. Retrieved from World
Health Organization: http://www.who.int/blindness/publications/globaldata/en/
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Abstract
Following the revolutionary trend of educational technology, the utilization of e-learning
instruction strategies has steadily heightened in higher institutions. However, traditionally,
little technology, other than the use of PowerPoint to illustrate the drawings, is being used in
the delivery of construction measurement courses. Students perceptions on the use of elearning, via instruction videos, in delivering measurement course, are examined in this
paper. Students opinions regarding the usefulness, benefits, and students satisfaction with elearning approach were gathered with the aid of questionnaire survey in a university in Hong
Kong. The results of statistical analysis show that students prefer blended learning i.e.
combination of e-learning and traditional face-to-face method at 41% and 59% respectively.
With regard to their satisfaction, the students were satisfied with design and content of the
instruction videos. Students also considered e-learning useful because it allows them to have
self-control concerning pace, time and location for learning. The results of the analysis show
that blended learning has more significant benefits delivering measurement course. The
results of this study should assist educators in structuring blended learning approach.
Introduction
Advancement in information and communication technology has generated significant
transformation to e- learning. The transformation is enhanced by the introduction of technical
support in form of learning management systems (such as Blackboard, Sakai, Moodle, Angel,
and Desire2Learn etc.), which have contributed to effective learning and teaching in higher
education institutions (Alexander and Golja, 2007; Pia, 2012). E-learning offers tremendous
benefits (Liaw et al., 2007; Rinaldi, 2013) and the adoption of e-learning has been discussed
in previous studies (Ituma, 2011; Paechter et al., 2010).
However, due to the challenges inherent in delivering an interactive construction
measurement course (Rashid, 2005), limited number of technology features are being used in
the delivery of measurement module (Lee, 2013). Even though e-learning application at
universities has become very popular, little is known about students perceptions regarding elearning approach in construction measurement course. Thus, the aim of our study is to obtain
a general view about students specific perceptions of video-based e-learning contents in
relation to teaching and learning construction measurement course prior to uploading the
video onto the Blackboard System. By means of descriptive analyses, we examined the
usefulness, students satisfaction and benefits of e-learning, as well as students preferred
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Related work
Educationalists and researchers maintain argument for updated learning and the
increased use of e-learning that can enhance students preparedness for a dynamic and
complex world. A good number of education institutions have adopted e-learning (Pia,
2012), using different forms of strategies and processes (McCombs and Vakili, 2005). Elearning could take the form of online/distance learning or the use of computer-aided
approach for teaching and learning. Technological advancement has brought about
evolvement of technical facilities such as digital video, which has made learning more
interactive. Video had long been encouraged as powerful adjunct to classroom instruction
(Marchionini, 2003). Past study revealed that video-based instruction strategy support the
same level of teaching and learning effectiveness as face-to-face instruction (Zhang et al.,
2006).
The traditional method of teaching construction measurement course involving the
lecturer trying to: expound on the construction technology on a drawing; explain the
prescriptive set of rules in the standard method of measurement (SMM) and; show students
the taking-off process to quantifying construction work, with little or no technology involved,
may not fully support students learning in this era (Lee, 2013). Previous researchers have
questioned the efficacy of traditional teaching approach (Hake, 1998; Phillips, 2005).
Besides, teaching construction measurement is a challenge because it requires students
understanding of construction technology, drawings and measurement rules, without these,
students may not be able to measure effectively Hodgson (Hodgson et al., 2010). Therefore,
instructors need to deliver both the technical knowledge and measurement process at the
same time to facilitate students skills acquisition to measure and describe construction
works. The use of instructional video becomes important to enhance visualization of drawing
and construction technology.
Researches on video-supported e-learning have shown that both educators and students
benefit tremendously from instructional video (Marchionini, 2003; Zhang et al., 2006). Some
of the benefits include: flexibility in time and location; cost effectiveness; fosters self-paced
learning; and better and clearer illustration of points. Some researchers advocated for a
mixture of face-to-face and e-learning approach, a term commonly refer to as blended
learning or mixed mode or flexible learning (Bates and Planning, 2001; Hadjerrouit, 2008)
based on the argument that e-learning alone cannot satisfy diverse learning need of students.
However, understanding students perception about a particular e-learning facility enhances
the creation of appropriate e-learning environments for teaching and learning. Liaw (2008)
posited that the perceived satisfaction and perceived usefulness concerning e-learning
approach will positively affect learners behavioural intention of e-learning usage.
Continuous use of technology-based e-learning depends on students initial perceived
satisfaction (Sun et al., 2008). Hence, the need to assess students perceived usefulness and
satisfaction as well as benefit derived from e-learning approach.
Methodology
The participants of this study consisted of third-year undergraduate students enrolled on
construction measurement and course at a university in Hong Kong. Prior to data collection
to obtain feedback, the students were engaged in three different settings including: traditional
face-to-face classroom setting only; the use of software for measuring building components
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such (BIM) only; and the use of instructional video only. This paper focuses on the
assessment of video-based e-learning contents which is identical to the face-to-face lectures.
Students were used because they are the best source of feedback, and they are the ones who
will benefit the most from effective teaching methods. This kind of feedback can be acquired
via questionnaire or interviews. However, questionnaire was used in this study for the
purpose of anonymity such that students can freely express their opinions without prejudice.
The questionnaire consisted of both open-ended questions for clarification as well as closedended questions structured in five-point Likert-type scales.
The questionnaires were administered to all the students that attended the final lecture
of the 2015/2016 session and were collected in class. Past studies revealed that single session
lecture is more effective in collecting feedback data regarding computer-aided learning
(Reeves, 1993; Zhang et al., 2006). Respondents were properly guided on how to complete
the questionnaires accurately. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social
Science (SPSS) software 21. This involved calculation of frequency distribution, mean scores
and spearman correlation. The frequency distribution was used to ascertain the gender,
students prior e-learning experience and other related information. Mean score analysis was
used to rank variables associated with Likert scale entry.
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provide them with a better idea of how the buildings systems fit together as a whole, in
coherent with Hodgson et al. (2010).
Table 2: Ranking of perceived usefulness of demonstrated e-learning instructional video
Usefulness of instructional video
Mean
Std.
Ranking
Deviation
The video is in a clear and understandable manner
4.29
0.629
1
The content of the video is well-designed and well-structured 4.17
0.641
2
The demonstrated e-learning video facilitates the achievement
of learning outcomes of BRE345 (i.e. developing students
4.09
0.786
3
measurement technique)
I recommend the re-use of the demonstration video for elearning resources in future BRE345 subject, and/or similar
4.04
0.824
4
subject in other course
The perceived level of satisfaction with the instructional video addressed the extent to
which the students are pleased with the use of the video for e-learning purpose. Table 3
shows the perceived satisfaction of students with e-learning video. The highest ranked
variable is concerning students learning pace. Arguably, students do not learn at the same
pace and it might be difficult for educators or instructors to satisfy individual pace. With the
aid of instructional video, learners can easily control learning pace, and students will have a
sense of control over their learning process (Hadjerrouit, 2008). The students were also very
satisfied with the instructional video in that it allows flexibility in terms where and when to
learn which can improve the understanding of the subject matter. Generally, students perceive
e-learning as an approach which allowed them to study at their own pace, in their own time
and encourage them to become more motivated, knowledgeable and skillful their learning
(Poon, 2012).
Table 3: Ranking of level of satisfaction with e-learning
Level of satisfaction with e-learning
Mean
Std.
Ranking
Deviation
It allows me to decide on the pace of learning
4.28
0.704
1
It allows me to decide when and where to learn the subject
4.21
0.805
2
materials
The e-learning video could help me develop a wide range of
3.99
0.739
3
skills and necessary knowledge of building measurement
The e-learning video could make me become more
3.76
0.862
4
motivated and more involved in the learning process
Table 4 presents the results of the perceived benefits of e-learning based on students
opinions. The topmost ranked benefit is convenience of not having to come to campus as
often. A plausible explanation for this highest ranking is that, it frees up students time of
preparing for lecture (including travelling time) and lecture period, which could be
judiciously used for more concentration on the subject or for another purpose. Although this
could be a good advantage for industrious students, it may negatively affect the learning of
lazy ones. The students also felt that the e-learning approach helps their understanding of
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measurement concept and makes the concept more interesting. It can be inferred from the
results that students would greatly benefit from the use of instructional video e-learning
approach in future course delivery. Although this study is acknowledged to be those of a
small sample of students, the findings support our hopes and expectations, and encourage
further developments in this direction.
Table 4: Ranking of benefits of adopting e-learning approach
Benefits
Mean
Convenience of not having to come to campus as often
Enhance my understanding of measurement concept
Make the measurement concepts more interesting
Improve my QS professional competence
Opportunity to pursue the measurement technique in depth
4.13
3.99
3.86
3.75
3.70
Std.
Ranking
Deviation
0.772
1
0.721
2
0.919
3
0.881
4
0.880
5
The students were asked whether they would prefer e-learning to replace face-to-face
lecture and their responses were as follows: 18% wanted only e-learning; 16% wanted only
face to face lectures, 66% wanted mixture of e-learning and face-to-face. When asked to
indicate the preferred percentage for face-to-face and e-learning, the views were ambiguous.
Therefore, regarding this, average opinions of students were computed and the result shows
that students preferred 59% of the total lecture requirement to be delivered by face-to-face
approach while 41% should be done via e-learning approach. This reveals that the acquisition
of measurement skills in blended learning environments requires more of face-to-face lecture
than e-learning approach. This could mean that students prefer asking questions about the
instruction materials and getting answers immediately during face-to-face lecture instead of
sequentially going through an instructional video to find an answer in the case of e-learning
approach. This is consistent with a study by Hadjerrouit (2008) which compared blended
learning approach in informatics and mathematics education. Based on the comments
received via open-ended questions, majority of the students prefer blended learning because it
maintains good communication between lecturer and students, which coheres with findings
by Poon (2012).
Conclusion
This paper discusses the use of video-based e-learning as an approach to enhance
students learning experiences and engagement in construction measurement study. Students
perception of instruction video with regards to its usefulness, benefits and students
satisfaction were assessed. From the evaluations of students perceptions through survey
questionnaires, a number of key findings can be drawn. Firstly, video-based e-learning
approach is useful and beneficial for delivering construction measurement course. This
implies that a well-designed instruction video could be a key factor of success in e-learning
approach for the subject matter. Secondly, well-designed e-learning resources alone may not
provide sufficient information needed by the students to acquire necessary skills concerning
construction measurement. In other words, e-learning cannot fully replace face-to-face lecture
as human dialogue is required to help students with learning difficulties, explain and provide
answer to questions. Hence, blended learning is recommended for the delivery of
construction measurement course. Blended learning is particularly useful for construction
measurement education as it provides a useful platform for students-lecturer communication
and fast response to questions which is vital for this type of professional course.
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References
Alexander, S., & Golja, T. (2007). Using students' experiences to derive quality in an elearning system: An institution's perspective. Educational Technology & Society,
10(2), 17-33.
Bates, T., & Planning, I. I. f. E. (2001). National strategies for e-learning in post-secondary
education and training (Vol. 70): Unesco Paris.
Fielden, S. L., Davidson, M. J., Gale, A. W., & Davey, C. L. (2000). Women in construction:
the untapped resource. Construction Management & Economics, 18(1), 113-121.
Hadjerrouit, S. (2008). Evaluating the Pedagogical Value of Blended Learning in Informatics
and Mathematics Education: A Comparative Study. Paper presented at the
Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and
Telecommunications.
Hake, R. R. (1998). Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A six-thousandstudent survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. American
journal of Physics, 66(1), 64-74.
Hodgson, G., Sher, W., & Mak, M. (2010). An e-learning approach to quantity surveying
measurement. UK: Loughborough University Publications.
Ituma, A. (2011). An evaluation of students perceptions and engagement with e-learning
components in a campus based university. Active Learning in Higher Education,
12(1), 57-68.
Lee, C. (2013). An Interactive Approach to teaching Quantity Surveying. ICERI2013
Proceedings, 3862-3871.
Liaw, S.-S. (2008). Investigating students perceived satisfaction, behavioral intention, and
effectiveness of e-learning: A case study of the Blackboard system. Computers &
Education, 51(2), 864-873.
Liaw, S.-S., Huang, H.-M., & Chen, G.-D. (2007). An activity-theoretical approach to
investigate learners factors toward e-learning systems. Computers in Human
Behavior, 23(4), 1906-1920.
Marchionini, G. (2003). Video and learning redux: New capabilities for practical use.
EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY-SADDLE BROOK THEN ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS
NJ-, 43(2), 36-41.
McCombs, B., & Vakili, D. (2005). A learner-centered framework for e-learning. The
Teachers College Record, 107(8), 1582-1600.
Paechter, M., Maier, B., & Macher, D. (2010). Students expectations of, and experiences in
e-learning: Their relation to learning achievements and course satisfaction. Computers
& Education, 54(1), 222-229.
Phillips, R. (2005). Challenging the primacy of lectures: The dissonance between theory and
practice in university teaching. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice,
2(1), 2.
Pia, A. A. (2012). An overview of learning management systems. Virtual Learning
Environments: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications. USA: IGI Global,
33-51.
Poon, J. (2012). Use of blended learning to enhance the student learning experience and
engagement in property education. Property Management, 30(2), 129-156.
Rashid, S. F. H. a. K. A. (2005, 4-8 July 2005). Innovative Teaching Techniques In Quantity
Surveying Training And Education: Measurement studio For Building Quantities.
Paper presented at the The Queensland University of Technology Research Week
International Conference, Brisbane, Australia.
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Abstract
Being a former French colony, it is obvious that the dominant European educational presence
in Algeria has been the French one. Yet, since its independence in 1962, this North African
country decided to adopt a policy of diversification in order to lessen ties with former
colonizer, France. Consequently, the British Council was encouraged to set up offices and
initiate educational activities to pave the way for more Anglo-Algerian relations. Thus, in
1963, the British Council presence in Algeria became a reality. Was the Councils work able
to compete with theFrench efforts in the field?
Keywords: Educational, Cultural, British, Algerian, Cooperation.
Multidisciplinary Academic Conference on Education, Teaching and E-learning, Czech
Republic, Prague (MAC-ETeL 2016)
Friday - Saturday, August 5-6, 2016.
Introduction
The British educational presence abroad remained predominantly the task of the
missionaries until 1934 when the British Council, a cultural organization, was established and
entrusted by the British government to promote British culture overseas through various
activities. The latter significantly developed during the post-colonial era to cover officially the
educational and technical fields the newly independent states, like Algeria for instance,
identified as keys for development. Indeed, the Algerian government solicited the Council to
open offices and supervise different educational activities which were expected to answer the
Algerian needs.
Thepurpose ofthe present paper is to consider the British Councils educational activities in
this former French colony to find out the link between the Councils dynamism and Britains
political considerations.The latter limited the British educational and cultural presence in
Algeriaand this despite the high demandof the Algerians for the British Councils services,
particularly in relation to the English language teaching.To what extent could the British
Councils educational activities answer the Algerian expectations?
Before dealing with the British educational work in Algeria, it is worth examining the
development of Anglo-Algerian relations during the post-colonial era.
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I- Anglo-Algerian Relations:
Since the beginning of the colonial era, Britain had seen North Africa as a backyard of
France and had stayed clear from anything that could possibly be seen by the French as a
hostile British move in the region.1Events, however, proved both the French and the British
wrong in so far as Algeria sustained her independence and started looking for partners all
over the world - not just in Europe, but alsobeyond her traditional partners. Such policy of
diversification encouraged relations between Britain and Algeria. Thus, the British Council
was established in this former French colony. Its presence there in the first stage could not
understandably compete in scope with the French efforts in the cultural and educational
fields. This can certainly be ascribed to the factthat the British Council acted as an instrument
of foreign policy as far as Britain was concerned and therefore lacked a full-fledged policy in
this initial period. Accordingly, teaching the English language was the first priority before
developing other areas of co-operation.2In fact, the British Council did not promote English
in Algeria only for the sake of spreading this language because the world at large may
appreciate the international importance of English without the British Council or the British
Government efforts, and everywhere an eagerness to learn this language grew. The Council
wanted to promote closer linksbetween Britain and Algeria because this latter offered a new
interest.
