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VOLUME 2 NUMBER 1 February 2014
Table of Contents
The Impact of Culture and Language Sensitive Physics on Concept Attainment ......................................................... 1
Marie Paz E. Morales
The Effect of Explicit and Recast Feedback on the Intermediate EFL Learners Listening Self-efficacy ................... 30
Samane Naderi
The Role of Community-Based Information Centers in Development: Lessons for Rural Zimbabwe ..................... 44
Shadreck Ndinde and Webster Kadodo
Investigating the Relationship between English Language Anxiety and the Achievement of School based Oral
English Test among Malaysian Form Four Students ....................................................................................................... 67
Lim Hooi Lian and Mardziah Bt Budin
Strategic Intervention Material-Based Instruction, Learning Approach and Students Performance in Chemistry
................................................................................................................................................................................................. 91
Edwin I. Salviejo, Fidela Q. Aranes and Allen A. Espinosa
The Perceived Influence of Learning Environment on Design Student Imagination ................................................ 124
Ju-Sen Lin and Chaoyun Liang
1
Introduction
Education is believed to play a fundamental role in human, social and economic
development. It has been identified by UNESCO (2012) as one of the principal
activity to contribute to peace building, poverty eradication, lasting
development and inter-cultural dialogue. These aims are global in perspective
but localized in approach. The localization approach is known to bring
significant effects to sustainability. In consonance to the decade of education for
sustainable education by UNESCO, preservation of indigenous knowledge
highlights the education of the young. These and other thematic sustainable
development priorities of the organization are extensions of their initial projects
that include Literacy for All (LFA) in 2000 which highlights scientific and
technological literacy for all (Torres, 2000). The cultural pillar will be able to
achieve its goal to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable
development into all aspects of education to address the social, economic,
cultural and environmental issues the world has to face in the 21st century. This
is the current theme known as life-long learning and learning for life. Literacy,
accordingly, is the foundation of life-long learning and is considered as the key
element of inter- and cross-generational learning (Torres, 2000).
Jordan, Carlile, & Stack (2008) argued that formal education reproduces culture.
Students cultural perspectives influence how they construct knowledge while
cultural background influences cognitive style and motivation. Aikenhead (2001)
believed that cross-cultural strategies or cultural integration provides
opportunities for students to learn western science content taught in the context
of local communitys traditions. They adhere to autonomous acculturation
that emphasizes learning western science content but still adhering to ones
culture and tradition. In the Philippines, the science education institute, a
The aim of the study is to determine the impact of culture and language
sensitive curriculum materials in physics to the concept attainment of the
students. Specifically, the objectives of the study are as follows:
1. Determine the cultural dimensions, epistemological beliefs and learners
views on culture and language integration which will serve as bases in
the development of culture and language sensitive curriculum materials
in physics.
2. Describe how effective are the culture and language sensitive curriculum
materials in physics in the concept attainment of learners.
nature and religion. Culture can also be a set of ideas, values, and practices as
well as orientation and predisposition towards the world. He claimed that
culture is consciously territorial (e.g. Ilocos for the Ilocanos). National cultures
can be ethnicized or racialized while ethnic cultures can be nationalized (e.g.
Bangsa Moro). Finally, he believed that ethnicity uses culture for organizational
purposes.
Filipino learners like other countries in Asia are culturally diverse. By ethnicity,
Filipinos have 20 major ethnic groups inclusive of the minorities. The 9 major
groups were Cebuano, Tagalog, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Central Bicolano, Waray,
Kapampangan, Albay-Bicolano, and Pangasinan. This cultural diversity among
Filipino learners suggests that cultural or indigenous preferences are unique in
each ethnic group. Distinguishing each unique cultural preference will profile
the culture and language background of the ethnic group. Hofstedes Value
Survey Module has imbedded characteristics for identifying the distinct cultural
preference of a group. The module presents five cultural dimensions as power
distance index (PDI), individualism index (IDV), masculinity index (MAS),
uncertainty avoidance index (UAI), and long-term orientation index (LTO).This
was originally designed to survey employees of different positions in
corporation. Replications of the research led to application of the model to other
fields such as education and learning. The module was used to establish the
connection between the students perception of science classroom learning
environment and teacher-student interaction within the cultural perspective in
the study conducted by Koul and Fisher (2004). Correlation study done by
Holtbruggs&Morh (2009) matched the learning preference of management
students and their cultural dimension. Other researches on cultural profiling
were able to form concrete use of VSM 08 interpretation to educational
dimensions. Power distance according to Cronje (2006) explained students lack
of self-confidence and does not take initiative. Rather, they prefer to let the
apparently more powerful professor to take the responsibility. Further, he
suggested that the high level of avoidance justifies why students require much
guidance in terms of requirement and assessment rubric. The major differences
of the cultural indices from an education perspective to describe the learning
characteristics of students were determined by Baron (2008). Low power index
was related to student-centered learning preference while high power index
highlighted teacher-centered learning preference. Low individualism index is
associated to collaboration, self-concept in terms of groups, education is learning
how to do and association of students to pre-existing ties. High individualism
was related to learners doing on their own initiative. The purpose of education is
learning how to learn and students prefer to associate according to tasks and
current needs. Low masculinity index is associated with equal treatment among
sexes or genders in the classroom while high masculinity index emphasize
gender bias in favor of the male gender.
Bernardo and Calleja (2005) found out that epistemology of learning in the
Philippines is basically guided by how educators teach subjects in schools.
Filipino instructors created simple lesson plan and taught with minimal
effort by employing simple and light forms of classroom discussion and
activities. While these teachers are said to be more effective in simple-thinking
task, findings revealed that these teachers still regarded learning as a
complicated process. Bernardo (2008) revealed that pre-service teachers
experienced difficulty in shifting to and implementing complex learning in their
classroom practices since they have always been exposed to the Philippine
educational system concentration on simple learning. Filipino pre-service
teachers according to Bernardo (2008) took into consideration their beliefs,
values, and feelings as they evaluate which options will bring about optimal
teaching-learning outcome. The state of cognitive processing of teachers may
Other Frameworks
Aikenheads (2001) cross-cultural strategy familiarized students with different
cultural ways to describe and explain nature. Students were presumed to feel
easier and more comfortable to appreciate western science knowledge without
being forced to accept and embrace the western ways of appreciating nature.
The approach provided the useful processes in developing physics lessons
guided by context-based models in cultural perspective. Looking into cultural
learning as a means to achieve the goals of physics education a close look on the
21st Century Framework (P21) was done to ensure that the developed curriculum
material are close to the preference of our students who are known as digital
natives. Refining of the coherence of goals, assessment, plan, and lesson delivery
would be the concern of Technological-Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)
and Understanding by Design (UBD). These frameworks were used as guide in the
design of culture and language sensitive curriculum materials in physics
envisioned to improve student concept attainment of learners to attain higher
percentage of scientific and technological literacy.
The cultural aspect of the learner and the learning process is viewed as an
alternative route to achieving higher scientific and technological literacy. The
knowledge of learners values, traditions and beliefs can bring significant
contributions in instructional design. Cultural dimension of the learners could
help establish their learning characteristics in the cultural perspective.
Epistemology of knowledge also highly related to the learners cultural
background. Being aware of how students would perceive a learning
environment that injects culture and language may bring better groundwork in
the design of curriculum materials. With the indexed characteristics of the
learners, instructional designs could be anchored on models that focus on the
use of local communitys traditions, technological influence, and coherent
designs while learning the western science content. These conditions, however,
may be enhanced by gaining benefits from the use of the learners native
language.
Methodology
This study is focused on descriptive-analytical design presented in Table 1. The
first stage highlights the profiling of learners. Determination of the cultural
dimension, epistemological beliefs and beliefs & views on the cultural and
language integration were conducted in this section. The results of the first stage
were used as heart of the design and development of the culture and language
sensitive curriculum materials in Physics. The second stage was an experimental
study to determine the impact of culture and language sensitive curriculum
materials on students concept attainment.
Table 1: Summary
Data
Stages of the
Dimensions Collection/ Acronym Data Analysis
Study
Instruments
Cultural Dimensions
Power distance
Computations
index
and analysis of
Individualism index Value Survey
data were based
Masculinity Index Module 2008 VSM 08
on VSM 08
Uncertainty
administration
Avoidance Index
module
Long Term
Cultural Orientation index
Epistemological Beliefs
Profiling
Stability of
knowledge
Epistemologic Computations
Structure of
al Beliefs and analysis of
knowledge
Assessment in EBAPS data were based
Source of
Physical on EBAPS excel
knowledge
Sciences template
Malleability of
knowledge
Speed of learning
Student Views on
Culture and Language
Integration
Use of vernacular
and culture
Culturally-
Students views and
Sensitive
beliefs on the
Physics
integration of CS-PLES Average ratings
Learning
culture and
Environment
Language
Survey
Learning Science
and Learning
Literacy
Teachers role
Constructivism
Interview
protocol
Focus Group
Culture and Discussion
language-based protocol
principles Journal Log Transcriptions
CS-CMIP Emphasis on Coding CS-CMET Codings
Development Learning Science Culturally Averages
and Learning Sensitive
Culture, Language, Curriculum
and Literacy
Material
Evaluation
Tool
Pre Tests
Post Test Ratings
Scores
Modules for
CS-CMIP Transcriptions
Units 1 & 2
Codings
(Culturally Averages
Investigation Quantitative Sensitive Post Test
constructs Curriculum Comparison of
of Students
Qualitative Material in student concept
Concept
constructs Physics) attainment using
Attainment CCM unit test and
Journal Logs
departmental
Departmental exam (t-test)
Exam*
Paired sample t-
Current test
Curriculum
Graph of correct
Materials* responses
*adopted/adapted
Pre-Implementation
Pilot tests were done to determine the reliability and appropriateness of the
adopted instruments to the intended participants of the study. The Value
Survey Module 2008 (VSM 08) is a 34-item paper-and-pencil questionnaire for
comparing culturally influenced values and sentiments of similar respondents
from two or more countries or regions within countries. Twenty-eight of these
questions were content questions influenced by the nationality or ethnicity of the
respondents. Six of these are about the demography of the respondents. Next to
nationality, answers to the 28 content questions will reflect other characteristics
of the respondents such as gender, age, level of education, and the point in time
when they answered the questions.
The instruments were administered a week after the start of classes of the
department of education in June of 2012 before implementing the culture and
language sensitive curriculum materials. Outcomes of the pre-instruction
administration of these instruments were interpreted in education perspective.
The unique cultural characteristics and cultural preference of the learners
identified from the interpretation were made use as bases in the development of
culture and language sensitive curriculum materials in physics.
The student module was developed to match the existing format of science
modules in the Philippines. Included parts of the student module are pre-test &
post-test; discussions of the topics in cultural perspective using traditions, beliefs
and practices of the learners; use of the native language (Pangasinan); activities
using indigenous materials together with worksheets; journal logs where
students can write their insights and views; summary; and references. An
example of how culture and language was integrated is shown in the discussion
on scientific method. This was presented using the native language and the
discussions highlight the use of Lingayen Gulf context. Another example is a
discussion on intensity of light using the lighting systems (petromax) used by
the fisher folks of Pangasinan.
Journal log sheets were inserted every after a major lesson of the unit. Questions
in the journal log sheets were expressed in the native language. Sample
questions from the journal log sheets are translated as follows:
What have you learned in the lesson presented?
What were your experiences in this lesson and which ones are good experiences
that brought about learning?
Which part(s) of the module were very useful to you or encouraged you to learn
physics concepts?
The last journal log sheet required the student to shift from the native language
to English. This guaranteed that students are trained to easily shift to the
standard language used in school (English) in preparation to the common
assessment (quarterly or departmental examination) given to all participants of
the study which are written in English.
teacher rated one of the curriculum materials and five Physics experts rated both
curriculum materials. Most of the evaluators rated the culture and language
sensitive curriculum materials in physics with high marks with an overall rating
of 4.65 out of 5.00 using the culture and language sensitive curriculum material
evaluation tool developed by Morales (2013). For each of the component of the
evaluation tool, averages over the number of items were done that resulted to
high marks of 4.62 out of 5.0 for component 1 and 4.67 out of 5.00 for component
2. This meant that the modules had projected constructivism and language-
based principles (component 1) and had shown emphasis on learning science
while learning culture, language and literacy (component 2). After integrating all
the corrections and suggestions, the final copies of the culture and language
sensitive curriculum materials in physics and teachers guides were printed in
book form and soft copies were made available online at
http://cliphysicsed.weebly.com.
Statistical Analysis
Cultural indices were calculated by taking the mean of the scores of the
participants on an item in the VSM 08. Interpretations of the computed cultural
indices were done using the research results of Baron (2008). The
epistemological beliefs of the participants were determined by taking the
average of the students scaled scores on all 30 items of the EBAPS. Each item is
scored on a scale of 0 (least sophisticated) to 4 (most sophisticated). Scores in
each subscale was determined by taking the mean of the scores of all the items in
the identified subscale. Comparison of students scores in the unit test and
departmental examination were established using pre-test and post-test gains, t-
tests for independent sample, t-tests for paired samples and averages to
determine attainment of concept by the students. Comparisons of correct
responses prior to-and post- implementation of the modules were presented in
graphical format.
The Participants
A unique set of participants were purposively identified in each stage of the
study. This is presented in table 2 which includes the sampling procedure used.
One of the intentions of this study is to enhance the use of the traditions, beliefs
and native dialect to preserve and conserve the culture and the native language.
The researcher herself is a native speaker of the language (Pangasinan).
Participants in the design of the culture and language sensitive modules were
purposively chosen on the basis of their being natives and their expertise in
physics. The three native folks were chosen for interview to gather data on
practices, traditions and beliefs. The three physics teachers and the physics
expert who is well-versed in the native language were invited to validate the
developed culture and language sensitive curriculum materials.
Only one teacher was assigned to teach physics to the chosen participants.
Incidentally, the teacher assigned to teach the participants do have the following
characteristics necessary to properly implement the standard curriculum and the
culture and language sensitive curriculum. The teacher has specialized in
Physics teaching, had trainings for practical work, inquiry-based and others. He
is a native just like the chosen participants and he has already taught physics for
a decade. Also it can be said that the participants science content knowledge is
comparable. They were identified as part of the special science classes of the
fourth level of Pangasinan National High School following the special science
class curriculum. As basis of qualification in special science class, the student
should attain a passing mark in the science-oriented qualifying examination
administered by the school. The science qualifying test is a national test
developed by the science education institute in the Philippines.
Procedure
The value survey module was administered to extract the cultural dimensions of
the learners. CS-PLES developed by Morales (2013) was used to identify the
cultural inclination and the expectations of the learners on the use of culture and
language sensitive curriculum materials in physics in the teaching and learning
process. To completely profile and identify the cultural preferences of the
learners, their epistemological beliefs were extracted using EBAPS. The complete
set of cultural profile or cultural preferences of the learners was used in the
design of the culture and language sensitive curriculum materials in physics.
A pilot study was done to complement the cultural profile of learners in order to
develop and design the culture and language sensitive curriculum materials.
Old folks were interviewed to discover existing culture, artifacts, traditions,
beliefs, practices and relics. From the interview transcriptions, analysis of the
culture, artifacts, traditions, practices, beliefs and relics was done to determine
which culture can be used in the development of the topics that were included in
the curriculum materials. Document analysis was also done to complement the
data culled from the interviews and the cultural profile of the participants. The
first curriculum material is thematically termed as Energy in the Society. This
included introductory topics such as the nature of science, products of science
such as laws, theories, concepts and principles, scientific method, and
measurement. Interconnection of science, technology, society and physics was
the first lesson designed using the best remembered products of Pangasinan
such as bagoong, bangus and bucayoand tourist spots (beach - Lingayen Gulf).
These products and places form the 4 bests of Pangasinan. Other topics in this
unit were developed using the same product or others found in the place.
Measurement was designed using the concept of bucayo making and bagoong
production and scientific method using the power plants in San Roque and
Sual. These are towns located in Pangasinan.
The heart of the design of the curriculum materials are culture and native
language. Thus, the medium of instruction and communication of the culture
and language sensitive curriculum materials is the native language. Validation
included both descriptive and qualitative aspects. Three Physics experts who are
fluent in Pangasinan and are natives of the place were invited to validate and re-
validate the curriculum materials. Two others, a classroom Physics teacher of
and a regional supervisor were invited to look into the use of the vernacular or
native language in the culture and language sensitive curriculum material.
Twenty one classroom teachers and four Physics experts were invited to
evaluate the culture and language sensitive curriculum materials using the
culture and language sensitive curriculum material evaluation tool (Morales,
2013).
The other developed instruments were also validated. Three physics content
experts and one social science expert were invited to descriptively and
quantitatively validate the culturally sensitive physics learning environment
survey, interview and focus group discussion protocols, rubric scoring guide,
and the culturally sensitive curriculum material evaluation tool. Together with
the adopted instruments, these were pilot-tested to students of the same age
group as the intended participant to determine the reliability.
