Journal Critic

Author’s name: Shelia Tucker ,East Carolina University tuckers@mail.ecu.edu

Affiliation:

Title of the article: The Effectiveness of Interactive Distance Education

Technologies in K-12 Learning:

A Meta-Analysis

Journal: International Jl. of Educational Telecommunications (2001) 7(1), 73-88

Date of publication:

Review Article

Gee Marie S. Binag

INTRODUCTION

This article summarizes a quantitative synthesis of studies of the effectiveness of interactive distance education using videoconferencing and telecommunications for K-12 academic achievement. Effect sizes for 19 experimental and quasi-experimental studies including 929 student participants were analyzed across sample characteristics, study methods, learning environment, learner attributes, and technological characteristics.

The overall mean effect size was 0.147, a small positive effect in favor of distance education. Effect sizes were more positive for interactive distance education programs that combine an individualized approach with traditional

classroom instruction. Programs including instruction delivered through telecommunications, enhancement of

classroom learning, short duration, and small groups yielded larger effect sizes than programs using videoconferencing, primary instruction through distance, long duration, and large groups. Studies of distance education for all academic content areas except foreign language resulted in positive effect

sizes. This synthesis supports the use of interactive distance education to complement, enhance, and expand education options because distance education can be expected to result in achievement at least comparable to traditional instruction in most academic circumstances.

METHODS

Studies involving student academic achievement as a result of distance education at the K-12 level were assembled. Quasi-experimental studies were included with experimental studies because true experiments are done in artificial situations, while quasi-experiments usually occur in more realistic conditions. Quasi-experiments, although having lower internal validity, produce more realistic results and increased external validity (Carlberg, Johnson, Johnson, Maruyama, Kavale, Kulik, Kulik, Lysakowski, Pflaum, & Wlaberg, 1984). The setting for the studies was K-12 learning environments, with preference for studies using random sampling. Both published

and unpublished studies were included to avoid publishing bias. The dependent variable in this synthesis was student achievement in the academic content area measured by instruments appropriate to the individual study. The measure of student performance in the studies was indicated on achievement measures given at the end of the distance education period. Such measures included standardized tests and teacher/researcher

designed instruments. Traditional measures may not be effective in assessing the effectiveness of distance education systems that strengthen higher order skills. The treatment variables related to interactive distance education were categorized by duration, frequency, instructional design, and delivery system. Student characteristics including ability level and grade in school were also coded. Comparisons were made between distance education programs in which students used the technology for less than a half-year of instruction. The achievement data reported in each study contributed to the calculation of effect size for the meta-analysis. Cohen.s effect size is a standardized estimate of the difference in achievement between students learning

with interactive distance education and students learning with traditional methods. Effect sizes were computed as the difference between the control and experimental posttest mean scores divided by the average standard deviation. For studies in which a group of students was evaluated using multiple achievement measures, effect sizes were found for each measure, and then averaged. The average effect size was used in the overall effect size estimate of the meta-analysis. For studies in which more than one independent group of students was evaluated, an independent effect size was found

for each group and used in the meta-analysis separately. While different groups tested in one study were dependent with respect to study features and characteristics, the samples were independent. Based on the sample mentioned above it that’s not represent to general because the sample is below 50 %. The method used is purely survey method. The variable was identified and the assumption of having only one dependent variable is not violated. It is good that the author conducted the validity and reliability test. The observation of independence was not violated but the sample was not mentioned if the populations from which the samples were taken are normally distributed and as well as the homogeneity of variance.

RESULTS

The 19 independent effect sizes calculated in this synthesis compared students learning with interactive distance education technology with students learning with traditional classroom instruction only. The weighted mean effect size across all studies was 0.147 (SD = .69). The mean sample size for the studies was 48.9 (SD = 13.2). The mean grade level of the students was 8.3, with a standard deviation of 0.59. The average study measured student achievement after 14.7 weeks of distance education (SD =

2.6).In terms of the experimental design, two-thirds of the studies used a quasi-experimental design, and one-third were experimental. Only 10% of the studies made use of random assignment to groups, while 53% used convenience groups such as school classes. The remaining studies grouped students based on other criteria such as volunteering or parent selection. A full 74% of studies employed a pretest-posttest design, and 36% used posttest only. The most common form of measurement instrument in the studies was researcher-developed tests (32%), followed by teacher-developed and standardized (26% each), and publisher-developed tests (16%).