After this former French colonys independence, Britain succeeded in cultivating
more important commercial partnership with Algeria than it used to have during the colonial
period. Thatchers era showed still more motivation than was demonstrated in earlier years,
when disequilibrium characterized this countrys imports and exports, Britains export to
Algeria being superior to her imports. The reason for the change was that for a beginner like
Algeria, the economic liberalism witnessed atthebeginning of the 1980s provided the
opportunity for more mutually developed relations with Britain because France was no longer
monopolizing trade with the country concerned. The change also happened at a time when
Europe was going through a great mutation, when no oneknew whether it was going to be a
stronger Europe for its partners and itself or a fortress which closed upon itself and from
which it excluded all the traditional non-European partners. Britain has always been in favour
of a free and open market, of open politics.
Yet, its political relations with this former French colony in particular could not be
said to have been very close as far as foreign relations were concerned; and though culture
has traditionally proved to have gone hand in hand with politics, the British Councils work
in this country remained limited in comparison to its activities in countries where it was
expected to be intense like the Commonwealth countries. Taking into account the differences
in population between certain countries, in 1984/85, for instance, the British Council in
Algeria sent only 200 Algerians to Britain whereas it sent 932 Kenyans, 1501 Indians and
only 371 Chinese.3 Besides, while its expenditure for 1988/89 - for example - was 19.747
million in India, 10.225 million in Kenya, in Algeria it was only1.779 million while new
offices were being established in Eastern Europe.4These figures revealed the Councils
unstated policy which made a difference between various countries just not according to their
respective population but rather according to the importance either political or economic sometimes both - these countries could play on the world scene in general and could
represent for Britain in particular .
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important task of the British Council in Algeria like elsewhere. Accordingly, the Council
sponsored several inter-university links. The latterresulted in the flow of academics in both
directions.12 Personal exchanges also occurred in other fields such as archeology, earthquake
engineering, computer technology, nuclear and solar energy, public administration and
building research.13The expected result of many of these visits was not only scientific and
technological improvement but also the furthering of commercial potential. Algerianfinanced special courses and study tours in Britain were recorded. In addition, the Council
sent hundreds of Algerian official visitors to Britain, among them 38 engineers from the
National Steel Works in Annaba - the largest industrial complex in NorthAfrica.14This, in
fact, were expected to lead to twinning arrangement with British steel.15
In 1989, 250 Algerians were sent for both long and short-term visits, ranging from
computer scientists preparingPh.Ds to musicians on two week summer courses. The number
of Algerian people actually sent to Britain increased dramatically during the 1980s to exceed
hundreds. This development in the British Councils work was dictated by both Algerias
commitment to British postgraduate training and its determination to make English the
language of teaching and research in science andtechnology,16 a fact that facilitated contacts
between Britain and Algeria. It also spread British political and economic influences in this
strategic area of the Mediterranean known for its significantly remarkable attitudes in
international conflicts, particularly those related to the Arab Nation and to Africa with which
Britain has always had vested interests.
Thus, the Councils objective at that time became much more targeted towards the
higher educational sector on which the Algerian government was investing heavily - an
investment estimated, for instance, at 50 million over 1986/87, 1987/88, 1988/89.17 So, in
response to Algerias needs, the British Council changed the way in which it was trying to
achieve its objective by supporting the development of highly trained personnel in the
university sector. As Timothy Eggar, Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office from 1985 to 1989, pointed out in 1989:
Everything the council is doing in
Algeria is, in one way or another,
supporting higher education links
between our two countries. Its a
clear priority for the Council
which matches exactly the
priorities
of
the
two
governments.18
In fact, Algerias tendency to loosen its ties with France coincided with Britains hope
to increase its share in the overseas student market for the political and commercial
advantages Algeria actually has always offered. To preserve these links with Algeria, the
British Council had to work actively to spread the English language and establish better
contacts - than in 1962-1979 - between the two peoples. Indeed, during the first half of the
1980s, it multiplied its efforts to provide English courses for Algerians in particular for those
requiring English for professional reasons.19Obviously, the technical fields were favoured
over literary and purely cultural specialties for the significant and considerable revenues they
could bring about. Accordingly, a significant increase in the number of Algerian students
actually studying at the local British Councils teaching centre was witnessed as the
followingtabledemonstrates:
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Table One.20
Year
1982-83
1983-84
1984-85
1985-86
1986-87
Number of students
2428
2537
2700
2727
2782
The focusing during the 1980s was much more on training post graduate studentsfrom the educational, scientific and technological fields-going to Britain in terms of the
English that they needed when they would get there. Furthermore, the Councils operations in
Algeria involved what is called Book Promotion work, that is to say, promoting British books
in Algeria to give people access to British thinking and views. It facilitatedaccess to English
reading material through its organization of book exhibitions, participation in Algerian Book
Fairs and very large book presentation programmes by presenting books to Universitylibraries for example. For instance, the English Department of Algiers University several
times benefited, though always in insufficient amounts, from this programme. In 1985, the
Council took part in two book fairs and a new Council post was created to help meet the
enormous demand in books work. For example, with its 1400 public and growing university
sector, Algeria wasthe largest Council outlet for the British librarys photocopying service. 21
Yet, what was presented by this service remained insufficient. For instance, students in the
humanities could not engage in research if they were to rely on what was presented by the
British Council. This was due to the then still relatively very limited budget the Council was
allocating for Algeria.
However, the Councils capacity to satisfy the high demand for English courses
locally started to diminish by 1987/88 as the table below demonstrates:
Table Two.22
Year
1987-88
1988-89
1989-90
Number of students
2755
2739
2075
In fact, this phenomenon coincided with the Councils shift towards Eastern European
countries where new opportunities were to be seized, leading it to start multiplying efforts to
spread its activities and teach English to an increasing number of people23 who, because of
the new challenges, were asked to pay only a symbolic fee. Thus, the Council was tied by
other duties and became oriented rather towards meeting inpriority, as a result of British
Foreign Policys shift, the needs of Eastern Europe, demonstrating once more theimpact of its
financial dependence on its government policies. Indeed, asked in 1987 by Mr. Welsh, an
FCO Officer, if the Council was increasingly then becoming a mere agent of her Majestys
government, rather than being an independent cultural agency, Mr. John Burgh-a British
Councils Director in the 1980s- significantly stated: [] There is unquestionably now a
smaller area over which the Board of the Council is able to rule.24
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Contrary to what happened in the ex-Soviet Union, the Councils fees strategy in
Algeria imposed its important and continuing increase in 1985, as the following table shows:
Table Three.25
Year
1982-83
1983-84
1984-85
1985-86
1986-87
1987-88
1988-89
1989-90
Number of Students
2428
2537
2700
2727
2728
2755
2739
2075
Though Algerian students themselves judged the fees to be very high, they always showed
their readiness to pay for British Council services.
In addition, since 1993, the British Council closed its offices in Algeria. One might
think that the insecurity problems witnessed since 1992 were behind that or were at least the
main reason. To those who hold such an argument, we can mention the example of Lebanon
where the Civil war which made ravages from 1975 onwards, did not prevent the Council
office, though surrounded by dangers - dangers which in reality cannot be measured in size
with those in Algeria - did not close its office or limit its work there just one yearafter the
beginning of the unrest as it did in Algiers ; rather, it did so only eleven years later, i.e., not
before May 1986.26 It is most likely that such decisions were motivated by political
considerations.
Thus, the British Councils work during the 1980s in Algeria was relatively more
intense than it was before because the former could contribute to the Councils spending. But,
it remained insignificant in this country with which Britain had had limited cultural contact in
the past if compared to what the Council performed elsewhere. However, the British
Councils expenditure in non-Commonwealth countries in general was subject to cuts
because of political considerations which were beyond the Councils Boards power, indeed,
and which could only be explained in terms of political choices.
The British Councils attitude towards Algeria during the 1980scould, therefore, be
explained by Algerias very position world-wide: its genuine concern with and involvement
in African and Arab problems had increased its weight and political influence in Africa and
within the Arab Nation with whom Britain had had historical ties and vested interests. On the
other hand, the Algerian liberal political and economic reforms witnessed during the 1980s
attracted Britain as a potential partner. Consequently, the British Council showed a relatively
more dynamic policy in Algeria for its enjoyed political position on the international level in
addition to its incomes from oil which could allow it to contribute to the Councils spending
and buy other services from Britain.
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Conclusion
Thus, instead of investing in the long-term as the French did in Egypt for example, the
British just prepared the ground and helped indirectly other Anglophone countries: the USA
in particular, to undertake educational activities in Algeria on a larger scale and gather the
maximum of benefits- political as well as economic- that could result from an extended
educational and cultural workin general. Moreover, the British Councils lack of enthusiasm
helped the Algerians to divert their attention to other European countries cultural agencies
such as the German Goethe Institute and the ItalianDante Alighieri. These cultural bodies,
whose governments did not want to be left aside in view of a dominant French cultural
presence, developed a long-term policy for cultural relations and thus, invested more moneythan the British did- to answer the maximum of demands from overseas for their respective
cultures and educational services.
Brief biography of the author
Dr. Malika SAHEL is a Senior Lecturer of British Civilization in the Department of
English at the EcoleNormaleSuprieure of Bouzarah (E.N.S.B) in Algiers/Algeria. She was
the Head of the Aggregation Department, the Head of the English Department, Head of the
English Department Scientific Committee from 2008 to 2016, and has been a permanent
member of the Scientific Committee of the English Department from 1997 to nowadays.
References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
B. Porter, The Lions Share:A Short history of British Imperialism 1850-1970, (London, Longman, 1975),
p. 92.
In this context, Mr. E. Evans, The British Councils representative in Algeria appreciated the strong desire
of the Algerians to learn English and of the Algerian Ministry of Education to improve the standards of
English teaching in Algerian schools .BW10/10,Confidential, British Embassy Algiers, 30 July, 1969,
p.1.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1984/85,(London, The British
Council,1985),ps.23,28,31,32.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report and Accounts 1988/1989,(London, The British
Council,1989), p.61.
A personal Interview, Moroccan Embassy in London (August 1995).
Committee for Middle East Trade,The 1980-84 Algerian Five Years Plan, (London, Comet, April 1981),
p. 2.
Algeria never accepted Britains ambivalent attitude towards the white minority in Rhodesia and its
support of Ian Smith who led the UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) and established an illegal
government in 1965, as the inevitable independence of Rhodesia was advancing. This British attitude
meant exacerbation of the liberation movements bitterly led by the two native Rhodesian political parties:
ZANU and ZAPU, a fact that strongly affected Algeria (whose people experienced the same horrors of
colonialism as Rhodesia). Algerias attitude rested on its own revolution - generated values, as well as on
the non-alignment policy.
In June 1967 Britain like the USA sided with Israel and participated in the Zionist military attack against
the Arab neighboring countries - namely Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Consequently faithful to its principles of
solidarity with liberation causes, Algeria viewed all the actions of the participants in this aggression as acts
of hostility.
-Restricted.The British Council, Algeria, Representatives Annual Report 1967-1968,1969, p.1.
For further details on the Maghreb attitude towards the Middle Eastern Questionsee J. P. Chagnolland,
MaghrebetPalestine, (Paris, Sindbad, 1977),p. 137.
In external affairs, Algerias policy has been dominated by a completely rigid attitude to the Israel
Question and unremitting opposition to any activity which could be construed as being colonialist.
- Restricted.The British Council, Algeria, Representatives Annual Report 1968-1969,1969, p.1.
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10. The British Council, The British Council, The BritishCouncil Annual Report 1985/86, (London, The
British Council,1986), p. 34.
11. The British Council, The British Council, The BritishCouncil Annual Report 1980/81, (London, The
British Council, 1981), p. 22.
The British Council, op. cit, 1985, p. 20.
12. The British Council, op. cit, 1986, p. 34.
13. The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1986/87, (London, The British Council, 1987),
p. 44.
14. Britains share in the Algerian market was only 3% in 1979.
Committee for Middle East Trade, The 1980-84 Algerian Five Years Plan, (London, Comet, April 1981),
p. 1.
15. The British Council, op. cit, 1987, p. 44.
16. Ibid.
17. The British Council, op. cit, 1989, p.33.
18. Ibid, p.13.
19. The British Council,op. cit, 1986, p.34.
20. Obtained from the British Councils Teaching Centre in Algiers1989/90 and from the British Council
annual reports data.
21. The British Council, op.cit, 1985,p.20.
22. Obtained from the British Councils annual reports data.
23. The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1987/88, (London, The British Council, 1988),
p. 14.
24. House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee, Fourth Report:Cultural Diplomacy, (London, HMSO,
1987), p. 38.
25. Obtained from The British Councils Teaching Centre in Algiers 1989/90.
26. The British Council, op, cit, 1987, p. 51.
Bibliography
Books
Bailey M. H., Britain and World Affairs in the Twentieth Century, Edinburgh and London: W&R.
Chambers, 1971.
Bradnock R. W., Indias Foreign Policy Since 1971, London, The Royal Institute of International Affairs
Printer Publishers,1990.
Byrd P., British Foreign Policy Under Thatcher, America, Philip Allan Publishers, 1988.
Chagnolland J. P., Maghreb et Palestine, Paris, Sindbad, 1977.
Donaldson F., The British Council :The First Fifty Years, London, Jonathan Cape, 1984.
ForeignandCommonwealthOffice, BritainandIndia:A modern partnership, London, FCO, September1997.
Her Majesty Stationary Service Office, Britain and Africa, London, HMSO, 1993.
Mitchell J., International Cultural Relation, London, Allen &Unwin, 1986.
Porter B., The Lions Share:A Short history of British Imperialism 1850-1970, Longman, 1975.
Williams P., The Overseas Students Questions, London, Heinemann, 1980.
Reports
BW10/10,Restricted, The British Council, Algeria, Representatives Annual Report 1967-1968, 1968.
BW10/10, Restricted, The British Council, Algeria, Representatives Annual Report 1968-1969, 1969.
BW10/10,Confidential, British Embassy Algiers, 30 July, 1969.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1979/80, London, The British Council, 1980.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1980/81, London, The British Council, 1981.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1981/82, London, The British Council, 1982.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1982/83, London, The British Council, 1983.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1982/83, London, The British Council, 1984.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1983/84, London, The British Council, 1985.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1985/86, London, The British Council, 1986.
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The British Council, The British Council Annual Report1986/87, London, The British Council, 1987.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report 1987/88, London, The British Council, 1988.
The British Council, The British Council Annual Report and Accounts 1988/89, London, The British
Council, 1989.
The Committee for Middle East Trade, The 1980-84 Algerian Five Years Plan, London, Comet, April
1981.
The Committee for Middle East Trade, The 1980-84 Algerian Five Years Plan, London, Comet, April
1981.
The House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee, Fourth Report:Cultural Diplomacy, London, HMSO,
1987.
Interviewsdone in Algeria and abroad
Personal Interview, The British Council in Algiers, 1989.
Personal Interview, Moroccan Embassy in London, August 1995.
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Abstract
Entrepreneurial competencies have important role to play in entrepreneurship, in Slovakia.
These critical success factors the entrepreneurial moral competencies which have been
neglected for long, should be considered as very essential and necessary variables in
entrepreneurial development. The entrepreneurs must adhere to high ethical standards,
dealing fairly, honestly and responsibly with his employees (other stakeholders). They are
expected to exhibit the high ethical standard of behaviour that will affect the company's
image financially and economically. These entrepreneurial competencies, which are rooted in
effective training and development, can serve the needed tonic for his success in business.
Keywords: entrepreneur, moral competence, global labour market
Main Conference Topic: Education
Introduction
Globalisation, cooperation, morality, achievement, optimalization of costs, flexibility,
socially responsible entrepreneurship and safety arent just appropriate requirements, but also
needs for successful entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is ability to create and build
something new (company), ability to recognize new options and opportunities, ability of own
gifts and skills, willingness to thoughtfully enter risky situations, ambition and passion to
achieve specified goals, ability reach and use various sources to gain needed competences.
(Dreissen, & Zwart, 2003). This definition of entrepreneurship leads to thinking about the
nature of entrepreneurs competences, which could be defined as a real individual ability to
use achieved knowledge, skills and attitudes during entrepreneurial activity according to
certain, everyday and changing situation in work. It forms the presumption of successful
applicability of individual on labour market and successful company management in
knowledge society. Business environment is formed by complex of mostly intangible values
which are connected to so called goodwill of entrepreneur, his reputation and also by his
moral, aesthetic and qualitative features. These values of entrepreneur are characterized in
competetive environment and perceived by stakeholders. Todays times suggest strong
linkage of these values.
