Educational Technology

The main focus of this study was to probe the relationship among motivation, high school classroom stress, and academic achievement of Iranian high school learners. Students’ motivation was surveyed and analyzed using Instrumental Motivation designed by Kimura et al. (2001) and their classroom stress was measured through the Vulnerability to Stress designed by Miller L. and Smith A. D. (1985). Furthermore, in order to get the participants’ academic achievement, their Grade Point Average (GPA) will be taken into account as well as the grade of English course. The results of the Spearman rank order correlation coefficient indicate that there is moderately negative relationship between classroom stress and instrumental motivation. Regarding the relationship between instrumental motivation and academic achievement, motivation was only slightly related to scores on English course. Findings also demonstrated that classroom stress was negatively related to learning English.

This research study was conducted on the prevailing learners’ perceptions and preferences towards Blended Learning in Higher Education. This was a case study involving one private University in Kenya. The purpose of the study was to assess the learners’ perspectives of Blended Learning, identify their experiences and make recommendations for improvement of program design and delivery. The study design adopted a mixed research approach and was situated within Garrison (2008) theoretical framework of Community of Inquiry (CoL). The research addressed the following research objectives: What are the reasons for choosing the Blended Learning program? What are the learners’ perceptions towards the quality of preparation and delivery of blended learning programs? How do learners compare the Blended Learning and traditional classroom learning? What are the suggestions for the future development of Blended Learning? Participants were drawn from cohorts of learners enrolled at different stages of study in the Blended Learning program at the University. A purposive sampling technique was used to identify participants. The participants responded to questionnaire that was emailed to them by their course instructors. The completed questionnaires were subsequently emailed back to the researcher. Analysis of data was done using descriptive and inferential statistics. Pearson-Product moment correlation coefficient was used to describe relationships between variables. The findings from the study indicate that when there is greater social and teaching presence, learner’s satisfaction increases. Provision of support in terms of teaching presence and instructional resources needs to be enhanced. Facilitators of Blended Learning courses have to be more proactive and initiate frequent online discussions to enrich their courses.

This study investigated the effect of problem solving techniques on secondary school students’ academic achievement in algebra. Two research questions were posed and three null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design, specifically, the pre-test posttest non-randomized control group design. The sample consisted of 80 senior secondary school two (SS 2) mathematics students from two co-educational schools in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria. Achievement Test in Algebra (ATA), developed by the researchers and validated by experts, was used for data collection. A reliability coefficient of 0.94 was obtained using Kudder-Richardson formula 20. Data were analyzed using mean and ANCOVA. The findings showed that the students taught with problem solving technique achieved higher than those taught with lecture method. Gender was found to have no significant influence on achievement in mathematics though the females performed slightly higher than the males. In addition, no significant interaction effect was observed between gender and treatment. The researchers recommended among others, that problem solving technique should be adopted by mathematics teachers to help students learn mathematics more effectively.

In all kinds of forums communication takes place. These forums could be social, academic, political, cultural, and technological. In a communication setting, information, messages and the whole array of ideas and suggestions are exchanged by groups of people. This paper will use “presenters” and “listeners” for these two groups of people. A further clarification in this realm of communication is production and reception. The production realm of communication will emphasize the oral skills, which necessarily imply speaking, and forms of Non-verbal Communication. The reception will include reading and listening. Currently however, in the communication spheres, it has become difficult to draw lines among the 4 basic communication skills of Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing. It is not clear whether reading lies wholly on reception or whether it can also be considered a production aspect of communication. The situation being referred to here is where one reads out aloud to an audience. The basic question we would need to consider is when reading, is one engaged in producing or receiving as the listeners do? The field of psycholinguistics discerns these differences. They are not the specific focus of this paper. Likewise, in a writing session when one generates ideas as one writes can one be termed to be receiving or producing? The confines of this paper will be productive skills and the emphasis will be on presentation skills in the jurisdiction of speakers. The paper stakes its claim on the issue that the person who gives information orally has others listening to him/her. The presenters use Language or words in speech and Non-verbal cues to get their messages across. These cues are categorized as gestures, facial expressions and expressive movements. As the presenter manifests these communicative acts, certain impressions form in the mind of those at the receiving end and these in turn affect the presenter and create an impact on the listener/recipient of the information. The objective of this paper will be to discuss the paradoxes of the impact of oral presentation. It is a known fact, albeit subtly, that those who listen to a presentation affect the presenters. The impact of the listener on the presenter determines the level of communication. This is the focus of this paper.