For analysis, the effect sizes were classified into 12 categories related to features of the studies. Table 1 displays the mean unbiased effect sizes for these categories. Effect sizes above Cohen.s threshold for .marginal. magnitude (below 0.45) occurred for studies of telecommunication, weekly use of distance education, use of distance education to supplement classroom instruction, mathematics and other subject areas (computer science and general elementary), and intermediate grade levels. Effect sizes above Cohen.s 0.80 cutoff of .large. effect size were found only for the other subjects, and for foreign language in a negative direction. Seven studies in this synthesis had heterogeneity values above 5.3, indicating that they were strikingly deviant.. To further investigate the significant heterogeneity, analysis of variance of effect sizes was used. An ANOVA was computed for levels of variables shown in Table 1. Each ANOVA resulted in no significant difference between levels of the variables at the alpha level of 0.01.

Even after the removal of the foreign language studies as outliers, the ANOVAs resulted in non-significant findings. The alpha values for the modified ANOVAs are presented in Table 2. The heterogeneity in the studies is unexplained. The optimal method

for combining effect size estimates with unexplained heterogeneity is the random effects model (Hedges et al., 1989). Random effects procedures treat between-study variations in effect sizes as random. The procedures begin with the estimation of between-study variance, used to determine the difference between the observed variance among effect sizes and the within study sampling variance. The sample variance for the 19 studies in the meta-analysis is 0.481. The between-study variance was found to be 0.413.

This variance was used in calculating confidence limits and in combining the effect size estimates in the random effects model. The effect size formula was weighted with both the within-study sampling error variance (standard error) and the variance.

Discussion

The meta-analysis presented here examined a sample of studies that met established inclusion criteria, including data from 929 learners. The analysis encompassed a broad view of K-12 interactive distance education by focusing on the range of subject areas, grade levels, and applications of distance education in use today. The questions of the overall effect on K-12 academic achievement of interactive distance education, and of the features of effective distance education systems were addressed through the use of

random effects effect size estimation and analysis of variance. The study design permitted review of a wide sample of research done on academic achievement of students learning with distance education. No significant differences were detected between grade levels, subject areas, ability levels, distance education technology, duration and frequency of use of distance education, or instructional design in relation to learning. However, the three foreign language studies made a close approach to significance with strong negative effect sizes.

Consequently, distance education can be expected to result in achievement at least comparable to traditional instruction in most academic circumstances. Educators planning implementations of distance education programs should expect no difference in academic performance as a result of the use of distance education. More importantly, when implemented with the same care as effective face-to-face instruction, distance education programs can be used to complement, enhance, and expand education options for students, at least at intermediate, middle, and upper grades levels.

Conclusion

In the area of foreign language instruction, great potential exists theoretically for linking students with native speakers and writers, but the results of the studies reviewed here indicate that distance education in foreign language should be studied closely. The three foreign language studies in this meta-analysis reported that students learning with distance education systems performed demonstrably lower than students learning in traditional classrooms. While foreign language options are needed in high schools, distance education courses for foreign language instruction should be evaluated

very carefully. No conclusion in the study only the implications

REFERENCES

Reference were clearly included.

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Think about it.

Change... Change in Biology is very important. Organisms need to change in order to survive. How about in Human? Do we need to change? Why  do we need to change? When are we going to change? What are we going to change?  Our way of living? Our attitudes towards our loves ones, to our works and most specially our relationship to God. Every year we need to assess our lives. We need to know what are the things we  have done wrong from that past in order for us to change and correct that actuation. I believe that everyone's life is driven by something. Along the way we can't avoid that there are many obstacles that would hinder in order for us to be successful in our endeavor. One is the existence of the problem in our life. Problems that would sometimes make us hopeless, discouragement but people look at this problems  serve as a challenge in order for us to be strong person.Second is pressure  or a deadline. Some people may be driven by a painful memory, a haunting fear or unconscious belief.According to Rick Warren many people are driven by guilt. They spend their entire lives running from regrets and hiding their shame. Guilt-driven people are manipulated by memories. They allow their past to control their future. They often unconsciously punish themselves by  sabotaging their own success.Many people are driven by resentment and anger. They hold on to hurts and never get over them. Instead of releasing their pain through forgiveness, they rehearse it over in their minds. Some resentment-driven people "clam-up" and internalize their anger, while others "blow-up: and explode it onto others. Both responses are unhealthy and unhelpful.Resentment always hurts you more than it does the person you resent. While other offender has probably forgotten the offense and gone on with life, you continue to stew in your pair perpetuating the past. Always remember that those who hurt you in the past cannot continue to hurt you now unless you hold on to the pain through resentment. Your past is past! Nothing will change it. You are only hurting yourself with your bitterness. For your own sake, learn from it and then let it go. Many people are driven by fear. Their fears may be a result of traumatic experience, unrealistic expectations, growing up in a high control home or even genetic predisposition. Regardless of the cause, fear-driven people often miss great opportunities because they're are afraid to venture out. Instead they play it safe avoiding risk and trying to maintain status quo.Fear is self-imposed prison that will keep you from becoming what God intends for you to be. You must move against it with the weapons of faith and Love. Many people are driven by materialism. Their desire to acquire becomes the whole goal of their lives. This drive to always want more is based on the misconceptions that having more will make me more happy, more important, and more secure, but all three ideas are untrue. Possessions only provide temporary happiness. Because things do not change, we eventually become bored with them and then want newer, bigger, better versions. It's also myth that if I get more, I will be important. Self-worth and net worth are not the same. Your value is not determined by your valuables, and God says the most valuable things are not things. The most common myth about money is that having more will make me secure. It won't. Wealth can be lost instantly through a variety of uncontrollable factors. Real security can only be found in that which can never taken from you-your relationship with God. Many people are driven by the need for approval. They allow the expectations of parents or spouses or children or teachers or friends to control their lives. Many adults are still trying to earn the approval of unpleasable parents. Others are driven by peer pressure, always worried by what others might think. Unfortunately, those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. I don't know all the keys to success, but one key to failure is to try to please everyone. Being controlled the opinions of others is a guaranteed way to miss God's purpose for your life. Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters".

