We may adopt quantitative research method to study the effectiveness of using ICT in teaching and learning through distributing questionnaires to our key informants, say 100 students, 50 teachers and 30 parents in ten aided primary schools (3 located in Hong Kong Island, 3 in Kowloon and 4 in the New Territories) by random, and collect their views.
Proposed questions are as follows:
1. What technologies are being used in teaching and learning in your school?
2. Do the technologies being used raise the effectiveness in teaching and learning? If yes, please give a rating (from 0 to 10, 0 is least effective and 10 is most effective).
3. Is there any support for using ICT in your school? If yes, please give a rating (from 0 to 10, 0 is least satisfactory and 10 is most satisfactory).
4. Are there any difficulties and limitations in using ICT in teaching and learning? If yes, what are they? Please give a rating for each of the difficulties and limitations (from 0 to 10, 0 is mildest and 10 is the most severe).
Apart from the above mentioned quantitative method, we can also adopt qualitative research approach through multi-modal methods, tools and approaches, which include observation, personal interview, documents review, school’s web-site, and note pad. We can identify a typical aided primary school, which has widely used ICT in teaching and learning. Data collection will be done in the school. Observations will be conducted in unobtrusive way so that the normal school operation, lessons, programs and activities conducted will not be affected, and the real situation of the learning and teaching processes can be observed. Numerous in-depth and open-ended interviews will be conducted with the key informants, say 3 students, 3 teachers and 2 parents in the school. Each interview will be audio-recorded and transcribed. There will be no pre-set and specific research questions, though there may be a “grand tour” with minimal guiding and/or probing questions, allowing interviewees free expression of views and unfolding the data as far as possible with least intervention from the interviewers (Spradley, 1979; Bernard, 1988). School documents on school plans and programs, and student achievement records, across years if possible, will also be carefully scrutinized. From the documents, the data will be analyzed and they may serve as supporting evidence for the effectiveness of using ICT in teaching and learning.
Nevertheless, the following semi-structured questions will be prepared beforehand so as not to miss out the key focus areas:
In which aspects and to what extent ICT can contribute to teaching and learning?
What are the difficulties and limitations for using ICT in teaching and learning?
Detailed Qualitative Study on ICT learning:
回覆刪除This aims to address the different views from students, teachers and parents on the current teaching and learning approaches using technology in class by conducting teacher focus group interviews, student focus group interviews and parent focus group interviews. There will be two student focus groups consisting of 5-7 students from each school for ten schools (Total sample: 20 focus groups).
Five teachers will be interviewed from each school (total of ten schools) in each focus group interview, so a total sample of 50 teachers (of different age, experience, and position level) will be identified.
Two representatives from each school’s parent committee will be interviewed in a focus group (Total sample: 3 focus groups consisting 10 schools).
Each teacher, student, or parent focus group interviews will be between 50-90 minutes in length. The interviews will be recorded and the software, NVivo, will be used for analysis. An informed consent form will be given and signed by each participant before they are interviewed and the participant can inform/contact the research team should they want to drop out of the research at anytime.
Sample questions to be asked in the teacher focus group interviews include:
1. What is your current practice in using technology in your course? Specifically what kind of program do you use? Any web 2.0 application?
2. How effective are these learning tools towards student learning?
3. What is restricting you from further developing your course with ICT?
4. If you are not using any ICT tools, why is that the case? What is preventing you from not using?
5. Is there any school policy or strategies related to ICT?
6. What kind of support is available to ICT?
Sample questions to be asked in the student focus group interviews include:
1. What kind of elearning tools are used by your teachers in school?
2. Do you think they are helpful/effective and why?
3. Is there any restrictions on you from using ICT in your study?
4. Do you prefer to learn with or without ICT and why?
Sample questions to be asked in the parent focus group interviews include:
1. Do you consider the current deployment of ICT tools in your child’s school is adequate? Why and why not?
2. Is there any restriction from your child to enhance their learning experience through ICT?
3. What do you think the teacher/school should further improve on teaching with ICT?
4. Do you prefer teaching with ICT or the traditional way? And why?