The barriers to the use of ICT in English language teaching: a systematic literature review

Information communication technology (ICT) has recently been a hot topic for language teachers around the world. The application of ICT in English language teaching is a relatively recent phenomenon. Moreover, it has been the subject of interest to educational researchers for over two decades in order to figure out a way of tackling the barriers of using ICT and as well as for incorporating it into the curriculum. Therefore, the current paper yields to the literature of some reasons behind the low interest of using ICT in English language teaching by teachers. A total of thirty-three papers have been reviewed to find out the barriers to the use of ICT in English language teaching. According to the outcome of the review, three main factors are found as the common obstacles towards the use of ICT in English language teaching, which are, (i) lack of teachers’ confidence in using technology, (ii) lack of effective training, and (iii) lack of time. There is also a summary of the paper along with the discussion presented. Besides that, the findings suggest the administrations provide effective training courses along with sufficient time allocation in allowing teachers to confidently employ ICTs in teaching the English language. Additionally, an implication including limitations of the study is also expressed at the final stage of the paper

The relationship between academic performance and motivation level in e-learning among Thailand university students

E-learning has been extensively implemented in universities and motivation is one of the important factors contributing the successful learning. However, few studies focus on the relationship between student motivation level and academic performance in e-learning. Therefore, we explored the relationship between motivation and academic achievement among students in Thai universities. 115 social science students filled in an instructional materials motivation survey and the data was analyzed by using SPSS software. The majority of students were found to have upper to medium motivation levels in e-learning. Further, there was a weak, positive correlation between motivation level and academic achievement, but it was not statistically significant. More results are discussed in this paper

Teachers’ perceptions and readiness toward the implementation of virtual learning environment

The current trend of education is towards the implementation of technology in teaching in order to attract the attention of 21st century learners whereby teachers need to adopt technology-enhanced environment such as the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in their teaching. This study aims to investigate the teachers’ perceptions and tendency to use VLE as a tool for teaching. The teachers’ perceptions were investigated based on the main constructs of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The respondents were 178 teachers in southern state of Malaysia. The data were collected using a questionnaire and it is validated through the use of Rasch model. The finding was found that the teachers were moderately ready to use VLE and they moderately accepted the implementation of the VLE (mean=3.67 and 3.65). Besides that, the teachers felt that the VLE was useful (mean=3.58) and was easy to use (mean=3.34). It was also found that 84.2% of the teachers’ acceptance was influenced by the teachers’ readiness, and the teachers’ perceptions of the usefulness and ease of using the VLE in teaching. Therefore, it can be concluded that Malaysian teachers has intention to use VLE in their teaching. The use of VLE can improve the innovative way of teaching that can increase students’ interest in constructing knowledge through their learning process

Teaching in the time of COVID-19: the challenges faced by teachers in initiating online class sessions

The severity of COVID-19 has called the education world to transition into cyberspace education to support the continuity of teaching and learning. The stages of Movement Control Order (MCO), Conditional MCO, and Restricted MCO have resulted in prolonged closure of schools within affected areas. In the Guidelines of Teaching and Learning (T&L) during MCO,’ the Ministry of Education, Malaysia (MoE) has come up with several initiatives for the continuation of education, which include adopting the synchronous and asynchronous modes of online T&L. Nevertheless, they will not be successful if there are any barriers in the process of implementation. As teachers are the key players in preparing online classes, this research looks into the challenges that arose before they conducted the sessions. One hundred ninety-two public secondary school teachers responded to this research through open-ended questions. Teachers were asked what the challenges are that they face in preparing, planning, and designing the online lessons. Eight themes emerged in this research; namely, time, environment, technological access, interest, knowledge, technological skills, course design, and communication self-efficacy. This study proposes problems that can be further researched for better online T&L processes

Performance evaluation metrics for multi-objective evolutionary algorithms in search-based software engineering: Systematic literature review