Ethical entrepreneur
Entrepreneurial ethics presents economy based on human principles which highlight
the fact, that entrepreneurial activities arent purposeless and are organized for people, with
people, and entrepreneurship which should be beneficial to life (Remiov, 1999, p. 21).
Entrepreneurs are specific actors of ethical behaviour. Thats why depends on how
entrepreneurs perceive ethical attitudes, apply them and are a role models to their collegues.
From the entrepreneurs point of view is ethics filling triple function:
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provides basic ethical normative orientation to colleagues and the whole internal
environment of the organization (company),
offers normative orientation in connection to external environment,
provides manual to very important self-reflection, self-control, self-regulation or
self management of own behaviour as a manager or leader (Porvaznk, 2007, p.
156).
Ethics, ethical behaviour and acting cant be forced. Real ethical behaviour must
be supported by integrated moral value system, which doesnt permits entrepreneur to
behave unethically and use ethics in situations which might be advantageous.
Entrepreneur tends to diverse and flexible work so he mustnt feel under pressure of
internal and external conditions. He must be able to deal with several different activities
and need to be able to see things in context and perspectives. He must be confident about
the correctness and asset of ethics in business (Stblo, 1993, p. 78). Knapik (2006) notes
that etrepreneur should observe some ethical minimum: behave to himself and to
collegues with respect, behave according to fair play principle, doesnt cause harm to
others, tries to multiply happiness, doesnt use people as a mean to achieve his own goals.
Only a morally competent person morally decides and morally acts. His moral mentality
is reflected in his moral behaviour(Lajiakov, 2008, p. 17). Finally, regardless the type
of entrepreneurs activities, the entrepreneur should adhere so called ethical minimum of
economist:
This is a field of moral dispositions. Whole process of cultivation extends deeper level of
managers consciousness. It models character traits, forms and influences his structure of
personality by forming acquired values, attitudes and patterns of moral and social behaviour
to be able to perform his job not just as a manager, leader but also as a human being.
The entrepreneurs and employees have ethical responsibilities or obligations, which are
placed on them by virtue of the positions, they occupy in the organization (Hitka at al, 2010).
Several researches have been conducted in areas of entrepreneurship competency,
entrepreneurship success and national development. Most literatures relating to
entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship success tend to unquestionably argue that most
entrepreneurial fiascos are essentially due to inadequate financial resources (Adeyemo, &
Onikoyi, 2012). The current literatures on the subject do not provide sufficient explanations
to the role general and/or specific competences play in successful entrepreneurship, business
success and national development. This has thus, made the relationship between
entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurship success to be important topic within
organizational literatures. The above fact is evident in several available studies done by
scholars on the subject matter (Mitchelmore, & Rowley, 2010; Laguna et al., 2013 etc). Many
of these studies identified entrepreneurship competences like communication competence,
financial competence, marketing competence, social responsibility competence, decisionmaking competence and leadership competence as catalysts to entrepreneurship success and
national development. Business ethics competence is the basic essential entrepreneurial
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competence for successful business. Every business has its ethics (ern, 2010). Ethics deals
with moral ability and obligations. It can be defined as a system of rules and principles that
define right and wrong, good and bad conduct and the ordering of values in undertaking
business activities in society.
Research study
Pilot study was realized as a part of project KEGA .031TUKE-4/2016 focused on
preparation of university students of technical study programs for need of global labour
market. The improvement of students preparation in business activities presumed (according
to collected published sources about todays situation in solving and elaborating of business
study programs on various colleges in Slovakia) creating a meter which would be able to
collect broad informations about students of Technical university in Koice (TUKE) which
are related to skills useful to plan career after graduation.
Questionnaire was focused on obtained entrepreneurial experiences of students, who started
their business during studies on university. Respondents expressed their self-reflectional
answers using scale 1.- Disagree, 2. Rather disagree, 3. Equally disagree and agree, 4.
Rather agree, 5. Agree.
Characteristics of file and methodology. The survey was placed to six faculties of Technical
university in Koice. Respondents of survey were students of third year of bachelor studies
(M=147) and also to students of first and second year of engineer studies (M=136). Selection
of respondents and collected data were processed by statistic package MS Excel and MS
WinStat.
Study results
According to wide base of collected results we mention only certain findings of moral
aspects of entrepreneurship which will be used to draft the preparation for future graduates
for global and domestic labour market.
Data in table 1 allows to monitor the self-evaluation of respondents during their
reconsidering of character, ability and skills which are important for development of
business competences and self-employment on moral level.
Table 1: Self-evaluation of respondents
1
2
3
Examined items
I care about moral values during
my business activities
Ethics is very important during
business activities.
I consider unwritten ethic/moral
rules as essential on the way to
success.
Values and value chain are very
important for my future
development and professional
Study
Form
BSc
MSc
BSc
MSc
BSc
MSc
N
118
106
124
106
120
101
AM
3,11
3,13
3,14
3,18
2,96
3,11
SD
T
p
0,98
-0,176 0,860
0,87
0,95
-0,356 0,722
0,83
0,98
0,80 -1,235 0,218
BSc
MSc
115
99
3,11
2,96
0,85
0,91 1,275 0,204
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5
9
10
11
12
15
targeting.
Im successful in business thanks
to my moral principles.
Its my moral commitment to take
care about my employees.
Im familiar with the base of ethic
business codex of companies.
I have no problem to observe all
ethical rules.
BSc
MSc
BSc
MSc
BSc
MSc
BSc
MSc
BSc
I dont hurt and dont lie
MSc
I follow unwritten verbal promises BSc
and
MSc
agreements.
108
90
103
92
109
96
123
109
134
110
136
116
3,12
3,08
3,16
3,13
2,82
3,02
3,29
3,24
2,99
3,07
3,32
3,28
0,90
0,80
0,85
0,80
0,92
0,79
0,88
0,79
1,11
0,96
0,88
0,88
0,348 0,728
0,210 0,834
-1,685 0,093
0,492 0,623
-0,651 0,516
0,429 0,668
Mentioned results are students of bachelor studies while considering their characteristics,
abilities and skill which are important for development of business competences respondents
more significantly declared ability to follow unwritten verbal promises and agreements
(M=3,32), ability to observe all ethical rules (M=3,29), ability to exemplary take care about
their employees (M=3,16). On the other hand less significantly declared they arent familiar
with the base of business ethical codex (M=2,82), they have no tendencies to hurt someone or
lie (M=2,99), unwritten ethic/moral rules consider essential on the way to success (M=2,96).
Students of master studies while considering their characteristics, abilities and skill which are
important for development of business competences respondents more significantly declared
item unwritten verbal promises and agreements (M=3,28) I have no problem to observe all
ethical rules (M=3,24), I care about moral values during my business activities (M=3,13). On
the other hand less significantly declared that Values and value chain are very important for
my future development and professional targeting (M=2,96), Im familiar with the base of
ethic business codex of companies (M=3,02), they have no tendencies to hurt someone or
lie (M=3,07).
Entrepreneurs are regularly confronted by moral issues that entail choices between the pursuit
of personal gain and causing harm to others, and between maintaining and compromising
behavioral norms (Sarasvathy, 2002; Venkataraman, 2002). Such moral issues are amplified
in the dynamic, competitive environments inhabited by entrepreneurs (Klimkov, 2008). As a
result, scholars increasingly focus on the moral and ethical competencies and aspects of
entrepreneurship (Dirgov, 2011).
In pursuance of collected our data we can say that valuating of respondents during
reconsidering their moral characteristics, abilities and skills (important for development of
business competences and self-employment) were situated in positive spectrum of valuation
scale. Statistical analysis didnt show significant findings between both files. It means we
cant decline zero hypothesis. According to their answers might be concluded that students
are familiar with unwritten rules and fair-play principles and they follow it their lifes,
decisions and maintaining interpersonal, social and work relationships.
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Students of master studie seem to be in more perspective situation. They showed personal
maturity, more practical experiences in business and entrepreneurship. Thats because large
number of these students have at least one years experiences with employment or with any
kind of entrepreneurship.
Despite the fact all mentioned results didnt show statistically significant differences between
students of bachelor and master degree. We should accept the fact that subjective answers of
students doesnt correspond with objective evaluation and also doesnt have to show real
preparation for future entrepreneurship. Answers were perceived as a one of sources. Its
more like pilot study which will be used to conceive study materials. Itll be precious source
for future formation of new social sciences subjects. In absolute answers is seen good
potential for future implementation in new subjects to develop ethical aspects of
entrepreneurship.
Formal education and scientific knowledge, as well as the development of practical skills,
should be complemented with situated learning, reflection and dialogue on moral and ethical
issues, particularly in the context of competencies, management and entrepreneurial praxis
(Karlson, & Fegin, 2014). Seeing the ethical issues (ethical consciousness) and wanting to do
the right thing (ethical commitment) are not enough. In ethics education should improve the
ability to evaluate facts and make reasonably reliable predictions about the likely
consequences of decisions. Research has repeatedly shown that high ethical and moral
standards (67%) are most highly rated attributes. A new study shared on HBR.org puts
ethics at the top of the most necessary entrepreneurship competencies (Giles, 2016). The
evidence is clear moral intelligence and competencies play a big part in corporate success
in the current global marketplace.
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Have students discuss controversial moral dilemmas. Identify disciplinary issues with
moral contentthat relate to moral values. Develop cases, problems, or scenarios that
involve these values for students to discuss.
In addition to high involvement tactics, directly teach Kohlberg's model of six stages
of reasoning as one would teach other, disciplinary concepts.
All courses, even in disciplines such as mathematics or statistics that on their surface
may appear to lack obviously moral content, offer rich opportunities for helping
students develop their skill in moral reasoning. Every course can become a learning
community where values of mutual respect, sensitivity to others' needs, and
cooperation are emphasized and discussed.
With such efforts we can indeed foster our students' moral development for the good of all.
Conclusion
Theoretical and research studies from various authors are showing that entrepreneur is
a person who sets the ethical trend in company no matter its good or bad. (Boyd, 2004), that
entrepreneurs values are directly reflecting into company manners (Gurley, Wood, &
Nijhawan, 2005), the higher the financial share of the entrepreneur in a starting company, the
higher the initiatives used to support ethical manners in company (Morris et al, 2002),
entrepreneur has substantial influence in forming ethical environment and ethical
development of developing company with direct impact on employees (Withey 2008). It
follows that low level of ethics in entrepreneurship is the major obstacle in business. Honesty,
decency and integrity are very important atributes for entrepreneurs because theyre
dependent on belief of their employees, clients, contractors, partners and investors. Teaching
of entrepreneurial ethics of potential entrepreneurs during their college studies could have
impact on ethical maturity and consciousness (Starcher, 1997). Entrepreneurship in todays
global society predicts the knowledge of ethical principles of entrepreneurship. The objective
of results was to find suitable key for strenghting and developing this sectional
competence. Even though students arent thinking about entrepreneurship as a primary
career, acquired qualities and skills will allow them to be better employees. It is already
known that aspects of self-regulation of moral competencies can be enhanced by appropriate
educational methods. Thus one can speculate that targeted management, educational and
training courses might enhance the self-regulatory characteristics and skills that encourage
moral awareness among future entrepreneurs.
The paper is the partial solution result of scientific project of MVVA SR 031TUKE4/2016 Education of students of technical specialization for the needs of the global labor
market (with an emphasis on business activities).
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[4]
Adeyemo, A. A., & Onikoyi, M. P. (2012). Prospects and Challenges of Large Scale
Commercial Poultry Production. Agricultural Journal, 7(6), pp. 388-393.
Boyd, M.W. (2004). Business Ethics for Unseasoned Entrepreneurs: Trends and
Concerns for Professionals and Stakeholders. In Proceedings of the Academy of
Entrepreneurship, 10, pp. 33-36.
Cunningham, C. A. (2007). Character Education in Public Schools: The Quest for a
Suitable Ontology. Available at: http://cuip.uchicago.edu/.../Character%20Education%
ern, . (2010). Podnikatesk etika a jej implementcia v podmienkach
priemyselnch podnikov v Slovenskej republike. AlumniPress, SK.
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[5]
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Dirgov, E. (2011). Etika a etiketa ako bza pre komunikciu a kultru v organizcich.
Verbum, SK.
Driessen, M.P., & Zwart, P.S. (2003). The Entrepreneur Scan Measuring
Characteristics
and
Traits
of
entreprenurs.
Available
at:
http://www.entrepreneurscan.com
Giles, S. (2016). The Most Important Leadership Competencies, According to Leaders
Around the World. Harwars Business Review. Available et: https://hbr.org/
Guffey, D.M., & McCartney, M.W. (2000). The Ethics Construct: A Multidimensional
Analysis in an Academic Setting. Advances in Accounting Education, 2, pp. 235-256.
Hitka, M. at al. (2010). Podnikov kultra v riaden udskch zdrojov. ES TU Zvolen,
SK.
Karlson, N., & Fergin, E. (2014). Virtue as Competence in the Entrepreneurial Society.
Ratio Working Paper, 250, pp. 1-23.
Klimkov, A. (2008). Morlne sradnice ekologickho poznania a etika. In Profesijn
etika a prax, s. 233-241.
Knapik, P. (2006). Rokovanie v medzinrodnom obchode. Ekonm, SK.
Laguna, M., Wiechetek, M. & Talik, W. (2012). The Competencies of Managers and
their Business Success. Central European Business Review, 1(3), pp. 7-13.
Lajiakov, P. (2008). Psycholgia morlky. Akademick nakladatelstv CERM, CZ.
Leming, J.S. (1993). In search of effective character education. Educational Leadership,
51, pp. 63-71.
McNeel, S. P. (1994). College teaching and student moral development. In J.R. Rest, D.
Narvarez, Moral development in the professions: Psychology and applied ethics.
Erlbaum, USA, pp. 27-49.
Mitchelmore, S., & Rowley, J. (2010). Entrepreneurial competencies: A literature
review and development agenda. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour &
Research, 16, pp. 92-111.
Sarasvathy, S.D., 2002. Entrepreneurship as economics with imagination. Ruffin Series
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Schindehutte, J., & Walton, A., J. (2002). The Ethical Context of Entrepreneurship:
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331-361.
Porvaznk, J. a kol. (2007). Celostn manament. Poradca podnikatea, SK.
Remiov, A. (1999). Podnikatesk etika v praxi cesta k spechu. Epos, SK.
Starcher, G. (1997). A Transition to a Free Market Economy in Eastern Europe Paris:
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Stblo, J. (1993). Personln management. Grada, CZ.
Venkataraman, S., 2002. Stakeholder value and equilibrium and the entrepreneurial
process. Ruffin Series in Business Ethics, 3, pp. 45-58.
Withey, J. (2008). Stakeholder Visibility and Organizational Ethics: Implications for
Entrepreneurial Behavior. Perspectives in Business, 5(2), pp. 17-22.
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JOOYOUNG R PARK
MATH IN ART & DESIGN EDUCATION: EXPLORING MATHEMATICAL CREATIVIY IN DESIGN PROCESS
MAC201608087
Abstract
This study descibes the development of a mathematical design process based on symmetry
that was designed for first year high school students' creative research program at an elite
gifted science school in South Korea. Symmetry is known for its universal principle of shape
formation and which has inspired mathematicians, scientists and artists. Through the theme of
inspiration, the research project was designed. A graphic module system created a
symmetrically-structured formation. The structure created focused on the creative process of
art & design through mathematical concept.
Keywords: Math and Science gifted students, Art & Design education
Main Conference Topic: Education
I. Introduction
Creativity is widely known as a key skill in the 21st century, and there can be no topic
even more important thaan creativity in the gifted-education. Many studies have shown that
arts can significantly advance gifted students academic and creative abilities and cognitive
functioning (Seeley 1994, Smutny 2002). However, the world of art seems cognitively distant
from mathematics,; many people believe that the skills required for art and design simply
have no relationship to math. However, math is an integral part of the twin disciplines art
and design. For example, concepts patterns, symmetry, arrangement and sequence can be
seen in fonts and typefaces.