The culture and language sensitive curriculum materials were designed based
on the cultural profile of the learners. Based from Table 3, the participants were
student-centered, thus more inquiry-based activities were provided in the
learning modules. The included activities boosted the learners epistemological
belief that Physics is evidenced-based. Their cultural dimension is suggestive of
their being collectivist. Activities were designed and conducted in groups and
not individualistic in approach. Their epistemological belief placed limits on the
kind of questions that would be asked of them. These questions should be
categorized as higher order thinking skills questions rather than convergent
questions asking for facts. Excerpt from students post-instruction interview
answers suggests their inclination to higher order thinking skills questions.
Students: Andi madam mas mainumay ta agmo la nunuten no antoy
usaren mo ta mainumay ya salitaen. Makapan-focus ka ed
samay tepet tan say gabay kon tepet aramay makapankonekta na
aaralen ed samay kultura tayo.
(No mam, it is easier to answer or recite when you do not
anymore think of the words to use because we are so
fluent in Pangasinan. We are not conscious about
grammar not like when using English. We can focus on
thinking and stating answers to the questions. We better
appreciate application questions relating physics and our
culture.)
Students: Medyo agka mi balet tanton manebat no say tepet nen sir et
singa ibaten mo labat na yes tan no. Pero no manpaeksplika
aman mainumay tan mas gabay mi.
(We seldom answer when our teacher ask us questions
that only require a yes or a no answer. But if we are
asked to explain, we are very eager to answer because we
use the native language.
Teacher: Say naincounter kod sikara very expressive so ugaw no
Pangasinan so usaren. Ta no English so pan-rerecite da irequest
da ya Pangsinan la. Pangasinan la sir kwanda ray arum anggad
ed arum ya section madam. Ta agda met na-express so gabay da.
Is-are, subject-verb agreement so problema tan say grammar da
no duga o andi. No man paliwawa ra say gabay da Pangasinan.
Ta agda naipaliwawa no English. No maminsan aga la man-
recite so ugaw na nanairapan ed English. Insan say laba-labay
da amay pantutungtungan so tradisyon dya ed Pangasinan.
Gabay da may activity ya inpankokonektay physics amay
inusar yo may bagoong, bucayo, tan dayat. Ayaki dakdakel ni
inbaga tan produktoy Pangasinan.
(What I encountered was students were very expressive
when the native language is used. They are not conscious
with the is-are verb agreement during recitation. They
cannot recite and they refuse to recite when they are
required to speak in English. The acitvities they like most
are those that use their culture and traditions. They like
the Inpan-kokonektay physics acivity where you used
the concept in bagoong and bucayo making and the gulf
to connect physics, environment, tehcnology. They even
mentioned about all other native porducts of Pangasinan
which were not included in the module.)
The learners are expressive of their need and appreciation to connect science in
real-life scenarios. They like the idea that they are able to make inputs on how
learning inside the classroom can be made better. The teacher claimed that the
students even suggested including other native products in the discussion.
Using the K+12 curriculums proficiency level, most students can be categorized
within the proficient and advanced level. Only few students of this group were
tagged within the approaching proficiency level. Further, no one among these
students belong to the beginning and developing level. Students belonging to A-
level were able to exceed the core requirements in terms of knowledge, skills and
understandings, and can transfer them automatically and flexibly through
authentic performance tasks. While students within the P-level had developed
the fundamental knowledge and skills and core understandings, and can
transfer them independently through authentic performance tasks. These
interpretations were set by the department of education as an inclusive
assessment principle of K+12 curriculum implementation.
In unit 2, a clump on grade range 80-84 was observed. The students were tagged
within the approaching proficiency level. At this level the students could be said
to have developed the fundamental knowledge and skills and core
understandings and, with little guidance from the teacher and/or with some
assistance from peers. They could transfer these understandings through
authentic performance tasks. It can be said that the students who used the
culture and language sensitive curriculum materials displayed good
performance during the course of the lesson. This resulted to significant
difference in the pre-test and post-test performance.
Group collaboration in
performing and answering
activities.
It is in Act 3 where they
recognized the hardships
encountered by fisher folks
There are topics where
learning them in the dialect is
easy there are others however
which appear difficult.
Difficulty encountered in
dealing with mathematical
equations using the dialect
In the first unit, more than half of the experimental group preferred to use
English rather than the native language as medium of instruction. In the second
unit, 52.6% of the students preferred English rather than the native language.
There were several reasons mentioned by the students for this preference. The
scientific or technical terms could not be translated. There were few words that
could be used in the native language compared to English. Students had
difficulty reading and writing native language words because they dont know
the standard or acceptable spelling and other syntax. Different places were using
different terms to mean the same event, thing or instance. These were the same
difficulties identified by UNESCO (2002) in implementing mother-tongue
instruction and mother tongue-based instruction.
On the other hand, there were about 31.6% of the students from the
experimental group in the first unit and 23.7% in the second unit who preferred
to use the native language rather than English language specifically in the oral
discourse. These students claimed that they could easily express themselves
without fear of being humiliated because of grammatical errors in oral discourse.
They further mentioned that they were more active participants of the class as
they were not focused on sentence construction during oral discourse but they
gave all their attention to the details of the concepts and thus they easily
understand the lesson. These were the same reasons marked by 5.2% of the
students in the first unit and 23.7% of the students in second unit who shifted
from the belief that they were better off in English language to an embrace of the
native language as the medium of instruction in the next lesson.
The cultural views of the students were gathered from the journal log entries.
This was done by including as part of the journal log sheet questions on the
preferred activities of the particular module. In the first unit, most of the
students (76.3%) appreciated the activities that included Pangasinan products,
physics connections, & measurement. Twenty one percent like interviewing,
reporting and brainstorming of non-tangible culture (beliefs, traditions, and
practices) and tangible culture such as the products (Bagoong, Beaches, Bangus,
Bucayo). Five percent of the class said they enjoy activities dealing with or
designing mind maps. In the second unit, the most appreciated activities were
SilewnaSumisigay; KolornaSilew; Espijo tan Kirmat; ray diagramming; mirror
equation; and ray tracing. They said that they were very interested in these
activities because they were so practical and they were connected to their ways
of life as natives. They were able to appreciate the concept of colors as applied to
buying and selling fish. They were even empathetic with the ways of living of
the fisher folks. They had a first-hand experience of knowing the science behind
catching fish using different light intensities. From these experiences they were
able to realize that the activities mentioned were very useful in everyday
activities of the students. Though they mentioned difficulty in dealing with
mathematical equations and some technical terms in the native language, the
students still expressed that they were better off with the native language than
English as the medium of instruction. These students also claimed that they
learned best with collaboration with peers in performing all the activities. This
matched with the diagnosed cultural background of the group with low
individualism index which means that teachers deal with students as groups,
students individual initiatives were discouraged, and languages in which the
word I is not pronounced rather self concept is expressed in terms of group.
Some connections were also identified with the epistemological beliefs of the
students that matched with their insights. The interpretations were not far from
the insights provided by the students where they specifically mentioned the
usefulness of what they were learning and doing in daily living. Thus from these
results and consequences, using the students cultural profile or cultural
preference to customize curriculum materials integrating culture and language
resulted to significant gains in the students attainment of concept. This was not
far from the claim of several researches conducted by UNESCO (2008). Findings
of the researches emphasized that the use of local languages as medium of
instruction does not suffice to guarantee optimum effectiveness of teaching and
learning. It was concluded that the use of the national languages in education
could not be maximally successful without revising teaching methods and
developing adequate teaching and learning materials.
From the excerpts, congruence in the following was observed. The use of the
native language was really beneficial to the students specifically in meaning
making. There were some difficulties with regards the use of the native language
as the medium of instruction such as inadequate vocabulary to wholly translate
the English counterpart of the concept being explained and non-standardization
of native language terms thus making students encounter different terms that
may mean the same phenomena. In-depth explanation of terms was achieved by
the teacher and the student as they only focus on learning the concept and not
understanding the language. An appreciation of learning Physics through
learning the culture and language. Mother tongue based instruction was best
accompanied by curriculum materials integrating culture and language to
achieve optimum results.
To determine how effective are the culture and language sensitive curriculum
materials in student concept attainment compared to the current curriculum
materials, t-test for independent sample was computed for the post-test of the
control and experimental group in the two modules. These are presented in
Table 7.
The observed difference in the mean of the control and the experimental groups
was significant at 95% level of confidence. In both modules, the experimental
group to whom the culture and language sensitive curriculum materials were
used as the intervention material significantly performed better as compared to
their counterparts (control group) on which the current curriculum materials
were used. Thus, in terms of post-test results, the culture and language sensitive
materials displayed better efficacy in concept attainment of students than the
current curriculum materials. This was due to the following reasons. The culture
and language sensitive modules were designed according to the cultural and
language background and preferences of the students. The modules used culture
and language as the major focus in the learning of physics concepts and
principles. The modules were new to the students; and the modules made use of
the native language as the medium of communication and instructions.
To validate the results in Table 7, the departmental test scores of the control and
the experimental group were compared. The statistical comparison of the
departmental scores is presented in Table 8.
The observed difference in the mean of the two groups was statistically
significant in favor of the experimental participants. This verified that the
culture and language sensitive curriculum materials gave significantly better
results in terms of physics concept attainment. To further explore the capability
of the culture and language sensitive curriculum materials to attain concept
attainment, percentages of students with correct responses in each of the items
of the two concept/unit tests per module were determined. Comparison of the
increase in the percentage of students with correct responses in both groups is
presented in Table 9.
Higher mean percentages were observed in the post tests for both the control
and experimental group as compared to their respective pre-tests. A significant
increase was only attributed to the experimental group in both modules. Thus,
more students from the experimental group were able get correct responses for
the given items in the concept tests in both units. Graphs of correct responses are
presented in Figures 1 and 2 for the first module.
80
70
60
50
40
responses
Control (89)
30
20 Experimental (40)
10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Pre-Test Items
80
Responses
60
Control (89)
40
Experimental (40)
20
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Post-Test Items
The same observations were culled from the second module. Both the control
and the experimental groups were at par in terms of the percentage of students
with correct responses in item nos. 1, 6, 12, 16, 24, 32, and 33. These items were
distributed to the three major topics of unit 2 which included light and
spectroscopy, reflection and refraction. More pre-test items were observed to
have marked a greater percentage of students with correct responses in favor of
the control group. However, after the implementation of culture and language
sensitive modules to the experimental group, greater percentage of students
with correct responses were registered in all items as compared to the control
group except in item nos. 1, 16, 20, 21, 22, 27, 30, and 32. Item nos. 1 and 27 were
focused on speed of light, while item nos. 20, 21, and 22 were on refractive
indices, and item nos. 30 and 31 were on index of refraction. These topics were
discussed in the culture and language sensitive curriculum material using the
traditional and the usual presentation of the lesson except that the native
language was used as medium of communication and instruction. On the other
hand, a large difference was observed in the percentage of students with correct
responses in all the other items in favor of the experimental group. It can be
deduced that successful and enhanced concept attainment in the following
topics: luminosity; image formation in plane and spherical mirrors; and
refraction of light and lenses was achieved by the experimental group. This was
through native language and culture integration (use of petromaxand use of
superstitious beliefs and tangible culture such as wood and mirrors). These findings
conform to the assumptions of instructional congruence framework and
UNESCO (2008) findings that language integration in the teaching and learning
process will only be successful with the proper materials on which culture was
also integrated.
Curriculum designers could peek into the process of integrating culture and
language in the development of meaningful curriculum materials in science.
Since only one ethnic group was used in this study, others could use the
framework to extend the investigation to all other ethnic groups in the
Philippines or to other countries of diverse cultural background. Curriculum
developers can design culture and language sensitive curriculum materials that
make use of religious beliefs, practices and traditions such as celebration of fiesta
and the like. It may also extend to utilize local games or those known as laro-
ng-lahi (local games) in the lesson development or as part of the activities.
A longitudinal research may be adopted for better data gathering and analysis.
This research may explore not only the learning aspect but the teaching aspect of
science concepts as well. It would encompass a triangulation of the cognitive,
affective and psychomotor aspects of teaching and learning process. Progress of
the learners in all these domains of learning would be monitored and matched
with the different stages of their psychological development. In the teaching
aspect, series of in-service training programs on integration of culture and
language in the teaching of science would be utilized for the experimental
process on the teaching aspect.
The investigation may also be used in aligning the pre-service physics teacher
curriculum and professional development programs of physics teachers. These
efforts may be able to achieve the goals and recommendations of ASEAN 2015
(asean.org 2012) which is to build socio-cultural capital by linking culture to
national development; harness indigenous knowledge system and practices, and
promote the countrys cultural strengths for ASEAN cooperation and
participation and completion of information regarding cultural or social profiles
of citizens of a country at the regional and provincial levels to distinctly
characterize each ethnicity according to cultural and epistemological learning.
This paradigm could include cognitive styles of the students per ethnic group
for more characterization of the uniqueness of each ethnic group of learners.
References
Appendix A
K+12 Curriculum Level of Proficiency
Level of Grade
Interpretation
Proficiency Equivalent
The student at this level exceeds the core
requirements in terms of knowledge, skills and
90% and
A Advanced understandings, and can transfer them
above
automatically and flexibly through authentic
performance tasks.
The student at this level has developed the
fundamental knowledge and skills and core
P Proficient 85% - 89% understandings, and can transfer them
independently through authentic performance
tasks.
The student at this level has developed the
fundamental knowledge and skills and core
AP
understandings and, with little guidance from the
Approaching 80% - 84%
teacher and/or with some assistance from peers,
Proficiency
can transfer these understandings through
authentic performance tasks.
The student at this level possesses the minimum
knowledge and skills and core understandings,
DDeveloping 75% - 79%
but needs help throughout the performance of
authentic tasks.
The student at this level struggles with his/her
74% and understanding; prerequisite and fundamental
B Beginning
below knowledge and/or skills have not been acquired
or developed adequately to aid understanding.
Source: Department of Education K+12 framework
Samane Naderi
Islamic Azad University
Torbat-e-Heidarie Branch, Iran
Introduction
In the recent years, increasing interest has developed in the corrective feedback
domain. Many studies have been carried out about different types of corrective
feedback and their contribution to the language learning (Leeman, 2003; Ellis,
Loewen, and Erlam, 2006; Mackey, 2006; Lyster, and Ranta, 1997; Lyster, 2004;
Havranek and Cesnik, 2003; Kim and Mathes, 2001). In addition, a large amount
of study has been conducted about self-efficacy beliefs (Multon, Brown, and
Lent, 1991 Pajares, 2000; Gore, 2006; Fahim and Nasrollahi, 2013; Barkley, 2006).
Although the amount of study about listening self-efficacy and this variable with
corrective feedback is limited (Rahimi and Abedini, 2009; Day, 2006; Renzhi,
2012).
Back Ground
Corrective Feedback
According to Chaudron (1988) the meaning of the corrective feedback is
different in various situations, it can be considered as any kind of teacher's
behavior that follows learner's error which minimally tries to make learner
aware of his error, the CF may not be obvious to the learner in terms of the
response which it makes to be elicited, or it may be an obvious effort for eliciting
learner's revised response.
Bitchener (2008) argues that Corrective feedback can improve learners' skills.
He believes that feedback from teacher is an important part of learning process
and it can help learners to remove learning gaps and ambiguities. Ashwell
(2000) points out the nature of teacher's feedback in classroom. In Ashwells
view, teacher's feedback is considered as the teacher's response to learners'
performance and on the one hand, it can help teachers to transfer the
information to the learners. On the other hand, it can help the learners to
understand and construct the meaning and to improve their different skills.
Before referring to the different types of the corrective feedback, the main
question in error correction and corrective feedback is whether the learners'
errors should be corrected or not. Actually researchers have different ideas
about error correction for example, Truscott (1999) is one of the opponents of
error correction; he believes that giving corrective feedback results in some bad
feeling such as: "embarrassment, anger, inhibition, and feelings of inferiority" (p.
441). On the other hand, according to Hendrickson (1978), all errors should be
corrected, the global errors should be corrected more than local errors and
correcting should be happened in systematic and consistent way. In recent
Explicit feedback
Loewen and Philp (2006) consider CF as learners' effort to apply the target
language. They argue that CF is different in the degree of explicitness and
attempts to recognize the problems of accuracy in interaction and
communication. In this range of explicitness explicit feedback is trying to make
learners aware of their errors directly.
Explicit feedback is defined as "any feedback that overtly states that a
learner's output was not part of the language-to- be-learned" (Carroll and Swain,
1993, p. 361). Lyster and Ranta (1997) argue that explicit feedback is happened
when it is clearly expressed that an error has been made and the correct form is
provided for learners.
Ellis (2005) points out some effects of the self-processing that accompanied
with explicit feedback, in fact, through explicit feedback, learners are given a
chance to identify their errors which need to be corrected in the direct way.
Recast feedback
Loewen and Philp (2006) define Recast feedback as the teachers
reformulation of all or part of a learner utterance, minus their errors. This can
help learners know that their utterances included some errors. They define
recast feedback by providing three characteristics:
Self-Efficacy Beliefs
Self-efficacy is defined by Delcourt and Kinzie (1993) as perceived self-efficacy
reflects an individual's confidence in his or her ability to perform the behavior
required to produce specific outcomes (p. 36).
Self-efficacy as individuals beliefs in their capabilities to perform a task
proves to be an important variable in predicting learners performance in doing
a task (Bandura, 1986).