Many recent studies have shown that various multi-objective evolutionary algorithms have been widely applied in the field of search-based software engineering (SBSE) for optimal solutions. Most of them either focused on solving newly re-formulated problems or on proposing new approaches, while a number of studies performed reviews and comparative studies on the performance of proposed algorithms. To evaluate such performance, it is necessary to consider a number of performance metrics that play important roles during the evaluation and comparison of investigated algorithms based on their best-simulated results. While there are hundreds of performance metrics in the literature that can quantify in performing such tasks, there is a lack of systematic review conducted to provide evidence of using these performance metrics, particularly in the software engineering problem domain. In this paper, we aimed to review and quantify the type of performance metrics, number of objectives, and applied areas in software engineering that reported in primary studies-this will eventually lead to inspiring the SBSE community to further explore such approaches in depth. To perform this task, a formal systematic review protocol was applied for planning, searching, and extracting the desired elements from the studies. After considering all the relevant inclusion and exclusion criteria for the searching process, 105 relevant articles were identified from the targeted online databases as scientific evidence to answer the eight research questions. The preliminary results show that remarkable studies were reported without considering performance metrics for the purpose of algorithm evaluation. Based on the 27 performance metrics that were identified, hypervolume, inverted generational distance, generational distance, and hypercube-based diversity metrics appear to be widely adopted in most of the studies in software requirements engineering, software design, software project management, software testing, and software verification. Additionally, there are increasing interest in the community in re-formulating many objective problems with more than three objectives, yet, currently are dominated in re-formulating two to three objectives

Learning analytics experience among academics in Australia and Malaysia: A comparison

Several studies have been conducted to evaluate the experience and involvement of academics in learning analytics (LA) due to its potential for improving teaching and learning. However, findings often reflect an educational culture which is indicative of the institutional or national context where the study has occurred, resulting in bias regarding LA perspectives. Therefore, this study seeks to compare and contrast the experiences of LA among academics in Australia and Malaysia, with intentions to learn from each other's experience. Areas of comparison were: (1) academics' involvement in LA activities; (2) academics' responses to the institutional capacity in supporting LA; and 3) academics' concerns about the ethical issues surrounding LA. A survey of 353 Australian and 224 Malaysian academics revealed similarities and differences. It is evident from these results that the context and infrastructure for LA are at different stages of development in both countries. Nevertheless, the results provide an interesting reflection on academics' needs, institutional understanding, policies, and educational cultural biases in applying LA in teaching and learning in higher education institutions

A data-driven emotion model for English learners based on machine learning

Learning confusion is a common emotion among learners. With the aid of machine learning, this paper develops a data-driven emotion model that automatically recognizes learning confusion in facial expression images. The data on learning behaviors and learning confusion of multiple subjects were collected through an online English evaluation experiment, and imported to the proposed model to derive the relationship between learning confusion and academic performance, which is measured by the correctness of the students’ answers to the test questions. The experimental results show that the students with learning confusion had relatively low correct rate of answering test questions. The research findings reveal the relationship between learning confusion and academic performance, laying the basis for predicting the academic performance of English learners through machine learning

A systematic review of learning analytics intervention contributing to student success in online learning

Recent developments in Learning Analytics have attracted much attention from researchers and practitioners, as well as diverse stakeholders, in exploring the potential for Learning Analytics to enhance learning and teaching practices. Hence, this paper presents a literature review of the use of the Learning Analytics Intervention implemented in various educational institutions in order to improve students' success and engagement in their learning, particularly for at-risk students. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of how Learning Analytics Intervention has been utilised in the educational institution, the types of theory applied in the intervention and what tools are used in the intervention. Additionally, the application of Learning Analytics Intervention, its purpose, effects and examples are also discussed in this paper. The findings show that most of the Learning Analytics Interventions have an impact on students' success in their learning, although some of them have little impact or no significant effect, and various Learning Analytics tools and strategies are discovered. Lastly, it is suggested that further Learning Analytics Interventions should be developed in order to meet the needs of students

A critical discourse analysis of a news report on two mosques shooting in Christchurch-New Zealand

News reports are regarded as a reflection of world reality. People around the world are watching the news reports to get the first aid information about incidents or events they need. Hence, languages in the news reports are, of course, considered neutral, impartial, and unbiased. Thus, this paper attempts to provide a critical discourse analysis CDA of a news report in its online version taken from the Guardian newspaper regarding the mass shooting of the Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand. In this respect, Halliday’s systematic functional grammar is employed to explore the linguistic features along with two CDA’s tools (nominalization and passivization). Moreover, the researcher used these different tools of discourse analysis to unfold the use of biased language in this news report. For achieving this goal, the paper attempts to define some theoretical background of the CDA approach with its tools initially. Afterward, there is an interpretation and discussion of the analysis which is adopted based on CDA tools. However, the result of the analysis unfolded that Guardian news reports concerning the two Mosques shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand were not remained unbiased in reporting such sensitive issues. The implication for the journalists is to keep always their impartiality in advance while reporting any incidents or events