Kesan penggunan perisian pendidikan terhadap pencapaian pelajar merentasi gaya kognitif

Abstract

This study is conducted to identify students’ cognitive styles, students’ and teachers’ perceptions on educational software and the effects of the educational software towards students’ learning processes based on students' Field Independent/Field Dependent’s (FI /FD) cognitive styles. This study has also developed an achievement framework of learning through educational software based on the cognitive styles. The research design of this study is quantitative, which involved survey and quasi-experiment utilizing the randomized control-group pretest-posttest design. The instruments that have been used in this study ware the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) to identify the cognitive style of students, the software assessment questionnaires by the teachers, excellent teachers, and students as well as pre and post achievement's tests. The questionnaires in this study used the three-point Likert scales for the students and the five-point Likert scales for the teachers. In order to identify students’ cognitive styles, the population of this study was all secondary Form 1 students from one of the districts in Johor and the numbers of samples selected using cluster random sampling were 933 students. To evaluate the effectiveness of the educational software in learning Mathematics, Science, and English, 99 Form 1 students were involved as the samples for the treatment and control group. Besides the students, a total of 285 Mathematics, Science, and English teachers as well as five excellent teachers in one of the districts in Johor were also purposively selected as the samples in this study. The research data has been analyzed using SPSS 17.0 software for frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and MANCOVA and Eta correlation analysis. The study showed that a majority of students in the district under the study were the students with Field Independent’s cognitive style. The students' perceptions towards the use of software in teaching and learning are moderate while the teachers' perception towards content of the software is positive. However, the teachers only moderately agreed with the learning strategies and interface design of the educational software. The study also found that the Field Independent students' performances are better than the Field Dependent’s students in Mathematics, Science, and English after using the educational software. The teachers and excellent teachers responded well to the use of educational software in learning. MANCOVA analysis results showed that there was a significant difference in the post test between the treatment group and the control group for Science (p < 0.05) and Mathematics (p < 0.05) subjects, but not English (p > 0.05). ETA correlation showed a moderate relationship between the post tests of the three subjects with the cognitive styles of the students. Based on the developed performance framework, the Field Independent’s students benefit more from learning through the educational software compared to the Field Dependent’s students. This study provides positive implications towards the use of educational software in the process of teaching and learning, particularly among students of different cognitive styles.