Pakistan Journal of Education
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Metacognitive Instruction and Students’ Achievement in Solving Mathematical Word Problems
Get PDFMathematics is considered as an important subject of elementary curriculum throughout the world due to its use in different fields of life. The compulsory component of mathematics is mathematical word problems. Word problems are considered as the difficult part of mathematics not only by students but mathematics teachers as well. Special teaching strategies are required to teach mathematical word problems to cope with the recent educational standards. Metacognitive instruction for teaching word problems has been proved affective by different educationists and researchers of world. Metacognitive instruction uses the hypothetical definition of metacognition, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills and practicing of self addressed questions. Students are practiced to ask a series of self addressed questions while solving word problems about: understanding, connection, strategies, and reflection. The present study was an attempt to experiment metacognitive instruction for teaching mathematical word problems on sixth class students at Govt. High School Abbottabad and to check its effectiveness as compared to traditional method of teaching. The study used true experimental research design; specifically the pretest-posttest control group design with 80 subjects (40 + 40) and data was collected and analyzed by t-test and descriptive analysis. The finding of study proved metacognitive instruction as an effective method for teaching mathematical word problems at elementary level
A Comparative Analysis of Students’ Achievement in Virtual Arts and Selected Instructional Strategies in Creative Arts in Nigeria
Get PDFThis experimental study compared the effectiveness of three instructional strategies for upper basic eight classes in Creative Arts in Nigeria. 674 participants were involved. Virtual Arts instructional strategy group consisted of 212 students; 198 for demonstration and 264 for the cooperative instructional strategies. Male and female participants were 315 and 359 respectively; while public and private schools had 389 and 285 participants. Pretest was administered on each of the groups before instructions were carried out according to the identified instructional strategies. Drawing and painting was the content area of Creative Arts subject employed; then the posttest to assess the effectiveness of the instructional strategies. The study revealed that all students improved achievement with each of the three instructional strategies, but Virtual Arts group showed most improvement, while demonstration group did more than the cooperative group. There was significant gender difference in the achievement of upper basic male and female students when taught using Virtual Arts, Demonstration and Cooperative strategies respectively. Virtual Arts, Demonstration and Cooperative strategies had significant main effect on upper basic students’ achievement in Creative Arts in both public and private schools
Conceptualizing Core Practices for Professional Development of Novice Mentors
Get PDFPurposeful and effective professional development of teacher mentors is often a proposed solution in many of the present debates about education, including teacher quality, teacher retention, and the student achievement gap. The literature about teacher mentoring suggests that if mentors in teacher education programs do not have significant professional development on mentoring, even a thoughtfully organized formal induction program can be ineffective in preparing good teachers, undermined by an unprepared mentor. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to propose a framework of professional development for veteran teachers who are to become mentors. Our framework will have a three-fold effect. The framework is designed to (a) develop or strengthen supportive and collaborative partnerships between schools and teacher education programs; (b) prompt veteran teachers to identify, share, and deconstruct their teaching practices with colleagues and teacher educators; and (c) scaffold teacher learning into research on and best practices in effective mentoring. Ultimately, the framework's aim is to structure the preparation of effective teacher mentors, who will go on to have positive impacts on interns and novice teachers' long-term successes. Notably, based on the research, our Professional Development (PD) framework is situated in schools, about subject area knowledge, and focused on mastery of mentoring skills.
Computer-aided Instruction and Institutional Effectiveness of Federal Polytechnic in North Central Nigeria
Get PDFThe study investigated the relationship between computer aided instruction and institutional effectiveness of Federal Polytechnics in the North Central Geo-Political Zone. Correlation design was adopted for the study. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 1000 respondents comprising of Heads of Departments, Examination officers, library and Information Technology officers, Chief Lecturers, Students and Executives of Student Union Governments. The research instruments used for the study were Questionnaires; Computer Aided Instruction Questionnaire (CAIQ) and Institutional Effectiveness Questionnaire (IEQ). The instruments were validated by the experts of computer science and science education. Split-half reliability method was used to determine reliability index of 0.62 and 0.64 for CAIQ and IEQ respectively after subjecting to Spearman ranking order statistics at 0.05 significance level. Three research questions and four hypotheses were generated to guide the study. Descriptive statistics was used to answer the research questions while Pearson product moment was used to test all the hypotheses. The result shows that there is low significant relationship between computer aided instruction and institutional effectiveness of Federal Polytechnics in North Central Nigeria. It was however recommended that adequate computer accessories should be provided for effective teaching and learning processes in the polytechnic. Also, adequate computer and utilization training should be given to all lecturers in order to develop computer based instruction for the effectiveness of the instruction in North Central Nigeria.
Quality Assurance and Enhancement Mechanism in Tertiary Education of Pakistan: Recent Status, Issues and Expectations
Get PDFHigher education commission of Pakistan is trying hard and strongly emphasizing to streamline the universities to adopt quality assurance and enhancement mechanism to improve the quality of Tertiary education and research. For this specific purpose, Higher Education Commission (HEC) has established Quality Enhancement cells (QEC) in public sector universities of Pakistan. The main purpose of these cells and centers are to enforce sound standards in higher education quality criteria in Pakistan. This paper would provide an insight about how to recognize the progress of Quality Enhancement Cells as per expectations and what measures are being taken to face the challenges for assuring and enhancing the quality of education in different institutions. This qualitative research study addresses and highlights the current status of quality enhancement in Tertiary Education of Pakistan with special reference to progress, issues and expectations in new era, together with this research paper also investigate the perspectives of Head of department and students regarding quality enhancement cells and quality of services, their working in universities for the sake of quality education. This paper mainly aimed to look into, Students teacher perspectives about quality enhancement in universities, Major success and issues for working and implementation of quality enhancement criteria in universities and Major expectations regarding quality enhancement in universities of Pakistan. The paper is based on the review of literature and interviews from 20 Head of Departments and 40 students from four public sector Federal universities to investigate the perceptions and expectations, progress and issues about quality enhancement mechanism and services in universities of Pakistan. The paper recommends that Quality Enhancement Framework should have following five foundations. Ownership of Quality and benchmarks, Enhancing the quality of student learning outcomes ,Involvement of all associated people ,awareness of International points of view, Independence, and association .