Bandura (1986) believes that self-efficacy refers to people's judgment of their
capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required attaining
designated types of performance. It is concerned not with the skills one has but
with the judgments of what one can do with whatever skills one possesses (p.
391).
Wu (2006) believes that learners' beliefs of their own ability to learn a foreign
or second language determine their learning process quality and their tolerance
in learning; therefore, these beliefs of self-efficacy influence language-learning
success.
Literature Review
Firstly, some studies carried out on feedback will be reviewed and afterwards
the result of some studies which done on self-efficacy-beliefs will be presented.
The effectiveness of CF has been examined in several ways. Muranoi (2000)
applied indefinite articles as the treatment for 114 participants of Japanese first-
year college students. The study had two experimental groups one received
recasts in communicative tasks, requests for repetition, and explicit grammar
explanation. The other experimental group received focus-on-meaning sessions.
The control group received no feedback. The results of post-test revealed that
both experimental groups outperformed the control group on the posttest.
Also Sanz (2003) conducted another study with 28 participants of first-year
university students of Spanish studying pronouns between the object and verb.
In this study, two groups were involved. Group one received metalinguistic
feedback and group two received implicit feedback. The results of sentence
completion and written video retelling showed that both groups' ability to apply
the target structure developed with no difference between the groups.
Research Questions
To fulfill the aim of the present study, the following research questions were
raised:
1. Does the application of corrective feedback (i.e. explicit and recast feedback)
for listening comprehension have any significant effect on the listening self-
efficacy of the intermediate Iranian EFL learners?
2. Which type of corrective feedback is more effective in learners' listening self-
efficacy, explicit or recast feedback?
Method
Participants
The researcher selected forty four participants out of fifty six intermediate EFL
learners by the use of a placement test from Khorasan Foreign Language
Institute. These Forty four participants were randomly divided into two
experimental groups each group consists of 15 learners and one control group
comprising of 14 learners. Their age varied from 13 to 32, and their educational
levels varied from high school to Bachelor degree.
Instrumentations
Placement test. To homogenize the subjects the Interchange/Passages
Objective Placement Test for the intermediate (Lesly, Hasen & Zukowski, 2005)
was administered. This test is a kind multiple choice evaluation package
consisted of 70 items in 3 parts: listening 20 items (15 minutes), reading 20 items
(20 minutes), and language use 30 items (15 minutes). According to the
guidelines of the proficiency the learners whose scores were between 37 and 49
were considered as the intermediate level EFL learners.
Listening self-efficacy questionnaire. Learners listening self-efficacy belief
was measured before and after using corrective feedback (explicit and recast) for
listening by the questionnaire, which has been constructed, by Rahimi and
Abedini (2009). This questionnaire was designed based on three other
questionnaires of Beliefs About Language Learning (BALLI) developed by
Hortwiz (1985), Persian Adaptation of the General Self-efficacy Scale constructed
by Nezami, Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1996) and Morgan-Links Student Efficacy
Scale (MJSES) made by Jinks and Morgan (1999) (Rahimi & Abedini, 2009, p.
18). All items in the questionnaire were adapted to the five-interval Likert scale
responses. Rahimi and Abedini (2009) had tested the reliability of the
questionnaire and its Cronbach alpha was 0.69.
Procedure
The present study was carried out at the Khorasan Foreign Language Institute in
Mashhad. To homogenize the subjects the Interchange/Passages Objective
Placement Test for the intermediate (Lesly, Hasen & Zukowski, 2005) was
administered. Forty four participants out of fifty six EFL learners were selected
for the purpose of this study. These Forty four participants were randomly
divided into two experimental groups one with explicit feedback and the other
one with recast feedback each comprising of fifty participants and one control
group without any feedback comprising of 14 participants. To investigate the
pre-existing differences among participants in listening self-efficacy a listening
self-efficacy questionnaire was given to the participants at the beginning of the
term. During the term, which took 20 sessions two types of corrective feedback
(explicit and recast feedback) for listening, were fulfilled as the treatments. For
this purpose, the participants were assigned to do some related listening
comprehension tasks and exercises in each session. The participants of the
experimental group with explicit feedback received feedback on their errors
overtly. In the experimental group with the recast feedback the learners errors
were corrected indirectly through the teachers reformulation of all or part of
learners answers and finally the participants of the control group did not
receive any feedback on their listening comprehension errors. After the
treatments were fulfilled for each group, the very listening self-efficacy
questionnaire was given to learners in order to measure the effectiveness of the
feedbacks in listening self-efficacy of each group.
6. Results
To answer the research questions of this study data gathered through the
posttest. In order to answer the research questions, the following statistical
procedures were conducted. To ensure the normality of the distribution,
descriptive statistics was run. To see the difference of the mean scores among the
three groups on pretest, posttest and the difference between pre-test and post-
test (gain scores), a one-way ANOVA was conducted to the data.
To compare the mean scores of the three groups at the pre-test, a one-way
ANOVA was run. The F-observed value and p-value were .058 and .944,
respectively. This amount of F-value at 2 and 41 degrees of freedom was lower
than the critical value of F and p-value was higher than the significance level of
05 (see Table 2).
The mean of explicit group at the post-test is higher than the other two.
To compare the mean scores of the three groups at the post-test, a one-way
ANOVA was conducted. The F-observed value and p-value were 26.762 and
0.000 respectively. This amount of F-value at 2 and 41 degrees of freedom was
higher than the critical value of F, and p-value was lower than the significance
level of .05 (F (2, 41) = 26.762, p< .05( (see Table 4):
Table-5: Scheffes Test for the Comparison of Post-Test Means of the Three Groups
Mean Difference (I- 95% Confidence Interval
(I) group (J) group J) Std. Error Sig. Lower Bound Upper Bound
explicit recast 12.93333* 3.24510 .001 4.6909 21.1757
control 24.11429* 3.30254 .000 15.7260 32.5026
recast explicit -12.93333* 3.24510 .001 -21.1757 -4.6909
control 11.18095* 3.30254 .006 2.7926 19.5693
control explicit -24.11429* 3.30254 .000 -32.5026 -15.7260
recast -11.18095* 3.30254 .006 -19.5693 -2.7926
*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
The mean of explicit group at the gain scores is higher than the other two.
To compare the mean scores of the difference at pre-test and post-test for the
three groups, a one-way ANOVA was applied. The F-observed value was
55.469. This amount of F-value at 2 and 41 degrees of freedom was higher that
the critical value of F (see Table 7).
Table-8: Sceffes Test for the Comparison of Gain Scores for the Three Groups
Mean Difference 95% Confidence Interval
(I) group (J) group (I-J) Std. Error Sig. Lower Bound Upper Bound
explicit recast 13.73333* 2.07826 .000 8.4546 19.0120
The mean of G1, G2, and G3 are displayed in the figure 1 below.
As the figure indicates, the mean of explicit group is higher than the other
two. This result can be concluded from table 3, 5, 6, and 8 too. We can conclude
that explicit feedback is significantly more advantageous over recast in
improving learner's listening self-efficacy.
Discussion
There are many researches which investigated the effect of CF on the different
aspects of language (e.g. Ellis, Loewen, & Erlam, 2006; Bitchener and Knoch,
2008; Gass, Mackey, & Ross-Feldman, 2005). This study investigated the effect of
two types of Corrective Feedback (explicit and recast feedback) on the
Intermediate EFL Learners Listening Self-efficacy Beliefs. As was perspicuous at
pretest, there was no significant difference between the three groups but at the
post-test a significant difference between groups emerged. A one-way ANOVA
was performed to find out the effect of explicit and recast feedback on the
Intermediate EFL Learners Listening Self-efficacy Beliefs. ANOVA for post-test
scores showed that, with F (2, 41) = 26.762, p = .000, there were significant
differences in the mean scores among the three groups. Similarly, ANOVA for
gain scores (the difference of scores at pre-test and post-test) showed, with F (2,
41) = 55.469, p = .000, significant differences among the three groups. The results
implied that the application of explicit and recast feedback has a significant
effect on the learners' listening self-efficacy.
Scheff post hoc tests were conducted for the purpose of locating the
differences. The results revealed significant differences among the three groups
in the post-test and Scheff post hoc tests for gain scores also showed significant
difference among the three groups.
Finally, based on the results of the present study, considering Scheff post hoc
tests for post-test and gain scores and comparison of three groups' mean scores it
can be concluded that the experimental groups with two kinds of feedback
outperformed the control group and between two experimental groups, the
explicit group outperformed the recast group at posttest which signifies that
explicit feedback helped learners to improve their listening self-efficacy better
than recast feedback.
Conclusion
In this paper some aspects of corrective feedback (CF) was discussed. Although
some researchers such as Truscott (1999) believe that errors should not be
corrected, many others consider CF as an essential factor in learning process
(Long, 1996; Hendrickson, 1978; Saxton, 1997; and Lyster, 2004). As previously
mentioned, the aim of this study was to find out whether explicit and recast
feedback has significant effect on the Intermediate EFL learners listening self-
efficacy beliefs and which type is more effective. The results indicate that the
experimental groups with two kinds of feedback outperformed the control
group and between two experimental groups, the explicit group outperformed
the recast group at posttest which signifies that explicit feedback helped learners
to improve their listening self-efficacy better than recast feedback. The findings
can be beneficial for teachers and teacher trainers to allocate some space to error
correction techniques in learning process.
Pedagogical Implications
This study has some implications for EFL teachers, teacher trainers, material
developers and curriculum designers as the main stakeholders.
1. Teachers should be aware of beneficial characteristics of corrective
feedback in teaching process.
2. Self-efficacy is considered as a significant source of motivation for
learners (Fahim and Nasrollahi, 2013). Therefore, teachers should be
familiar with various techniques which develop learners' self-efficacy in
different areas. They should help learners believe in their capabilities
have enough self-confidence in learning process.
3. The study offers some important implications for material developers
and curriculum designers. They can take into account the learners' self-
beliefs especially their self-efficacy in designing the materials and related
curriculum. As Arnold and Brown (1999) mention Decision-making
learning process can provide more chances for learners to promote their
capabilities. In language learning process the learners learn taking
responsibility, appropriate skills for negotiating and evaluation of
themselves in addition to merely learning the language content. All these
processes result in development of self-efficacy (Arnold and Brown,
1999). Thus, the material developers and curriculum designers can help
learners to foster their potentialities and self-beliefs by providing the
appropriate materials and programs.
4. The findings of this study can also be beneficial for teacher trainers to
include suitable practices for instructing. They should make the EFL
teachers familiar with the different error correction techniques and
different types of feedback, make the teachers aware that when they can
correct errors, how they should be corrected and which types of
corrective feedback should be used.
References
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Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ashwell, T. (2000).Patterns of teacher response to student writing in a multiple-draft
composition classroom: Is content feedback followed by form feedback the best
method?Journal of Second Language Writing, 9(3), 227-258.
Barkley, J. (2006). Reading education: is self-efficacy important?, Reading Improvement,
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Bitchener, J. (2008). Evidence in support of written corrective feedback. Journal of Second
Language Writing, 7, 102 118.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching (5th ed.). New York:
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Chaudron, C. (1988). Second language classrooms: Research on teaching and
learning.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Carroll, S. & Swain, M. (1993). Explicit and implicit negative feedback: An empirical
study of the learning of linguistic generalization. Studies in Second Language
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self-efficacy in providing corrective feedback and to the working alliance in counselor
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DeKeyser, R. M. (1993). The effect of error correction on L2 grammar knowledge and
oral proficiency. Modern Language Journal, 77, 501514.
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students' self-efficacy beliefs and critical thinking ability. Theory and
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Russell, V. (2009). Corrective feedback, over a decade of research since Lyster and Ranta
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Introduction
Access to information is important as it is a driving force for modern society in
45
De-institutionalizing information
The idea of de-institutionalizing information is premised on Ivan Illichs de-
schooling the ineffectual nature of institutionalized education at
(http:ournature.org/~novembre/illich/1970_deschooling.html, Accessed on
14/06/2013). According to Illich, the School the production of knowledge, the
marketing of knowledge, which is what the school amounts to draws society
into the trap of thinking that knowledge is hygienic, pure respectable
deodorized, produced by human heads and amassed in a stock (Gajardo, 2000:
4) hence a feat that can only be accessible with consistent attendance as
recorded and affirmed by the register system in schools. Inconsistent attendance
is viewed as pointer to lack of progress or as explanation for failure. The school
walls thus, become a syndrome that creates false belief in learners that they can
only learn when they are in the school and attending regularly. This false belief
has been affirmed in Zimbabwe by the large numbers of Ordinary Level failures
who throng teacher training colleges for bridging courses. The thinking behind
this is that teacher training colleges, being institutions of higher learning, offer
better service compared to schools.
Just like the misconception that learning is only possible in a school set-up,
information has been ill-conceived as a privy for the educated and politicians.
Information has, for long, been packaged in ways that create the notion that it is
only accessible to a select group. This is done mainly through two processes, that
is, the exclusionist languages that have been used to package the information
and that the circulation points have mostly favored the educated and politicians
who are mostly urbanites. For the majority of the rural folk, packaged
information tends to elude them. In tandem with Illichs proposal, there is need
to use advanced technology to support both learning and information
dissemination. Information centers in rural areas could act as launch-pads for
national debates and development at various levels and places. Languages that
are accessible to each community should also be used to package the
information to increase circulation. Increased access to information means
increased debates on local and national activities perchance increasing
productivity. De-institutionalizing information could prove to be one of the key
movers that may unlock development in rural Zimbabwe.
places of the world. CBICs have the potential of transforming the livelihood of
the rural folk.
communities. Initially, the focus of these centers was firmly on the needs of local
businesses, particularly agriculture.
The aim was to provide individuals and communities with access to national
and international information sources. The services were often, therefore,
developed in partnership between an international organization, such as the
Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, or the
International Rice Research Institute, and a countrys Ministry of Agriculture. In
the 1980s and 1990s, attention began to shift towards the need to meet the daily
information requirements of individuals. This was especially true in areas like
health, social empowerment, community development and information
networking. As Tadesse and Genesse (2002) note, CBICs seek to enhance
development and reduce poverty in the region through providing much needed
information, particularly in the areas of agriculture and health.
As time moved on, however, there was an emerging recognition of the need to
develop IT-handling skills, particularly among children and young people. The
nature of the centers also changed. Initially they were places where
professionals, or people trained in basic information skills used the technology
to acquire, process and store information on behalf of the community and its
members. Gradually, a self-service style of operation began to emerge: people
went to the centers to use the technology to satisfy their own information needs.
The Indian Government, for example, has done much to support the
development of tele-centers in rural areas. In 2000 it launched a programme
establishing nearly 500 centers in the north-eastern region of the country. Each
was equipped with computers, printers, a generator and a satellite link for
internet access. The centers are manned by two trained operators and have the
potential to be used for a very wide range of activities (Harris and Rajora, 2006).
However, resource limitations and other constraints such as the time and cost
involved in setting up and maintaining equipment means that such centers in
developing countries such as Zimbabwe are faced with a lot of problems.
In other cases, the centers have been established by an outside agency that has
sponsored the development in order to uplift targeted communities, for
example, the US Information Corner in Zimbabwe. Good examples elsewhere
are the centers that have been established by the Population and Community
Development Association (PDA) of Thailand. The centers are equipped with
computers, printers, along with an internet connection. The main purpose of the
centers is to provide training in computing and the use of ICT. They offer a
range of courses for the community and for local organizations. The centers also
serve as a community facility and members of the community are encouraged to
use the equipment. At an international level, the International
Telecommunication Union and UNESCO have played an important role in
promoting the concept of multipurpose community telecentres. UNESCO has
produced a useful, practical guide to their establishment and operation
(UNESCO, 2003) in given countries.
The importance of information has grown in recent years with the transition to
information and knowledge-based communities. This is a phenomenon that can
be seen all over the world. The development of these information-based societies
51
hold the prospect of economic growth and social improvement but, all too often,
it produces within the overall population disadvantaged groups who are
excluded because they lack access to information. Societies are becoming
polarized into those who have access to information the information-haves
and those who do not the have-nots. This situation is usually compounded by
a digital divide where people lack access to the technology that, increasingly, is
required in order to obtain and use information. It is the view of these
researchers that such is the case in most rural Zimbabwe. The information
centers that have sprout in growth-points need to be developed to accommodate
every Jack and Jill in the rural areas. It can be noted at this point that Econet,
among other mobile service providers, has made a commendable effort to bring
information to most rural points. However, this effort is being curtailed by the
expensive mobile handsets that people have to purchase for them to access
information.
new ICT-based economy, but the poor, disadvantaged and marginalized rural
population does not have access to the information superhighway. Owing to
limited infrastructure in Zimbabwe, people living in rural areas cannot afford to
have these facilities. However, help could be possibly at hand with the
establishment of community-based information centers as a way to enable rural
communities to access information key to development (Mahmood, 2005).
Conclusion
Creating awareness through provision of information products and services to
the rural people is an essential component for development. It seems that rural
people in Africa are not always aware of what information entails
(Manzvanzvike, 1993). Economic development in Zimbabwe can only be
achieved by harnessing these information synergies and uplifting the rural-
based information centers. However, information on its own may be useless
unless we create linkages through information-based websites which can
connect the rural people with markets for their products, money transfer, job
applications and weather information. Information has power only when used
and applied effectively. Information plays such an important role in almost
every human activity; its value in the development process has been a topic of
extensive debate. Community-based information centers are therefore a panacea
to national development when intervened with proper usage.