This paper highlights the development of a mathematical design process for gifted in
math and science to enhance students creative ability based on their individual traits through
mathematical inspiration.
Intended Project Outcomes
-
To learn digital graphic program and its relationship to the artist field
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II. Background
a. Theoretical Background of Creativity
The moving power of mathematical invention is not reasoning but imagination.
Augutus de Morgan (1866)
In a literature review of creativity, the terms that most commonly appear are fluency,
flexibility, originality, and elaboration abilities which are measured by the Guilford tests and
Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking(Torrance,1974; Plucker et al,2004). Over time, nearly
all definitions of creativity have indicated novelty and usefulness. Gary A.Davis and Sylvia
B.Rimm(2011) refer to a variety of abilities such as problem finding, problem sensitivity,
synthesis, and the ability to regress. Interestingly, others identified visualization and aesthetic
thinking(i.e. sensitivity to and appreciation of beauty in art, design ,and nature.) As an
individual creative abilities grow, he or she see things in the minds eye, and mentally
manipulate images and ideas(Daniels-McGhee and Davis,1994).
Creative is not limited to art through. Is there specific creative ability in Math? Intially
the Korea Science Academy of KAIST is natures math and science gifted students, the
author's current research is about creativity factors in those specific areas.
This study focuses on enhancing creativity in art and math; therefore, it was important to
research creativity in math. Consequently, the lesson plan was designed based around a
definition of creativity in math. Literature exists on creativity in math. The visionary
classrooms described by leaders in the NCTM(National Council of Teachers of Mathematics)
enable students to confidently engage in complex mathematical tasks.. and draw knowledge
from wide variety of mathematical topics.(NCTM, 2000;Mann,2006) Accoring to
Haylock(1987), mathematical creativity includes the ability to see new relationships between
techniques and areas of application and to make associations between possibly unrelated idea.
Additionally, Runco(2014) described creativity as a multifaceted construct involving
divergent and convergent thinking, problem finding and problem solving, self-expression,
intrinsic motivation, a questioning attitude, and self-confidence.
As many scholars have discussed various factors of creativity in general and specific subject
fields, thow we then do educators apply and evaluate the developments of teaching creativity
in teaching in a pratical way?
This study considered theree characteristics to enhance lesson planing.,
- The dducational programme and outcomes need to be related to mathematical issue
- The class culture should evoke learners curiosity and involving the growth of
divergent and convergent thinking, problem finding and problem solving, selfexpression, intrinsic motivation, and an inquisitive attitude
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i.
Gifted students are strongly motivated to engage a topics that are related to their
interests, that are at their level of comprehension, and that are worth completing
through a logical process. Most students experience boredom when the topic is
conventional or routine tasks.
Gifted students have superior abilities to in reasoning, generalization, problem
solving and readily grasp mathematical/scientific concepts; however, they have
difficulties with less tangible ideas such as abstract thinking or emotional expression.
Over 50% of students are high interest or extremely excited to enroll in art class.
Moreover, many of these students spend their free time doodling, craft making, and
using 3-D printing technology in the schools maker space.
Students have varied conceptualizations about art as an academic subject. About 3040% of gifted students think that art is totally different from the fields of math and
science and that art, even though interesting, is for just few talented people. Roughly
10 % of students even have a phobia about art resulting from a personal experience
(e.g. poor achievement in middle school, compulsion to draw perfect feature,
excessive stress in school.)
Gifted students show strong interest in learning graphic design programs and
drawing with tablet PCs.
Gifted students are overly critical of themselves, impatient with failure, and
perfectionist
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
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Use the graphics program Illustration to uncover the abstraction shape of an item
through applications of symmetry.
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Conclusion
This project aimed to engage the gifted students affectively and cognitively in the field
of art and design a mathematical, creative thingking experience. It was crucial for students to
find pleasure of lerning art and how this pleasure gives purpose to connect math. Students
attempted to discover specific mathematical theories related to art or design work. Then,
they set goals to find and define the problem. After that, they practice techniques to visualize
solutions, and then they define those solutions with imagination. It was discovered that
symmetry and patterns are precious forms of beauty that can be appreciated on both the
macro and micro levels. Next semester at KSA, the creative research program palns to repeat
symmetry topic as a mutidisciplinary project to connect art and chemistry.
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References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
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[11]
[12]
[13]
Bharath
Sriraman.(2004).The
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Creativity,Vol.14,No.1.,The Mathmatics Educator, pp.20-21
Davis, R. B., Maher, C. A., & Noddings, N. (1990). Suggestions for the improvement
of mathematics education. In R. B. Davis, C. A. Maher, & N. Noddings (Eds.),
Constructivist views on the teaching of mathematics. Journal for Research in
Mathematics Education Monograph No. 4 .(pp. 187191). Reston, VA: National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
de Morgan,A.(1866).Sir W.R.Hamilton.Gentlemans Magazine and Historical
Review.1. pp.128-134
Daniel McGhee,S.,&Davis,G.A.(1994).The imagery-creativity connection. Journal of
Creative Behaviour.29.,pp.151-176
Doris Schattschneide.(2003). Mathematics and Art.
http://www.mathaware.org/mam/03/essay3.html
Eric L.Mann.(2006) Creativity: The essence of Mathematics, Journal for the Education
of the Gifted.Vol.30.,No.2.,p.236.
Gary A.Davis,Sylvia B.Rimm.,Del Siegle.,(2011).Education of the gifted and
talented.Pearson,PP.227
Plucker,J.,Beghetto,R.a.,&Dow,G.(2004).Why isnt' creativity more important to
educational psychologists?Ptentional,pitfalls,and future directions in creativity
research.Educational Psychologist,39.pp.83-96.
Runco,M.A.(2014).Creativity:Theories
and
themes:Research,developmet,
and
practice.San Diego:Acadimic Press
Heylock,D.W.(1987).A framewrok for assessing mathematical creativity in
schoolchildren.Educational Studies in Mathematics,pp.59-74.
Heid, M.K.(1983). Characteristics and special needs of the gifted student in
mathematics, Mathematics Teacher, 76,pp.221-226.
Seely,K.(1994).Arts
curriculum
for
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gifted.In
J.VanTasselBaska(Ed.),Comprehensive curriculum for gifted learners. Boston:Allyn &
Bacon, pp.282-300
Smutny,Joan Franklin.(2002).Integrating the Arts into Curriculum for Gifted
Students(pp.1).ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education Arlington
VA. p.1
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Abstract:
Evaluating teachers is an established practice in universities around the world. In most
universities this takes the form of students responding to a survey that includes statements
pertaining to what goes on inside and outside the classroom. The survey may also highlight
elements related to the personality of the teacher. Students normally rate the statements on a
5-likert scale.
There have been many discussions on the area of validity and reliability of the results
solicited by these surveys particularly with the fact that these results may affect high-stake
decisions such as contract renewal and promotion. Some research studies have questioned the
value of student evaluation of teaching while others have seen merit in them and therefore
supported administering them.
This presentation investigates the student perceptions toward evaluating their teachers. The
presentation discusses the results of a survey that was administered to a group of 80 students
studying at Sultan Qaboos University, the only government university in the Sultanate of
Oman. The survey includes 18 statements on a 5-point Likert scale with 1 being strongly
agree and 5 being strongly disagree. The survey also includes 3 open-ended questions. The
presenter will start by highlighting the theoretical underpinnings of the topic of student
evaluations of teaching effectiveness. She will then report the results obtained from the
survey highlighting in particular students' opinions of the importance of administering the
Teaching Evaluation Survey (TES), the seriousness they show when completing it, their
perceptions of how TES results are viewed by the university and factors affecting their
response to TES. The presentation will finish with implications and recommendations.
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This study examined the perception of parents and status on leisure of adolescent students
with developmental disabilities including the challenges and developments of their leisure.
Total 106 parents who have children with developmental disabilities in secondary schools
participated in the research. They were mainly 41-50 years old(72.6%) and mothers(87.7%).
Their children were mostly boys(65.1%), and they had intellectual disabilities(63.2%), autism
spectrum disorders(32.1%). The results of the study were as follows.
First, parents thought that the general meaning of leisure is that the time of playing or
having fun(45.3%), also the most frequent leisure activities of their children were watching
TV(31.5%) in hobby/refinement area. There were using smartphone(23.9%) in
recreation/socializing area, going to the movie theater(30.9%) in appreciation/seeing area,
and jogging and taking a walk(24.3%) in health/sports area. Whereas, they wanted their
children to participate were preparing food(18.2%) in hobby/refinement area, conversation
with friends(17.1%) in recreation/socializing area, going to the movie theater(24.5%) in
appreciation/seeing area, and jogging and taking a walk(16.1%). Most of students with
developmental disabilities enjoyed their leisure activities with their family members(65.1%)
in their houses(55.7%).
Second, the personal challenges that disturb leisure of their children were the lack of the
perception on the leisure itself(22.9%), the lack of the communication skills of their
children(24.6%), the impossibility of independent traveling of their children(25.7%), and
the lack of the willpower of their children(24.6%). The biggest environmental challenge
was absence of persons who can support their childrens leisure activities(27.0%).
Third, the developments for the leisure of their children with disabilities were addressed as
expanding the leisure program for students with disabilities in schools(58.5%), improving
the atmosphere of sharing with students with disabilities in local communities(26.3%). In
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Addition, a lot of parents didnt know about the presence of curriculum on leisure in special
education curriculum(60.4%), however they felt the necessity of curriculum on leisure to
make them to live meaningful postsecondary lives(33.0%).
Finally, with these results, school-wide leisure programs should be provided and the
atmosphere for students with developmental disabilities is needed to be fostered. Moreover,
schools need to extend teaching leisure subject, and provide wide range of experiences of
leisure activities for students.
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Abstract
Introduction: Pharmacists in Thailand play an important role in helping smokers quit
smoking. Thus, pharmacy students should be provided with smoking cessation trainings to
assist smokers more efficiently. This paper reported a new learning style for smoking
cessation module including self-learning, lecture, and practice, involving knowledge, attitude
and practice of pharmacy students.
Methods: A lesson plan of smoking cessation was created according to pharmacy
curriculum, past experiences of teaching smoking cessation and students opinions on how to
learn to help smokers. The smoking cessation course in this semester consisted of 3
strategies: self-learning, lecture, and practice. We assessed on knowledge, attitude, and
practice of students on how to provide smoking cessation to smokers.
Results: Students gained more knowledge and understanding; the score (out of 10) of posttest was significantly higher than the pre-test (9.360.71; 2.270.81; p-value <0.001).
Students were more confident in helping smokers quit smoking. Practicing with friends and a
simulated smoker enabled students to learn better on delivering smoking cessation methods to
the actual smokers..
Conclusion:Combination of learning using all 3 strategies through self-learning, lecture, and
practice is an effective method, enabling students to gain knowledge and be prepared for
helping smokers quit smoking.
Keywords: smoking cessation, health education, pharmacy students, health education
Main Conference Topic: Health Education, Learning Styles and Learning Outcomes
Introduction
It is well-established that smoking is an important preventable cause of morbidity and
mortality(Chandler & Rennard, 2010). Each year, around 6 million people were killed due to
tobacco(Wolrd Health Organization, 2016). Quitting smoking is an important strategy to
prevent morbidity and mortality caused by smoking. Health care professionals are in
important positions to help with smoking cessation. In Thailand, health care providers are
important to serve as the key persons for tobacco control and prevention. Pharmacists in
Thailand put their efforts for tobacco control through many strategies including providing
smoking cessation services at the community pharmacies to help smokers quit
smoking(Nimpitakpong et al., 2010).Thus, training and educating pharmacy students to be
able to provide smoking cessation is important.
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Smoking cessation has been taught in many schools of health care professionals in
many countries(Richmond, Zwar, Taylor, Hunnisett, & Hyslop, 2009) such as the United
States (Hudmon, Bardel, Kroon, Fenlon, & Corelli, 2005), Canada(Brewster & Ashley,
2005), Australia(Saba, Bittoun, & Saini, 2013), Malaysia(Simansalam, Brewster, &
Mohamed), and Thailand(Nimpitakpong, Chaiyakunapruk, & Dhippayom, 2011). Common
topics taught covered epidemiology of tobacco use, health effects of smoking, health effects
of passive smoking, and nicotine dependence(Richmond et al., 2009). Many methods were
used for teaching, such as lectures, case study discussions and problem-based learning
exercises, role plays, etc(Richmond et al., 2009).
A survey conducted in Thailand showed that 12 Pharmacy schools in Thailand had
included smoking cessation or tobacco control in their curriculum. However, there was a
variety in each school in terms of content of smoking cessation, time, and teaching
methods(Nimpitakpong et al., 2011).
This paper reports a smoking cessation course provided to pharmacy students at the
Faculty of Pharmacy, Chiang Mai University. Moreover, a new learning module for smoking
cessation which consists of self-learning, lecture, and practice is hereby proposed. We also
assessed knowledge, attitude and practice towards smoking cessation course of pharmacy
students.
Concepts and Theories
The prevalence of tobacco use among Thais, without considering the type, is 27.2%;
of which 46.4% were used among men and 9.1% among women. Tobacco use is more
prevalent (39.1%) in people with a lower education level (Vathesatogkit & Charoenca, 2011).
Smoking cessation courses are included in the curriculum of pharmacy education in
Thailand(Nimpitakpong et al., 2011). However, the content and time devoted for the topic or
related topic varies. Content of smoking cessation that were taught in Thai pharmacy schools
included the following topics: epidemiology of smoking, tobacco control laws, factors
associated with smoking addiction, health effects of smoking, second hand smoking,
drug/food interaction with smoking, principles of nicotine addiction, assessment of nicotine
addiction, screening and recording patients smoking episodes, assessment of the intention to
quit smoking, counseling techniques, smoking cessation aids, documenting and monitoring
outcomes of smoking cessation, and referring to appropriate health care setting. However,
only some contents had been taught in schools of pharmacy in Thailand. Time spent for
topics related to tobacco control or smoking cessation varies from school to school.
Generally, the median time dedicated to content related to smoking cessation or tobacco
control was 198.0 (interquartile range of 165.0-250.0) minutes(Nimpitakpong et al.,
2011).Counseling techniques and smoking cessation aids are the top common topics taught in
Thai pharmacy schools (Nimpitakpong et al., 2011).
As smokingcessation is essential for pharmacists, we have been teaching the smoking
cessation course to students via different types of learning methods. History of teaching
smoking cessation at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Chiang Mai University began from only
lecture, to a combination of lecture and role-play with friends, and lecture and role-play with
friend along with real smokers (but finding an actual smoker to participate was a challenge).
The contents also cover related theories used in delivery of smoking cessation aid such as
Transtheoretical model (TTM), the 5As approach, the 5 Ds approach, the 5Rs approach(
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Methods
The pharmacy program at the Chiang Mai University is a 6-year Pharm.D program.
This smoking cessation course took place at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Chiang Mai University
involving 2 lecturers with more than 10 years of experiences in teaching smoking cessation
methods. This course is compulsory for all fourth year pharmacy students in their second
semester. This course is a part of dispensation subject which consisted of 15-hours lecture
and 45 hours practice; the objective of the dispensation subject was for the students to gain
knowledge and be able to dispense medication along with providing patients with counseling.
The smoking cessation course was planned as a 3-hour lecture and 3-hour practice in
classroom, based on pharmacy course syllabus, past experiences of lecturers on teaching
smoking cessation as well as past experiences of students on learning smoking cessation to
help smokers to quit. Students expectation was also taken into account during designing the
course for this semester.
After considering all related issues, the smoking cessation course in this semester
consisted of 3 strategies: self-learning, lecture, and practice. The 3-hour lecture was given
one month prior to the practice to enable students to have sufficient time for self-learning
before entering the practicing section provide by the lecturers. Content of lecture comprised
of epidemiology of smoking, dangers of smoking, 5 As technique for smoking cessation,
mechanism of nicotine dependence, techniques to quit smoking, roles of pharmacists in
helping patients to quit smoking, pharmacotherapy in smoking cessation.
Self-learning, as mentioned, was designed to enable students to gain knowledge and
prepare themselves before entering the practice section. In order to do so, students were
informed through courseware to watch 2 videos from YouTube which were about 17 minutes
in total. The videos topics were about dangers of smoking and how to give suggestion to
people who want to quit smoking. Courseware that all registered students can get access was
used to communicate with students.
