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Article Review 13-4-14

An Article Review of

Rienties, B., Brouwer, N. and Lygo-Baker, S. (2013). The effects of online professional development on higher education teachers’ beliefs and intentions towards learning facilitation and technology. Teaching and Teacher Education 29, 122–131 DOI: 10.1016/j.tate.2012.09.002.

BY

Haifa Halawani

Dr. Sharifah Sariah Bt. Syed Hassan

Instructional Design for Distance Education

Sem. II 2013-2014

INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALYASIA

Critique

The overall organize, writing, and work of the article is good.  On the other hand, there are some points may need to point out.  The following would be my comment on some of the point in the article.

In the abstract, the author has a background of the study about the importance of ICT in higher education teaching and the reluctant of some lectures to implement it was pointed.  Furthermore, the sample, data collection and summary of the finding were included.  On the other hand, the aim of the study, type of analysis the researcher used to analysis the data were not mentioned.  No conclusion or recommendations were included. 

1.     Introduction

The introduction was good; the author pointed the importance of using technology in teaching in university through the social learning tools. Furthermore, universities should have a good teacher-led training program and follow up, so the training martial to be implemented in the lectures’ daily practice to measure their intention to use.  The author pointed that universities using online training are increasing, but there is no large-scale implemented or analysed.  The clear statement of problem is to investigate the impact of an innovative cross-institutional online professionalization program called Make Responsible CHoices with Educational Technology (MARCH^ET) in the Netherlands.  The program was specifically designed to enhance academics’ skills by effectively integrating ICT into their teaching practice and to reflect on their academics’ beliefs and intentions towards learning facilitation and knowledge transmission.

2.     Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)

The author covered the importance for the teacher to have a complete and conceptual module to follow when using technology-enhanced learning.  To have an effective class, teachers should look and be aware of the complete learning component before design and implementing.  The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model should help the teacher when designing and implementing.  The model development and component were explained.  The author pointed some studies covered a few of the (TPACK) component, which showed the imbalance between them, even in training. Furthermore, the TPACK instrument have been developed to be used among pre-service primarily teachers.  Some studies used all seven components while other used six.  The result of those study showed that the highest predictors of pre-service teachers’ TPACK was pedagogical knowledge among the rest of the TPACK component.  On the other hand, higher education has different teaching/learning environment and lectures have their own identity in dealing with students.  Furthermore, limited research is available in a higher education context.  In addition, most academic staff engaged in this study are experienced in teaching, but not everyone adopting all the technology-enhanced learning used amongst higher education academics. 

The author had a good literature review on the TPACK but it wasn't connect to the study, it was left hanging. It was pointed that TPACK instrument has been used only amongst pre-service teachers in primary and secondary education, and how it is differ from higher education lectures, but never state that it would be used in this study.  Moreover, it was not mentioned if TPACK model will be used as is or modified.  In addition, no studies using TPACK model or instrument in higher education setting been mentioned.  The researchers start to give information about the participant and how experienced they are in teaching, I though it wasn’t the correct sentence to be used there.

3.     Teachers Beliefs and Intentions Towards Learning Facilitation and Knowledge Transmission

Previous research in higher education has found that using student-focussed approach in teaching stimulate students to adopt a deep approach to their learning.  Furthermore, it is believed that they are more likely to achieve conceptual change than students taught using teacher-centred approach where they have transmission of information and knowledge only.

Individual values or beliefs are challenging to change and have a strong impact on how lecturers implement their work.  After an inventory of 170 teaching staff, Gow and Kember refined five conception of teaching that could be located on a range from a totally teacher-centred, content-orientated conception of teaching to a totally student-centred and learning-orientated conception of teaching.  On the other hand, Norton et al. found that teachers have both “ideal” and “working” conceptions of teaching when he used an adjusted version of Gow and Kember’s with 556 respondents from four UK universities.  Moreover, the study found believing of good teaching and their intentions are significantly different.  In addition, it is necessary to altered teachers' beliefs towards student-centred learning and technology. 

Therefore, it is important to have an effective training programs, trainee should be able to implement the inputs while they are in training so they can be directed on their mistakes. Another approach is to have the lectures learn from their past action and modified it. Furthermore, researchers argue that teachers who integrate technology in their teaching should have fixed formal training in their daily practice. However, there are limited number of studies covered how to effectively establish a training program to integrate it. Therefore, this study is interested in allowing teachers to consider their intentions to perform as they learned in practice to improve future programs. Furthermore, to examine how their own beliefs affect their practice and its impact on their learning hoped to achieve.

There was a confutation in paragraph 4, "Academics in this study were found" while the point was taking about the previous study not the current study.  Furthermore, it was pointed at the end that teachers should be asked to look at past actions and how these could be modified to enhance learning, but no information was giving if the current study would modify the training program according to the pre-test result.  The component of the instrument to measure their belief and intention were not pointed out.

