There has been a trend in recent years about discovering the effectiveness of implementing different designs of blended learning, in different learning tasks, different learning outcomes, and for different students. This research aimed at discovering the effectiveness of integrated design and sequential design of blended learning of Informatics Subject Matter in developing female secondary school students’ informatics cognitive achievement and achievement motivation—as in the research limitations. Developmental research method was implemented using quasi-experimental two experimental groups design of (22) female students in each group with pre and post tests. Cognitive knowledge aspects were derived through content analysis of the two Units “Advanced Web Concepts” from the Informatics Subject Matter, Instructional design standards list was developed for the two designs, The two blended learning designs were developed through implementing the Elgazzar (2014) ISD model for that Unit in accordance to those standards, two research tools were developed and approved for validity and reliability: Cognitive Achievement test and Achievement Motivation Scale. Research sample of (44) female students was selected and divided to two equal groups and randomly assigned to the research groups according to the specified experimental design. Research experiment was carried out by the first author with the pre and post implementations of the two research tools. Suitable statistical procedures were implemented to test the research hypotheses. Results reveal that there are significant differences at (α ≤ 0.05) among means of pre-post Cognitive Achievement test and Achievement Motivation scores of the two groups. Results also reveal that there aren’t significant comparative differences between means of posttests of Cognitive Achievement test and Achievement Motivation scores of the two designs of blended learning. So, the answer of the question: Is there any comparative Effectiveness between the two designs in Developing Cognitive Achievement and Achievement Motivation among Kuwaiti Female Secondary School Students? Is there isn’t any comparative effectiveness. Research report contains Tables, Figures, and References as well as lists of Recommendations and further researches.
Developments in information technology as learning sources have led to the development of the innovations of education technology. E-learning is considered the most important innovations of education technology. It is has a wide range of expansion and a wider range of applications in education and training. E-learning has its methods and strategies and it doesn’t grow at random. It is a learning system that is based on the foundations and principles. There are several advantages and potentials of e-Learning in learning―particularly, when it is designed as an integrated e-Learning environment that has elements and components that are work as a whole of communication channels, interaction between students and teachers, collaboration activities, co-operation activities, self or group learning, multiple methods of assessment and evaluation, support systems, and integrity. However, there are many advantages and potentials of traditional/direct learning or face-to-face (F2F) learning, particularly, when practical skills is needed for learning or the learning tasks need hands-on applications. Both potentiality of e-Learning and direct F2F have led designers and policy makers to think of creating new type of learning that combines both advantages. So, designers of educational technology are trying to design a new type of learning that combines the advantages of e-learning and the advantages of traditional direct learning F2F learning, which is the blended learning. Blended learning isn’t just a mixture both types of learning, but it is a blend that is based-on many factors such as: the type of learning tasks, design standards, teachers’ rolls, available resources, students’ characteristics, and the strategies of blending. So, blended learning needs serious researches on its new design variables of blending to insure its effectiveness in learning and training. This current research goes along with this trend of designing blended learning as it is aims at discovering at discovering the effectiveness of integrated design and sequential design of blended learning of Informatics Subject Matter in developing female secondary school students’ cognitive achievement (CA) and achievement motivation (AM). There is no need here to discuss CA and AM as learning outcomes from all subject matter in school curricula as well as of learning outcomes of Informatics subject matter curriculum in Kuwaiti Secondary schools. Informatics skills are included as a component of Informatics subject matter curriculum but excluded in this research as being independent variable since authors delimited this research to CA and AM.
There are many benefits and potentials in blended learning. Among its potentials, blended learning is a suitable design for a wide range of learning outcomes of cognitive and performance skills. Easiness of its application, meeting learners’ needs and cognitive styles, cost effective, and fitting different educational fields are among benefits of e-Learning [
Blended learning combines e-learning tools (everything flows through the Internet, from video to e-mail) with training through traditional classroom to ensure maximum effectiveness, where students can prepare and consolidate classroom experiences, online resources, and F2F social interaction with teachers and students in the actual classroom with ease [
As it has been mentioned in earlier sections, blended learning is to be designed in accordance to a strategy of blending of e-resources and non e-resources. Integrated blended learning is a flexible strategy of blended learning. Integrated blended learning is a level of integration between the sources of information to the learner in the learning environment from one resource provides support to other resource, this type of integrated transfer is considered a common factor among all sources of information transfer Ismaeil [
In comparison to integrated blended learning, sequential blended learning is very much simpler in its design. It is considered a timeline summation of e-Learning resources and non e-Learning resources without any concern to any integration between sources of information to the learner to the learner in the learning environment other than the linear flow of information from one resource to the subsequent resource in the timeline. Sequential blended learning combines multiple knowledge sources to the learner depends on: student characteristics, nature of learning process, available learning resources, and information technology infrastructure in the institution [
learning, an new strategy of sequential blended learning was designed by authors, that is the linear summation of delivering the Informatics subject matter’s knowledge and practical skills through e-resources, F2F viewing video tapped of informatics skills, student sef-evaluation and provision of electronic feedback as well as from teacher, F2F discussions of knowledge and viewed skills with teacher, and then practicing and applying informatics skills practically and electronically (see
Designing integrated blended learning and Sequential Blended Learning should be systematically done. That is due to nature of this research. Authors reviewed available ISD models that can be implement in this developmental research. A most recent ISD model of the second author was selected [
The research problem has been stated as “there is a noticed low level of both cognitive achievement and achievement motivation among female secondary school students in Informatics subject matter, and there is a need to discover effects of two designs of blended learning on developing their cognitive achievement and achievement motivation”. So, the main question that has to be answered: Is there any effectiveness integrated blended learning design vs. sequential blended learning design in Developing both cognitive achievement (CA) and achievement motivation (AM)? Five sub-questions have been derived:
1. What are the cognitive content components (knowledge and cognitive skills) for students to achieve from Informatics subject matter?