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Posted in: What Drives your life?

The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolution

Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world

                 from earlier centuries attributable to Science, which achieve its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeeth century.

                                                                                                                                Bertrand Russell

I.                    Introduction

                How Sciences progresses? What are scientific revolutions and what are their functions in scientific development? Why should a change of paradigm be called revolution? In the face of the vast and essential differences between political and scientific development, what parallelism can justify the metaphor that finds revolution in both? These are the questions in the article that it needs a comprehensive and concise explanation to understand the nature and necessity of scientific revolutions.

                In this paper Thomas Kuhn used the word paradigm. Kuhn identifies two essential characteristics of paradigm: scientific achievements that attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity, and they are sufficiently open ended to leave all sorts of problems for redefined group of practitioners to resolve. The paradigm is shared goal, a program of action. They are major theories of Science, major conceptual schemes, basic concepts on which Science is based, e.g. corpuscular optics or wave optics or Corpernican astronomy. Why paradigm is used in the study?  It is mainly prepares a student for membership in a particular scientific community with which he will later practice.  According to Kuhn Theories are not important enough to classed as paradigm because many theories are expounded in scientific journals.

                In this article “The Structure of Scientific Revolution” by Thomas Kuhn  He discussed the Nature and necessity of scientific revolutions he stressed out the difference between scientific revolution and political revolution. Both of these contributed much in the development of Science as well as political development. Kuhn point out logical positivism in relation to normal science and revolutionary science. The last part of this paper which Kuhn gave emphasis on revolution and relativism. Is relativistic or revolutionist has something to do with the development of scientific theory?

               Scientific revolution vs. political revolutions

                Scientific revolution, according to Thomas Kuhn, is a shift in professional commitments to shared assumptions that takes place when an anomaly undermines the basic tenets of the current scientific practice. These shifts are the “tradition-shattering complements to the tradition-bound activity of normal science”. These paradigms requirethe reconstruction of prior assumptions and the re-evaluation of prior facts that are difficult and time consuming.

                From the normal practice in the science community in which one research should comply or based its assumption with established scientific norms (theories, laws, accepted facts, etc.) and of which a research, before it will be accepted as a general facts, should be re-conducted by other independent scientists following the same methodology, or replicated, and should have the same or similar results  before it can be universally accepted. Here comes the shift of which an observation could be constructed with a new model or prediction and then undergo field of research. The result is accepted by professionals of the same field.

                Because of the difficulty of established norms in science, the paradigms can now determine normal science without the intervention of observable rules or shared assumptions. Paradigms then transform a group into a profession or a discipline.

                The paradigm shifts did not just go easily. It encountered many criticism and resistance in the scientific community especially from the traditionalist. However, the more precise and far-reaching the paradigm is, the more sensitive it is to detecting anomaly and inducing change.
By resisting change, a paradigm guarantees that anomalies that lead to paradigm change will penetrate existing knowledge to the core.

                Example in the case of new discoveries, a change in existing theory that results in the invention of a new theory is also brought about by the awareness of anomaly. The emergence of a new theory is generated by the persistent failure of the puzzle of normal science to be solved as they should.