Declaration
The researchers wish to declare that there was no research grant attached to this
research by any organization.
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Chao-Tung Liang
LunghwaUniversity of Science and Technology
Taoyuan, Taiwan
Chaoyun Liang
National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan
Introduction
In recent years, from Europe to the Pacific region, more and more outstanding
design has emerged from Taiwan. Over the past five years, Taiwan's designers
have won more than 100 awards from the four major international design
competitions: Red Dot, iF, G-Mark, and IDEA. These achievements declare the
power of design to the world. The key to the success of the design lies in the
capacity of creative thinking. Imagination is the basis for cultivating creative
thinking, and thus is the driving force of innovation. The discourse on the values
of imagination and imagery process is often neglected in Asia, but has become a
focus of contemporary European scholars (e.g., Bscher, Eriksen, Kristensen, &
Mogensen, 2004; Folkmann, 2010; Trotman, 2006).
There are limited studies, which have been published linking the learning
aspects of environment and psychology to factors of imagination stimulation, let
alone developed an assessment tool for evaluating imagination stimulation in
the design field (Yueh, Chang, &Liang, 2013). The need for evaluating and
having a greater understanding of these factors become more apparent when
considering the importance between imagination stimulation and possible
instructional strategies for design school students (Liang, Hsu, & Chang, 2013).
In response to this need for research, this study aimed to analyze what factors
influence students imagination in different design phases and explore how
these factors correlate with each other. In this study, imagination refers
specifically to the process of transforming the inner imagery of design school
students when they face a design task. Such images are developed from the
individuals image memory and shaped into something new.
Imagination studies
Dewey explained how imagination works a hundred years ago, Imagination is
an aspect of reflective thinking that enables us to create ideas that not only go beyond
what is given (Dewey, 1910, p. 7); Imagine as it reshapes experience are things which
are absent in reality. The variety of peoples and environment, their contrast with
familiar scenes, furnishes infinite stimulation (Dewey, 1916, p. 60, 212); the
conscious adjustment of the new and the old is imagination (Dewey, 1934, p. 272).
These quotes show that imagination can change old, familiar experiences to new
insights or actions.
Reichling (1990) held that intuition, perception, thinking, and feeling recur
throughout the various conceptions of imagination. She defined intuition as a
quality aligned with thinking but distinct from reasoning. Bower et al., (1990)
perceived intuition as an informed judgment in the context of
discovery.Specifically, clues to coherence automatically activate the problem
solvers relevant mnemonic and semantic networks. Wippich (1994) contended
that a more fluent reprocessing of coherent stimuli could be a basis for intuitive
judgments. Bolte and Goschke (2008) further indicated that intuitive gestalt
judgments for coherent fragments rested on the activation of semantic object
representations, which biased participants intuitive impression of gestalt.
Environmental factors
As the American College Personnel Association (1994) indicated, an
understanding of any human environment begins with the identification of its
essential features: its physical component and design, its dominant human
characteristics, the organizational structures that serve its purposes, and the
participants constructions of its social climates. These dimensions create a
variety of conditions on campus, and can enhance or detract from student
learning and development (Liang et al., 2013).
Thirdly, Strange (2003) indicated that the complex nature of universities results
in the need to maintain a sense of order and generate various arrangements that
define the organizational measure of an environment. As a result of this need,
rules and regulations are formed, rewards systems are developed, and reports
become necessary for resource allocation. Such organizational measureswould
affect the performances of any organization in terms of innovation, efficiency,
and morale (Hage, 1980). Lastly, the social-climate dimension focuses on the
subjective views and experiences of participant observers, assuming that
environments are understood best through the collective perceptions of the
individuals within them. (Strange and Banning, 2001, p. 86) Environments can
also be described in terms of their personalities, or social climates, which are
composed of relationships, personal growth, and system maintenance (Moos,
1979).
Psychological factors
Accordingly, psychological aspects of imagination stimulation would include
factors of facilitative motivation, generative cognition, positive emotion,
inspiration through action, and self-efficacy (e.g., Gallese, Keysers, &Rizzolatti,
2004;Garcia, McCann, Turner, &Roska, 1998; Hennessey, 2003; Liang,& Chang,
2014; Liang, Chang, & Hsu, 2013; Lin, Hsu, &Liang, 2014; OConnor &Aardema,
2005). As students enter college and gain greater autonomy over when, what
and how they study, Ford (1992) indicated that motivation is crucial in guiding
the direction, persistence, and quality of their learning behaviors. According to
action-control theory, volition plays a critical role between the motivation to
learn and goal-directed behaviour (Garcia et al., 1998). Hennessey (2004) also
held that there is a direct relation between the motivational orientation brought
to a task and the likelihood of creativity at that task.
use that was not noticed before(Goto, Sasaki, &Fukasawa, 2004). Furthermore,
Bandura (2000) indicated that people of high efficacy would focus on the
opportunities worth pursuing, and figure out ways of exercising some control
even in environments with many constraints. Clark (1998) confirmed that
individuals tend to be more motivated to reach a goal if they had strong self-
efficacy beliefs. Yong (2010) concluded that individuals with high self-efficacy
perceive themselves as capable of taking the necessary steps to resolve
problems.
Method
Participants involved in this study were students from twelve universities across
Taiwan. They had to satisfy three requirements: Students had to be majoring in a
design related department, have at least sophomore standing, and have similar
assignments of graphic design based on the agreement between the instructors
and this research team. In order to ensure the quality of this study, the research
team communicated the survey with instructors in the target universities first,
and then arranged similar schedules and design assignments. In other words,
this study could be implemented cross campuses under a comparable timetable
and similar design tasks.
Although design and problem solving are compound processes that often
include iterations or re-defining the problem in the reality. However, a
systematic approach of instructional activities that allow students to gradually
grasp complicated concepts is oftentimes needed. The questionnaire was thus
distributed in three different design periods. The first period, the phase of
problem definition and design analysis, was during the first two weeks of
October 2012. The second period, the phase of concept development and
prototyping took place in the final two weeks of November 2012. The third and
final period, the phase of detailed design and communication, was during the
middle two weeks of January 2013.
In the first phase, a total of 1,224 valid samples were collected, including 354
sophomores, 365 juniors, 332 seniors, and 173 in their master programs. In these
subjects, there were 338 male and 886 female participants. The demographical
data of the other two phases are presented in Table 1. Because the participants
were not forced to contribute in all the three phases, the numbers of participants
differed slightly between each phase.
The items were examined for comprehensiveness and clarity by three research
associates and a small group of graduate students. The constructed scale was
pre-tested by 235 college students in the target pool and then verified by
preliminary validation analyses. Based on satisfactory analytical results of the
pilot study, a total of 53 items were chosen to construct the formal questionnaire.
The measured items were organized by item analysis on the mean (2.54-3.69),
standard deviation (> .75), skewness (< 1), extreme value test results (p < .05, t
> 1.99), correlation coefficients (> .3), and factor loading values (> .3) of the data
acquired during the formal survey. The reliability test of the scale was
conducted and found to be reliable with Cronbachs alpha values of .912, .918,
and .925 in the three different phases. The Cronbachsalpha value for each scale
item was high enough (> .903) to warrant confidence in internal consistency
reliability as seen in Table 1.
of the variance in the phase one, 50.71% in the phase two, and 52.58% in the
phase three.
Within the environmental group, the first factor emerged was social climate, a
seven-item scale, which measured the extent of which learners reported being
influenced by the class climate. This finding was consistent with early studies
(e.g., Hennessey, 2004; Strange, 2003). The social climate factor was rated as the
greatest influential factor in this study. Its effect in phase one appeared to be
greater than the other two phases.
The third factor, human aggregate, a five-item scale, indicated the degree to which
learners felt that their imagination was influenced by the organizational culture,
tradition, or style. This finding lent additional support to previous research (e.g.,
Huebner & Lawson, 1990; Peterson & Spencer, 1990). The moderate effect caused
by this factor was steadily generated throughout the three phases.
The fourth factor, physical component, a six-item scale, measured the degree to
which learners considered the facilities and messages in an environment would
stimulate imagination. This result also supported the previous studies regarding
learning environments(e.g., Gifford, 2007; McAndrew, 1993). Although this
factor had the least effect in the environmental group, its mean (3.09 average in
three phases) was high enough to be considered influential.
Within the psychological group, the first factor identified was positive emotion, a
three-item scale. This factor measured the extent of which learners reported
being influenced by optimistic intentions. Our results provided supplementary
support for early inquiries in this topic (e.g., Clark, 1998; Hennessey, 2003). The
positive emotion factor was rated as the second greatest influential factor in this
study. Its influence on phase one also appeared to be greater than on the other
two phases.
The third factor, inspiration through action, a five-item scale, examined how
learners felt that their imagination was influenced by meta-thinking during
hands-on practice. This result supported the studies conducted by Goto et al.
(2004) and OConnor et al. (2005) regarding the integration of external reality
with inner experience, as well as the interaction among perception,
consciousness, awareness, and imagination. We found that the weight of this
factor in the final phase was greater than the previous two phases.
The fourth factor, self-efficacy, a seven-item scale, evaluated the extent of which
learners reported being influenced by the belief in their own competence.Our
study was consistent with the modern studies of self-efficacy (e.g., Bandura,
2000;Yong, 2010). The emergence of this factor also lent support to the studies of
mental simulation and anticipatory effects resulting from active perception
proposed by Rosenbaum (2002). The weight of this factor in the third phase was
greater than the previous two phases.
The fifth factor, generative cognition, a six-item scale, measured the degree to
which learners considered what cognitive approaches would stimulate
imagination. This finding was also consistent with the literature identified
previously (e.g., Gallese et al., 2004;Taylor et al., 1998). The effect resulted from
this factor was consistent throughout the three phases.
The sixth factor, stress and challenge, a four-item scale, indicated the degree to
which learners felt that their imagination was influenced by ones psychological
state and feelings regarding their surroundings. It should be restated that this
factor was not originally identified as an independent stimulus in this study.
However, several studies would support this finding. Accordingly, emotions
experienced during cognitive processing of learning materials can be viewed as
imposing unnecessary load in working memory, thus creating a negative effect
on reasoning and performance.The effect of this factor on phase one was greater
than the following phases. Although this factor had the least effect in this study,
its mean (3.05 averaged in three phases) was high enough to be still considered
influential.
The results of this study indicated that the five greatest influential factors, from
most influential to least, were social climate, positive emotion, organizational
measure, facilitative motivation, and inspiration through action. These effects
are seen in the design process, especially in phase one (problem definition and
design analysis) and with a lesser effect in phase three (detailed design and
communication). The factor loadings, means and standard deviations are
reported in Table 2.
Table 2: Means and standard deviations of each factor in three design phases
Group/Factor Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
Factor M SD Factor M SD Factor M SD
Environmental
Social climate .825 3.45 .452 .829 3.37 .471 .832 3.29 .478
Organizational measure .789 3.41 .478 .816 3.38 .492 .744 3.28 .523
Human aggregate .798 3.30 .531 .821 3.24 .535 .799 3.19 .524
Physical component .736 3.18 .458 .779 3.13 .492 .787 3.08 .492
Psychological
Positive emotion .609 3.39 .490 .655 3.31 .522 .663 3.29 .544
Facilitative motivation .511 3.37 .412 .632 3.33 .452 .715 3.23 .501
Inspiration thru action .634 3.29 .423 .646 3.24 .423 .725 3.24 .473
Self-efficacy .696 3.17 .424 .743 3.20 .444 .773 3.17 .454
Generative cognition .619 3.12 .395 .646 3.12 .395 .743 3.05 .445
Stress and challenge .627 3.10 .533 .604 3.01 .532 .638 3.01 .527
Correlation
Pearson correlations were conducted to see how the influential factors correlate
with each other. The statistics for the whole process are reported in Table 3:
1. Significant correlations were found among all factors in the whole process.
The correlations showed moderately strong correspondence (r> .4) between
the social climate (SC) and positive emotion factor, SC and self-efficacy
factor, and SC and stress/challenge factor. These results were compatible
with the organizational climate literature (e.g., Hennessey, 2004; Strange,
2003) which viewed the climate as a critical factor in affecting peoples
psychological status. This study suggests thatdesign instructors should pay
attention to the interlacing influences caused by social climate, positive
emotion, self-efficacy, and stress/challenge factors, and seek an integrative
instructional strategy to take these factors into account.
2. In the first phase, statistics showed that there was a significant correlation
between environmental and psychological factors (r = .613, p< .001).
Specifically, correlations between SC and positive emotion factor, and SC
and stress/challenge factor approached a moderate level. This finding
implies that instructors need to focus upon the social climate related
strategies during the initial design phase.
3. In the second phase, there was a significant correlation between
environmental and psychological factors (r = .623, p< .001). Significant
correlations between factors of SC and positive emotion, SC and self-
efficacy, SC and stress/challenge, andorganizational measure and positive
emotion also approached a moderate level. These results suggest that
instructors might further promote students self-efficacy and positive
emotion by utilizing a combinational approach of social climate and
organizational measure factors in the second phase.
4. In the third phase, we found that there was a significant correlation
between environmental and psychological factors (r = .668, p< .001).
Significant correlations between factors that reached a moderate level
included SC and positive emotion, SC and facilitative motivation, SC and
inspiration through action, SC and self-efficacy, SC and stress/challenge,
organizational measure and self-efficacy, human aggregate (HA) and
positive emotion, HA and self-efficacy, and HA and facilitative motivation.
In addition to implementing socially-constructed related strategies, our
results suggested that instructors might need to add extra strategies related
to organizational measure and human aggregate in the final phase.
Factor 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. Social climate 1 .599*** .606*** .455*** .465*** .389*** .361*** .437*** .308*** .457***
2. Organizational measure 1 .561*** .484*** .395*** .381*** .323*** .386*** .272*** .318***
3. Human aggregate 1 .419*** .369*** .358*** .321*** .377*** .295*** .274***
4. Physical component 1 .329*** .338*** .299*** .362*** .305*** .270***
5. Positive emotion 1 .376*** .297*** .362*** .257*** .381***
6. Facilitative motivation 1 .391*** .371*** .383*** .320***
7. Inspiration thru action 1 .421*** .427*** .294***
8. Self-efficacy 1 .338*** .392***
9. Generative cognition 1 .238***
10. Stress and challenge 1
*p<.05.**p <.01.***p <.001.
The analysis for the whole process yielded two functions with canonical
correlations (Rc) of .666 and .197. Looking at the Function 1 coefficients,
significant correlations were found among all the factors, similar to the analyses
of the Pearson r. The Function 2 coefficients showed that the stress/challenge
factor was positively related to the social climate factor, but negatively related to
physical component and human aggregate factors. These results confirmed that
the class climate (social climate) was one of the main sources of stress and
challenge. However, appropriate arrangements of facilities and messages within
(physical component), and class and school culture (human aggregate) could be
perceived and utilized as de-stressors for design students.
The canonical analysis for the three phases also yielded two functions
respectively, with Rc of .640 and .211 in phase one, .657 and .216 in phase two,
and .694 and .170 in phase three. The correlations resulting from Function 2 of
each phase also showed that stress/challenge was positively related to social
climate, but negatively related to physical component and human aggregate in
all three phases. It should be noted that the coefficient of physical component
dropped, and thecoefficientof generative cognition increased in the second
phase. Interestingly, the coefficient of physical component continually went
down in the final phase. Our results indicated that effects of physical component
as a de-stressor constantly dropped along the design process, as the participants
became familiar with the learning environment. Based on these findings,
instructors should demand a contextualized approach of instructional strategies
which take all the environmental and psychological factors and their effects into
account based on the emerging needs of different design phases.
Closing Remarks
Taken together, our results concluded that influential factors not only had
significant effects on stimulating imagination, but also had varying effects
during the three phases of design process. Specially, the factors of social climate,
positive emotion, organizational measure, facilitative motivation, and
inspiration through action,served as the most influential dimensions. The effects
of these five factors were apparent, especially in the first phase (problem
definition and design analysis). This phenomenon was also observed with the
other factors. This implies that a set of unique instructional strategies applied
during phase one could be particularly beneficial to design school students. The
results also echo the study done by Bscher et al. (2004) in which work
environment, tools to be used, and the nature of the task are sought out to form
the best combinations for designers to utilize their imagination.
Acknowledgments
The current study is part of the research project (NSC98-2511-S-155-005-MY2) supported
by Taiwans National Science Council. The authors would like to extend their gratitude
to the insightful suggestions of anonymous IJLTER reviewers. Correspondence
concerning this article should be addressed to Chaoyun Liang, Department of Bio-
Industry Communication and Development, National Taiwan University, Taiwan.
Electronic mail may be sent tocliang@ntu.edu.tw.
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Abstract: The purpose of this study was to identify the levels of the
English language anxiety experienced by Form Four students in two
selected schools. It was also to find out the extent of the relationship
between students English language anxiety and their achievement in
school based oral English tests; and the difference between genders
in English language anxiety. A survey was administered to 200 Form
Four students (aged 15-16) of two secondary schools. The
questionnaire reflected three components of English language
anxiety, namely: (a) communication apprehension, (b) fear of
negative evaluation, and (c) test anxiety. Descriptive analysis,
independent sample t- test and correlation test were used in the
study. The results of this study revealed that students have a
moderate level of English language anxiety and significant difference
between genders in English language anxiety.
