Perception a n d challenges o f graduate students o n blended learning in Ethiopian Civil Service University
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2018-07-04
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The growth of Information communication technology has been positively affecting the social, political, economic and cultural trends of countries in the world. Education is one of the areas where technology is applied for effective delivery of contents to learners. One of the areas where education can be supported by technology is e-learning. e-learning serves this purpose in its various forms such as web-based learning, blended learning, mobile-based learning etc. The study focuses on examining students’ perception on blended learning in Ethiopian Civil Service University. The research particularly focuses on students’ perception towards the blended learning context, blended learning instruction, e-content features, e-content usefulness and blended learning challengesA survey study was conducted with 151 students who took the course in the first semester of 2017/18 academic year. In addition, a focus group discussion was also administered with seven voluntary students. Observation and document analysis were also used to further validate survey and focus group results. As indicated in the discussion section most students have agreed to positive insights of the blended learning concepts which include flexibility, convenience, easy revision etc. Despite the majority of disagreement on the negative effects of Blended learning few students agreed to the undesirable aspects of it which include Blended Learning can lead students to cheating and other unethical practices and feeling socially isolated when using blended –learning. 33.1% of the students think blended course have a heavy workload which was also shown by students’ disagreement related to the time reduction in the face-to-face session.Most students agreed on the quality, relevancy and organization of learning materials and activities. 71.5% - 84.5%. of students agreed blended e-contents helped in making course revision effective, creating understanding of each lecture before attending them, creating understanding on course concepts, gaining computer skills that are useful in actual or chosen profession and to catch-up on material before an exam. In contrary students also state, they sometimes miss class mini lectures knowing they can access the video lectures online which accounts to 25.9% of the response and more than half of the students were not sure about the benefit of the online forum on their course activities.
From the analysis, half of the students did not find BL to be difficult. 58.3% students agreed slow internet problem is a challenge in blended learning whereas around 40% of students find lack of ICT infrastructure affect their course commitment. Most of the students also revealed it is not easy to get online assistance on course related issues from instructors and IT technicians. Analyzing the data obtained the researcher provides few recommendations for the effective implementation of Blended learning in the future.
Description
Keywords
Ethiopian Civil Service University