Faktor individu dan faktor persekitaran yang mempengaruhi pemindahan latihan terhadap pencapaian akademik dalam kalangan pelajar Fakulti Kejuruteraan Elektrik UTeM

Sesebuah proses pemindahan latihan boleh dipengaruhi oleh banyak faktor yang boleh mempengaruhi ia daripada berlaku. Faktor-faktor ini dapat diklasifikasikan dalam dua kategori utama, bergantung pada sama ada berkaitan dengan pelatih atau persekitaran. Tujuan kajian ini adalah untuk mengkaji faktor individu dan faktor persekitaran yang dikenalpasti mampu mempengaruhi sesebuah proses pemindahan latihan dalam kalangan pelatih mahupun pelajar. Responden yang terlibat dalam kajian ini adalah seramai 180 orang pelajar tahun akhir Fakulti Kejuruteraan Elektrik (FKE) Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) yang telah menjalani Latihan Industri. Kaedah tinjauan, persampelan secara rawak dan instrument berbentuk soal selidik telah digunakan dalam kajian ini. Data yang dikumpulkan dianalisis dengan menggunakan statistik diskriptif dan inferensi. Berdasarkan analisis yang dijalankan, hasil analisis mendapati 62 orang responden (34.44%) mempunyai persepsi tahap pemindahan di tahap yang tinggi. Manakala majoriti responden iaitu seramai 117 orang (68%) mempunyai persepsi tahap pemindahan yang sederhana. Bagi analisis hubungan antara faktor individu dengan pemindahan latihan secara keseluruhannya, dapatan kajian menunjukkan nilai korelasi adalah 0.537. Ini menunjukkan hubungan positif yang sederhana di antara faktor individu dengan pemindahan latihan. Manakala nilai korelasi faktor persekitaran terhadap pemindahan latihan ialah 0.623. Ini menunjukkan hubungan positif yang sederhana di antara faktor persekitaran dengan pemindahan latihan. Melalui hasil analisis ujian regressi, faktor persekitaran merupakan faktor yang dominan dalam mempengaruhi pemindahan latihan iaitu sebanyak 38.2%. Hasil kajian ini memberi gambaran mengenai persepsi tahap pemindahan latihan, hubungan di antara faktor yang mempengaruhi dengan pemindahan latihan dan faktor yang dominan dalam mempengaruhi sesebuah pemindahan latiha

Learning support for mature, part-time, evening students: providing feedback via frequent, computer-based assessments

A new module in our first year Biology curriculum was used as a vehicle to test strategies for improving learning support. To this end, we have administered frequent CBA, incorporating extensive feedback, both to pace the students’ study efforts and to pinpoint areas in which additional help from lecturers may be required. Three of the 7 CBA provided through the 15-week course were initially given as open-book summative tests, thus contributing to the overall mark for the module. Other CBA were formative: these included repeats of the summative CBA made available for revision purposes, as well as other CBA which focused mainly on aspects of the course that were summatively assessed by other means. A closedbook final exam, also computer-based, was given in the final week as a comprehensive assessment. We have evaluated the utility and effectiveness of our approach by surveying student opinion via questionnaires, examining patterns and extent of student use of formative assessments, and by analysing grades for the summative CBA. We have found the students’ perceptions of the approach to be largely positive and that the formative CBA were well-used, especially as revision aids for the final exam. Our analysis further indicates that the style of the assessments may have been especially helpful to students whose first language is not English

A gentle transition from Java programming to Web Services using XML-RPC

Exposing students to leading edge vocational areas of relevance such as Web Services can be difficult. We show a lightweight approach by embedding a key component of Web Services within a Level 3 BSc module in Distributed Computing. We present a ready to use collection of lecture slides and student activities based on XML-RPC. In addition we show that this material addresses the central topics in the context of web services as identified by Draganova (2003)