For practice class, students were divided into a group of 25-30. Thus, we have 4
sections for all fourth year students. The activities performed in practice class were as
following:
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attitudes towards this smoking cessation course, and helping smokers to quit. From teachers
observations and feedbacks from students and friends, students were able to help smokers
quit smoking since their first attempt without any past experience. We also asked students
about the overall satisfaction of learning smoking cessation. Students were satisfied with
these learning styles which composed of a combination of self-learning, lecture, and practice.
However, students still need further experience with real smokers.
The feedbacks from students showed that a combination of learning methods help
them to learn smoking cessation because providing smoking cessation to a patient is quite
difficult due to lack of experiences, and lack of practice. Also, it is quite difficult to persuade
smokers without motivations in quitting smoking. Having other learning strategies in addition
to lecture enabled them to learn how to help smokers quit smoking. For example, selflearning videos helped them learn interactive knowledge for understanding the dangers of
smoking. Learning techniques from a professional on how to provide smoking cessation to a
real patient helped them to transform information from lecture to the real practice. Feed-back
from friends during role-play made the students know their strengths and weakness in
providing smoking cessation counseling. Having experience of chewing a real nicotine
chewing gum allowed them to have real experience which will ease them when explaining
the appropriate methods of chewing nicotine gum to the patients, a method that is different
from chewing normal gum. If they do not have this experience, they might not fully
understand the correct method of chewing the nicotine gum. Thus, a variety of teaching
methods, including self-learning, lecture, and practice, had helped them to have a better
knowledge and understanding of smoking cessation, and can help smokers to quit.
Practicing counseling with real smokers is an effective strategy; however, finding a
real smoker is difficult. In the past, we sometimes can find a real smoker for students to
practice; the students preferred it because they have the chance to gain real, challenging
experience in helping smokers quit smoking. However, replacing an actual smoker with a
simulated smoker is another option to help students practice on delivering smoking cessation
instead of practicing with friends.
Learning smoking cessation in Thailand varied from school to school due to many
factors such as limitation of time and course available. Some schools have only lecture.
Lecture-only course limits students from learning. Students cannot utilize knowledge from
lecture for their practice. Thus, at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Chiang Mai University, we have
tried a variety of techniques to help students gain more knowledge, positive attitudes, and
practice for smoking cessation. However, this is the first time that the fourth year pharmacy
students at the Chiang Mai University have experience in helping smokers quit smoking.
Although the students had more understanding for smokers and were more confident with
positive attitudes in delivering smoking cessation to help smokers, they still would need
additional training before practicing with the real smokers.
Conclusion
We found that a new learning style for smoking cessation module including selflearning, lecture, and practice is a good strategy enabling students to gain better knowledge,
positive attitudes, and practice to help smokers quit smoking.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank you all pharmacy students for their enthusiastic participation.
We are grateful to AvikaUpra for her assistance in editing this paper.
References
Brewster, J. M., & Ashley, M. J. (2005). On the front line of smoking cessation: Survey and
workshop for faculty. Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal, 38(3), 24-25.
Chandler, M. A., & Rennard, S. I. (2010). Smoking cessation. Chest, 137(2), 428-435.
Hudmon, K. S., Bardel, K., Kroon, L. A., Fenlon, C. M., & Corelli, R. L. (2005). Tobacco
education in U.S. schools of pharmacy. Nicotine Tob Res, 7(2), 225-232.
Nimpitakpong, P., Chaiyakunapruk, N., & Dhippayom, T. (2011). Smoking cessation
education in Thai schools of pharmacy. Pharmacy Education, 11(1)(1), 8-11.
Nimpitakpong, P., Dhippayom, T., Chaiyakunapruk, N., Aromdee, J., Chotbunyong, S., &
Charnnarong, S. (2010). Compliance of drugstores with a national smoke-free law: a
pilot survey. Public Health, 124(3), 131-135.
Richmond, R., Zwar, N., Taylor, R., Hunnisett, J., & Hyslop, F. (2009). Teaching about
tobacco in medical schools: a worldwide study. Drug Alcohol Rev, 28(5), 484-497.
Saba, M., Bittoun, R., & Saini, B. (2013). A workshop on smoking cessation for pharmacy
students. Am J Pharm Educ, 77(9), 198.
Simansalam, S., Brewster, J. M., & Mohamed, M. H. N. Smoking cessation in Malaysian
Pharmacy Curricula: Findings from environmental surveys.
Thananithisak, C., Nimpitakpong, P., & Chaiyakunapruk, N. (2008). Activities and
perceptions of pharmacists providing tobacco control services in community
pharmacy in Thailand. [Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't]. Nicotine Tob Res, 10(5),
921-925.
Vathesatogkit, P., & Charoenca, N. (2011). Tobacco control: lessons learnt in Thailand.
Indian J Public Health, 55(3), 228-233.
Wolrd Health Organization. (2016). Tobacco Retrieved 1 June 2016, from
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en/
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Background In Finnish schools sport injuries happen mostly in physical education (PE)
classes and in recess. A remarkable part of the injuries can be prevented. TEKO - Safety in
School Sports (2010) is part of the Sports and Exercise Safety program LiVE. The primary
target group for TEKO is PE and health education (HE) teachers in secondary schools. Safety
promotion focuses on 10 segments; physical activity (PA), sports skills, maturation, nutrition,
rest and sleep, environment and equipment, health care, atmosphere and rules, injuries and
support network.
Objective TEKO has produced free of charge educational material and methods to internet to
encourage PA, to increase quality and contents of PE and to promote safety of sports widely
in school settings. TEKO has built up education material e.g. information packages, electric
homeworks, videos and PP-slides for teaching. The main delivery channel is
www.tervekoululainen.fi.
Results After 6 years websites ha 10000 visits per month and YouTube videos have been
watched 43000 times. TEKO has kept over 60 education events. TEKO has also built up a
large collaborator network, which enables the spreading of sports safety message.
A web-based project evaluation survey was done in 2015 to PE and HE teachers (n=1000).
The response rate was 15 %. According to the survey 72 % of the PE and HE teachers knew
TEKO. Teachers who had used TEKO material at schools were pleased to it, mean grades
(scale of 4-10): expertise 8,9, exterior 8,5, feasibility 8,6 and suitability for the target group
8,4.
Conclusions The reach of teachers has been rather good with the used methods and financial
investment 120000 per year (mostly funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture). The
repeated survey will give more information about the stabilization of TEKO to the basic
school work.
Keywords sport safety, physical activity, adolescents, secondary schools
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Abstract
This study was prepared for giving information about a project content related to in-service
computational thinking education intended for secondary school computer teachers. In the
project, computer education was taken into account under 5 sections as computational
thinking, brick-based software development, unplugged computer science education, robotic
and programming language education methodologies. Computational thinking was the first
phase of the education, the reason of this starting point was to create a systematic
fundamental to build up effective pedagogical approach to computer science education.
Some of the activities used in this phase were explained in this paper, it is believed that the
activities presented in the paper gives clues for researchers studying on integrating
computational thinking skills into education.
Keywords: Computer science teacher, computational thinking, thinking activities, computer
teachers.
Main Conference Topic: Computer Science, Security and Information Technology
Introduction
Since 2006, computational thinking (CT) concept influences the educational literature
in different dimensions. Actually, when Papert (1980) mentioned it for the first time in his
book, the effect of CT was not so much among the educational scientists. Computer
educators were not ready for this remarkable change in both academic perspective and
educational vision of computer education. Computational thinking couldnt integrated into
education even the computers are used in schools almost 30 years (Kafai &Burke 2013). In
2006, After Wing (2006) published her short but effective article titled Computational
thinking, the scientific and social interest of the people to the concept was increased. Hence,
the corner stones of CTs modern definition were recreated by Wing(2006). In her paper
There are important clues regarding the meaning of CT, these two below can show as the
samples:
Computational thinking is a fundamental skill for everyone, not just for computer scientists.
To reading, writing, and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every childs
analytical ability. (Wing, 2006)
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Computational thinking is a way humans solve problems; it is not trying to get humans to
think like computers. Computers are dull and boring; humans are clever and imaginative.
(Wing ,2006)
As seen on the statements, CT is not thought as a part of computer science, it affects all
educational process by changing the thinking approaches of human-being. International
Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) and Computer Science Teachers Association
(CSTA) published an operational definition of computational thinking. In this definition, CT
is detailed as a systematic problem-solving process to deal with complex issues ( ISTE &
CSTA, 2011). Even the core concepts are clear in minds of scientists, there are still
discussions about the peripheral concepts of CT. In order to show the connections among
different sub-concepts of CT, Kert(2016) published a concept map of computational
thinking. he summarized the concept map under these titles:
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Figure 1: Dragon-Architect a block-based coding game (Bauer, Butler and Popovic, 2015).
The man reason to use divide and conquer as the approach is the working style in the game.
As seen on Figure 1, players are given empty procedure and wanted them to design a castle
by using a single block by using iterations. Players need to divide the complex problem into
the parts like towers and walls of the castle and write codes step by step.
CSTA and ISTE (2013), published a detailed CT activity book titled computational thinking
teacher resources, second edition for teachers. In this book, scenarios and CT learning
experiences were presented together. Developing a food chain using scratch, managing a fund
raising organization, enhancing research skills and sequencing experiences can be listed as
some of the samples.
In literature, it can be seen that teachers need to use different kind of activities to be able to
integrate in to CT. Therefore, the enhancing the variety of educational CT scenarios is an
important point to support these process.
Model
This study shows some activities which will be used an in-service computer teacher
education thats going to be carried out by the researchers from Yildiz Technical University
and supported by the scientific and technological research council of Turkey (TUBITAK).
The activities are related the one part of whole education process. In this part, activities
which can be used to enhance CT skills of the students was prepared for sharing with the
teachers in order to use in secondary school computer education courses.
Implementation
The activities taken into account in this paper was described under two core concepts of
computational thinking: Abstraction and Decomposition. Short definitions of these
concepts were presented under the titles.
Activity Title 1: Abstractions
Abstraction is one of the important core concepts of CT, therefore, in the literature,
unplugged in-class activities used to enhance CT skills of the students can be seen. Wing
(2007) defined Abstraction and Automation as The Two As of Computational
Thinking, additionally, In another paper, she mentioned that The essence of computational
thinking is abstraction (Wing, 2008). Abstraction, can be explained as focusing on the main
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point by removing the useless complex details in the whole problematic situation. In this
manner, a traffic intensity map can be shown as a sample of abstraction.
Figure 2: Traffic intensity map of Istanbul city, this map was retrieved from the ibb (2016),
on June 25th.
On such maps, the complex details of the city view are eliminated and it can be possible to
focus on the traffic intensity as the main goal. In this concept, in-class sketching activities
would be used to support abstraction skills of the students, such kind of process starts with
asking students to draw a 2d sketch of a physical environment like school, street, campus or
class.
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Student
Dean
XYZ 1 company
After this step, a brainstorming activity is implemented to compare the ideas of the students.
They are supported by the teacher to create their own solutions. The complex structure of
ethical issues always need to be divided into small parts and this process provide to
improvement of decomposition skills of the students.
Conclusion
A few samples regarding the core concepts of computational thinking was presented in this
paper. These activities will be increased and detailed in our project study and shared with the
teachers during an in-service computer teacher education process. The opinions of the
teachers and the implementation results will be presented in another paper. It is believed that
the educational literature should be supported with such kind of activities. On the other hand,
assessment of individual development after the implementation process of CT activities is
another gap in the literature. In further studies, to develop different approaches to assess the
CT skills of the students can be an important purpose for researcher.
References
Barr, V., & Stephenson, C. (2011). Bringing computational thinking to K-12: what is
Involved and what is the role of the computer science education community?. Acm Inroads,
2(1), 48-54.
I used the algorithm for
my educational experience
by developing a software. I
was not selling, only
accepting donations
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Brennan, K., & Resnick, M. (2012, April). New frameworks for studying and assessing the
development of computational thinking. In Proceedings of the 2012 annual meeting of the
American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, Canada.
The College Board. (2013). AP computer science principles draft curriculum framework.
New York, NY: College Board. Retrieved from http://www.csprinciples.org/home/about-theproject/docs/csp-cf-2013.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1.
Kafai, Y. B., & Burke, Q. (2015). Computer programming goes back to school.Education
Week, 61-65.
Kert, S. B. (2016, Mays). Komputasyonel dnme kavram haritas, 10th International
Computer & Instructional Technologies Symposium (ICITS), Rize, Turkey.
Ibb (2016). Citty traffic may, retrieved from http://tkm.ibb.gov.tr/YHarita/Harita_tr.aspx on
June 25th.
ISTE & CSTA (2011), Computational thinking: Teacher resources. Second Edition, 25 Aralk
2015 tarihinde
http://www.csta.acm.org/ Curriculum/sub/CurrFiles/ 472.11CTTeacher
Resources_2ed -SP-vF.pdf adresinden eriildi.
Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. Basic Books, Inc..
Wing, J. M. (2006). Computational thinking. Communications of the ACM,49(3), 33-35.
Wing, J. (2007). Computational Thinking. Retrieved from: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/
cs/usr/wing/www/Computational_Thinking.pdf . on June 25th.
Wing, J. M. (2008). Computational thinking and thinking about computing. Philosophical
transactions of the royal society of London A: mathematical, physical and engineering
sciences, 366(1881), 3717-3725.
Voogt, J., Fisser, P., Good, J., Mishra, P., & Yadav, A. (2015). Computational thinking in
compulsory education: Towards an agenda for research and practice. Education and
Information Technologies, 20(4), 715-728.
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Abstract
The present paper is intended to examine students views on the effectiveness of the courses
and seminars they attend as part of their pedagogical training. Taking into account the fact
that, in order to become teachers they have to enrol in a special programme which usually
lasts for three years, it is really important to know exactly what their perception is in order to
improve the quality of the teaching process. Based on the data analysis from 183 students
enrolled in the Petroleum - Gas University of Ploiesti in the academic year 2015-2016, some
suggestions and recommendations were made for the improvement of the evaluation process.
Keywords: evaluation, students, academic staff, questionnaire, feedback
Main Conference Topic: Higher Education
Introduction
The most important benefit of students assessment is the feedback that the official
evaluation process implemented in universities offer to the teaching staff , so that they can
refine their courses and teaching practices to provide students with better learning
experiences. By calling attention to students opinions about the courses they are taught, the
climate of teaching and learning is improved.
The aim of students evaluation is truly achieved only by interpreting the data and the
open-ended comments clearly and correctly. According to Cashin (1990) the students
evaluation should determine instructors to improve their way of teaching by reflecting upon
the previous activity and thinking about the following journey as an instructor.
There are three main objectives that an instructor achieves after interpreting the
students anonymous evaluation:
1. to check if ones goals as an instructor were fulfilled;
2. to understand which are ones strengths and weaknesses;
3. to target items that can be changed or improved.
All these aims focus on the same core, that of improving teaching effectiveness and the
students have to be the ones to gain the most from this evaluation.
In terms of teachers evaluation by the students, the Petroleum Gas University of
Ploieti has implemented a clear methodology of undergoing the process of teaching staff
evaluation by students. According to this official document, the main objective of the
evaluation consists in the continuous improvement of the teaching process quality, of
knowledge transfer efficiency and of developing students competences, as direct
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Review of Literature
According to various researchers, there is a lot of controversy regarding the evaluation
of teaching done by the students. Some authors (Braga, Paccagnella & Pellizzari, 2013;
Carrell & West, 2010; Weinberg, Fleisher & Hashimoto, 2009) consider that some students
have the tendency of giving better marks to teachers who give higher grades, thus being a
subjective process, while others (Duflo, Hanna & Kremer, 2010; Lavy, 2009) consider that
these evaluations provide reliable data as they help in understanding how the teachers should
or should not conduct their classes. However, a good point is emphasized by Cashin (1990)
who considers that using multiple sources will accurately evaluate or improve the teaching
process within any institution. Also, keeping in mind the purposes of the evaluation process is
an aspect that should be taken into consideration. Thus, in Cashins (1990) opinion, there are
three main purposes, that is: evaluation (this being part of the data on which personnel
decisions are made), improvement (in order to make changes that are beneficial for the
students) and advising (to help students in selecting teachers or courses to be attended).