An Evaluation of the Mentoral Support Programme of Directorate of Staff Development
Get PDFIt was an impact assessment study that was conducted to assess the impact of District Teacher Educators (DTE) mentoral support upon Primary School Teachers (PST) professional progress in Punjab. The Punjab Government’s Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Program had been initiated through Directorate of Staff Development (DSD). Five years have passed since the start of this program. High expenditure was expected to be consumed for this task. Its effectiveness or the impact of this program needed to be assessed. Thus, the objectives were to assess the PSTs professional progress in the eight areas of mentoral support program, in M.B.D in district. The Questionnaire and Structured-Interview were taken as instruments. Data was hereby analyzed through percentage measure and Chi-square test. The sample consisted of two types of population. It was based upon 120 PSTs and 40 Heads of Secondary / Higher Secondary Schools working as Cluster Training and Support Centre (CTSC) Heads. Conclusions indicated that PSTs were satisfied about their professional progress acquired through DTEs. However, CTSC Heads were not found satisfied about the impact of DSD’s mentoring program
Female Teachers and Girls’ Academic Achievement: a Case of Pokhara Sub Metropolitan in Nepal
Get PDFNepalese schools have overwhelmingly more male teachers in public schools that do not align with the growing concern of developed countries with fewer males. The impetus to recruiting more female teachers in primary schools has been emphasized to bring more girls to schools, reduce their dropouts and have better academic performance. This survey was carried out in 37 community schools through census method in Pokhara sub metropolitan municipality of Kaski district. Descriptive analysis and t-test were applied to the annual examination records of 5965 students over the five years (2008 – 2012) period. Results from the survey show the girls have outperformed boys in the five years of trend. The findings of the study show that there is no statistical relationship between the gender of a teacher and academic scores of the students. It means that when a female teacher is recruited, it necessarily do not increase the academic performance of girls
First Year Medical Student’s Viewpoint Regarding Qualities of an Excellent Teacher
Get PDFIn the academia, the qualities of excellent teacher are related to personal traits, effective teaching technique, and interpersonal communication of teacher. A qualitative research was conducted to identify the characteristics of a good clinical teacher as perceived by first year medical students at Allama Iqbal Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan from May, 2015 to July, 2015. Twenty five medical students were asked to express their opinion freely about qualities of teacher whom they think qualifies him/her as an excellent teacher and what specifically makes his/her lectures so effective according to their perceptions. Phenomenological approach was used to investigate medical students’ experiences and their interpretations of the excellent teacher. Several key analytic strategies were used such as ‘Coding’, for both categorizing qualitative data and describing the connotation and details of these categories. Two major themes that an excellent teacher should possess were personal qualities and presentation skills from which 15 sub-themes were identified .The study concluded that first year medical students think that an excellent teacher should not only possess personal characteristics and qualities like good moral character, empathy and sympathy but he should also exhibit excellent skills in lecture delivery, ability to organize lectures and its contents
Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Styles Communication Patterns, and Job Satisfaction of College Principals
Get PDFThe quantitative method was adopted in order to measure the relationship among emotional intelligence, leadership styles, communication patterns and job satisfaction of college principals. Through cross sectional research design and by adopting convenient sampling procedure, the research participants (268) of age range between 40 - 65 years were accessed from different colleges of Lahore. The indigenous demographic questionnaire in addition to Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), by Bass and Avolio (2000), Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS), by Spector (1994), Emotional intelligence questionnaire (EI) by Goleman (1995) and Communication Pattern Questionnaire by Christensen and Heavey (1990) was used. The findings revealed that emotional intelligence, emotional management, motivating oneself, empathy and managing others’ emotions were negatively related with passive avoidant leadership and positively correlated with communication patterns and job satisfaction. Also, self-awareness and both transformational and transactional leadership style were found to have a significant positive relationship with communication patterns and job satisfaction. Passive-avoidant leadership style was negatively correlated with communication patterns and job satisfaction. Furthermore, communication patterns were positively correlated with job satisfaction. The years of work experience, education, leadership style, communication patterns and age were found to be successful predictors of job satisfaction of college principals in Lahore. The findings carry strong implication for policy makers and for higher management in order to improve the quality of work life for college principals
Assessment of Students' Problem-Solving Proficiency in Mathematics at Grade VI
Get PDFThis study was designed to develop problem solving test for class six and also assess student’s problem solving proficiency. A test is constructed by using Framework of Mathematics Assessment developed by National Assessment of Educational Progress (NEAP). This framework is modified as Mathematics Problem-Solving proficiency framework by keeping in view the objectives of National Curriculum for 6th grade. Initially developed items were tried out and items for final test were selected by keeping in view the criteria of Item Response Theory (IRT). IRT provide guidance to develop the items and to construct the proficiency scales. IRT gives us a way to understand and interpret scores and also link student’s achievement to their latent abilities. Final test was administered to 1500 students of four districts. Students’ mean score in Algebra is greater than any other content area while performance in Ratio and Proportion is low. Therefore, students’ problem-solving proficiency in the area of factors and multiples, geometry, integers, information handling, linear equations, and whole numbers is average