Thesis

INTRODUCTION

Education has a key role to play for sustainable development both in developing and developed countries (Chimombo, 2005). The progressively increasing pressure majorly on developing countries to be at par with their developed partners has only contributed towards the significance of education. This is aimed at balancing the global competitiveness. According to Chimombo, 2005, hindering circumstances in each developing nation have tomust be improved and aligned regarding compulsory and free education to foster general access to education.

Internet connection is tremendously growing tremendously globally each year. People across the globe are increasingly integrated to what happens on in different parts of the world. This has brought forward huge opportunities and success to individuals. Just like the technology has changed the world, it is now changing the learning and teaching environment. Learning approaches embedded to the Information Communication Technology (ICT) ICT (must define it in full term first before using abbreviations) policy include Electronic learning (e-learning), blended learning and distance learning. Students can remotely attend classes through distance learning powered by Information Communication Technology (ICT) ICT.

Basic content design factors are reviewed from three perspectives: Environmental, educational, and architectural. Selected developmentally appropriate characteristics of students are reviewed and linked to affective, behavioral, and cognitive learning categories. These characteristics are then matched with learning goals, and activities. Given these foundations, appropriate architectural/natural support systems are defined and designs that match the learning goals are recommended. Functional and structural design represents two primary considerations for the built and natural/architectural support systems for schools. Natural areas and built structures are two familiar examples of support systems for learning. Comment by Author 2: You many want to connect this to healthcare education by using an example in one way or another. This will make your topic a bit more relative, especially giving what happened during COVID in 2020 going into 2021. It is the best to use that as most of our education for all students' levels took place online.

Learning outcomes in basic education seeks to; enable the child to live a full life as a child and to realize his or her own potential as a unique individual, enable the child develop as a social being through living and cooperating with others and so contribute to the good of society and to prepare the child for further education and lifelong learning

According to Reeves (2008) in his article, Evaluating what Rreally Mmatters in CcomputerB based Eeducation, several reasons and lack of evaluation surround E -learning. First, tTeachers, pupils and parent who are the consumers of this technology ical assume that because these innovations are advertised as effective, they are effective, yet there is little if any research to support this assumption . Second, evaluation has often been statistically done where technology readiness is measured in terms of; the investment done on hardware and software, the ratio of users/pupils to technology devices’ use and the amount of time students have access to technology within a school day, week, month, or year. The transfer of content from teacher to pupils and vice versa has always been over lookedoverlooked. Content design factors for delivery of the content largely contribute in determining the readiness, acceptance and adoption levels. This research study proposes to addresses the gaps and uncertainty around E-learning preparedness and investigate how various content design factors may impact on the outcome(s) of learning in basic education. Comment by Author 2: Should explain a bit. Provide evidence from literature if that is true. Comment by Author 2: Also, maybe good to provide one or two examples. Comment by Author 2: If in you analysis have more than one gap, then change to plural. Otherwise, just be careful to revisit some of the grammar once your analysis is complete and your results are reported.

1.3 Objectives Purpose of the Study

i. Identify content design factors for learning outcomes in schools.

ii. To investigate how content design factors impact learning outcomes in schools.

The study intends to address the following questions;

i. What are the available content design factors for learning?

ii. What are the available content design factors for learners over the age of 18 in Schools?

iii. What are the expected outcomes for learners’ in basic Schools?

iv. How learning outcome is measured in basic Schools?

The information from this research will be crucial to education stakeholders in understanding which elaborate measures to put in place to improve learning outcomes. Academically, the proposed study is expected to contribute to the existing literature in the field of E-leaning in general and its impact on quality education in particular. Besides, the study will be a basis for further research.

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In this second chapter, relevant literature information related and consistent with the objectives of the study was reviewed. Important issues and practical problems were brought out and critically examined so as to determine the current situation. This section was vital as it determined the information that links this study with past studies and what future studies would still need to be explored so as to improve knowledge. Studies on content design factors in teaching and learning in schools provide the rationale behind the model being presented. Being an impact/investigative study, employing a theoretical framework is important so as to offer guidance. In this study, the research uses the Guskey’s Evaluation Framework (Figure 1) as the research framework.

Content Designs are pedagogically informed learning activities which make effective use of appropriate tools and resources. Content design factors refer to how information is structured to ensure ease in delivery, understanding and uptake. Some of the main content design factors to be captured in this research include; instructivism (teacher only active member) verses constructivism (more learning for learners), teacher centered verses student centered, multi – modal (a mix of audio, visual and diagrams) verses single- modal, sequential (theory then practice) verses non-sequential (theory and practices all in one), access to extra learning materials and remedial work (repeat lessons).