Introduction
It is undeniable that English is the most common and the most important language
in the world. Therefore, English serves as the second language in Malaysia. It works
as one of the tools that unify the Malaysian people of different ethnicities,
languages, cultures and religions. In our education system, English is made a
compulsory subject to all students. The education system has been designed to
produce students who are able to communicate effectively in English. But there are
still problems which disrupt students to excel with high grades in spoken language.
Background of study
One of the important problems that cause students not to perform well in spoken
English is language anxiety. Several researchers had investigated the relationship
between anxiety and English language learning which demonstrate the presence of
foreign language anxiety among learners (Horwitz, & Cope, 1986; P. D. MacIntyre &
Gardner, 1994; Young, 1991). Further, most researches focus on average learners
such as school and college students, revealed that the consistent moderate negative
correlation between language anxiety and language achievement (Horwitz, 2001).
The correlation studies showed that high language anxiety is related to low
achievement in language learning. MacIntyre and Gardner (1994), in a study
involving college students learning French, found that high anxiety students
experienced difficulty in expressing their views and tended to underestimate their
own abilities. Zhao (2007) made a similar observation with high school students in
China. He found that anxiety concerning English class affected students
achievement in English. There are also studies that revealed a negative correlation
between anxiety and ability in basic language skills, particularly the skills of
speaking and listening. According to MacIntyre and Gardner (1991), high anxiety
students performed worse than low anxiety students in these skills.
English speaking ability among Malaysian students in School Based Oral English
Test will help to develop students oral competence in line with the learning
objectives stated in the English Language Syllabus for Malaysian Secondary Schools
(Malaysian Examination Syndicate, 2002). However, one of the cause that contribute
to students low achievement in the School Based Oral English Test is second
language anxiety. It was further supported by Siti Noorhayati (2007). Based on her
study found that secondary schools students did experience a considerable amount
of speaking anxiety in the areas of communication apprehension, fear of negative
evaluation and test taking. Based on Wong ( 2012) showed that a large number of
the students (68.4%) experienced moderate levels of language anxiety while 14.1%
of them experienced high levels of language anxiety and the remaining 17.5%
experienced low levels of language anxiety.
Besides, this study aimed to advance research in this area through investigating the
levels of language anxiety in gender in secondary school level. Previous researches
(Baxter, 1999; Pappamihiel, 2001; Selami Aydin, 2008) had found that female
students are usually more anxious than males in English classes. Whereas,
Pappamihiel (2001) found that while there was no gender difference in ESL classes,
Mexican middle school girls were significantly more anxious about using English in
their mainstream classes. The study showed that female students were more
worried about English language tests than males were. However, Hussain, Shahid,
& Zaman (2011) revealed that girls showed less anxiety in English language class,
because they had more positive attitude towards English.
Besides helping language teachers, this study would help students to improve their
learning styles. They would be aware of such socio-psychological constraints like
thoughts of failure, deprecating thoughts, or low self-esteem. Through this
awareness, they can develop their social and personal well-beings in their future
university life and working environment where English language is a vital skill to
survive. This study would also assist the Centre for Languages in the planning of
English language teaching in the college. It can develop more comprehensive
language programmes and more practical teaching materials. Besides, classroom
procedures can be improved that promote language learning. All in all,
understanding the nature of language anxiety can help teachers, students, and
hopefully the college.
The following figure showed the studys first component, language anxiety together
with the sub-variables that constitute the component.
Foreign Language
Classroom Anxiety
Methodology
This study utilized the quantitative research methodology. The research method
used in this study was a survey.
Instrumentation
A set of questionnaire was adapted from the Language Classroom Anxiety Scale
(FLCAS) by Horwitz et.al (1983). The FLCAS consists of 33 statements with
significant part-whole correlations with the total scale, aiming to assess
communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation
associated with language anxiety. Each item on the FLCAS is rated on a five-point
Likert scale ranging from 5 (strongly agree) to 1 (strongly disagree). Total scores of
the scale range from 33 to 165. The questionnaire consisted of two parts. Section one
solicits demographic information of the students school, class, gender and age.
Section two focuses on information on students anxiety towards speaking in
English, fear of negative evaluation and finally focuses on students anxiety towards
taking a speaking test in English.
Sampling
The study was carried out on 200 participants from two schools in zone Larut
Matang and Selama, Perak State, Malaysia. Random sampling method was used to
select the participants. The students consisted approximate of males and females.
The students are Form Four (aged 15-16) students from both schools.
Data collection
Researcher got the convenient schedule of the teachers as to the administration of
the questionnaire to the target participants. The participants were given 30-35
minutes to accomplish the questionnaire. Once all the data have been completed,
the questionnaires were classified, tallied and tabulated. The students English
teachers were referred to identify their latest achievement of school based oral
English test achievement.
Data analysis
The data were collected from their answers in the questionnaire. The overall
analysis of the data was collected using the frequency count and the percentages of
each answer where then calculated. The data obtained were analyzed using SPSS
version 20.0 Windows and were represented in the form of descriptive statistics
which include percentages and mean.
The classification of English language anxiety level referred to the category as Table 1.
Basically according to the items, the students will be facing fear and anxiety in
communicating with people. Difficulty in speaking in public, listening or learning a
spoken utterance is all manifestations of communication apprehension. This type of
anxiety in learning a second language is derived from the learners personal
knowledge that they will have difficulty understanding others and making
themselves understood. Learners suffering from communication apprehension
choose to keep silent in their English classes.
Fear negative evaluation ranked second (m =3.07). The students faced problems
like nervousness when questioned, they were embarrassed to volunteer answers,
and felt that other students spoke better English. They were upset when they could
not understand what the teacher corrected and often feared being laughed at by
their peers. Generally they felt they were being judged and cast in poor light by
teacher and peers.
While test anxiety ranked the lowest (m = 2.57).While test normally generate some
anxious moments associated with the likelihood of not doing well, the absence of an
audience helps to ease the tension. Statements indicate of test anxiety were, I worry
about the consequences of failing my English class (m=3.55) and I can feel my heart
pounding when Im going to be called on in English class (m = 3.1).
From the findings, the overall mean of 2.93 indicated that the students who
participated in this study are experiencing language anxiety in learning the second
language. Meanwhile, there are moderate correlation between the two variables
namely English language anxiety and oral English test achievement. The correlation
is at 0.360. The correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Table 3 showed the relationship between the subjects language anxiety and oral
English test achievement. The result showed that there was positive correlated
(r=.360), p<0.01. The correlation index indicated that there was a moderate
significant relationship between language anxiety and language achievement. It
explains that as the level of anxiety increases, the English language achievement
may also increase. Thus, this finding reveals positive significant correlation between
English language anxiety and English language achievement.
Table 4 revealed the difference between male and female in language anxiety.
The result of the t-test indicated in Table 4 revealed that there was significant
difference between male and female subjects as showed by the overall significant
value t=(199) = 43.07, p < .05). Independent samples t-test revealed that overall,
there were significant difference in boys and girls language anxiety (p .05). Boys
mean language anxiety score (M = 3.07) was higher than that of girls (M = 3.02)
(refer Table 5). In communication apprehension, girls mean scores were higher than
boys while in fear of negative evaluation, boys mean scores were higher than girls.
Lastly, in test anxiety, boys scores higher mean than the girls. These findings
suggest that generally, boys were more anxious than girls in English class.
Table 5 showed the difference between male and female in language anxiety based
on communication apprehensible, fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety.
Table 5: Difference between male and female in language anxiety based on three
components
Variable Gender Mean
Communication apprehensible Male 3.04
Female 3.07
Fear of negative evaluation Male 3.14
Female 3.09
Test anxiety Male 3.05
Female 2.92
The most significant finding of the research is that the students showed a high score
in two of the traits of second language anxiety which are fear of communication
apprehension and negative evaluation. Ohata (2005) found that learners feared
taking tests, because test-taking situations would make them anxious about the
negative consequences of getting a bad grade. This would lead to other
psychological stresses, such as the fear of losing self-confidence or feeling inferior to
others. It reflects the biggest dilemma faced by most second language learners in
Malaysia as a whole. The fact that students are more worried about failing the exam
would probably halt the output process which is essential in the process of language
acquisition. Rather than focusing on ways to polish and enhance their language, the
students would dwell on unrealistic expectations in which they are to produce a
flawless language. These kinds of negative traits would surely bring in how they
behave and respond in second language classroom that consequently debilitate the
learning.
The findings showed that there was significant difference between the genders in
language anxiety. The independent samples t-test revealed that overall; there were
significant difference in boys and girls language anxiety (p .05). Boys mean
language anxiety score (M = 3.07) was higher than that of girls (M = 3.02).The
findings concur with Hussain, Shahid, & Zaman (2011) study, revealed that girls
showed less anxiety in English language class, because they had more positive
attitude towards English. Similarly, Awan, Azher, Anwar, and Naz (2010) found
that female students were less anxious in English classroom as compared to males
with a significant t-test of mean difference (t=2.520, p= .013). Their study revealed
that female undergraduates were better in dealing with language encounters.
Conclusion
The findings showed that a large number of the students (93.5%) experienced
moderate levels of English language anxiety while very few (6.5 %) of them
experienced low levels of language anxiety. On the other hand, the correlation index
indicated that there was a moderate significant relationship between language
anxiety and oral English test achievement. Further, the study noticed that there was
significant difference between genders in language anxiety. The results of the
current study would help language teachers in several ways as regard their teaching
of second language in their classes.
First, language teachers have to realize that their students are experiencing anxiety
in their classes. They must be able to understand the nature of their students
language anxieties. It may vary from one learner to another so it is pertinent that
teachers be made aware of what language anxieties their students may be suffering
from. As such, ,they may be able to design lesson and prepare activities and
learning materials that will be best address the strategies that can be effectively
utilized by these types of learners to cope with their respective language anxieties.
Second, English language teachers should have learning activities where these
students are given more guidance on how to talk or write about themselves, their
family, their interests and their culture. Teachers should also try to create a non-
threatening, relaxed learning environment in which students can take risks and
make mistakes without fear of embarrassment. English teachers should create
learning environments with a definite potential for success through setting
attainable goals and reasonable challenges for HLA students. Opportunities for
success and celebrating success will enhance their self-confidence (Bandura, 1993).
The findings presented in this paper are limited to the students of the school
involved in this study. A replication of this study involving students from schools
in other parts of Malaysia would provide further support for the generalizability of
the findings.
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In order to reach many clients and act more effectively, the Tanzanian revenue
authority re-defined its administration system to include small administrative
blocks. Although the aim of re-defining the administrative structure was to
maximize efficiency in identifying and managing new customers, this goal is yet
to be met (Bugeni, 2012; Interview). Improving domestic revenue collections can
easily be enhanced through voluntary compliance of clients. However, it is
unfortunate that the majority of clients do not voluntarily returning tax to the
revenue authority (Malima, 2013).
The study by Jensen & Whlbier (2012) suggests voluntary compliance of clients
to tax return as the key success factor for the revenue authority to meet its
statutory obligations. The following things are proposed to provide an incentive
in promoting voluntary compliance in revenue collection: these include tax
compliance education, enhancing transparent assessment and balancing the
roles of an employee in the taxation process (Khalfan, 2010). It is the intention of
this study to show the influence of the use of e-transparent services to voluntary
compliance by taxpayers.
3. Main Objective
To show how e-transparent services address the challenge of low voluntary tax
compliance by SMEs in Tanzania.
5. Methodology
The study obtained its data through mixed research methods. First, it identified
Kinondoni tax-region as the case for its study. Particularly, data were collected
from clients and employees of Manzese tax centre of the Kinondoni tax-region.
Also, the study used a survey questionnaire as the instrument for data collection.
A total of 100 SMEs and 10 employees were surveyed. The following
characteristics of the sample were observed:-
Gender - 61% of the members of the sample were male and 39% were
female.
Education - 23% had the college education and 77% were below college
education.
Business Experience 40% had business experience above 3 years and
60% were below 3 years.
Other sources of data include the use of available literature that address
challenges of voluntary compliance by the taxpayers. The analysis used the
Spearmans rho correlation model.
Additional analysis shows that about 76% of respondents who are registered
with TRA files their tax returns consistently. Overall, only 32% of all
respondents files tax returns consistently. A significant per cent of taxpayers are
defaulters even among clients registered with the revenue authority. Similarly,
the majority of potential taxpayers is not registered with the revenue authority,
and this increases the per cent of the none tax filers . Generally, 68% of all
clients of the revenue authority do not file their tax returns as required by the
law.
In the interview the study observed the following factors to affect the rate of tax
returns by SMEs; such factors include taxpayers levels of education, business
experience, tax laws awareness and the integrity of employees. However, the
level of education of respondents showed a none significant influence to the
trend of filing tax returns by clients; the remaining factors are discussed in the
below sections.
In this study, we first determined the categorical relationships between tax law
knowledge and voluntary compliance. The results obtained through the Pearson
chi-square model (Table 1 below) shows the p- value as 0.00 (p < 0.05). This
observation indicates a significant relationship between the level of voluntary
submission of tax returns by SMEs and the level of awareness of tax laws.
The results of the Pearson chi-square model are further interpreted by additional
descriptive information. The information shows about 68% of potential
taxpayers who are knowledgeable and 6% of those who are not knowledgeable
with tax laws to voluntarily file their tax returns to the revenue authority. The
information agrees with the model analysis in table 1 where the majority of
clients who have a good knowledge of tax laws do also voluntarily comply with
tax laws.
Spearmans rho correlation coefficient is 0.623, where the pvalue is 0.000. Based
on this information the increase in tax laws awareness influences the increase of
the extent to which taxpayers voluntarily files their tax returns by about 62%.
These observations correspond with comments by Lewis (1982). He commented
that low tax knowledge correlates with negative attitudes toward taxation.
Moreover, the study by Eriksen and Fallan (1996) commented that knowledge
about tax law is important for preferences and attitudes towards taxation. The
attitude and preferences analysed in this study is whether the taxpayer should
comply or not comply. In a recent study by Palil (2010) it was observed that tax
knowledge positively correlates with tax compliance.
issues because they understand the benefits of voluntary compliance and are
used with the routines of filing tax returns.
6.3. The Influence of the Integrity of Employees of the Revenue Authority to Clients
voluntary compliance
The integrity of employees is essential in making sure that the organisation
meets its objectives. Employees with good integrity ensures that they provide
services in corruption free environments. In the analysis of the study, only 39%
of taxpayers admitted that the level of their compliance has never been affected
by the integrity of employees of the revenue authority. The information
suggests the majority of clients of the revenue authority to be uncomfortable
with the integrity of employees. The study acknowledges the presence of
respondents who admitted that they were requested to bribe tax officers to
receive tax relief. Similarly, new employees admitted that the experienced
employees operated in secretive environments.
Table 3 presents data about an extended analysis that determines whether
the taxpayers intention for voluntary submission of tax returns varies
depending on the level of the integrity of employees of the revenue authority.
The results show the p-value = 0.029. The information reports a significant
relationship between employee integrity and the desire of clients to voluntarily
return tax.
In the study by Nawaz (2010), the author closely associated low integrity to
employees with corruption. The study indicated a significant negative effect of
corruption (low integrity) to tax collection. The study supports the findings in
the above paragraph that low integrity significantly influences tax collection. In
addition to lowering of revenue collection, low integrity to employee causes
long-term damage to the economy by detracting investment, increasing the size
of the informal economy, distorting tax structures and corroding the tax
morality of taxpayers. The underlying assumption of the relationship between
the integrity of employees and the increase of the informal economy in not well
established by the study; however there is a need to establish these facts due to
the presence of a large number of the unregistered SME owners reported by the
study.
The block management system aims to simplify the task of reaching customers
so as to collect necessary business information for tax purposes. In managing
blocks, revenue officers are assigned the duty of visiting customers located in
their respective blocks at least once in three months. In their visitations they
collect clients business information, identify non-filers, identify unregistered
clients, and make sure that business tax information is up-to-date (Tanzania
Revenue Authority, 2013).
This part of the study determined the relationship between the frequencies
which employees of the revenue authority visit their clients and the compliance
of taxpayers in filing tax returns. Traditionally, the revenue authority expects tax
officers to visit clients at least once in every three months. This visitation aims to
promote the arrangement by the revenue authority that requires taxpayers to
pay their tax dues at least in four instalments in a year. The results of the
descriptive analysis show about 16% of respondents to be regularly visited by
TRA officers. The results suggest few clients to benefit from regular visitation by
taxpayers according to the tradition by the revenue authority. It was further
observed that about 44% of respondents were never visited by officers of the
revenue authority in their administrative block. Therefore the study concludes
that the potential of the block administration system is not adequately explored
by employees of the Tanzanian revenue authority.
Additionally, the result shows that about 56% of taxpayers who were visited by
tax officers regularly files tax as required. Similarly, 27% of those who were not
regularly visited file tax as required. The study observed the difference of 29%
between the two groups. The analysis agrees with the Pearsons chi square
analysis where a significant relationship was observed. The results reported in
table 4 suggest that p = 0.000. As indicated in the above, there is a significant
association between how regularly taxpayers are visited by employees of the
revenue authority and their compliance with filing of taxes as required.
