This paper critically examines research on the influence of educational media on learning. It argues that much of the supposed benefits of media such as greater concreteness, improved learning performance, more efficient learning and increased retention, among others, are not supported by the evidence thus far. Comparative research on different forms of media, and on media attributes have likewise proved inconclusive. The paper goes on to explore reasons for these findings and urges that future studies should focus on studies with media rather than on media. 相似文献
After a decade of virtual learning environments (VLEs) in higher education, many teachers still use only a minimum of its affordances. This study looked at how academic staff interacted with a new and unknown VLE in order to understand how technology acceptance and support materials influence (perceived and actual) task performance. In an experimental design, 36 participants were split into a control (online help) and experimental (instructor video) condition and completed five common teaching tasks in a new VLE. In contrast to most technology acceptance model research, this study found that perceived usefulness of the VLE was not related to (perceived) task performance. Perceived ease of use was related to intentions and actual behaviour in the VLE. Furthermore, no significant difference was found between the two conditions, although the experimental condition led to a (marginal) increase in time to complete the tasks. 相似文献
This paper reports an experimental study into the effects of cooperative and individualistic approaches in teaching Mathematics and English. The study was conducted at a Vacation Learning Camp (VLC) which was held for two weeks in one of the secondary schools in Singapore. This VLC was targeted at Secondary One pupils who were classified as below average based on general ability streaming.
The individualistic teaching approach was assumed to contribute to individual efforts while the cooperative teaching approach was expected to produce cooperativeness among the subjects. The results indicated that there were no significant differences in performances in the main effects classified as the treatment groups and the sex groups in both Mathematics and English; in Mathematics, the individualistic teaching approach was more effective for the male pupils whereas the cooperative teaching approach was more effective with females. However, in English, the results were reversed.
The female pupils in the cooperative group seemed to have improved in their attitude towards learning Mathematics whereas the male pupils in the individualistic group seemed to have a more positive attitude towards learning English. 相似文献
Research in Higher Education - Past studies have supported the view that parent background and family socioeconomic status determine the post-secondary educational expectations of adolescents. They... 相似文献
The purpose of this study was to determine the services required by students in special education programs and to estimate
the cost of adequately funding special education in Taiwan. Questionnaires were administered to 300 special education teachers
at the elementary school level to identify the services required. Thereafter, two focus group interviews were organized to
determine the service categories and their cost. The results show that the costs for special education programs vary significantly
according to severity of disability, and the weighting for mildly, moderately, and severely disabled students was found to
be 3.7, 4.5, and 5.2, respectively. The costs also vary significantly according to the category of disability, and the weighting
was found to range from 3.6 for emotionally disabled students and to 5.9 for hearing impaired students. These findings suggest
that the current special education funding formula in Taiwan, which ignores these cost differences, should be revamped. 相似文献
This study investigated the relationship between physics achievement and language of instruction in a situation where instruction was in the second language of both students and teachers. One hundred and seventy-six grade ten physics students (first language was Chinese) were selected from four classes of two secondary schools in Hong Kong. For three months (with four lessons per week), two classes of students learned the content material (light and sound) in Chinese and two classes learned the material in English. Group differences were controlled by using individual aptitude scores as covariates in the analysis. There were no differences in achievement, students' motivation, and effort spent in physics in that controlled teaching period. This was probably because the Anglo-Chinese group was sufficiently proficient in English so they did not encounter additional difficulty in learning physics when compared with the Chinese group. 相似文献
The paper examines the roles of theHong Kong government, schools and teachers inthe translation of global economic imperativesinto demands on education, and how suchtranslation affects the teaching profession.Two global imperatives are selected forillustration because of their peculiarforegrounding by the Hong Kong government:international (English) language proficiencyand competence in information technology. Thepaper argues that preparation for economicglobalization not only poses a threat, but alsocreates an opportunity for the development ofthe teaching profession, and that this dependsto a large extent on how the governmenttranslates these global imperatives intodemands on teachers. The government is theprincipal actor in the selection andtranslation of global imperatives. Schools arenot just brokers and enforcers of governmentpolicy, but can be an important buffer betweenthe government and teachers by helping themcope with the imposed imperatives at the schoollevel. Teachers can be key players in acceptingor rejecting such imperatives. Governmentstrategies that are insensitive to teachers'needs and practical concerns create moreproblems than solutions. 相似文献