This article proposes a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of academic courses delivered over the Internet or Internet-based Distance Education (IDE). It first examines the standards set for teaching in the traditional face-to-face setting; it then reviews experiments that examined whether those same standards can be applied to IDE. Finally, it offers a series of measures that can be applied to determine the degree of success resulting from IDE. This article draws upon theoretical and empirical work in distance education, learning, instructional design, information technology, and empirical studies. The intended results are to enable a more informed evaluation of IDE and to establish a series of guidelines for effectively utilizing this media to meet or exceed established standards.

It is probable that performance in mathematics at the standard eight classes in Kenya is a reflection of the pupil’s mathematical ability carried forward from standards seven, six and other classes of the primary tier. Gender disparities have persisted in the general performance of this subject, with notable differences in topics like geometry and algebraic fractions at secondary level. This study set out to investigate the influence of gender and age on computation of fractions by the primary pupils in Kenya and its findings were hoped to make a difference in performance of similar topics at secondary school level. The research was carried out in Bungoma County, Kenya. It involved 320 pupils and 8 teachers of mathematics from 8 primary schools. Data were collected by means of a diagnostic test for pupils and a questionnaire for teachers of mathematics. Inferential statistics, namely the t-test and the Pearson r, and frequency distributions were used in data analysis. The study revealed that the pupils had some knowledge of fractions but they encountered a lot of difficulties in computing work on fractions, which limited their level of understanding the topic and that gender had little or no influence on the pupils’ ability to compute fractions at the primary level; while age did. On the basis of the findings, the researcher recommends that teachers be sensitized on age differences in the learning of fractions.

In the recent years, Engineering Education had seen rapid changes which include transferring of traditional fixed credit system into Fully Flexible Credit System (FFCS). Recent day students like to make decisions on their own and like to plan their future by themselves. Employers expect students to have multi-disciplinary competency, leadership skills and be ICT ready. But student aspirations and demands of the workplace have become highly diverse. The present rigid, fixed-credit system of learning offers very little flexibility to students in choosing the courses of their liking and helps little in becoming a well-rounded person. As part of continuous improvement in providing quality education. the next step in this direction is by introducing the Fully Flexible Credit System into its academic curriculum. By this, students can register for courses according to their interests and academic ability in completing them. FFCS allows students to decide their academic plans and permits them to alter it as they progress in time. For this process; each batch shall be allotted with the year coordinator as the class coordinator does not work well. The idea is to make the year coordinator as the key person once the batch starts in the academic and to continue until the batch comes out after four years. This will ensure that the student makes the right decision at the right time like choosing of credits and the courses. Year Coordinator will also take up the role of the project coordinator what is followed in the earlier method. The efficiency and effectiveness of the final year project lies on the hand of year coordinator. In this paper, we present an effective method of managing student strength in specifically coordinating the final semester project work which shapes the student community to shine in the industry.