6.6. How Does the Use of ICT Address Challenges of Voluntary Taxation?
The discussion provided in previous sections of this paper showed several
factors to affect the decision of clients to voluntarily comply with taxation
systems of Tanzania. The success of the government in revenue collection
depends on how adequately are the challenges addressed. In this section, the
study shows how the use of e-transparent services in the management of tax
activities address challenges associated with voluntary compliance of SMEs to
the Tanzanian taxation system.
6.6.1 Low awareness of tax laws
The majority of tax clients in SMEs own mobile phones, and some are connected
to computers. The revenue authority can improve the awareness of clients about
tax laws by disseminating educative information through the use of mobile
phones. The online system must allow clients to subscribe for educative
messages; the information should be provided freely or at a low price. Currently,
there are two main services to which the revenue authority supports users of
ordinary mobile phones; they make online payments and make direct calls to the
institution. More services are needed in the area of tax education.
6.6.2 Low Business Experience
Low business experience is reported to affect the ability of clients to make
decisions pertaining voluntary compliance by SMEs. The use of e-transparent
services can uplift the knowledge of individual taxpayers through allowing
them to inquire and access the information that positively improves their
understanding of the benefits of voluntarily submitting tax returns.
7. Conclusion
The study aimed to show how e-transparent services address the challenge of
voluntary tax compliance by SMEs in the republic of Tanzania. The study
observed the following factors to influence voluntary compliance: Awareness of
tax laws, business experience, the integrity of employees, low frequency of
visitation by tax officers and training needs. The revenue authority must use
relevant ICT tools to positively promote these factors; as the result, the position
of taxpayers to voluntarily file their tax returns will be enhanced.
8. References
Ebeke, C. (2010). Remittances, Value Added Tax and Tax Revenue in Developing Countries.
Retrieved November 26, 2013, from http://publi.cerdi.org/ed/2010/2010.30.pd
Khalfan, S. (2010). An Assessment of Factors Hindering the SME'S Voluntary Tax Compliance
in Zanzibar. Retrieved February 26, 2013, from http://repository.out.ac.tz/83/
Malima, A. (2013). Enhancing Income Tax Collection in SMEs Customers Perspective: A Case
of Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), Kinondoni. Dar es Salaam: Mzumbe University.
Marti, L. O., Wanjohi, M. S., Magutu, P. O., & Mokoro, J. M. (2010). TAXPAYERS
ATTITUDES AND TAX COMPLIANCE. African Journal of Business & Management, 112-
122.
Tanzania Revenue Authority. (2013). The Tanzanian Revenue Authority Official Site.
Retrieved November 20, 2013, from http://www.tra.go.tz/
The Policy Forum of Tanzania. (2010). How Much Revenue are we Losing. Retrieved
November 12, 2013, from http://www.policyforum-
tz.org/files/Howmuchrevenuearewelosing.pdf
Edwin I. Salviejo
Science Department, Makati High School,
1214 Makati City, Philippines
Fidela Q. Aranes
Chemistry Department, College of Science,
Technological University of the Philippines,
1000 Manila, Philippines
Allen A. Espinosa
Faculty of Science, Technology and Mathematics,
College of Teacher Development, Philippine Normal University,
1000 Manila, Philippines
Introduction
It is a common observation that learning Chemistry, as a discipline creates a
negative feedback to most students in the secondary level. Chemistry is one of
the hated subjects in Science, which students would likely fail completing the
necessary requirements and get low performances in both academic and
conceptual reasoning skills. To many students, Science learning is never fun and
the process is boring and burdensome; thus, student achievement in this field is
relatively low.
The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS 2003) which
was conducted nine years ago revealed unsatisfactory results. The Philippines
ranked 42nd in Science out of 45 participating countries that were tested (Manila
Times, 2004). TIMMS result specifically in Chemistry has an international
average of 45% correct answers and Philippine average of 30 %. This proved that
vast majority of Filipino students have performed below par in the Chemistry
achievement test and below the levels of most students from other countries
based on the international tests.
In the present situation of the Philippine Educational System, wherein there are
shortage in the classrooms throughout the country and scarce funds, not enough
to cater instructional materials needed in every science classroom. The primary
goal of teaching is to provide appropriate and effective instruction to students.
Thus, a Science teacher is responsible to devise and provide the necessary
materials for use in science classes (Dy, 2011). Teaching Chemistry is more
productive when there are available, sufficient, and strategically designed
instructional materials suited for the type of students. Instructional approaches
may succeed or fail, they are dependent to the learning needs of the students.
Teachers must consider the students emotional needs and their approaches to
learning. Developing instructional materials play an integral role in the teaching
learning process. Use of instructional materials has a strong relationship with
academic performance at the secondary students as mentioned in Dahar( 2011).
One of the most significant topics today in the field of educational research
specifically in the basic education is the learning approach adopted by the
students in learning a particular task. For educators, this approach should be
considered and applied most of the time in teaching (Lublin, 2010). One of the
major concepts that emerged from this research was the idea that students can
take different approaches to learning. Biggs (2003) defines good teaching as the
encouragement of a deep approach to learning.
In the light of this the paper was conceived. This study investigated the effect of
traditional teaching with the use of a strategic intervention material made by the
researcher to help improve students performance considering the learning
approach they adopt in Chemistry. It is hoped that students learning approach,
from being a surface learner to deep learner upon exposure to Strategic
Intervention Material Based Instruction will be realized.
The study sought answers to the following research questions: (1) What is the
profile of the students in chemistry before and after exposure to Strategic
Intervention Material Based Instruction (SIM-BI)?; (2) What is the performance
in the Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) of deep and surface learners before
and after exposure to the Strategic Intervention Material Based Instruction
(SIM-BI)?; (3) Is there a difference between the performance in the Chemistry
Achievement Test (CAT) of deep and surface learners before and after exposure
to Strategic Intervention Material Based Instruction (SIM-BI)?; (4) What is the
students perception of the Strategic Intervention Material Based Instruction
(SIM BI)?;
The Strategic Intervention Material (SIM) is divided into six parts taken from the
seminars and trainings attended by the researcher. The first part of the SIM is
the title card, this part of the SIM includes the specific chapter or the subject
matter covered by the material. The SIM that was used in this study is entitled
Chemical Romance that covers chemical bonding which is considered least
mastered skills in Chemistry.The second part is the guide card. This section
gives a preview of what students will learn. This card should stimulate the
interest of the students with respect to the topic covered by the strategic
intervention material. It presents the focus skills mentioned in the learning
competencies and must state at least two sub-tasks (activities). This part must
also cite prerequisite skills built on prior learning and concrete outcome or
product that students are expected to demonstrate or produce.
The third part of the SIM is the activity card. This section is considered the heart
of the Strategic Intervention Material. It consists of activities that will develop
understanding of the students related to the given objective of a specific lesson
stated in the guide card. It contains also guide questions for the students to
answer and relate the activity conceptually, that will be developed after
completing the main activity. This part also provides the objectives, students
exercises, activities, and drills with clear directions to develop necessary skills in
the three domains and concrete concepts, particularly those drawn from real
life situations. It allows also the students to organize based on the sequence of
the focus skills and to make discoveries and formulate ideas on their own. This
section also consists of questions that establish relationship between the topic
and what students already know or familiar to them.
The fourth part is the assessment card that is made up of activities and tests
concerning what the students learned from the previous activities of the SIM.
This test measures how much students learned from the given activities in the
activity card. It is made up of questions in different forms (multiple choice,
interpreting graph, identification, and matching type). This section determines
the effect of this material as a tool for teaching remediation.
The fifth part of the SIM is the enrichment card. This section provides practical
activities to be done by students related to the topic. This involves applications
of the topic in their daily life, in industry or in other technologies. The last part
of the SIM is the reference card which includes the title of the books, websites, or
any other electronic or printed materials. This part may be used by students as
reference for additional information concerning the topic covered.
The Center for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) cited the
advantage and disadvantage of traditional teaching method: such as, giving the
instructor the chance to expose students to unpublished or not readily available
instructional materials and complimenting certain individual learning
preferences. Some students depend upon the structure provided by highly
teacher centered methods. Two of the disadvantages mentioned are to enable
understanding and long-term retention of content, it requires considerable
amount of unguided student time outside the classroom and it does not promote
active learning but rather placing students in a passive role which hinders
learning.
Todays diverse student population has resulted in teachers seeking changes in
the traditional methods of instructing students. Teachers seek ways to improve
In order to facilitate the learning process, instructional media are used as aids.
Instructional media are classified as speaking listening media, reading
writing media and computer based instruction (Aranes, 1998). For purposes of
the study, the researcher will center his discussions to visual and observational
media which specifically concentrates on the application of intervention material
in teaching one of the least mastered skills in Chemistry.
Based on the result of the first quarter Division Achievement Test (DAT) in
different subject areas, Chemistry ranked fourth which has a mean percentile
score (MPS) of 42.96 %; Filipino, 53.15 %; AralingPanlipunan, 52.76 %; English,
48.25%; and Mathematics, 41.34 %. From the results, it can be inferred that
students in Chemistry performed far below mastery.
Chemistry 64.45%, again ranked last among the five subjects. For the fourth and
last quarter of the Division Achievement Test for the school year 2010 2011, test
results showed that Chemistry ranked 5th with an MPS of 40.16 % next to
Filipino with 68.21%, English with 54.45%, Mathematics with 42.37%, and
AralingPanlipunan, 41.67%.
To sum up the Chemistry Achievement, the highest mean percentile score was
registered during the third quarter of the school year where the topics covered
are gas laws, atoms and periodic trends. Second in the rank is the second quarter
covering solutions, colloids and chemical change with a mean percentile score of
43.55%.Third in the DAT result is the first quarter with an MPS result of 42.96%
with topics covered on classifying matter, and techniques of separating
mixtures, and ranked last registered during the fourth quarter with an MPS of
40.16% covering chemical bonding and chemical reactions. These results suggest
that topics in the fourth quarter such as chemical bonding and chemical
reactions are the most difficult and least mastered in the subject area. Thus in
this study, a strategic intervention material was developed on the topic of
chemical bonding to improve students poor performance.
Students adopting surface approaches to learning are terms that most educators
and academicians have heard and got interested in. Learners may be classified
as deep and surface learners, they are not attributes of individuals. One
person may use both approaches at different times. This idea of learning
approach is probably one of the most interesting topics for educational research
for both basic and higher education. It is a very powerful and useful theory that
educators should consider and apply most of the time in teaching.
Table 1 compiled from the work of Biggs (1999), Entwistle (1988), and Ramsden
(1992) as cited in Miguel (2012) provides valuable characteristics of the deep and
surface learners.
The researcher conducted a review of articles from foreign and local studies
relevant to the present study. This is presented in the paragraphs that follow.
two population proportions. Results of data analysis revealed that the direct
instruction (DI) was a more effective strategy for the remediation of process
errors committed by students in Mathematics. The study further recommended
that enough practice activities should be given to students during class sessions
to assist them develop mastery of content taught. Remediation should be seen as
an ongoing process during normal classroom instruction. These results agree
with the study of Din (2000) that direct instruction (DI) once used effectively
could help students to remedy their basic mathematical skills.
was 8.289 at tabular value 1.67, degrees of freedom 64 and 0.05 significance level.
This suggested that there was significant difference between their mean scores in
the posttests in favor of the experimental group.
Morgil (2003) made a study on the traditional and computer assisted learning in
teaching acids and bases in Chemistry. The traditional and the computer assisted
teaching methods for teaching a fundamental topic in chemistry education acids
and bases were compared. The students were randomly distributed into control
and experimental groups and their knowledge on the topic were pretested. After
the test, the experimental group received computer assisted teaching and the
controlled group was taught by traditional teaching methods for two days. The
result incurred 52% improvement in the post instruction test results of the
experimental group; whereas, the controlled group only improved 31%. The
independent two-sample t-test revealed that this difference in the achievement
was significant favoring the experimental group.
Imdieke (2000) investigated the effect of two different teaching methods, the
traditional science instruction with hands -on activities and traditional textbook
science instruction with worksheets to determine which method of science
instruction is more beneficial to elementary science students. Based on the
results, student in the hands -on group achieved higher scores than those in the
worksheet groups. Conclusions drawn from the data show a significant
difference in the achievement of hands- on group with a means score of 94% in
contrast to the worksheet group means score of 82% using the 0.05 level of
statistical significance. Another important difference between the two groups
was their SD scores. The hands-on groups SD was 5.44 in contrast to the
worksheet group which scored 15.3. This difference shows that majority of the
students who learned by using hands-on activities achieved at the higher level
when compared to those who learned by using the worksheets.
Whereas, Rondon (2013) made a study on the effect of a game based and
traditional learning method on the students knowledge retention. His study
revealed that students who received game-based method performed better in
both posttest in anatomy and physiology questions. He further stated that game-
based learning method is comparable to the traditional learning method in
general and in short - term gains, while traditional lecture still seems to be more
effective to improve students short and long term knowledge retention.
Hamm (2009) investigated the performance of deep and surface learners using
the Digital Audio Video Assessment (DAVA) and found out that multimedia
teaching and learning approaches encourage learners to adopt a richer, creative
and deeper level of understanding and participation within the learning
environment than traditional teaching and learning methods. Research shows
that DAVA promotes deep learning and understanding. Some factors mentioned
in this study that are critical in affecting the overall learner experience were the
learners well developed learning preferences, issues relating to technology
incidents and problems and the teachers own level of skills, training and
knowledge of the assessment. He further asserted in his research that learners
exhibited flexible learning preferences adopted either a deep or surface
approach related to their motive or strategy. Based on the evidence, some of the
participants who were classified as surface by Biggs, midway between deep and
surface, changed to deep when doing the DAVA. He argued that the reasons for
the deep approach transformation by these learners were: students have
enjoyable and rewarding experiences and the DAVA suit to their learning
experiences.
Similarly, Aranes (1998) made a study on the achievement of deep and surface
learners using illustrated laboratory procedure in Chemistry. The study was
conducted at the Technological University of the Philippines using four intact
classes of 93 sample students enrolled in General and Inorganic Chemistry
during the second semester of the school year 1997 1998. The total sample
population was divided into two groups, 46 belonged to the experimental group
while 47 students classified for the control group. The findings of this study
revealed that students in the experimental group significantly performed better
than those in the control group. Using illustrated laboratory procedures in
chemistry, surface learners could afford to perform equally well as deep
learners, and a significant interaction effect exists between the teaching method
and learning styles of the students. The surface learners favor the use of regular
laboratory manual, whereas the deep learners favor the illustrated laboratory
procedure.
Further, Tonel (1997), showed in her study on the effectiveness of teacher
resource material in Physics in teaching deep and surface learners that students
who adopt the deep approach tend to perform better than students who adopt
the surface approach. The resource material was found effective in enhancing
student learning.
Synthesis
Based on the presented information from different sources, such as books,
unpublished theses and the Internet, one way to improve student performance
specifically in the least mastered skills of the subject area, is the utilization of an
instructional material. Studies revealed that the use of an instructional material
plays a very significant role in enhancing the memory level of the students and
makes the teaching learning process interesting.The use of Strategic
Five related studies (Dermirci, Morgil, Imdieke, Jiris, and Rondon) considered
the traditional method of instruction. Based on these studies, traditional teaching
method alone does not promote high academic achievement in science.
However, when this method was assisted with technologies and available
instructional materials it improved students performance. The present study
utilized Strategic Intervention Material Based Instruction (SIM BI) while the
above related studies used traditional teaching instruction assisted with
computer programs and other technologies.
Research Paradigm
The paradigm illustrates the possible effect of SIM - BI on deep and surface
learners performance in Chemistry.
The research paradigm shows the relationship between SIM - BI and students
learning approach and their performance in Chemistry. In the study, the
Strategic Intervention Material Based Instruction (SIM - BI) in chemical
bonding and learning approach were the independent variables and the
performance of deep and surface learners in Chemistry was the dependent
variable.
Research Hypotheses
The research hypotheses below were tested at the 0.05 level of significance
express in alternative form.
1. There is a significant difference between the achievement test means of
deep and surface learners before the exposure to SIM - BI
2. There is a significant difference between the achievement means of deep
and surface learners after exposure to SIM BI.
3. There is a significant difference between the achievement test mean
scores of deep learners before and after exposure to SIM BI.
4. There is a significant difference between the achievement test mean
scores of surface learners before and after exposure to SIM BI.
Research Design
The study is descriptive experimental and used the pretest posttest pre-
experimental design. Descriptive part of the study involves the learning profile
and the students perception survey. Experimental part of the study is the
students performance in Chemistry. Qualitative analysis was employed for the
learning approach of students before and after exposure to SIM-BI, students
perception on the use of the strategic intervention material, and students
performance in the Chemistry Achievement Test. Quantitative analysis was used
to determine any difference between the pretest and posttest means. The pretest
posttest experimental designed for this study is presented below.
O1 X O2
Where: O1 pretest
X Treatment (SIM BI)
O2 - Posttest
The Sample
Two sections from the third year level of Makati High School for the school year
2012-2013 (III Pearl and III Zircon) were used as respondents of the study.
