20101114 - Koo, Online Collaborative Learning...

Koo, A.C. (2009). Online Collaborative Learning for Malaysian Schools: A Case Study on Geometry. Multimedia University, Malaysia. Total pages of content: 285. Her PhD research seemed to focus on: 1) Students' and Teachers' perception of OCL 2) Perceived effectiveness of OCL for teaching and learning Geometry 3) Students' factors and Teachers' factors affecting the perceived readiness for OCL. My Interest: 1) Factor analysis 2) Confirmatory factor analysis 3) Structural equation modelling. Action: To attempt to download entire Dissertation. To read the entire Dissertation. Koo, A. C. (2008). Factors affecting teachers' perceived readiness for online collaborative learning: A case study in Malaysia. Educational Technology & Society, 11 (1), 266-278. Factors affecting teachers' perceived readiness for online collaborative learning: A case study in Malaysia ABSTRACT This paper investigates factors affecting the perceived readiness for online collaborative learning (OCL) of a sample of 86 mathematics teachers from 12 secondary schools. Descriptive analysis, factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structure equation modeling were used to analyze the data. A moderately fit model was generated and able to inform that time constraint and insufficient access to technology such as computer and the Internet were confirmed to be the two impediments to OCL as perceived by the teachers. Besides, a new factor emerged, namely the factor of new learning paradigm, has shown positive impact on the teachers' perceived readiness for OCL. A majority of them agreed that school principal, training and guidance on OCL play an important role to support the implementation of this novice approach in schools. Comments: No wonder she likes to recommend factor analysis. Because she did that for her PhD. Nielsen also did factor analysis, and initially came out with the 7 factors or 7 heuristics. Later he added another 2, and eventually another factor. In the end, it was 10 factor or better known as Nielsen's 10 Heuristic problems. Because Nielsen only selected 10 factors, statistically, an evaluator could only detect 36% of the usability problems. Had Nielsen used more factors, such as 20 factors, percentage of usability problems would be higher. Hence, I would not like to reduce the usability criteria from big number to 7 or 10. I would retain all the usability criteria found (by research) to be relevant. In online collaborative learning (OCL), learners are able to interact and discuss with their peers, teachers or others conveniently in regard to their formal or informal studies. The contents for their discussion can be of any topics, depending on the type of project they are working on. Koo (2001) conducted a pilot study on the perception of 28 primary and secondary school teachers on OCL. The findings showed that half of the respondents (52%) were relatively new to OCL. Majority of them (76%) were keen to collaborate with other teachers for educational purposes. They believed that OCL is useful and effective for teaching and learning. However, most of them (68%) felt that they were not ready for implementing OCL and a majority of them (85%) expressed that they need training and guidance. The purposes of this study are 1) To describe the teachers' perception of implementing OCL in their schools and 2) To investigate factors affecting Malaysian mathematics teachers' readiness for OCL to enrich their mathematics lessons in schools. This study used multivariate analysis to establish the significance of the relationship between the depending factors with the teachers' perceived readiness for OCL approaches. By conducting this study, it is hoped that the key factors of affecting the teachers' readiness for OCL can be identified and be informed to the school management and the ICT policy maker, so that any ICT program involving collaborative approach can be conducted more successfully in the future. This research used survey approach to investigate various aspects on online collaborative learning and its implementation in schools. The survey questionnaire was a self-constructed 32 questionnaire items, with 6-points Likert scale, to measure teachers' attitude towards OCL. This instrument was adapted and enhanced from a pilot study conducted by Koo (2001). Comments: Rather rare – the questionnaire uses 6-point Likert scale. No centre point. Data Analysis Two data analysis approaches were used to analyze the data, i.e. descriptive data analysis and structure equation modeling (SEM) approach. Descriptive Data Analysis The descriptive data and findings of the 32 items were reported in Table 1 in which the lowest to the highest mean score for each item or statement was listed accordingly. Comments: Table 1 contains frequency for each of Likert scale (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), count, mean and standard deviation. Table 1 contains Initial Dimensions, Item Code, and Statements. One of the key findings indicates that more than half of the teachers were undecided on their own readiness (item e41 and e46) and their perceived readiness of other parties such as their students, their students' parents and their schools for using OCL (item e45, e43, e42). The mean score for items related to perceived readiness