3.1. Research Questions                                

1. To what extent did academics learn to effectively implement ICT in their practice, as measured by an increase in (perceived) Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)?   2. To what extent did the professional training program lead to a change in teachers’ beliefs and intentions (TBI) towards more student-centred learning? 3. To what extent did academics who successfully completed professional development differ from academics who dropped out in terms of TPACK and TBI?

4.     Method

4.1. Setting

From nine HEIs in the Netherlands, 81 academics participated in a professional development program consisting of four separate online modules.  The modules were designed to last from 8-12 weeks taking in consideration the participant flexibility. First, participant can learn at their convenience time to cover from 20-25 hours. Second, in small group discussion using web-videoconferencing, teachers discussed their teaching/learning challenges and share their experience with peers from different institutions four times1-h, once every two-three weeks. Third, tasks and assignments were aligned to the MARCH^ET, participant worked on critically re-evaluating their teaching practice in group and individually.  To test and fine-tune their design, participants were asked to implement the redesign into their daily teaching practice when they finished the program.  

4.2. Participants

The information of the participants was removed to guarantee anonymity.  73 participants complete the pre-test of TPACK and TBI, 68 from MARCH^ET group, five from four other institutions.  Participants were grouped in institution in Netherlands according to their specialization and pedagogy used.  The majority of participants (90%) were from the Netherlands, average age was 41.90, 55% were male. The participant have different academic and administrative background, from professor to participants who do not fall uniquely in the previous categories participated.

4.3. Instruments

The participant filled in pre- and post-test questionnaire using TPACK and TBI elements.

 The redesigned TPACK questionnaire consisting of 18 items, cover six elements, to measures the "participants’ perceptions of how to they designed and implemented technology enhanced learning into their practice".  The TBI instrument of Norton et al. (2005) was adapted to measure the belief and intention to change in pedagogy.  The questionnaire consists of 29 items.  Both instruments used a five-item Likert-response scale of 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree).

            The author had a good description of the setting of the study.  The emphasis in the participant on keeping the information about the participant in order to guarantee anonymity was a little agitated, even though the information was given was good enough.  Furthermore, in the TPACK instrument, the author state "the focus of the questionnaire was shifted from the ability, knowledge and/or intentions to use technology (as in most TPACK questionnaires" on the other hand, the author claimed the questionnaire was designed "Three experts in technology-enhanced learning with expertise in developing questionnaires designed a TPACK questionnaire".  In addition, most of the variables in TPACK were measured using one, two or three items.  How did the measured data fit the module? 

4.4. Data analysis

The data the TPACK and TBI questionnaire pre and post-test was analyzed using ANOVA analyses.

As a typing mistake, in Table 1, TPACK and TBI example items and reliabilities table 1, there is a mistake (TPACK) instead of (TBI).

5.     Results

In reveling the results, most of the article introduction and literature review addressing the importance of student-centred approach, and how it is important in online learning, on the other hand, in 5.2. Effects of training on teacher beliefs and intentions state "However, our expectation that participants would therefore implement more student-centred learning was not supported in this study." Why it was not supported?   In 5.3. How do successful participants differ from unsuccessful participants?, the finding of the separate analyses of the 18 TBI scales showed that academics who failed the course had significantly higher scores on beliefs towards training students for jobs compared to participants who completed the program.  This take us back to the problem pointed in the literature review that their belief doesn’t indicate that they will use it, they belief it, but don’t implemented.

Furthermore, the author was pointing the importance of giving support and following the lectures after they finish the training.  What about those participant who completed the study, did they received any support or just left out like any other program?

6.     Discussion and conclusion

The author compared the finding of the study with the finding of the studies mentioned in the literature review.  The overall TPACK score, of the post and pre test were significantly higher.  On the other hand, lower significant differences were found in the participants' suitability of the teaching style; therefore, the program didn’t change the teachers’ beliefs and intentions to implement more student-centred learning particularly with seniors. Furthermore, there was a limited support, lectures who completed the online program were different; their beliefs and intentions towards TPACK skills irrespective of their intention towards student-centred or teacher-centred approaches.

The author gave very good recommendations on how to have an affective program only.  There were three limitations of the study the researcher covered. On the other hand, no recommendations for future research based on the finding of the study were not introduce.  Furthermore, on further study on the topic, or on matters that they study could not support as stated "However, our expectation that participants would therefore implement more student-centred learning was not supported in this study."  Recommendation on the TPACK model was not given, for example to try to add any elements.    

CONCLUSION

The article is by no means very helpful in exposing the importance of following the instructor implementing technology in the classroom after they finish a training program.  The overall work is good, in spite of some points which been covered in the critiques.