2. What are the design standards of the two blended learning designs: integrated and sequential programs?
3. What are the two programs: integrated blended learning (IBL) and sequential blended learning (SBL) according those standards using Elgazzar (2014) ISD model [
4. How effective is the implementation of these two designs: IBL and SBL in developing cognitive achievement (CA)?
5. How effective is the implementation of these two designs: IBL and SBL in developing achievement moti-
vation (AM)?
The Developmental Research Method as described by Elgazzar [
1) Descriptive research method implemented in students’ characteristic analysis, course content analysis, resources analysis, and establishing design standards list of blended learning designs,
2) Systems Development Method in terms of implementing Elgazzar ISD Model [
3) Experimental research method in the research experiment to investigate the comparative effects of the two designs IBL and SBL in developing female students’ cognitive achievement (CA) and (AM).
Content analysis of the two Units “Advanced Web Concepts and Building a Flash Website” of Informatics subject matter as it is required to Elgazzar ISD model (2014) to find out knowledge and cognitive skills that are to be achieved. Content analysis has resulted in (33) components of knowledge and cognitive skills. The content analysis components’ list was refereed. This list was used to derive instructional needs, instructional objectives, and the cognitive achievement test. So, the first sub-question has been answered.
A primary list of instructional design standard and their indicators was established based-on content analyses of learning content in (8.1), IBL and SBL design characteristics, and phases of Elgazzar (2014) ISD Model. This primary list of standards and their indicators was subjected for refereeing from (18) experts. The final most agreed upon list of standards and their indicators became (13) standards and (70) of their indicators. So, the second sub-question has been answered.
As it has been mentioned in earlier section, the Elgazzar (2014) ISD model was selected for developing the two treatment programs of blended learning: IBL and SBL according to the derived standards. A very lengthy details of developmental tasks were done on applying Elgazzar ISD Model (2014) in
The final sample size was (44) female students of two classrooms from two schools, one classroom from each school. So, the research sample of this research was a purposive clustered sample form two schools from the Capital District in Kuwait. This sample was divided and assigned randomly into two experimental groups of (22) students each. The two experimental groups with pretest-posttest Quasi-Experimental Design was used. The 1st experimental group was assigned to SBL design program, while the 2nd experimental group was assigned to IBL program.
Two research tools were developed: a Cognitive Achievement Test (CAT) and an Achievement Motivation Scale (AMS) for this research. The CAT was built on learning objectives and was consisted of (57) items, in varied forms of objective test items on Informatics cognitive components from content analyses in (8.1). The AMS was derived from from other achievement motivation scales with adaptation to Informatics and consisted of (41) five level Likert scale items. CAT and AMS content validity were done through refereeing by specialists in the field of educational technology and psychology. The reliability of the CAT and AMS was carried out on their pretests data, the calculated Cronbach’s Alpha (α) coefficient for CAT was (α = 0.83) and for AMS was (α = 0.89). These values of the reliability the CAT and AMS showed highly acceptable tools. So, CAT and AMS became valid and reliable tools for the purpose of this research.
The experiment of the research took place in Kuwait. So, the 1st author carried out the implementation of the two IBL and SBL program designs during the second semester of the year 2013-2014 according to the experimental design. Experimental group 1 studied using the SBL program while Experimental group 2 studied using the IBL program. The experiment lasted about five weeks: three weeks for the three modules, and two weeks pre-testing and post-testing. Pre-testing and post-testing of both CAT and AMS were implemented.. Data was collected and coded to the SPSS Package.
Descriptive statistics of research groups: SBL program design and IBL designs have been calculated and presented in
To answer the fourth and fifth sub-questions and, two hypotheses were formulated and tested.