were comparatively lower than other dimensions with its value between 3 and 4 (undecided). In describing their perception of collaborative outcomes with other teachers (item e55), a majority (69%, 59 out of 86) of them was uncertain on the outcomes, either succeed or fail. This can be interpreted that the respondents were not able to judge on their collaborative experiences would lead to success or failure. However, many of the teachers (about half of them, with mean value around 4.6) were quite positively perceived their intention to collaborate with their colleagues or experts (item e53, e51, e54) for educational purposes. Another finding is to reveal that more than half of the respondents (58%) were undecided whether they have time for OCL (item e72), and 33% (28 out of 85) of them said that they don't have time for it (item e72). Only 9% of them agreed that they have time for OCL, and this reflects that time constraint could be a major impediment to affect the teachers' perceived readiness for OCL. Apart from that, the insufficient access to the Internet could be another impediment for conducting OCL in schools as half of them (55%, 47 out of 85) admitted that they faced this problem (item e62). Almost half of the respondents (48%, 41 out of 85) admitted that they have limited access to computers in schools (item e61). Comments: She describes mainly on frequency, i.e. percentage and number against total. Occasionally, she describes the mean. Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling Firstly, the internal consistency of the survey items was sought by running a reliability test using SPSS version 10. The overall reliability of Cronbach's alpha was estimated at 0.8454, with 86 cases and 32 survey items. This value has exceeded the minimum threshold for the internal reliability test, i.e. 0.7 (Nunnally, 1978). The data was then analyzed using (1) factor analysis, (2) confirmatory factor analysis or measurement model before proceed to the next step, (3) Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Factor Analysis Comments: Extracted factors were: Factor 1 Perceived positive effects of OCL Factor 2 Perceived readiness Factor 3 Collaborative intention or tendency Factor 4 New learning paradigm Factor 5 Insufficient access to technology Factor 6 Time constraint Confirmatory Factor Analysis In total, 22 out of 32 items were used to describe six factors. Figure 1 shows the measurement model and its related measurements such as standardized regression weight (numeric labels at the single arrow lines), squared multiple correlation (number labels at the top left or right corner of the boxes or observed variables) and correlations (numeric labels at the double arrow lines). Structural Model Analysis The basic structural model was tested and modified until it was both theoretically meaningful and statistically well fitting. Three correlation paths (Figure 2, paths with double arrows) for the three factors (NewLearningParadigm, CollaborativeI and Perceived+Effect) were established in order to get a better fit result. Figure 2 shows the final structural model with the respective estimated parameters which has the best fit result. The estimation of the structural model yields a chi-square of 356.3, df. = 202 and P < .001. Table 3 shows the goodnessof-fit statistics for the structural model. Structural Equation Modeling The analysis of the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM, Table 4 and its path diagram in Figure 2) shows the following results: • The indicator of "time constraint" had a significant negative effect (P < .001) to predict teachers' perceived readiness for OCL in their schools. • The factor of "insufficient access to technology" had a marginally significant effect (P < .1) in predicting teachers' perceived readiness for OCL in their schools. • The factor of "new learning paradigm" which is due to the advent of the Internet and its impacts in education had a high value of standardized regression weight (the highest, i.e. 0.4) to predict positively the teachers' perceived readiness for OCL. Hence, this factor could also be able to predict teachers' perceived readiness for OCL. Conclusion The findings of this study show that many of the teachers were neither agreed nor disagreed on their perceived readiness for OCL even though they were quite positively perceived the effects of OCL. The teachers did not express their readiness strongly because of time constraint and insufficient access to computer and the Internet at schools. These two factors are the perceived impediments to the implementation of OCL in schools. Other factors such as collaborative intention and perceived positive effects of OCL did not affect teachers' perceived readiness for OCL but these factors have positive relationship with the factor of "new learning paradigm" which emerged due to the advent of the Internet and the increase responsibility of learners in education. This newly emerged factor has some positive influence on the teachers' perceived readiness for OCL. This implies that teachers with more positive attitude or belief towards new learning paradigm are more ready to adopt OCL. Many of the teachers also believe that the supports from school principal and training provider are the important conditions for them to practice OCL in schools.