Regarding the voices against this kind of evaluation, some researchers have identified
various reasons for which some members of the teaching staff do not consider it as a reliable
source of feedback:
they consider students as unable to make a proper assessment because either they do
not have any teaching experience, or they do not have the professional knowledge about their
course content (Dejean, 2006);
this kind of evaluation comes against the academic freedom (Romainville, 2009;
Youns, 2009) because teachers may feel like their academic performance is controlled;
teaching is rather a piece of art than a science properly speaking (Dawe, 1984);
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In order to have an evaluation with a formative character and susceptible to sustain the
professional development of the academic staff four principles should be kept in mind:
confidentiality, responsibility, adaptability and reflection. (Berthiaume, Lanars, Jacqmot,
Winer & Rochat, 2011).
The principle of confidentiality is both student and teacher oriented. On the one hand,
students should not sign their questionnaires because in this way they guarantee the honesty
of their answers. At the same time, the teacher should leave the classroom until all the
students finish the evaluation. On the other hand, the results communicated by the dean to the
teacher and the head of department through an individual synthetic sheet should be done
within a confidential meeting. (Methodology of Conducting Teacher Evaluation, 2015).
The second principle is responsibility and has to be taken into consideration by the
Department and Faculty management. They decide which course and teacher should be
evaluated. The academic staff should also be responsible after they receive the results of the
evaluation and take them into account for a better teaching activity.
The third principle of adaptability concerns the teachers flexibility before (because
he/she has to consider that the evaluation takes place in his/her last
course/seminar/laboratory) and after receiving the results of the evaluations. The academic
staff will reconsider all the teaching process: methods, curricula, subjects, number of hours
allocated to a certain subjects.
The fourth principle, reflection is also oriented towards the teaching staff, and it means
that they should think about how the results of the evaluation will influence their future
academic methods and professional trajectory.
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were participants in the research, all of them having classes within the Teacher Training
Department.
Research instrument
We based our study on a quantitative method, the main instrument being a
questionnaire that consisted of 15 items, out of which 14 were closed items (a Likert scale
was used) and the final one an open item for which students had to provide their personal
comments and suggestions. It should be mentioned that the instrument used is the official one
adopted by the management of the university, this being part of the evaluation process
implemented in our university. The questionnaire administered to the students is shown
below:
Table 1: Questionnaire for evaluating the teaching activity
Tick the applicable answer:
Activity type: .course...seminar.....laboratory .. project
Your frequency at the evaluated activity: 25%.... 40% .60% 80%
The teacher skipped the classes oncetwice .several times
Please write in the Score column the number of points corresponding to the performance
level which you consider appropriate according to the following scale:
1 Satisfactory level
2 Medium level
3 Good level
4 Very good level
5 Excellent level
No.
I1
I2
I3
I4
I5
I6
I7
I8
I9
I10
I11
I12
Statement
There is an initial organization of the activity, the expected performance
of the students has been clearly enunciated since the beginning of the
course/seminar/laboratory/project
Professional scientific language used by the teacher is accessible, its
understanding is facilitated by conclusive explanations and examples
Due to organization and quality of questions/problems, the
course/seminar/laboratory/project determines the student to think and
promotes general intellectual capacities or adapted to a certain domain.
Time is efficiently used during the course/seminar/laboratory/project and
the pace of covering the subject sustains the understanding and retention
of new knowledge.
The content of the course/seminar/laboratory/project has an organized,
systematic and coherent character
The course/seminar/laboratory/project promotes active- participatory
methods, centred on students involvement in the teaching-learning
process.
Teaching style and content are attractive, interesting, stimulating the
desire for knowledge in the respective domain
The teacher supports and encourages students questions, their alternative
views, dialogue and personal solutions
Students are early and clearly informed about the criteria and the
evaluation methods of their professional activity
The subject study, the exam preparation are supported by learning
resources (lectures, course support, references etc.)
The teacher is accessible, available at communication, treats students with
respect and consideration
The course/seminar/laboratory is a proof of professional commitment of
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the teachers towards the discipline (interest for his/her good training,
rational and emotional support of the subject, interpretation of new issues
in the domain)
The teacher is responsive to students individual professional, scientific
personal needs; he/she advises them successfully in developing their own
I13
projects: term papers, dissertations, research projects or personal
development projects
I14 Synthetic assessment of the overall quality of evaluated work
Other issues and feedback, comments, suggestions related to this activity:
The students answers to the items included in the standard survey provided us with
interesting information that helped us to have a general image of the way in which the
pedagogical training of students is achieved in our university. We are aware that the data we
obtained cannot be generalized but they can be used as a point of reference by teachers who
wish to improve their instructional strategies by taking into account students feedback.
Score V1
4.15
4.24
4.63
2.83
4.85
4.73
4.49
Score V2
4.25
4.18
4.55
4.73
4.89
4.75
4.52
170
Score V3
4.48
4.49
4.69
5.00
4.91
4.79
4.68
Score V4
4.59
4.42
4.73
5.00
2.68
4.81
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5.00
4.50
4.59
4.49
4.48
4.42
4.25
4.24
4.18
4.15
4.73
4.69
4.63
4.55
5.00
5.00
4.91
4.89
4.85
4.73
4.81
4.79
4.75
4.73
4.68
4.52
4.49
4.00
3.50
2.83
3.00
2.68
2.56
2.50
2.00
4
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
T6
T7
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afraid of expressing their opinions for fear of possible consequences during examinations.
This shows that they do not trust the confidentiality of such surveys and they believe that
teachers may discover who wrote certain considerations due to the fact that they have to
complete the questionnaire in writing.
Conclusion
As a conclusion, the following recommendations can be made in order to improve the
evaluation process not only in our university, but in other universities as well:
the evaluation should not be done only at the end of the semester, but during the
semester as well so that the data provided by the students are more reliable and
teachers can change their approach if they find out that some aspects are not really
appreciated by their students;
it is advisable to adapt the form of the questionnaire depending on the subject taught,
as well as on the person teaching the subject;
an online evaluation process would be more reliable and more trusted by the students
who would definitely be more sincere when completing their answers. They fear of
being noticed by the teachers would thus disappear;
only students who have at least 75% attendance should be allowed to fill in the
evaluation form;
some questions such as what made you rate the course as high as you did and what
kept you from rating the course higher, as suggested by some researchers from the
Center for Teaching and Learning of Stanford University (1997) could be included in
the evaluation forms to have qualitative data as well.
It is really beneficial for both learners and teachers to be able to rely on the data
obtained through the evaluation process, the ultimate purpose being that of improving the
quality of the teaching and learning as well as the quality of student-teacher relation. Only by
means of mutual trust and respect students and teachers motivation will increase and the
evaluation will be reliable and will provide practitioners with valid results.
References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
Berthiaume, D., Lanars, J., Jacqmot, C., Winer, L., & Rochat, J.M. (2011).
Lvaluation des enseignements par les tudiants (EEE). In Recherche formation, et 67,
pp. 53-72.
Braga, M., Paccagnella, M. & Pellizzari, M. (2013) Evaluating students evaluations of
professors. In Economics of Education Review, Volume 41, pp.71-88.
Carrell, S.E. & West, J.E. (2010). Does professor quality matter? Evidence from
random assignment of students to professors. In Journal of Political Economy, 118
(2010), pp. 409432.
Cashin, W.M. (1990). Students Rating of Teaching: Recommendations for Use. In
IDEA Paper, no. 22, Center for Faculty Education and Development. Kansas State
University. (www.ideaedu.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Idea_Paper_22.pdf).
Dawe H. A. (1984). Teaching: A Performing Art, Phi Delta Kappan, vol. LXV, n 8,
pp. 548-552.
Dejean, J. (2006). Les rticences lvaluation de lenseignement en France, signe de
la culture professionnelle des enseignants-chercheurs ou trait de la culture franaise ? In
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[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
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Abstract
Since the beginning of the post-colonial era, to teach English and assist foreign people
overseas-in different institutions and universities- in their teaching of it hasbecome a very
important educational investment of the British Council.Indeed,the more the people who
understand and speak English world-wide, the wider are the prospects for every Briton
looking for any Business, social or academic exchanges with overseas people.Besides, the
world-wide knowledge of the English language by foreign people, in general, and by former
British colonies such as Nigeria, in a more particular way,offers an opportunity to protect
British interests, spread and further cultural, commercial and political influence.
Keywords:British Council,EnglishLanguageTeaching, Post-Colonial, Nigeria,
Multidisciplinary Academic Conference on Education, Teaching and E-learning, Czech
Republic, Prague (MAC-ETeL 2016)
Friday - Saturday, August 5-6, 2016.
Introduction
The Nigerian continual declining standard ofEnglish language teaching during the
post-colonial era increased the need for the Councils assistance and strengthened its position
by offering growing dimensions.Expatriates continued to leave; the Key Posts Scheme did
not fill enough posts; whereas schools were being built at a greater pace, 80%of primary
school teachers were still unqualified and pupils continued to fail in English. In 1965, the
problem worsened and more pupils being taught by an insufficient number of trained teachers
proficient in English language teaching, lacking the adequate needed tools. Indeed, there was
a need for the provision of great numbers of text-books of a suitable type for teaching
English, based on new methods and new syllabuses with such help as could be provided by
television, radio, visual aids and language laboratories.
The objective of the present paper is to consider the British Councils invested efforts
in the Nigerian English language teaching field on which the whole Nigerian educational
system relied to develop. To what extent was this British Councilseducational
investmentable to satisfy the Nigerian needs and raise the standard of English in this former
British colony?
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Before considering the British Councils main work in Nigerian English language
teaching area, it is interesting to refer brieflyto the Councils expansion in colonial Nigeria.
I- The British Councils Expansion in Colonial Nigeria:
The Councils work in colonial Nigeria knew a gradual growth after the Second
World War. After 1947, it developed positively and this despite a shortage of funds and staff.
British Councils activities in Lagos were extended to Eastern, Western and Northern
Provinces. Council Centres were opened in Enugu (East), Port Harcourt (East), Ibadan
(West), Kano (North), Kaduna (North). This expansion allowed further influence to spread,
through different activities such as those related to library, books and periodicals, lectures,
film shows, music, drama and broadcasting, in this British colony advancing towards selfgovernment.
By the end of the colonial era, the British Council started to focus on English
language teaching. To slow the decline in the standard of spoken English, the British Council
Linguistics adviser, Mr H. H. Cartledge, visited Lagos and Ibadan to inspect the state of
English language teaching in preparation for the coming of an English language officer. He
managed to make interesting contacts in the Education Departments, the University College
and Schools, and was able to exchange expert advice. MrDrumond Thompson, the English
language officer, arrived in February 1959 and was at once warmly welcomed by the
Education authorities and the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation.1 Yet, the British Councils
total investment in English Language Teaching field had to wait the post-colonial era to be
encouraged by both independent Nigeria and Britain to preserve existing ties and initiate
more co-operation between the two countries.
II-The British Council Post-Colonial English Language Teaching (ELT):
During the post-colonial era, the Councils Centres in Nigeria concentrated on
teachers and teacher training colleges. Although many other organisations and professional
groups used the Councils premises as their cultural centre, the educational policy the Council
followed dictated the encouragement of teachers to come to the Council, either officially, as
in Ibadan where the centre was an official Education Ministry Regional In-Service Training
and Information Centre, or unofficially, as in Enugu. In Lagos, study groups continued and
teachers met to discuss scientific and problems of English and see the View and Teach
series. Port Harcourt Centre became a very lively place, and teachers were, here again, to the
fore. In Benin, the Education Ministry Audio-visual officer had been placed in the Councils
centre even before its official opening. Kaduna, with its English Language Unit, was like
Ibadan very attractive to teachers.2Besides, the Councils Librarian advised on public library
development as did the Council educational officials do as regards syllabus and text-book
production. In this context, in 1968,the British Council in Nigeria pointed out:
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Britain, like other countries, has been aware that knowing about the cultural and
social life of a given country is very helpful if one wants to undertake consciously and
successfully different affairs (political or commercial and other).In this, the British Councils
English language teaching centres have been a source of reliable information since
everywhere it was represented, the Councils audience included professionals from different
walks of life of the given country. Moreover, most of the students involved were learning
English for professional purposes. Besides, among them was found a developing number of
governments, commercial and industrial clients with home the British Council established
friendships which were to be the bridge through which British influence could be channeled.
Such friendship, indeed, as the British Council put it: lead to the exchange of ideas and
transfer of technology, provide support for Britain when [British people] need it, contribute to
better understanding and ensure that [British] achievements are not overlooked.4Therefore,
during the post-colonial era, the ELT became a very important field on which the British
Council invested efforts were recognised world-wide , particularly in former British colonies
such as Nigeria.
Indeed, the British Councils English language teaching operation flourished. The
Council arranged co-operation with the various agencies involved in ELT in Nigeria. This cooperation involved Ministries of Education, Advanced Teacher Training Colleges, university
departments, the Council English Language officer (ELO), as well as much bodies as the
Ford Foundation, US AID, UNESCO and others.5 An efficient Coordination Committee,
under the Councils supervision, was created. The British Councils ELO, the Aid to
Commonwealth English officer (ACE) at Owerri advanced Teacher Training College, the
UNESCO expatriate adviser on English to the Eastern Ministry of Education and a
representative of the University of Nigeria at Nsukka, worked well together on the
Committee, a fact that significantly consolidated the Councils work.6
However, it was difficult for the Council to carry out the kind of co-operation required
in English language teaching throughout Nigeria every time. For instance, in 1964, it was still
uncertain for the British Council to detect where the strategic work was to be, and the
potentialities of the Ahmadu Bello University were not disregarded by the forth coming
arrival of an ACE at Zaria. The British Council hoped to cultivate a special relationship
emerging between the University and training colleges in North Nigeria, a fact that was to
give this post a key position, but some doubt prevailed around the degree of influence that
could be exerted by this University. In the meantime, the Councils English officer continued
to be very convincing and to enjoy the full confidence of the Ministry. Thus, requests for
more Councils assistance resulted in the appointment of the second ELO at Kaduna and the
establishment of a special language demonstration centre, seconded with a language
laboratory.7
More Councils efforts were also registered in Nigeria. The Councils ELO
collaborating with an ACE appointed to Ibadan (1963-1964), embarked upon the snowball
scheme of courses for Assistant Inspectors, to train the latter to run series of short courses in
oral English throughout the Western and Mid-Western Regions. These short-courses trained
3,000 primary school teachers a year and were an established part of the Ministrys work.
The British Councils ELT efforts continued to be directed towards the primary school
level, with the Teacher Training Colleges and Inspectorates as its major targets. For instance,
in 1966, the Councils ELO who occupied the post of Adviser at the Eastern Regions
Ministry of Education initiated a policy to ameliorate the teaching of English at primary
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schools by a three-pronged drive. The first one was to raise the standards of English at the
Regions Teaching Training Colleges by instituting an oral examination. The second one was
to provide a thorough training for local Inspecting Assistants to allow them setting
professional standards of English language teaching. The third one was to spread this
improvement among primary school teachers through the in-service courses the Inspecting
Assistants held with the Councils staff help, to provide necessary advice.8This initiated
policy was very appreciated by the Ministry of Education. In this context, the Permanent
Secretary asked for a British assistance in the training of the newly expanded Inspectorate in
the whole range of the primary education in Eastern Nigeria.9
This successful experience was extended to the other parts of the country. For
instance, in September 1967, the British Councils ELO in Western Nigeria gave two-week
courses on the use of the language laboratory to two Inspecting Assistants from the Ministry
of Education. This trained staff was expected to supervise daily classes of the Teachers
Training Colleges students in remedial English using the British Councils tape 60 steps in
spoken English with the ELOs assistance. Besides, by the beginning of 1967, the Councils
ACE officer, appointed to the Ministry of Education as a Senior Inspector, finished his One
Term Experimental Remedial course in English. The end of the same year witnessed the
Councils assistance in supervising this experimentation in three selected Teacher Training
Colleges. The results of this experiment were reported in the Journal of the Nigerian English
studies association and the Ministry of Education solicited the Council to extend this course
to a dozen Training College tutors.10 This course was administered by the Councils ELO and
the Ministry attached ACE with some assistance from ACE officer who was seconded to the
University of Ibadan by the Council in 1966, as a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of
Education.