The sample consists of 80 students with 36 males and 44 females selected from
18 sections through convenience sampling. These sections are heterogeneous
and handled by the researcher. The researcher had a total contact time with each
section equivalent to six hours in a week. The daily schedule for the Chemistry
class for the III Pearl and III Zircon is from 6:40 A.M. - 7:40 A.M. and 10:00
A.M. 11:00 A.M., respectively. An additional 1 hour for each section was
allotted for the completion or remedial class to III Pearl every Tuesday and
Wednesday for III Zircon from 1:20 P.M. 2:20 P.M.
Research Instruments
In the conduct of the study, the researcher used five research instruments, the
Chemistry Learning Approach Inventory (CLAI), Strategic Intervention Material
(SIM), Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT), Students Perception Survey (SPS)
and Observers Evaluation Questionnaire (OEQ). The CLAI was adopted from
Beran (2005) and the rest was developed by the researcher and validated by
experts.
The ratings given to negative items were subtracted from five (5) prior to getting
the total scores. The students were classified based on their mean scores
obtained in the CLAI. The mean score of the student was computed by dividing
the total scores by 30, the total number of items. In this study, the mean score of
the student was the basis for classifying him/her as to what type of learner
he/she belongs. Students with a mean score of 2.5 were classified as deep
learners and those with mean score of < 2.5 were classified as surface learners.
The SIM was divided into two lessons. Lesson 1 discusses the introduction of
chemical bonding which consists of six activity cards and two assessment cards.
On the other hand, lesson 2 covers the different types of chemical bonding with
seven activity cards and two assessment cards. The first lesson in SIM started
with the guide card presenting the overview of the whole lesson. Under this
part, the objectives of the lesson were stated and students corner was provided
for the understanding check of the respondent. Guide card 1 consists of two
activity cards about predicting stability and the energy involved in chemical
bonding. Guide card 2 discusses the Lewis Electron Dot Structure (LEDS) as a
tool of illustrating how bonds between elements are formed. It contains one
activity with guide questions. Each activity card of the SIM consists of the For
Your Information (FYI) section. This provides the basic information on the
specific topic tackled.
Guide Card 3 deals with ionic formation with three activity cards involving
isoelectronic, protons and electrons, charge of the atoms, oxidation numbers,
types of ion, valence electron, group number of elements in the periodic table,
process to become stable and the ionic symbol. Diagrams were presented in the
lesson for better understanding of the students. Lesson 1 ended with two
assessment cards. The first assessment card was a modified true or false and
identification type for the second assessment. It measured the learning gained by
the students in the first lesson.
The second lesson discusses the types of chemical bond, namely ionic bond,
covalent bond, and metallic bond. It also covers the polarity of a molecule and
its characteristics. Guide card 1 in this particular lesson deals with comparison of
the three types of bond in terms of the classes of elements present. There are
three activities provided in the lesson. The first two activity cards are all about
classifying elements using the periodic table. The third activity is the application
of the first two activity cards in determining the types of bond present in a
compound based on the classes of elements.
Guide Card 2 concentrates on the first type which is the ionic bond. In this
lesson, it uses the Lewis Electron Dot Structure as previously learned by the
respondents in lesson 1, in illustrating how bonds are formed between two
different types of elements. It integrates the ratio of the elements when
combined, the chemical formula and name. Guide Card 3 discusses covalent
bond in terms of sharing the electrons to attain stability of elements involved
and the Lewis structure of a molecule.
Guide Card 4 covers the types of a covalent bond, namely, polar covalent and
non polar covalent bond. It consists of three activity cards. The first and second
activity deal with the use of electronegativity difference in terms of predicting
the bond type. The last activity involves the correct LEDS of a covalent molecule.
Two assessment cards were provided to measure the amount of learning
transferred and retained to the respondents. The first assessment card is a
concept map type of test and a multiple choice questions for the second.
The last two parts of the SIM were the enrichment and reference cards. Under
enrichment card, students were asked to conduct an interview to owners or
employees regarding their knowledge of the science behind hair rebonding.
Reference card which contains title of books and internet websites was also
provided as additional reference related to the topic covered by the SIM.The SIM
underwent phases of validation. The material was prepared by the researcher
and validated by three experts in Chemistry. Suggested ideas by the experts
were incorporated in the content of the SIM. These include diagrams,
improvement of guide questions and additional activities under the activity
card.
The first draft was a 50 item questions (Appendix D) presented to the thesis
mentor and two experts in chemistry for content validation. Comments and
suggestions mostly on the test construction such as clarity of the stem and
attractiveness of the options by the experts were incorporated in the test. The
second draft was given to fourth year students who already took chemistry.
Result of the test was subjected to item analysis (Appendix D1). Based on the
result out of 50, 29 items were considered good questions, 4 items needed
revision and 17 items were rejected. Rejected items were discarded in the final
form of the test. Only 28 questions considered as good items from the item
analysis were included in the final form of the achievement test to maintain the
proportion of questions stated in the table of specifications. Two questions
classified as fair in the analysis were retained in the second draft to maintain the
questions about polarity of a molecule in the competency.
The second draft of the test was again given to another section of fourth year
students for the reliability estimate before it was administered as pretest and
posttest to the respondents of the study. Results (Appendix D3) showed that the
achievement test is reliable with a reliability coefficient of 0.63 using Kuder
Richardson Formula 20.
The second phase was the administration of the pretest to students in chemical
bonding. The test given covers the topic on chemical bonding with a total of 30
questions that was validated by experts. The test lasted for 1 hour. The result of
the test was recorded for comparison purposes.
The third phase was the actual teaching using the regular instruction (traditional
teaching method) of the researcher in chemical bonding. The lesson started with
a video song presentation about chemical bonding. This material was
downloaded from the Internet that served as motivation for the students in
learning the topic. The lesson lasted for two weeks or equivalent to 12 hours
contact time with the students.
The fourth phase was the study proper. Under this phase, Strategic Intervention
Material (SIM) in chemical bonding was given as an intervention material after
the regular instruction. Each student was given a copy of the SIM and answered
activities provided involving concepts of the lesson discussed in the regular
instruction. This was conducted daily within two consecutive weeks or
equivalent to 12 hours under the supervision of the researcher.
To ensure that the schedule was strictly followed, the science department head
and chemistry teachers observed and described what took place in the classroom
using the observers evaluation questionnaire.
After the SIM - BI was the administration of the posttest to the respondents. On
the following day the Chemistry Learning Approach Inventory (CLAI) was
again given to the respondents to determine any changes in their learning
approach after using the strategic intervention material (SIM) in chemical
bonding.
For the final phase, the researcher administered the perception survey to gather
feedbacks from the respondents. This perception survey gave the students the
chance to express their reaction with regard to the use of the SIM. The schedule
of activities as they have been conducted in the study is presented in Table 2.
Data Analysis
All data were collected and served as the basis to find out the effect of Strategic
Intervention Material Based Instruction on the learning approach and
performance of students in Chemistry. Data were tabulated, tallied, organized,
statistically treated and analyzed.Using the Chemistry Learning Approach
Inventory (CLAI) questionnaires, the researcher was able to classify students as
to what learning approach they adopt before and after the implementation of the
Strategic Intervention Material Based Instruction (SIM BI). The mean scores
of the respondents in the CLAI was the basis for identifying their learning
approach. Prior to the computation of the mean scores of the respondents, the
ratings given to negative items were subtracted from five. The total scores were
added and the mean score was computed. Students with a mean score of 2.50
were classified as deep learners and those with a mean score of < 2.50 were
classified as surface learners. The learning approach profile was presented using
a pie chart.
The performance of the respondents was measured based on their scores in the
Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT). Descriptive statistics was employed. Pretest
and posttest scores of deep and surface learners were compared in terms of the
highest and the lowest scores, mean scores, and standard deviation. The data
were also used inferential statistics specifically t test for dependent samples to
find out if there is a significant difference in the performance of the respondents
categorized as deep and surface learners evaluated at 0.05 level of significance.
All data in the students performance is presented in a tabular form.
Students perception about the use of the SIM - BI was tabulated. The survey
utilized scales from 1 4 with their equivalent remarks or descriptions.
Frequency of responses by the respondents were tallied and presented also in
tabular form. Weighted mean for each statement and the overall weighted mean
were computed. This was done by adding product of the number of responses in
each scale and divided by the number of respondents. The overall weighted
mean was computed by getting the average of all the weighted means.
Qualitative interpretations were based on the weighted mean computed using
the ranges: 1 1.49 (Strongly disagree); 1.5 2.49 (Disagree); 2.5 3.49 (Agree);
and 3.5 4.0 (Strongly agree). All data were fed into SPS version 11.0 statistical
software.
However, when students were exposed to SIM BI, there is a change in the
numbers of deep and surface learners. Prior to the implementation of the SIM
BI, majority of the respondents adopted the surface approach of learning. As
revealed in figure 3, there is a change in the learning approach profile of the
respondents. From 53 students adopting the surface approach it decreased to 24
after the SIM BI. This indicates that 29 surface learners transformed into deep
learners. Further, the number of deep learners increased by 29. These were the
surface learners before SIM BI. However, three deep learners before SIM BI
became surface learners after SIM BI. These three students were absent for 4
sessions during the duration of the study and they were not able to complete
some activities in the SIM.
This result agreed with the statement of Biggs as mentioned in Daluz (2003) that
approaches to learning are not necessarily exclusive. Students may adopt
different approaches according to the tasks, the course or the teaching context.
Learning approaches are not stable individual traits, although some students
will tend toward taking a deep approach while others will tend taking toward
surface approach. Biggs further stated that good teaching can motivate and
influence students to change their learning approach from surface to deep
approach of learning.It can be deduced that the changes in the learning
approach from surface to deep approach transformed students from being
passive to active, uncritical to critical thinker by examining facts and ideas,
relating new to previous lessons and from showing disinterest to personal
interest as mentioned in Miguel (2012) from the table of compilation of the
characteristics of deep and surface learner by Biggs (1999) and Ramsden (1992).
The result also conformed with the statements of Biggs that good teaching
served as encouragement of deep approach to learning. In the course of the
study, the researcher observed that in completing the tasks or activities provided
in the SIM - BI, respondents reviewed previous guide cards of the SIM that
helped them answer the task of the day. In this case, students connected the
previous to the present lesson which is an indicator of adopting the deep
approach of learning.
Guide questions provided in the SIM were also considered by the researcher as
one of the factors that transformed surface learner to deep learner. Guide
questions under the guide cards and activity cards of the SIM were given higher
points compared to the completion of tables. Students, therefore, are forced to
read and comprehend every detail of this section of the SIM for them to answer
and earn higher points.
The highest score in the pretest of the surface learners is 14 while the deep
learners is 12. The highest score in the posttest of the surface learners is 28 while
the deep learners is 29. Standard deviation shows that the scores in the posttest
are more scattered around its respective mean from the pretest in both types of
learners (deep: 1.99, 4.49; surface: 1.84, 3.73) From table 3, it can be noted that
there was a considerable increase in the mean score of the two different types of
learners after using the SIM in chemical bonding. Deep learners posted lower
mean scores in the pretest compared to the surface learners with mean scores of
8.85 and 9.75, respectively. However, in the posttest deep learners registered a
higher mean score with a slight difference than the surface learners. The latter
obtained a mean score of 21.15 ;while, the former got 21.70. This implies that
both deep and surface learners performed better when taught using the SIM - BI.
Findings of this study confirm that findings of Togonon (2011) that SIM
enhances students achievement.
The table above shows the mean scores in the pretest of deep and surface
learners. The deep learners obtained 8.85 while the surface learners got a mean
score of 9.75. The standard deviations of the two scores are equivalent to 1.99 for
the deep learners and 1.83 for the surface learners. The t-test for independent
samples revealed a t-value of 1.97 and p value of 0.055. The computed p-value
associated with the test statistics is higher than the level of significance set in the
study (p>0.05), therefore, the difference in the mean pretest scores of the two
groups of learners is not significant. This result implies that at the start of the
study, the prior knowledge of surface learners and deep learners are more or
less comparable.
The above table reveals the posttest mean scores of the deep and surface learners
in the Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT. The deep learners obtained a mean
score of 21.70 and 21.15 for the surface learners. Based on the mean score, it can
be noted that deep learners got a higher mean score than the surface learners.
The computed t-value is 0.551 and the p-value is 0.585. The computed p-value is
greater than the level of significance set in the study (p > 0.05), thus, the
difference is not significant. This indicates that the two types of learners
performed equally well after SIM BI. This also indicates that the Strategic
Intervention Material is an effective instructional material for both types of
learners. This result conformed with the statement of Ramsden as mentioned in
Daluz (2003) that surface approach should not be viewed as a learning approach
adopted only by weaker students and deep approach are for highly competent
ones.
Comparison of the Pretest Mean and Posttest Mean of Deep and Surface
learners
The mean difference between the scores in pretest and posttest in the Chemistry
Achievement Test (CAT) was used to measure the knowledge gained by the
respondents with the aid of SIM. Table 6 below summarizes the pretest and
posttest mean scores of the two different types of learners using the t-test.
The computation result indicated that there is a significant increase in the gain
scores obtained by the deep learners which is equivalent to 12.85 points from the
21.70 and 8.85 mean scores of the posttest and pretest, respectively. The t-test for
paired samples results to a t-value of 15.92 and a p-value of 0.000. This means
that the difference between the posttest and pretest is significant.
In the same table, it is also shown that there is a difference between the pretest
and posttest mean scores of the surface learners. Surface learners posted a gain
score of 11.40 points. This gain score is considered significant based on the t-test
results. The computed t-value and p-value are 22.864 and 0.000, respectively.
The p-value is less than the level of significance set in the study (p<0.05),
therefore, the difference between the mean scores in the pretest and posttest of
the surface learners is significant. This could mean that both deep and surface
learners exposed to SIM - BI achieved better. The findings also confirmed the
findings of the studies done by Miguel (2012), Estacio (2008), and Soberano
(2010).
guidelines and principles on SIM construction set by the DepEd during seminars
and contests.
Moreover, based on the experience of the researcher in the duration of the study,
there were students who requested to bring home the SIM for them to answer
the activities during Saturday and Sunday. These perceptions conformed with
the study of Hamm (2009) that the reason for the transformation into deep
approach adopted by the learners was that they had enjoyable and rewarding
experiences. The remediation and transformation of 29 surface learners into
deep learners may be attributed to this statement.
Next in the rank were statements number 5 and 9 with a mean rating of 3.6
(strongly agree) followed by question number 3 which obtained a mean rating of
3.5 (strongly agree). The fifth statement refers to the time allotment for each
lesson. Students strongly agreed that adequate time was given to them to
accomplish all activities or exercises in a given session. Statements 4 and 6
obtained the lowest mean rating of 3.2 (agree). Respondents agreed that they
learned some useful information in the SIM not mentioned in a regular
classroom teaching and activities and tasks given in the SIM made were easy.
This lowest mean rating can be attributed to the nature of the SIM which is
activity based compared to the regular classroom teaching which is a lecture
based method, where all information about the topic are already given.
The overall mean rating of the respondents is 3.6 interpreted as strongly agree.
This is an indication that the SIM is an effective tool in teaching to enhanced
students performance and to improve their views about Chemistry.
Based on the comments and suggestions of the respondents, the SIM really
helped the students improve their performance in chemical bonding as one of
the least mastered skills in Chemistry. Students are looking forward that SIM
will also be given not only in Chemistry but also in other science subjects
involving difficult topics. SIM must use words that are suited to the reading
comprehension of the students that need remediation for a particular topic.
Based on the findings of the study and conclusions drawn, the following are
hereby recommended:
1. Use SIM Based Instruction (SIM BI) in other topics in Chemistry to
further validate the result of the study.
2. Conduct a similar studies on the use of SIM Based Instruction (SIM
BI) in other discipline to confirm the results of the study.
3. Use SIM as remediation material to enhance the achievement of surface
learners.
4. Conduct further studies in SIM - BI using respondents in tertiary level to
confirm its effectiveness in promoting deep learning approach and its
applicability to Chemistry teaching.
5. Encourage administrators, science supervisors and teachers to make SIM
in all topics not only the least mastered skills in a given subject area.
6. Teachers shall be provided with more seminars, workshops on the
principles of SIM construction.
References
Biggs, J., (2003), Teaching for Quality Learning at University, (2nd Ed.), The
Society for Research into Higher Education very good practical
handbook on teaching.
http://84.22.166.132/learning-and-teaching-theory-guide/deep-and-surface-
approaches-learning.html
Chingos, M. (2012)
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2012/4/
10%20curriculum%20chingos%20whitehurst/0410_curriculum_chingos
_whitehurst.pdf
Dahar, M (2011), Effect of the Availability and the Use of Instructional Material
on Academic Performance of Students in Punjab (Pakistan), Euro
Journal Publishing Inc.