Online instantaneous and targeted feedback for remote learners

Providing rapid but detailed teaching feedback is a significant problem in distance education, especially for large population courses of short duration, when hand-marking is costly and assignments sent through the postal services cannot be turned round sufficiently quickly. Online assignments with automatic teaching feedback are a possible solution, providing the feedback can be well targeted to individual students. This chapter discusses the online assessment of a ‘maths for science’ course, in which meaningful feedback was given in response to student answers on both summative and purely formative exercises. Students were allowed three attempts at each question, with an increasing amount of teaching feedback being given after each attempt, so encouraging students to engage with the feedback, to learn from it, and to correct their answers if necessary. The mark awarded on the summative assessment reflected the amount of help that had been given. The designers’ concerns included producing a fair test of the course’s learning outcomes within the constraints imposed by the online format and with only minimal use of multiple choice, writing questions that might help to uncover common student misunderstandings coupled with feedback that would address these problems, and tying answer-matching to specific feedback comments. Evidence from statistical analysis of submitted work, and from student responses to questionnaires, has provided insights into the impact of this kind of feedback on the student learning experience. While the majority of students were happy with the online nature of the assessment, a significant proportion appeared to value it more for the immediate indication of their overall performance than for the detailed teaching feedback, and some were put off by the technology or their perception of it. Students were considerably more likely to submit the summative assessment if they had previously engaged online with the practice formative exercises

Chapter 5: Evaluation

The OTiS (Online Teaching in Scotland) programme, run by the now defunct Scotcit programme, ran an International e-Workshop on Developing Online Tutoring Skills which was held between 8–12 May 2000. It was organised by Heriot–Watt University, Edinburgh and The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK. Out of this workshop came the seminal Online Tutoring E-Book, a generic primer on e-learning pedagogy and methodology, full of practical implementation guidelines. Although the Scotcit programme ended some years ago, the E-Book has been copied to the SONET site as a series of PDF files, which are now available via the ALT Open Access Repository. The editor, Carol Higgison, is currently working in e-learning at the University of Bradford (see her staff profile) and is the Chair of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

Reviews

Computers and Typography edited by Rosemary Sassoon, Oxford, Intellect, 1993. ISBN: 1–871516–23–4

Enabling students to proactively evaluate, test and adapt the effectiveness of their learning through interactive online formative assessment

Whether we like it or not, when it comes to learning, most students are motivated by the desire to demonstrate success in the summative assessment component of the course, rather than implicitly develop their depth of knowledge, understanding and application of subject matter at hand. Viewing learning from this perspective, it is therefore vitally important to select and embed the ‘right’ assessment strategy as this will affect how and what students decide to learn, as well as how much time and effort they prioritise to different tasks and/or learning resources. In an attempt to break this cycle of assessment-driven learning, and in line with Vygotsky’s work on learning progression in which intervention allows an individual to develop further than if left on their own, a formative learning framework was developed to encourage students to take a more reflective and constructivist approach to their learning. The framework (originally funded by the Centre for Open Learning in Maths, Science, Computing and Technology CETL at The Open University), was designed to enhance student awareness, understanding and recognition of competency levels from a learning outcomes approach, and to allow them to test their ongoing academic progress at predetermined and self-selected points throughout the year. By working through each of the formative assessments, it was envisaged that students would become more self-directed and confident in their learning skills and abilities, and that this in turn would aid retention. This paper will present data collected over two-years on how students have engaged with this learning tool, the impact it has had on their perceived learning abilities and progression, the variances between expected and actual use, and the lessons learned on how formative assessment can be used as a successful method of helping students to learn how they learn, and how to do this more effectivel

Resource‐based learning strategies: Implications for students and institutions

This paper reports some findings from a project in implementing resource‐based learning in economics, and identifies some implications for students and institutions. These include student responses to a mid‐semester evaluation and the views of the project team. The latter have been informed by action research which sought to recognize students’ individual differences, employ active learning methods and, above all, integrate IT into the curriculum. While innovative strategies are clearly welcomed, students show strong attachment to some traditional methods. Most of those who suggested changes to the range of activities asked for reinstatement of at least some lectures, generally as additions to existing activities. Implications include the need for students and staff to acquire a wide range of new skills, for large‐scale curriculum review if new learning technologies are to be fully integrated, and the need to acknowledge that, given student and staff perceptions of change, the process may be long and costly

Software Measurement Activities in Small and Medium Enterprises: an Empirical Assessment

An empirical study for evaluating the proper implementation of measurement/metric programs in software companies in one area of Turkey is presented. The research questions are discussed and validated with the help of senior software managers (more than 15 years’ experience) and then used for interviewing a variety of medium and small scale software companies in Ankara. Observations show that there is a common reluctance/lack of interest in utilizing measurements/metrics despite the fact that they are well known in the industry. A side product of this research is that internationally recognized standards such as ISO and CMMI are pursued if they are a part of project/job requirements; without these requirements, introducing those standards to the companies remains as a long-term target to increase quality