Learning outcomes are statements that describe significant and essential learning that learners have achieved, andachieved and can reliably demonstrate at the end of a course or program. In other words, learning outcomes identify what the learner will know and be able to do by the end of a course or program, Spady, (1994). Spady, an educational researcher who spearheaded the development of outcomes basedoutcomes-based education suggests that the ability demonstrate learning is the key point. The learning demonstration will include some kind of performance to show learning significance. Though it is essential to have significant content, this alone is not sufficient as content knowledge must be manifested through a sort of demonstration process.

The lesson’s learning objectives comes from the work scheme. After defining the learning objectives, the intended learning outcomes should be outlined. What will learning produce by the end of learning or sequence of lessons to demonstrate that learning took place – for instance ability to pronounce words, a piece of writing, ability to solve a mathematical problem. It is therefore necessary from the outset to define what a good-quality product will look like to help clarify expectations with learners.

In this study, the researcher proposes use of Guskey’s Evaluation Framework to investigate the effects of content design factors in basic school learning. Effective professional development evaluations require the collection and analysis of the five critical levels of information (Guskey, 2000). With each succeeding level, the process of gathering evaluation information gets a bit more complex. And because each level builds on those that come before, success at one level is usually necessary for success at higher levels.

Level 1: Participants' Reactions

This being the first of evaluation looks at learners’ reactions to the professional development experience. This will help in establishing how the learner perceives different content design factors. This is the most common form of professional development evaluations, and the easiest type of information to gather and analyze. The researcher purposes to use questionnaires to get information on learners’ reaction. These questionnaires will include a combination of rating-scale items and open-ended response questions to allow personal comments from learners.

Level 2: Participants' Learning

After determining the measure of learners’ satisfaction of various content designs, this framework aims as establishing whether they learn something from it. ThereforeTherefore, this level focuses on measuring the knowledge and skills that participants gained. Depending on the lesson/learning objectives, this might include on the goals of the program or activity, this can involve anything from a simple assessment to a simulation or full-scale skill demonstration.

Level 3: Organization Support and Change

Level 3 shifts focus from classroom to the organization. Organizational support and change can sabotage any learning efforts despite ensuring all other aspects of learning are in place. The researcher will try to establish how the community and school support learners in attaining the desired learning outcomes. The school policies and practices make learning highly competitive and will thwart the most valiant efforts to have students cooperate and help one another learn (Guskey, 2000).

Level 4: Participants' Use of New Knowledge and Skills

Level 4 answers the question; did the new knowledge and skills that pupils learned make a difference in their education process? Relevant information will be gathered by clearly specifying indicators of successful learning outcomes and the quality of implementation. This information cannot be gathered at the end of session but rather during learning sessions. The implementation is often a gradual and uneven process, thus need to measure progress at several time intervals.

Level 5: Student Learning Outcomes

Level 5 addresses “the bottom line”: How did the various content designs affect the learners? Did it benefit them in any way? The particular student learning outcomes of interest depend, of course, on the goals of that specific content design mode.

This chapter explains the approach the researcher used to gain information on the research problem and includes the research design, study population and sample size, sampling design and procedure, data collection methods, measurement of variables. Procedures used of data collection, data processing, analysis and presentation and anticipated problems to the study.

A research philosophy is a belief about the way in which data about a phenomenon should be gathered, analyzed and used. In this study, the researcher will use interpretivist research philosophy. Being a case study researcher, interpretivist philosophy will be used to build on the theory. The study will seek to establish how learners’ perceptions will be influenced by experience obtained through learning process. This will be done in Tucson City, in Arizona, US.

A research design as a plan, structure and strategy of investigation to obtain answers to research questions and control variance. The main objective of this study is to identify and test an appropriate framework for use in investigating how various content design factors effect learning outcomes in basic schools.

The study population will comprise of teachers and learners from various basic education institutions. The researcher will target a total of 52 grade four pupils and 7 teachers who guide the students in learning and evaluate the learning outcomes at the end of lesson, term and year.

A sample is a smaller group or sub-group obtained from the accessible population. This subgroup is carefully selected so as to be representative of the whole population with the relevant characteristics. Sampling is a procedure, process or technique of choosing a sub-group from a population to participate in the study. The researcher will use a population of 10 participants as sample size for basic education learning.

The researcher will collect primary data using questionnaires. On the other hand, secondary data will be collected by use of interviews, site study and reviews of relevant documents such as pupils’ performance reports over different periods (week, term and year) and observation of pupils’ interaction and responses in class sessions. The study will have structured questionnaires designed to collect data; two types of questionnaires one for the pupils and the other for the teachers.