This Councils ELT dynamism was witnessed in Northern Nigeria where the focus
was on the Teacher Training Colleges. For instance, in 1966-1967, the British Councils ACE
at Ahmadu Bello University continued to advice at the Areas Boards of English Studies and
assisted to prepare schemes of work in methods of teaching English for teachers colleges in
the Gambe Board. He also revised the Ministry of Educations Handbook on English
Teaching in Primary Schools.11
Thus, through its teaching operation, the British Council made contact with the
maximum number of Nigerians. To have extended contact means to be aware of the Nigerian
perceptions, tastes and needs, a fact that guided the Council - and the British embassy behind
- to choose the appropriate ground for the cultivation of an appreciation of Britain and the
promotion of British cultural, commercial and political influence, by offering assistance and
suggesting solutions that coincided with Nigerians objective.
Yet, the standard of English language teaching in Nigeria continued to be in most
need for more significant assistance to improve. Consequently, the British Councils
cooperated with the different American agencies working in English teaching, particularly in
the Northern Region. For instance, in 1970, answering the demand of the Institute of
Education of the Zaria Teacher Training College, the British Council cooperated with US
Peace Corps and Ford Foundation agencies to upgrade Grade III teachers. The British
Council headed the controlling committees of this scheme, organised and took part in the
panels established to produce syllabuses. Besides, the Councils ACE (Zaria) part in the
briefing of volunteers in the US and run an in-country briefing for the English language
specialists.
.
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Conclusion
Thus, the British Councils English language Teaching operation in Nigeria,
represented a potent force in forming and maintaining useful overseas links through which
not only cultural but political and commercial benefits could be secured. Indeed, the
professionally devoted efforts to improve the declining English language teaching standard in
this former British colony, allowed the Council to win the confidence of the local authorities
and other British educational services to flourish. Moreover, they left a British touch and
registered a considerable impact on Nigerian development. This Councils educational
investment in Nigeria was able to promote British achievements, spread British culture and
influence in such a way that British educational services in particular, became highly
demanded during the independence days, at a time a fierce competition to dominate the
Nigerian educational market was led by the main actors of the Cold War.
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Bibliography
BW128/1, Confidential, The British Council, Nigeria, Representatives Annual Report 1958-1959, 1959.
BW128/8, The Work of the British Council in Nigeria, 27 January 1964.
BW128/9, The British Council, Nigeria, Representatives Annual Report 1962-1963, 1963.
BW128/16, The British Council, Nigeria, Representatives Annual Report 1963-1964, 1964.
BW128/16, Confidential, The British Council, Eastern Nigeria, Regional Representatives Annual Report
1966-1967, 1967.
BW128/16, Confidential, The British Council, Western Nigeria, Regional Representatives Annual Report
1966-1967, 1967.
BW128/16, Confidential, The British Council, Northern Nigeria, Regional Representatives Annual Report
1966-1967, 1967.
BW128/16,Confidential,TheBritishCouncil,Nigeria,RepresentativesAnnual Report1967-1968,1968.
The British Council, The British Councils Annual Report 1986-1987,London, The British Council, 1987.
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Abstract
During the last years the use of the digital board and the Internet has become an integral part
of the teaching process. The research deals with the experiment which takes into account the
advantages of using the digital board in order to prepare the online communication with the
Internet in professional collaboration between the members of the teaching staff and the
teachers who take part in the international thematic mobility programs together with their
students.
The author who has a broad experience in organizing international mobility programs for her
students aged 14-18 years set an aim to find the new ways of communication during the
projects and to upgrade the ways of communication used. The research was carried out in the
secondary school maintained by the Hungarian National Federation of Consumer Cooperative Societies and Trade Associations. The author sets the following hypothesis: she
assumes that using the digital board by the staff of the mentioned school will significally
change the communication between the teachers, their students and school partners, will
affect the development of the digital and communicative competences of all of them.
Keywords: digital and communicative competences, digital board, the Internet, international
mobility programs
Main Conference Topic: Education, Teaching and Learning
Introduction
Digital competence is one of the key competences, it means not only use the Information
and Communication Technology tools, but involves the confident use of them for learning,
self development, employment and participation in society. In our previous research deals
with the international mobility programs we underlined the importance of using the Internet
during them. The way the teachers communicate with the students has become very different,
the students can get acquainted with the standard and the computer-mediated communication
during their school years.
Due to our investigations we have proved that using the Internet significally influences the
key competences of the participants of the mentioned programs. That is why we decided to
involve digital board together with the Internet into the school projects and the staffs
everyday work.
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The pedagogical experiment: the influence of using the digital board and the
Internet during the international projects of the institution on the level of the
digital and communicative competences of the staff and students
The experiment was carried out in the secondary school maintained by the Hungarian
National Federation of Consumer Co-operative Societies and Trade Associations. The idea of
the research came from the experience of the school in the international mobility programs,
especially broad experience of the director of the school in organizing the international
thematic projects for the staff and the students.
With the aim of involving digital board not only into the teaching process but into the
communication in the school between the teachers and the students and also between the staff
and the school partners the director of the school motivated the teachers participated in the
international mobility programs in the previous years to share their experience in the ways of
communication during the projects with the colleagues. The aim of the experiment was to
upgrade the staffs and students digital and communicative competences. Also the school
leaders hoped to achieve to start the members of the staff to interact through technologies and
collaborate through digital channels.
Our research tasks were to verify the effect of using the digital board together with the
Internet in the school projects and to find out the changes in the communication of the staff,
the school partners and the students. For fulfilling the mentioned tasks we had to choose a
research sample. We hoped to discover positive changes in the digital and communicative
competences after the experiment consciously guided by the director of the school during one
academic school year.
Altogether 21 teachers from the 29-member staff and 58 students joined the research (31
students in experimental group and 27 students in control group). The students like in our
previous research mainly come from the bilingual classes of the school. I would like to note
that we tried to form homogeneous groups, e.g. 16 students from the experimental and 16
students from the control group participated in the research have approximately the same
academic results, social status and socio-cultural background. We based our research on the
theorethical basis related to the connection between students digital and communicative
competences and their social background, also on the experience of the colleagues who teach
methods of communication and involving digital tools into the studying process.
Our goal was to show the influence of using the digitals tools on the development of
participants competences. We would like to answer a lot of questions:
- How do the teachers prepare for their lessons and how do they prepare for fulfilling the
tasks of the school projects?
- What are the ways of communication in the school between the colleagues, students and
school partners?
- How do the students prepare for and communicate during the international projects?
- The teachers have to stimulate students motivation for learning, also they have to find the
ways that can influence and stimulate the competences with the help of the digital tools. How
do they do it?
We did our best to choose and to maximally prepare the research methods also to evaluate
the effectiveness of the research. We set the hypothesis: we assume that using the digital
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board by the teachers of the mentioned staff will significally change the communication
between the teachers, their students and school partners, will effect the development of the
digital and communicative competences of all of them.
INTERNET,
DIGITAL
BOARD
STAFFSTUDENTSPARTNERS
EDUCATION,
POSSIBILITIES
COMPETENCES
COMMUNICATION
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We carried out our experiment in one school academic year between August 2014 and
August 2015.
Steps and
periods
Involving,
guidance
August
2014October 2014
Starting
communication
October 2014
Continuing
communication
November 2014April 2015
oral, face-to-face,
written, online
communication (team
work, interviews,
questionnaries), DB
oral, face-to-face,
written, online
communication (team
work, interviews,
questionnaries), DB
oral, face-to-face,
written (team work,
common
presentation), DB
Online, DB
May 2015-June
2015
The results
September 2015
Research methods
Questionnaries
(teachers, students,
school partners),
Tests (staff,
students),
academic results
(students),
competence tests
(staff, students,
school partners)
Participants
Students,
teachers, school
partners
(S-S, S-SP,
TS, T-T, T-SP
pairs)
oral, face-to-face,
written, online (team
work), DB
In September 2015 we studied the output measurements in the groups and the changes in
communication of the target groups. We found out positive changes in the oral, written,
online communication of the participants and in the institutions business administration and
correspondence as well. Accordind to the results we have found that after the experiment the
students social, language, digital and communicative competences have developed, also they
reached better results in reading comprehension during competence tests and better academic
results in the end of the previous school year. One of the goals of the school was to have a
staff not only using the Internet but having the ability to identify digital competence gaps. We
have noticed that the majority of the teachers participated in the experiment have joined to
the teacher networks and many of them have applied for international courses deal with
improving digital competences of the participants. As the result of the executed experiment
the staff has become an innovative, creative staff solving the everyday tasks using the digital
tools.
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The digital board and the Internet during the thematic projects were used for the
communication and project activity, also the teachers used the digital board for sharing ones
competences, knowledge or for changing information with the colleagues teaching different
subjects. The results of the executed experiment have shown arguments in favour of
developing the digital and communicative competences of the students and the members of
the staff using the digital board together with the Internet.
The use of the digital board with the Internet for fulfilling the project tasks and for the
communication with the shool partners significally influences the quality of the school
projects and administration.
Conclusion
One of the aims of the experiment was to achieve to start the staff members to interact
through technologies and collaborate through digital channels. As the proof the activity of the
members of the staff has grown up in teacher networks deal with online and offline
professional collaboration in order to develop the digital and communicative competences.
As an addition we have found out that the digital board was used not only for teaching or
preparing the meetings or the international project activity but for sharing information within
the staff. As the result the communication between the representatives of the school and all its
partners (organizations, sponsors, parents, partner schools, the representatives of the
maintainer, etc.) has changed.
References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
Bellanca, J. A., Stirling, T. (2011). Classroom without Borders. Using Internet Projects
to Teach Communication and Collaboration. Teacher College Press, NY.
Edge, D. K., Creese, B., Frew, K., Hua, G., Katugo, D., Sannoh, B. (2011). Learning
from Innovative Partnerships. Institute of Education, Plan UK, London.
Erstad, O. (2010). Educating the Digital Generation. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy,
1., Oslo.
Nathan, S. (2011). Building for Growth: Business Priorities for Education and Skills
Survey. CBI, London.
Purcell, K., Rainie, L., Heaps, A., Buchanan, J., Friedrich, L., Jacklin, A., Chen, C.,
Zickuhr, K. (2012). How Teens Do Research in the Digital World. URL:
http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/11/01/how-teens-do-research-in-the-digital-world/
Riczk, E., Lnrd S. (2016). International Mobility Programs and the Level of
Students Competences. Proccedings of the 7th MAC 2016. Academic Conferences
Association, MAC Prague consulting Ltd., Prague.
Shratz, M. Slavikova, L. (2009). The Role of School Leadership in the Improvement of
Learning. (Country Reports and Case Studies of a Central-European Project). Tempus
Public Foundation, Budapest.
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The Relationship between Social Networks Adoption and Academic Self Efficacy of PreService Teachers
Dr. Semseddin Gunduz
semsedding@gmail.com
Necmettin Erbakan University
Ahmet Kelesoglu Education Faculty
Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies
Konya, Turkey
The popularity of social networks has increased recently. Human can learn easily use of
social network. The aim of this study was to investigate what the academic self efficacy and
social network adoption of pre-service teachers were and to elucidate the relationship
between academic self efficacy and social network adoption. Therefore, the present study
investigated who studied as a student in education faculty in Turkey. The data collection tools
of the study are Personal Information Form designed by the researcher, Social Network
Adoption Scale and Academic Self Efficacy Scale. Percentage, frequency, t-test, ANOVA
and Pearson correlation test were used for the statistical analysis of the data. The sample
group of this study comprised of 514 pre-service teachers. At the end of the research, status
of the pre-service teachers to adopt social networks was medium, and their academic self
efficacy states were at a high level. There was no relationship between the adoption of social
networks and academic self efficacy states and the gender of the pre-service teachers.
Adoption of social networks and academic self efficacy levels of pre-service ICT teachers
were significantly higher than pre-service early childhood teachers. There is a significant
positive relationship between the social network adoption levels of pre-service teachers and
the level of academic self efficacy. The obtained research findings were discussed with
literature and suggestions have been made.
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Parent mplemented Program for Supporting Home and Institution Based Toileting Skills
INTRODUCTION
The purpose in the family environment and pre-school education institutions is to
allow children to reach lifelong independence in basic skills such as self-care, feeding,
dressing. It is important for all children to have self-care skills whether they have disability or
notin terms of being the indicator of independence of children from their parents (zyrek,
1986,Kroger &Sorensen-Burnworth, 2009). Although toilet training which is within the selfcare skills is not a requirement for enrollment in public or private education institutions, it is
one of self-care skills which is expected from the childto primarily develop by parents and
teachers.
Toileting skills are the basis of personal cleaning. Additionally, it is known that these
skills promote health and social interaction as well as self-management skills. It is seen that
normally developed children can develop these skills as of 20-month-oldwhile development
of toileting skills by children with different disabilities particularly by children with autism
spectrum disorder takes more time and these children complete skill development late (Rinald
& Miranda, 2012). Also, special and adapted methods are known to be usedmost of the time
for teaching Toileting skills to these children. One of the most important components in the
toilet training is to include family into the training process. According to conducted studies,
parents make important contributions to the toilet training of children by being role modelsto
their children.
PURPOSE
Main purpose of this study is to determine whether Program for Supporting Homeand Institution-based Toileting Skills for Families enablesmothers toacquire the skill of
teaching toileting control to their children and for children to acquireday-time toileting
control.
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Following questions are tried to be answered in order to evaluate the main purpose of
the study:
1. Does the intervention of the Program for Supporting Home- and Institution-based
Toileting Skills for Families enablemothers to acquire the skill of teaching toileting
control to their children?
2. Does the intervention of the Program for Supporting Home- and Institution-based
Toileting Skills for Families enable children to acquiretoileting control?
3. Does the intervention of the Program for Supporting Home- and Institution-based
Toileting Skills for Families enable children to sustain toileting control skills they
acquire7 and 14 days after the training?
RESEARCH MODEL
AB design, which is a type ofsingle subject experimental designs, is used in this study
in order to determine whether Program for Supporting Home- and Institution-based
Toileting Skills for Families enables mothers to acquire the skill of teaching toileting control
to their children and for children to acquire day-time toileting control.
The A phase represents baseline level while the B phase represents treatment level in
the AB design. Dependent variable is observed in natural process and data are recorded
during the A phase. During the B phase, independent variable is implemented, and
observation and recording of the dependent variable are continued during the intervention. At
the end of treatment process, data obtained at the baseline level and the end of treatment are
compared, then effects of implemented method are revealed (Barlow and Hersen, 1984;
Alberto and Troutman,1986; Richards et al.,1999).
DEPENDENT AND INDEPENDENT VARIABLE
Two dependent variables are utilized in the research. The first one is skill levels of
mothers inteaching toileting control to their children. The second one is toileting
controllevels of children. Independent variable is Program for Supporting Home- and
Institution-based Toileting Skills for Families.
SUBJECTS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS
The 1st Subject is a 2,5-year-old female student with Downs syndrome. She has gone to
private special education institution since 1-year-old. She has self-care skills such as pulling
of socks, removing hat, pulling down trousers, etc. She speaks with one-word sentence
structures (such as mother, father, water, pee, etc.). Also she follows directions including
single action.
Mother of the 1st Subjectis 25 years old, a high school graduate, mother of one child, and
housewife. She has previously attended all family trainings given in the private special
education institution. Although toilet training was given before, it could not be successful.
The 2nd Subject M is a 3,5-year old male student with autism. He has attended
individualized education program in special education institutions since 2-year-old. The
subject speaks with a one-word sentence structure; however, understandability of speech is
low. He shows by gestures that he needs a pee. He followed directions including single
action.
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Mother of the 2nd Subject is 29 years old, a high school graduate, mother of two children,
and housewife. She attended presentation of toilet training made within the scope of the
study. She decided to start giving toilet training for the first time after this presentation.
The 3rd Subject is a 3-year-old male student with autism. He has attended individualized
education program in special education institutions since 3-year-old. He follows directions
including single action, gabbles, removes hat, and has self-care skills such as pulling of
socks.
Mother of the 3rd Subject is 30 years old, a secondary school graduate and housewife. She
attended presentation of toilet training made within the scope of the study. She decided to
start giving toilet training for the first time after this presentation.