The purpose of this study was to compare various teaching methods used by university level teachers in public sector universities in Pakistan, study the common influences on choice of teaching method, and use this knowledge to enhance the quality of Instruction and therefore education in general. To encourage the student participation in the teaching learning process, their preferences of the teaching methods were also studied. The researcher used descriptive research to fulfill the requirements of the objective of the study. Major objective of the study was to compare the teaching methods favored by the teachers of various disciplines Social Sciences, Management Sciences, International Relations and Information Technology. Another objective was to study the student awareness of the methodologies used by their teachers. The sample of the study comprised of 38 teachers and 97 students from the above-mentioned departments. The instruments used by the researcher in the study were self-developed questionnaires. The questionnaires consisted of 26 items using five-point scale. The collected data was tabulated, analyzed, and interpreted in the light of the objectives of the study. From the finding of the study it was revealed that the most commonly practiced method of teaching is Lecture followed by project method. The least used method was Reflective Inquiry. There were some discrepancies among the teachers and student opinions of what teaching methods are most commonly used in the classrooms. When the teachers were asked to rank teaching methods according to the effectiveness of the method, the variables like ‘gender’ and ‘department’ did not have significant differences whereas ‘qualification’ of the teachers did. The teachers with PhD ranked Reflective Inquiry as the most effective and preferred method. The teachers with M. Phil and M.A degrees ranked Lecture method at the top.

The Government of Kenya started the implementation of Free Primary Education programme in January 2003 and Free Day Secondary Education in 2008. Basic education is critical as it lays a foundation for the subsequent levels of education. To implement the Free Primary Education, the Kenya Government progressively increased budgetary allocations to primary education from an expenditure of Kshs 745.08 million in 2001/2002 financial year to Kshs 18.30745 billion in 2007/2008 financial year. While there has been improvement in pupils’ enrolment in primary and secondary schools, its effect on retention and participation of pupils/students in basic education has not been determined. This paper, therefore, looks at factors that affect retention and participation of pupils/students in basic education. Changes in enrolment should be accompanied by improvement in quality of instruction and retention if the set goals of basic education are to be achieved. The paper is based on a study that investigated the factors that affect retention and participation of pupils/students in basic education. The study was carried out in twenty four counties in Kenya. Descriptive survey research design was used. The study targeted learners in primary and secondary schools, teachers, school administrators, BOG/ SMC’s and education officials. The research instruments used to collect data were questionnaire and interview guide. They were piloted and validated for reliability. Means and standard deviations were used to describe the data gathered during the main study. Data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Findings were presented in form of tables, pie charts and graphs. It is expected that the findings of this study will provide insightful reference that can help enhance pupils/students retention and participation in education.

The main purpose of this study was to assess the current status of cooperative learning implementation in secondary schools of Harari regional state. Hence, it examined the extent to which stakeholders: mainly teachers, students and school leaders perform their roles with regard to the implementation of cooperative learning. In addition to this, it tried to look at factors affecting the implementation of cooperative learning. To accomplish this purpose, the study employed descriptive survey research design. The study was carried out on 4 secondary schools which were selected through stratified random sampling techniques. Then, a total of 277 individuals were participated in the study. Among them, 70 teachers and 200 students were included in the sample through stratified random sampling technique. Additionally, 4 principals were included through purposive sampling while 3 supervisors were included through available sampling techniques. Questionnaire, semi-structured interview, document analysis and observation checklist were used to collect the necessary data. The analysis of quantitative data was carried out by using percent, mean, standard deviation, and multiple regressions while qualitative data which was obtained through open ended questions, interview, document analysis and observation checklist were analyzed using narration. The result of the study revealed that, the three responsible stakeholders: Namely, students, teachers and principals are sometimes (moderately) performing their roles. Regarding factors affecting the implementation of cooperative learning, the study indicated that, student related, teacher related, classroom related, and support related factors have their own effect on the status of implementing cooperative learning. Besides, the result of multiple regressions showed that, classroom related, student related and support related factors are significant determinants of the overall status of cooperative learning implementation while teacher related factors do not have significant effect on status of cooperative learning implementation. From the results of the finding, it is possible to conclude that, the status of cooperative learning in the study area is moderate due to the indicated factors affecting its implementation. Therefore, it is recommended that, the government in cooperation with universities located in the study area and non-governmental organizations that work to support quality of education need to provide technical support to teachers and school leaders on how to organize students at the time of practicing cooperative learning and managing the practice of cooperative learning in general through the provision of training opportunities. In addition to this, it is better if school leaders in collaboration with teachers work on raising the awareness of students towards the implementation of cooperative learning.