Browsing by Author "Gebeyehu, Lakachew"

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    Freedom of Students to Learn: A Case Study at Feres Bet General Secondary School in West Gojjam
    (Addis Ababa University, 2007-07) Gebeyehu, Lakachew; Asgedom, Amarech (PhD)
    This study attempted to examine freedom of students to leam by taking the case of Feres Bet General Secondary School. The purposes of the study are to understand students' and teachers' perceptions toward freedom to leam and the factors that impede to implementation of freedom to leam. A qualitative case study method was used to undertake the research and understand the phenomenon deeply. Primary data were collected from teachers and students of the school through in-depth interviews . To extract the data, which are not visible to participants, and to give meanings to what has been interviewed; participant observation had been employed for more than three months. The participants were chosen purposely based on the criteria of their concem, cooperativeness, willingness, responsibilities, and roles they played. To get valuable data twenty-four participants were interviewed using semistructured and unstructured questions. The data obtained through interview, observation and document analysis were presented in a narrative form on the bases of informants' perceptions and interpretation of the phenomenon supported by the researcher's reflective analysis. The results of the research indicated that participants had high interest for leaming to be freely and they viewed freedom as to be protected with laws, pedagogical rules and regulations and implemented with humanity and rationality. However, the practice of freedom to leam was inhibited because of the prevalence of human and non-human factors . Lacle of willing ness and initiation to promote lea mer freedom were the major problems of teachers obtained from the research. The research results indicate that lacle of the necessary instructional materials and lack of qualified teachers were setbacks to freedom to leam. Therefore, the research suggested that instead of rushing to feed students simplified information it is better to leave leaming to the personal manipulation of the leamer and it is better to teachers to play the role of facilitating the situation for independent leaming.