Griffiths, A (2006),
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10,1002/tea.3660250902/abstract
Hamm, S. (2009), Digital Audio Video Assessment (DAVA) for Deep and
Surface Learning: An Investigation
http://devpolicy.org/a-deep-or-surface-approach-to-development-what-can-
learning-research-teach-us/ 11/19/2012A deep or surface approach to
development what can learning research teach us? Written by Robert
Cannon on June 19, 2012
http://www.ehow.com/list_6495242_duties-remediation-teacher.html accessed
11/19/2012
http://www.recsam.edu.my/cosmed/cosmed09/AbstractsFullPapers2009/Abs
tract/Science%20Parallel%20PDF/Full%20Paper/04.pdf
Nicholls, G (2000), Learning to Teach, pp 356 360, Bell and Bain Ltd. Glasgow.
Raw, V. (2003), Quality Teaching, APH Publishing Corp. Ansari Road, New
Delhi
Ju-Sen Lin
FoGuang University
Yilan, Taiwan
Chaoyun Liang
National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan
Introduction
The key to the success of the design lies in the capacity of creative thinking.
Imagination is the basis for cultivating creative thinking, and thus the driving
force of innovation (Finke, 1996). Creativity-related research has progressed for
many years, but the understandings of imagination and the imagination process
still remain unclear. So far, few studies have clearly discussed how imagination
manifests itself, let alone developed an evaluation tool for assessing imagination
stimulation in the design field (Liang, Chang, Chang, & Lin, 2012). In this study,
imagination refers to the process of transforming the inner imagery of design
school students when they face a design task. Such images are usually
developed from the individuals image memory and shaped into something
new.The purpose of this study is to analyze the perceived influence of learning
environment on design student imagination in different design phases.
Generally speaking, the design process can be divided into three major phases:
problem definition and design analysis, concept development and prototyping,
Learning environment
The college campus can be divided into four dimensions: its physical
components and design, its dominant human characteristics, the organizational
structures that serve its purposes, and the participants constructions of its social
climates (American College Personnel Association, 1994). The physical component
of a campus consists of its natural environment (geographic location, weather,
and temperature) and man-made environment (architecture, signs, sound,
grassy spaces, learning facilities, and messages sent to its inhabitants). These two
components define space for activities and events, thereby encouraging some
phenomena while limiting others (Strange, 2003). Social climate focuses on the
subjective views and experiences of participant observers, assuming that
environments are understood best through the collective perceptions of the
individuals within them. (Strange& Banning, 2001, p. 86) This dimension
usually has intrinsic influence (such as members motivations) as well as
external impact (such as control over the members) (Peterson & Spencer, 1990).
Imagination
Passmore (1985) held that imagination is the capacity to think up and think
through alternatives. Imagination enables people to go beyond actual experience
and construct alternative possibilities, in which the fragmented situation is a
meaningful whole. Trotman (2006) indicated that imagination is an essential
human capacity in various activities such as the pursuit of creativity and
innovation, the symbolic expression of ideas, and critical thinking. In other
words, imagination is the internal imagery of a creator whereas creativity and
creations are the outward manifestation of imagination. Imagination can also be
viewed as the process of transforming an existing memory into a new form.
Reichling (1990) indicated that imagination runs through three levels: fantasy or
magical imagination, reproductive or literal imagination, and metaphorical and
paradoxical imagination. At the level of fantasy or magical imagination, the
initial stage of imaginative development, perception is dominant. The imagined
object may be seen or touched within the mind of an individual. At the level
of reproductive or literal imagination, perception and reasoning are combined
together, but intuition is largely absent. Objects at this level are imagined as they
exist in concrete and observable forms. At the level of metaphorical and
paradoxical imagination, the addition of intuition brings the last facet of
imagination together with perception, thinking, and feeling. This combination
yields the full development of imagination as a power of the whole human
consciousness.
Passmore (1985) held that teachers should provide students with alternative
thinking and diverse life experiences, thus stimulating imagination. Bscher,
Eriksen, Kristensen, and Mogensen (2004) took concepts such as work
environment, resources, and design tasks as variables and sought out the best
combinations for designers to utilize their imagination and improve their cross-
field capabilities. These studies demonstrated that imagination stimulation is
closely related to the designers work environment and the societal environment
outside of the task.
Method
Since measures of the influence that environmental factors had on imagination
stimulation in different design phases were unavailable, new scales needed to be
developed for this study. Based upon the literature review, items were created to
represent the issues identified. All these 27 preliminary items addressed various
environmental influences and were grouped into four dimensions, namely
physical component, social climate, organizational measure, and human
aggregate.In order to make the standpoints of the surveyed clearer, the items
were measured using 4-point Likert scales, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to
4 = strongly agree. The scale was pre-tested by over 200 college students and
then verified by preliminary validation analyses.
Participants involved in this study were students from ten universities across
Taiwan. Students had to satisfy two requirements in order to participate for this
study. First, students must have been a design major. Second, students must
have had at least sophomore standing prior to the study. In the first phase, a
total of 1,004 valid samples were collected, including 294 sophomores, 300
juniors, 277 seniors, and 133 in their master programs. There were 277 male and
727 female. The demographical data of the other two phases are presented in
Table 1. Because the participants were not forced to contribute in all the three
phases, the numbers of participants differed slightly between each phase.
Three items were dropped from the scale due to low factor loading (< .3): the
congestion of messages in the learning environment, the route and pattern
planning of the learning environment, and the location of the learning
environment on campus. Based on the satisfactorily analytical results, a total of
24 items were chosen to construct the formal questionnaire. The measured items
were organized by item analysis on the mean (2.77-3.54), standard deviation (>
.75), skewness (< 1), extreme value test results (p < .05, t > 1.96), correlation
coefficients (> .3), and factor loading values (> .3) of the data acquired during the
formal survey. The environmental influence scale was found to be reliable (refer
to Table 1).
Results
Factor analysis results indicated that the 24 items could be organized into four
environmental factors. The first one, physical component, a six-item scale,
measured the degree to which participants considered the facilities and
messages in an environment would stimulate imagination. The second one,
In the first phase, the results of Scheff test showed that the mean of sophomores
(M = 3.18, SD = .44) was significantly greater than that of Masters students (M =
3.01, SD = .484) in physical component. The same was also true in organizational
measure (M = 3.42, SD = .460 compared to M = 3.28, SD = .507). The mean of
juniors (M = 3.45, SD = .430) was significantly greater than that of seniors (M =
3.32, SD = .471) and Masters students (M = 3.32, SD = .456) in social climate.
Finally, the mean of sophomores (M = 3.45, SD = .439) was significantly greater
than those of seniorsand Masters students in social climate as well. In the second
phase, Scheff post hoc comparison test showed significant differences between
the means of juniors and those of seniors and Masters students in both social
climate and human aggregate. In the third phase, the results showed significant
differences between the mean of sophomoresand that of seniors in social climate
(see Table 3).
Furthermore, the results of the Scheff post hoc test indicated that means of both
phase 1 (M = 3.112, SD = .460) and phase 2 (M = 3.108, SD = .498) were greater
than that of phase 3 (M = 3.051, SD = .497) in physical component. In organizational
measure, means of both phase 1 (M = 3.357, SD = .477) and phase 2 (M = 3.331,
SD = .490) were also significantly greater than that of phase 3 (M = 3.239, SD =
.527). In addition, the mean of phase 1 (M = 3.396, SD = .451) was significantly
greater than that of phase 2 (M = 3.320, SD = .470), which itself was greater than
the mean of phase 3 (M = 3.254, SD = .479) in social climate. The related results
are reported in Table 4.
Physical component 3.112 .460 3.108 .498 3.051 .497 5.079 .006** 1 >3; 2 >3
1. 3.47 .768 3.38 .743 3.28 .736 20.252 .000*** 1 >2; 1 >3; 2 >3
2. 3.37 .748 3.31 .726 3.20 .708 16.022 .000*** 1 >3; 2 >3
3. 3.12 .647 3.18 .647 3.13 .692
4. 3.01 .788 3.01 .775 2.96 .729 1.781 .169
5. 2.95 .648 2.96 .656 2.96 .693 .297 .743
6. 2.77 .808 2.81 .795 2.78 .763 .919 .399
Organizational measure 3.357 .477 3.331 .490 3.239 .527 15.003 .000*** 1 >3; 2 >3
7. 3.51 .704 3.43 .717 3.33 .713
8. 3.45 .665 3.42 .638 3.32 1.173 12.048 .000*** 1 >3; 2 >3
9. 3.39 .623 3.34 .662 3.27 .693 6.775 .001** 1 > 3
10. 3.37 .772 3.36 .741 3.20 .735 8.710 .000*** 1 >3; 2 >3
11. 3.29 .626 3.30 .651 3.22 .673 2.468 .085
12. 3.14 .717 3.13 .714 3.10 .712 .049 .952
Social climate 3.396 .451 3.320 .470 3.254 .479 22.385 .000*** 1 >3; 1 >2; 2 > 3
13. 3.54 .655 3.44 .681 3.39 .688 9.731 .000*** 1 >2; 1 >3
14. 3.52 .719 3.45 714 3.36 .708 12.492 .000*** 1 >3; 2 > 3
15. 3.52 .581 3.43 .621 3.32 .647 22.201 .000*** 1 >2; 1 >3; 2 >3
16. 3.41 .658 3.32 .660 3.26 .696 12.344 .000*** 1 >2; 1 > 3
17. 3.38 .595 3.34 .617 3.26 .638 8.578 .000*** 1 >3; 2 >3
18. 3.20 .622 3.14 .657 3.10 .671 1.276 .279
19. 3.20 .733 3.10 .729 3.08 .716 3.176 .042
Human agregate 3.251 .520 3.221 .536 3.150 .520 9.358 .000*** 1 >3; 2 >3
20. 3.45 .694 3.36 .701 3.26 .685 21.300 .000*** 1 >2; 1 >3; 2 >3
21. 3.38 .662 3.34 .667 3.26 .691 8.195 .000*** 1 >3; 2 >3
22. 3.24 .640 3.21 .663 3.13 .669 5.546 .004** 1 >3
23. 3.12 .709 3.13 .705 3.08 .716 1.198 .302
24. 3.07 .831 3.06 .809 3.03 756
*p< .05. **p< .01. ***p< .001; 1 = phase one, 2 = phase two, 3 = phase three
Discussion
Environmental factors of stimulating imagination
Overall, social climate was claimed to have the greatest effect on student
imagination, followed by organizational measure, and human aggregate. Although
physical component had the least effect, its mean (3.112) was high enough to be
considered influential. This result suggested that a soft mechanism like a
welcoming climate is the most powerful stimulus to facilitate imagination.
Harder factors like institutional measures, intangible factors such as tradition or
culture, and physical factors like space and its facilities, are also proved
themselves to be effective facilitators.
In the first phase of design process, our data showed that the top eight
influential items on student imagination are discussion with classmates,
pleasant learning climate, climate of free expression, encouragement for
taking risk, dynamic audiovisual stimuli, opportunities for solitary
thinking, sharing constructive feedback, and mutual support. This result is
In the second phase, the most influential items include pleasant learning
climate, discussion with classmates, climate of free expression,
encouragement for taking risk, opportunities for solitary thinking,
dynamic audiovisual stimuli, rich learning resources, and sharing
constructive feedback. The item mutual support was dropped, partially due
to the emphasis on the personal attribute of an individual imagination during
this phase of design. The newly added item rich learning resources reflected
the need of external stimuli (such as related cases, seniors examples,
competition messages) for the students in the design school.
According to the analysis, the seven most influential items in the third phase are
discussion with classmates, pleasant learning climate, encouragement for
taking risk, climate of free expression, opportunities for solitary thinking,
dynamic audiovisual stimuli, and a personal space for creation. The item
sharing constructive feedback was dropped between phase two and phase
three, possibly because the feedback might not be acknowledged within the
busy schedule during the phase three. The addition of the item a personal
space implied that the third phase is a time for detailed design. These results
confirm the findings of the previous study (Liang, Hsu, & Chang, 2013; Liang,
Hsu, Huang, & Chen, 2012), especially in the aspect of environmental factors.
The results indicated that there was no significant difference on the influence of
environmental factors between male and female participants according to the t-
test. However, environmental factors had greater influence on sophomores than
on seniors and Masters students. This phenomenon was more evident in the
first and third phases. The learning environment, especially social climate and
human aggregate, had significant effects on the juniors in the second phase. Our
results also suggested that special attention should be paid to physical component
for sophomores in the first design phase, and social climate and human aggregate
to juniors in the second phase.
design and communication. The results of this study are compatible with the
nature and reality of design education. For example, discussion with classmates
is important for stimulating imagination in the phase one in order to clarify the
design task. Having a pleasant learning climate and rich learning resources are
critical for concept development in the phase two. Opportunities for solitary
thinking and a personal space for creation are crucial for detailed design in the
third phase.
In order to clarify the design problem and assigned task, students in the first
phase usually need to go back and forth between discussing with classmates and
solitary thinking. Diverse audiovisual stimuli serve as vehicle for stimulating
imagination, and a pleasant, encouraging and respecting climate facilitates this
stimulation. Mutual support from both teachers and classmates, in the form of
idea sharing or feedback, is always welcomed. According to our results, the
scenario constructed above is especially crucial forsophomore students. Our
data also showed that the physical environment is not the dominant factor in
stimulating student imagination, but it should not become an excuse not to
improve learning facilities and enhance learning resources.
The nature of the first phase involves both imagery and analysis. Proceeding
from this paradoxical stage to the next one, the phase of concept development
and prototyping, there was a trend of increasing importance on the items
opportunities for solitary thinking, and rich learning resources. At the same
time, the weights of climate of free expression,sharing constructive
feedback, mutual support between teachers and classmates were slightly
diminished. It might imply that students demand more referential material and
time for scanning through ideas during this phase. The results revealed that
constructive feedback along with a climate of respect and support are still
needed to stimulate student imagination.
In the reality, the acts of concept development and prototyping dominate the
second phase of the design process. According to the analysis of this study,
special attention should be paid to junior students in the factors of social climate
and human aggregate in this phase, especially through having a competitive and
challenging climate and opportunities for discussion. The instructors, in this
phase, should keep an open mind and take a more flexible standpoint in order to
stimulate student imagination. In addition, sufficient referential resources and
constructive feedback should be provided under a mutually respectful climate.
In the transition to the phase three, the importance of the items opportunities
for solitary thinking, a personal space for creation, and teachers attention
over the design process was increased. These changes reflect a switch from
prototyping to detailed design in a typical design process. Students may need
more room for themselves during this period. However, it is ironic that student
imagination could be enhanced if their instructors closely observe them through
the process. In addition, the weights of climate of free expression and sharing
constructive feedback were lessened. It implied that free expression and
The final phase is the time to examine the execution and completion of the
design task. It is also a time to demonstrate a students marketing ability. In
order to facilitate imagination, our data showed that students in this phase
continually discuss the task with classmates, and demand opportunities for
solitary concentration and contemplation. A variety of audiovisual stimuli and
personal space for creation is expected. A pleasant, encouraging, and respectful
climate is still needed. As students devalued free expression and constructive
feedback, it is interesting to learn that the need for mutual support between
teachers and classmates grew.
Taken together, our results suggest that environmental factors not only have
significant effects on imagination stimulation, but also have varying effects
during the three phases of design process. Particularly, the effect of social climate,
the most influential dimension, in the first phase was significantly greater than
in the other phases. This phenomenon was also observed with the factors of
organizational measure, human aggregate, and physical component. The only
difference was that the effect of human aggregatein the phase two was
significantly greater than in the phase three. This study concluded that
environmental factors have significant effects on imagination stimulation for
students in the design field, especially in the phase of problem definition and
design analysis, and have significantly smaller effects on the phase of detailed
design and communication.
This study also concluded that the student imagination in design field runs
through the three imagination levels as described by Reichling (1990). These
three levels were witnessed in each phase, sometimes intertwining without a
particular sequence. In addition, the research team observed that students in the
design field continually encountered the six situated practices claimed by
Trotman (2006) throughout the design process. The situated practices are
bounded by context and situation rather than design phase. As can be seen in
Figure 1, a design process is composed of three phases. These designer-centered
phases do not have strict boundaries. Each environmental factor has its unique
influence in every design phase. In Figure 1, the size of each factor and its
distance to the designer represent the respective influence that the factor holds.
The designer in each phase travels back and forth on different imagination
levels, and encounters all six situated practices. The imagination of a designer in
the three design phases is continually creating and refining. The inventions and
refinements in each phase in turn shape those in the next phase as presented in
the following conceptual framework.
Closing Remarks
Compared to concepts such as personality traits and individual psychology,
external environments are factors which are easier to grasp and shape. It is also
easier to adjust the learning environment with different instructional strategies
than to change an individuals traits or psychological states.
It should be noted that the research target of this study is students in the design
field. It is expected that the reactions of this target population would differ from
those of professional designers in the real world. This study, however, can serve
as a stepping stone for inquiring into the imagination of professional designers.
The study of the expected gap between naive designers and professional ones
can lend insights for design educators to restructure or reinvent their curriculum
and learning environments.
Acknowledgments
The current study is part of the research project (NSC98-2511-S-155-005-MY2) supported
by Taiwans National Science Council. The authors would like to extend their gratitude
to the insightful suggestions of anonymous IJLTER reviewers. Correspondence
concerning this article should be addressed to Chaoyun Liang, Department of Bio-
Industry Communication and Development, National Taiwan University, Taiwan.
Electronic mail may be sent tocliang@ntu.edu.tw.
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