METHOD
This researchis planned as a case study for the purpose of examining family training
research in detail which is conducted with parents of students who do not have toileting skills
and receive training in a private rehabilitation center. Within the scope of the study, a family
training program which could be implemented both in the institutions and at home was
developed by the coordinator of the institution and a supervisor specialized in the special
education field for parents who had trouble in teaching toileting skills to their children.
Developed program includes an ongoing process ranging from providing extensive support to
individual support. In line with this, a general meeting was held with 33 families which were
volunteered for participating in the study, and various strategies and techniques to be able to
be utilized in the intervention were showed with examples.The coordinator and supervisor
were asked to prepare more individualized support training program for volunteer participant
families who believed that they still needed support after the training. Then, these families
were asked to implement the program.
Skill levels of mothers in teaching day-time toileting control and toileting control
levels of children were determined in the A phase of the study. Interview was made with
mothers by means of Family Interview Form in order to determine baseline level of the
first dependent variable before the intervention in this phase.
Dry Period Record Fromwas implemented by mothers for 3 days, in hours when the
child was awake and at home in order to determine day-time toileting control levels of
children, which was the second dependent variable of the research. During this process, their
individual teachers continued to keep dry period records of children who went to the special
education center during the hours in the center. The B phase, in other words, intervention of
the program startedafter toileting control levels of children was determined.
Improvements of children were recorded by means of Day-Time Toileting control
Progress Form used by mothers during intervention of the program. Program for
Supporting Home- and Institution-based Toileting Skills for Families, which was
independent variable, was implemented on three mothers, and the effect of independent
variable on dependent variable of mother and childbehaviors was tried to be revealed.
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FINDINGS
According to data obtained from interview at the baseline level (A) phase, as it is seen
in Graphic 1, it is understood that Mother No. 1 does not have information about
accompanying the child to the toilet in compliance with dry period of the child, toileting
activity, non-toileting activity, and about what will be done when there are mishaps, the child
wants on her own; and she accomplishes sub-purposes of teaching the skill of day-time
toileting controlat level0. In other words, the mother cannot accomplish any sub-purpose
related to teaching the skill of day-time toileting control. Mother No. 1accomplishes 14 of 17
sub-purposes of skill of teaching toileting control in the first teaching session, 16 of 17 subpurposes in the second teaching session, and 17 of 17 sub-purposes in the third teaching
session during the intervention of Program for Supporting Home- and Institution-based
Toileting Skills for Families. Also, she accomplishes all of 17 sub-purposes ofskill of
teaching day-time toileting control in all three end-of-teaching assessments including three
sessions at the end of implementing teaching unit.
Graphic, 1. Mothers Performance on Toileting Skills Sub-Goals
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
-1
1
Mother 1
Mother 2
Mother 3
Sessions
According to data obtained from interview at the baseline level (A) phase, as it is seen
in Graphic, it is understood that Mother No 2 does not have information about accompanying
the child to the toilet in compliance with dry period of the child, toileting activity, nontoileting activity, and about what will be done when there are mishaps, the child wants on his
own; and she accomplishes sub-purposes of teaching the skill of day-time toileting control at
level0. In other words, the mother cannot accomplish any sub-purpose related to teaching
the skill of day-time toileting control. Mother No. 2 accomplishes16 of 17 sub-purposes of
skill of teaching toileting control in the first teaching session, and 17 of 17 sub-purposes in
the second teaching session during the intervention of Program for Supporting Home- and
Institution-based Toileting Skills for Families. Also, she accomplishes all of 17 subpurposes of skill of teaching day-time toileting control in all three end-of-teaching
assessments including three sessions at the end of implementing teaching unit.
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According to data obtained from interview at the baseline level (A) phase, as it is seen
in Graphic, it is understood that Mother No.3 does not have information about accompanying
the child to the toilet in compliance with dry period of the child, toileting activity, nontoileting activity, and about what will be done when there are mishaps, the child wants on his
own; and she accomplishes sub-purposes of teaching the skill of day-time toileting control at
level0. In other words, the mother cannot accomplish any sub-purpose related to teaching
the skill of day-time toileting control. Mother No. 3 accomplishes 14 of 17 sub-purposes of
skill of teaching toileting control in the first teaching session, 15 of 17 sub-purposes in the
second teaching session, and 17 of 17 sub-purposes in the third teaching session during the
intervention of Program for Supporting Home- and Institution-based Toileting Skills for
Families. Also, she accomplishes all of 17 sub-purposes of skill of teaching day-time
toileting control in all three end-of-teaching assessments including three sessions at the end
of implementing teaching unit.
In conclusion, all three mothers accomplish all purposes of the skill of teaching
toileting control to her child in the end-of-teaching assessment at the end of implementing
Program for Supporting Home- and Institution-based Toileting Skills for Families.
Accordingly, it is considered that the intervention of Program for Supporting Home- and
Institution-based Toileting Skills for Families enables mothers to acquire the skill of
teaching toileting control to their children.
According to Graphic 2, it is seen in diaper controls of . made at the baseline level
that .urinates into his diaper during day, in other words, percentage of urinating in toilet is
0% while percentage of urinating outside the toilet (in his diaper) is 100%.
Considering the records kept by his mother 7 and 14 days after the program ends, it is
seen that . always urinates in toilet. In other words, he sustains toileting control he acquires
at level 100%.
Graphic 2. Childrens Performance on Toileting Skills
Baseline
Up
Experiment
Follow
100.00%
90.00%
Toileting Skills
80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
-10.00%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Participant 1
Participant 2
Sessions
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RECOMMENDATIONS
This study is conducted with families of students diagnosed with autism and
intellectual disability. The similar study may be implemented on mothers of normally
developed children who do not have toileting control, and it can be found out whether these
mothers teach toileting controlto their children or not.
This study is conducted on home and institution basis. Efficiency and effectiveness of
home based family training program and institution based family training programs in
teaching toileting control can be compared.
The effect of implementing Program for Supporting Home- and Institution-based
Toileting Skills for Families by mothers who complete the program to other mothers can be
examined.
The same study can be repeated by other interventionists in different environments
with other subjects in order to increase generalizability of data obtained in this study.
Whether children who acquiretoileting control thanks to intervention of Program for
Supporting Home- and Institution-based Toileting Skills for Families can generalize this
skill in different environments or not can be investigated.
According to findings of the research, Program for Supporting Home- and
Institution-based Toileting Skills for Families is effective for children to acquiretoileting
control. Utilization of Program for Supporting Home- and Institution-based Toileting Skills
for Families can be recommended in teaching toileting control to individuals with special
needs.
References
[1] Ard, A. (2008). Uyarlanm youn tuvalet eitimi ynteminin otistik zellik gsteren
ocuklara tuvalet becerilerinin retiminde etkililii yksek lisans Tezi. Anadolu
niversitesi. Anadolu niversitesi Eitim Bilimleri Enstits zel Eitim Anabilim
Dal.
[2] Cavkaytar A. (1999). Zihin Engellilere z bakm ve Ev ii Becerilerinin retiminde Bir
Aile Eitimi Programnn Etkilii (Doktora Tezi). Anadolu niversitesi
[3] Krcaali-ftar, G. Ve Tekin, E.(1997).Tek Denekli Aratrma Yntemleri. Ankara: Trk
Psikologlar Dernei yaynlar.
[4] Krcaali-ftar, G., lke-Krkolu, B., etin, . &nl, E. (2009). Intensive daytime
toilet training of two children with autism: implementing and monitoring
systematically guarantees success! International Journal of Early Childhood Special
Education (INT-JECSE), 1(2), 117-126, 01/01/2010
[5] Kroger, A ve Sorensen-Burnworth, S. (2009). Toilet training individuals with autism and
otherdevelopmental disabilities: A critical review. Research in Autism Spectrum
Disorders, 3, 607-618
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[6] Lovaas, O. I. (2003). Teaching individuals with developmental delays: Basic intervention
techniques
[7] zyrek, M. (1986). Zihinsel Yetersizlik Gsteren ocuklarda z bakm Becerilerinin
Kazandrlmas Anadolu niversitesi Eitim Fakltesi Dergisi. 1.2.149-155.
[8] Rinald, K. ve Mirenda, m. (2012) Effectiveness of a modified rapid toilet training
workshop for parents ofchildren with developmental disabilities. Research in
Developmental Disabilities, 33, 933-943
[9] Snmez-Diler, N. (2008). Eve ve Kuruma Dayal Gndz Tuvalet Kontrol Aile Eitimi
Programnn Annelere Kuruluk Kayd Tutma ile Gndz Tuvalet Kontroln
Kazanmasndaki Etkileri. Yaymlanm doktora tezi. Ankara: Gazi niversitesi
Eitim Bilimleri Enstits zel Eitim Anabilim Dal.
[10] Sucuolu, B., Kker, S. ve Kank, N. (1993). zel eitimde Anne- Baba eitimi
Programlar (rnek alma). Ankara niversitesi eitim Bilimleri Fakltesi
Dergisi. 25,2,521-537.
[11] Sucuolu, B., Kker, S. ve Kank, N. (1994). Anne Babalara retme Becerilerinin
Kazandrlmas. Trk Psikoloji Dergisi. 9,31,36-43.
[12] Tavil, Y. Z. (2005). Davran Denetimi Aile Eitim Programnn Annelerin Davransal
ilem Srelerini Kazanmalarna Etkisi (Dorudan retim Yaklam ile Sunulan).
Doktora Tezi. Gazi niversitesi.
[13] Varol, N. (2005a). Beceri retimi ve z Bakm Becerilerinin Kazandrlmas. Ankara:
Kk Yaynclk.
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Abstract
A lot of time and thought have been given to how technology can be used to further learning
in the 21st century classroom. However, less attention has been given to the mechanics
needed to alter the current educational environment.This essay will look at the social aspect
of game mechanics, the resulting student and teacher satisfaction after implementation and
the questions they raise about classroom engagement.
Keywords: technology integration, gamification, 21st century skills, teens
Main Conference Topic: Effective Teaching Pedagogies
Introduction
Imagine you are a 12 year old boy. In Norway. It's November. It's FREEEZNG.
And you're walking home with your 10 year old sister. You hear a twig snap behind you and
then turning slowly, you see a figure in the shadows with two big white eyes. Suddenly a
monster measuring 2,7 meters tall and weighing 700 kilograms springs from the forest and
attacks your sister. What would you do? Scream, run for help? Well if you were Hans Jorgen
Olsen you would taunt the animal to draw it's attention away from your sister. On the one
hand that's good your sister is safe. But what about you? Now the creature is focused on you
and it's angry. Out for blood. It starts its new attack. Using its head with 1,8 meter long
antlers, it strikes your back and you fall to the ground. This monster, in all its bone-crushing
glory is standing over you. What do you do now? Hans pretended to be dead. He laid still
while the creature poked and prodded him. After a few minutes it was all over and the elk
lost interest and went back into the forest.
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There are a couple of surprising things about this story- which is true by the way.
First people don't think of elk as being so dangerous. But in Alaska more people are attacked
and harmed by elk than bears. The second, if grown people are wounded sometimes fatally
by moose, how did a 12 year old have the knowledge, the wherewithal to remain calm under
such a harrowing encounter? WoW. That's world of warcraft. When asked how he knew
what to do when attacked by the moose, he responded that he used the skills he learned
playing WOW. World of Warcraft(WoW) is a multiplayer online role-playing game that
launched in November 2004. In WOW players go on quests and develop skills and trades in
order to overcome challenges. InWoW, taunting, the ability to draw the attention of the
attacking beast away from the lower-level and less-armored party members is a low level
newbie skill. Apparently it works on real-world beasts too. While "feign death" is a skill
acquired by hunters at level 30 that allows them to collapse to the ground, and convince their
enemies that theyve died. This is only a small example of how skills learned during game
play can transfer into useful real life skills.
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all games we play daily. All of these things utilize elements of gaming. Broadly definedgamification is the process by which we take the strategic elements of games -the thinking,
design and mechanics and apply them to non-game environments. Why should we look to
adapt professional game design techniques for classroom use? We should simply because
every day game designers are challenged to create activities and environments which foster
intrinsic motivation. We are particularly interested in how we can use these game mechanics
to design learning experiences to digitally engage and motivate students to achieve their
goals.
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Within any learning environment, it is important for learners to have opportunities for
exploration and manipulation in order to foster the construction of knowledge. In MMORPGs
conversation and discourse are important features. Likewise in our classes are we
encouraging
conversation
and
collaboration?
Are
we
supporting
social
negotiations?Research has shown that playing games together in real life as opposed to online
raises the amount of civic and political engagement in students. Gamification allows learners
to share information, test understandings, and reflect on learning. Each one of us is tasked
with creating within our classroom (whether we are real or virtual) a sustainable social
system that students will feel a part of and that they can fully engage with.
The first step then is to know the social styles of our players. Who's playing? How do
they like to interact with others? Here the main difference comes down to whether they
students are boys or girls. Due to societal influence we see that most boys like competition.
We don't need science to tell us this. Anecdotal evidence shows that cops and robbers,
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heroes and villains, or sports are popular on the school yard. There are clear winners and
losers here. While there are varying degrees of competitiveness in girls, by and large most
girl games (again probably due to social reinforcement) has been collaborative in nature. Tea
parties, dolls. Somebody is the mommy, the daddy the baby. Dress-up. Etc.
Figure 1: The Bartle taxonomy of player types is a classification of gamers according to their
preferred actions within the game.
Just looking at the sex of the player is not enough. We need to break the class down
into motivation types. Richard Bartles established a matrix of 4 player types (Bartles, 1996).
In Figure 1 we see where players are getting their motivation to play. They are basically
"Kllers" motivated by action, building and destroying, "Achievers"- motivated by gaining
points, bragging rights, "Socialites"- motivated by interaction with other players and
"Explorers"- motivated to discover or create their own path, find easter eggs. Like their
professional game design counterparts, teachers can use these archetypes to craft lessons that
appeal to a particular audiences in their classroom.
When most teachers think about gamification, they immediately point to Class Dojo
or Kahoot. These point focused games typically engage players interested in seeing their
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name at the top of the scoreboard. While it does have an element of gaming involved, it only
really appeals to one type of gamer. If we are just doing this we are just engaging the
"Achiever" types primarily. We are completely missing the other 3 interactive types.
We know that games are more than just competitive. And the matrix incorporates
other motivations. Therefore when we decide to inject elements of gaming into our lessons,
we need to mix it up a bit. Amy Jo Kim replaced Bartles matrix with the associated social
engagement verbs (Kim, 2014). These social engagement verbs are Create, Compete,
Explore and Collaborate. Using this social engagement matrix how can we integrating
activities that stimulate creativity, competitiveness, exploration and collaboration in the
classroom?
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Conclusion
We have considered the benefits that come from analysing the social engagement
aspect of game design. In order to better engage students, we need to make sure that we
consider that they not only enjoy game play, but they also are willing to spend a considerable
amount of time doing so. The modern teacher must recognize that classrooms share many
characteristics of social games. Student motivations are not all the same, so attention must be
paid to intrinsic drivers in the class. By adding specific elements of game design into their
practice, teachers can not only better engage students in the classroom -they can also enable
students to become more fully engaged in civil life beyond it.
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References
Bartle, R. A.: Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who suit MUDs, Journal of MUD
research n1, 1996, reprint in The Game Design Reader, Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. ed.,
MIT Press, Cambridge (2006)
Kim, A. J. : Beyond Player Types: Kims Social Action Matrix. Web blog post.
AmyJoKim.com. February 28, 2014
Lenhart, Amanda, Joseph Kahne, Ellen Middaugh, Alexandra Rankin Macgill, Chris Evans,
and Jessica. Vitak. 2008. Teens, Video Games, and Civics.
Smyth, J.M. (2007). Beyond Self-Selection in Video Game Play: An Experimental
Examination of the Consequences of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Play.
CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(5), 717-721. DOI: 10.1089/cpb.2007.9963
Biography
Marsha Maxwell is a neuroscientist, teacher and technology specialist. For the past 20 years,
Marsha has been involved in developing deployment strategies for web-based technologies
for educational clients in both the K12 and corporate environments. Her work has been used
in projects for institutions as varied as NASA and Sony. Marsha`s focus has been
transforming neuropsychological findings into practical applications. She holds a MS degree
in Biology and a PhD in Neuroscience from the California Institute of Technology. Currently
she is pursuing a second MS researching the effects of gaming technologies on language
learning in adolescents at Columbia University.
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