The research data was gathered exclusively through questionnaires designed in line with the research objectives. The questionnaire will have 3 sections each will 10- 15 questions meant at exhausting all required data in each section. Section A- general knowledge and usage aimed at establishing the extent on usage of electronic devices in learning/teaching by the respondent. Section B – will cover learning/teaching techniques. This will list as many techniques as possible from which various content design factors are derived. The level of achieving desired learning outcomes amongst each technique will be established. Section C – Overall response. This will seek to ascertain how the population feels on integrating ICT in teaching/learning. A five level Likert scale with weights ranging from 1-5 will be used by respondents to evaluate the level of agreement or disagreement (strongly agree -5, agree-4, not sure-3, disagree-2 and strongly disagree -1). Percentages will used to find the level of agreement (sum of respondents for strongly agree and agree), disagreement (sum of respondents for strongly disagree and disagree) and not sure.

Audette, J.G., & Roush, S.E. (2013). Educational perspectives and teaching styles of faculty who lead international service-learning experiences. University of Rhode Island: Physical Therapy Faculty Publications.

Banghart, F. W., & Trull, A. Jr. (1973). Educational Planning. New York: The Macmillan Company.

Chimombo, J.P.G. (2005): Issues in basic education in developing countries: an exploration of policy options for improved delivery. CICE Hiroshima University, Journal of International Cooperation in Education, Vol. 8 (1), pp. 129-152.

Guskey, T. R. (2000a). Evaluating professional development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Guskey, T. R. (2000b). Grading policies that work against standards and how to fix them. NASSP Bulletin, 84(620), 20–29.

Jordan, A., Carlile, O., & Stack, A. (2008). Approaches to learning: A guide for teachers. McGraw-Hill, Open University Press: Berkshire.

Kirkpatrick, D. L., & Kirkpatrick, J. D. (2007). Implementing the four Levels: A practical guide for effective evaluation of training programs. San Francisco, CA: Koehler Publishers Inc.

Margules, Di (1996). Instructivism or constructivism: which end of the continuum? Paper given at the AUC Academic Conference, “From Virtual to Reality,” The University of Queensland.

Reeves, T. (2008). Evaluating what really matters in computer-based education. Retrieved http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/cache/offonce/pid/179;jsessi

Spady, W. (1994). Outcome-based education: Critical issues and answers. Arlington, VA: American Association of School Administrators.

Stufflebeam, D. L. (2007). CIPP Evaluation Model. Retrieved from http://www.cglrc.cgiar.org/icraf/toolkit/The_CIPP_evaluation_model.htm

Dear Respondent, we are conducting investigation on the effect of content design factors on learning outcomes in Basic Education in the US. The goal is to improve teaching and learning outcomes for pupils in Basic education. The research findings will be kept confidential and will be used for academic purposes only. Please complete the following questionnaire with specific regard to the above enquiry, by placing a CROSS in the appropriate box

Thank you for your participation

The researcher embarked on a study to establish whether content design factors have any impact on learning outcomes in basic education. Teachers who are key stakeholders in learning were the study group. Through questionnaires, data was collected from the teachers on how different content design factors help in preparing for a lesson, students’ abilities with various content design factors and their performance.

From the data analysis, the researcher collected two sets. The initial set, referred to as first data set was the baseline of the study. This is mean data which measured how content design factors affect learning outcomes in basic education. Different factors where measured such as ability to read and write, solving mathematical problem, understanding history and nature, knowledge on religious studies and social sciences. Being the baseline, the data will be treated as the expected values of Chi-Square test.

After employment of relevant contents design factors such as use of digital content, graphics and audio-visual aids, a second set of data was collected to measure if there was any improvement or rather change on learning outcomes. Where the students better understanding with the added content design factors, where the teachers finding it more easy to deliver content with the new aids and if notable change was witnessed in students’ ability to read, write, solve mathematical problem, under history and nature or even social studies. In the Chi-Square test, this data represents the expected values.

Notes :

1. Chi-Square value, X2 = ((O – E)2) ÷E

2. D1 – First data set, made of the expected values.

3. D2 – second data set, made of the observed Values.

4. E Values – expected Values

5. O Values – observed Values.

6. Pair represents each question in the research questionnaire.

H0 , D1 = D2

H 1 , D1 ≠ D2

X2 = 3.7047 ( from the tabulation)

Alpha value (α ) = 0.05

Degree of freedom (DF) = 1

Critical value (CRIT) = 3.84 (from Chi-Square distribution table)

X 2(1) = 3.70, p < 0.05

X 2 < CRIT

The Chi-Square value is less than the Critical value therefore accept the null hypothesis.

Position: Accept H0

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