Hypothesis (1): There are significant differences at level (α ≤ 0.05) between the two means the SBL design and IBL design of blended learning in posttest of CAT and in posttest of AMS for IBL design of blended learning.
To test hypothesis (1), the independent samples t-test was applied to test the significance of the differences between means of the posttest scores of CAT and AMS scores. As it is seen in
To make sure that resulted difference between the two SBL and IBL designs in the two means of posttest of CAT and AMS aren’t due to differences in both pretests of CAT and AMS, another Hypothesis (2) was formulated and tested to check the significance of differences between means of posttests of CAT and AMS when pretests’ scores of CAT and AMS are controlled.
Research variables | Blended learning program designs | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
SBL design (22) | IBL design (22) | |||
M | SD | M | SD | |
Posttest of CAT | 22.59 | 4.48 | 18.00 | 4.85 |
Pretest of CAT | 16.37 | 4.14 | 8.64 | 7.15 |
Posttest of AMS | 131 | 14.6 | 124.18 | 16.54 |
Pretest of AMS | 136 | 15.73 | 124 | 18.37 |
Test scores Group | N | M | SD | t | df | significance | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Posttest CAT | SBL | 22 | 22.59 | 4.48 | 3.26 | 42 | 0.00 |
IBL | 22 | 18.00 | 4.85 | ||||
Posttest AMS | SBL | 22 | 131 | 14.6 | 1.45 | 42 | 0.16 |
IBL | 22 | 124.18 | 16.54 |
Hypothesis (2): There are significant differences at level (α ≤0.05) between the two means of the SBL and IBL designs of blended learning in posttest scores of CAT and AMS when controlling the pretest scores of CAT and AMS. Authors applied the One-Way ANCOVA to test Hypothesis (2).
These results reveal that the comparative difference between both SBL design and IBL design isn’t significant even after controlling the effects of the pretests’ scores of CAT and AMS as covariates in the ANCOVA model. It is clearly shows that the variation between sequential design of blended learning and integrated design of blended learning of Informatics Subject Matter’s learning doesn’t have any comparative effects in developing both cognitive achievement and achievement motivation among Kuwaiti Female Secondary School Students. This gives the answer to the main question of this research. This final result is similar to the results revealed by of Hendawy and Nouby [
Based on these findings of the research, the following practical recommendations can be driven:
1) The list of instructional design standards of SBL and IBL blended learning which developed in this research should be adopted by researchers and e-Learning. Developers in e-Learning and distance learning centers.
2) These two developed SBL and IBL of blended learning should be used in improving Informatics learning in Secondary School Curriculum of Informatics in the State of Kuwait.
3) The instructional design model of Elgazzar (2014) should be used in developing blended learning and other e-Learning resources.
The following future researches are suggested:
ANCOVA | Source Of Variance | SS | df | MSS | F | significance |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cognitive Ach. | Pretest of CAT | 167.19 | 1 | 167.19 | 9.16 | 0.00 |
Between designs | 24.46 | 1 | 24.46 | 1.34 | 0.25 | |
Error | 648.13 | 41 | 18.25 | |||
Total | 19271.00 | 44 | ||||
Ach. Motivation | Pretest of AMS | 7997.71 | 1 | 7997.71 | 147.20 | 0.00 |
Between designs | 79.99 | 1 | 79.99 | 1.47 | 0.23 | |
Error | 2227.56 | 41 | 54.33 | |||
Total | 727032.00 | 44 |
1) Studying the effects of designing blended learning on developing higher cognitive skills such as problem solving skills, systematic thinking skills, and creative thinking skills among female students as well as male students.
2) Using developmental research method in as defined by Elgazzar [
3) A fellow-up of the effects of designing SBL and IBL of blended learning on developing Informatics performance skills among female students as well as male students.
4) Studying the effects of the interaction between these two SBL and IBL designs of blended learning and cognitive styles on developing Informatics cognitive achievement, performance skills, attitudes, achievement motivation, and deep learning.
This research has been done as a part of King Hamad Academic Chair of eLearning activities, Distance Learning Dept., Arabian Gulf University. The authors are deeply giving special thanks to Arabian Gulf University for supporting them to attend the CITE 2015. Special thanks go also to CITE 2015 for honoring Prof. Elgazzar―the second author―Chairing the CITE 2015 Conference session, Shanghai, China.
Hend K. H. Alraghaib,Abdellatif E. Elgazzar,Ahmed M. Nouby, (2015) Sequential Design vs. Integrated Design of Blended Learning of Informatics Subject Matter: Is There Any Effectiveness in Developing Cognitive Achievement and Achievement Motivation among Kuwaiti Female Secondary School Students. Open Journal of Social Sciences,03,31-39. doi: 10.4236/jss.2015.32006