                Take for example the discovery in which a can be run using  closed circuit brain that used energy principles rather than chemistry by the use of water and with electricity as start-up source of energy. In chemistry, the law of matter states that it can be conserved, or all materials inputted should be equal to the resulting materials outputted. In this invention, water undergoes a cycle of which energy is released that turns the engine on. But before it can be release energy, electricity from AD/CD battery or electric current from the outlets could start-up the movement of molecules. A normally accepted principle is that water could be split into hydrogen and oxygen atoms by electrolysis. The splitting will release energy that could be used in turning engines like turbines. So there should be a continuous supply of electricity. In this invention however, electricity is not used continuously but only as start-up for let’s say, 5-10 minutes. From the resulting energy released a portion of it is plowed back to the brain. And since there is already an activity, it needs only 25-35 percent of its energy requirement in order to continuous release of energy. There is now anomaly in the accepted scientific principles of conservation of energy and matter. Though it takes time because of counter-instances that create tension, the invention was accepted and supported by those who are in the same field of profession. This is one concrete example on the application of scientific revolution.

                According to this paper of Thomas Kuhn Political revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense, often restricted to a segment of the political community, that existing institutions have ceased adequately to meet the problem posed by an environment that they have in part created.

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Posted in: Scientific Revolution

Dream Come true

This is the moment God answered my prayer. I couldn't imagine that we won  in the National Science Fair in the Physical Science, Team Category the fact there were 15 entries compete from the different regions in the Philippine. We got the third Place in the contest. But you know before we garnered this place a lot of trials we have experienced specially when it comes to financial constraints from the start of the contest in the Division, Regional and even in the National Level. From the start of the investigation of the project, for choosing of our consultant, entering in the institution where we conducted our project. The materials that we are going to be used and the cost of each materials. Another factor is my background in physics the fact that this is the first time to have a physical science project because my major in Biology. All of this constraints made me strong and even my researcher to continue the project. Thank you Lord for the opportunity and blessings to us specially to the Researchers Jahaziel Mark Bahan, Jissah Mae Bahan, Wilyneth Cantong, and to the Party Roithes Perez, Christine Unabia and Emerald Logronio for the job well done. To our consultant Dr. Rey Vequizo and Mayvel Odarve thank you so much for your expertise and skills rendered to us to make the project successful. I have learned a lot from you. I salute to both of you! to the faculty and staff of Trento National High School headed by our School Principal Mr. Leopoldo Pulido, my warmest gratitude to you all, to the parents of my researcher, III-SSC who help us raised money through caroling for our Travels, PTCA  headed by PTA President Jovenial Cabusog, To our Governor Adolph Edward Plaza, to Deped Family headed by Madam Crucita Zm. Taala, to Dr. Erlinda Atienza,  Sir Abraham Masendo, Thank you also for the encouragement to continue my endeavor.To all who helped us financially Thank you so much. I know God is always there for us. In this connection I am knocking the hearts of any company that will help to give funds for our project so that we can make a solar panel out of our improvised solar cell rest assured that our solar panel is feasible and it is very helpful to minimize the problem in our country in global warming. I am looking forward for a positive response of the people who can read my blog. Thank you and More Power! God Bless and Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year.

Abstract

The quest to find environmentally clean, sustainable, and renewable energy source have been an agenda of human race. Among the unconventional energy sources; solar energy has appeared to be the most practical alternative to conventional fossil-fuel based energy sources. This study aims to determine the capability of anthocyanin in the red cabbage to convert light into electricity by fabricating anthocyanin-sensitized solar cells.

Anthocyanin extracted from the crude extract of red cabbage underwent transmittance and absorbance analysis using the UV-Vis Spectroscopy analysis to determine its light absorbing capability. Anthocaynin-sensitized solar cells are then fabricated with ZnO/Anthocaynin/Electrolyte configuration. Exposure to stray light from the fluorescent light and halogen lamp (560 nm, 100W) was carried out to elucidate and measure the electricity generated by the sensitized solar cell.

Pythochemical analysis of the extract verified the presence of anthocyanin. A high absorption band in the wavelength range of 450-540 nm indicates the capability of anthocyanin to absorb light. The presence of electrolyte enhances the reactivity towards light as observed in the increase by the absorption of the samples.

The current generated by the sensitized solar cell is mainly attributed to the presence of anthocyanin in the cell where the current generated with the two light sources is comparable. Although the Anthocyanin-sensitized solar cell generated current is low, the trend of its current-voltage properties is the same with a standard Si-based Solar cell. The Ability of the Anthocyanin-sensitized solar cell to generate current at the same range, with and without the presence of an intense light source, is also a promising property for a good solar cell device.

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Posted in: 2010 National Science and Technology Fair