Research Design, Abu Haimed

Running Head: RESEARCH DESIGN

Research Design TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION By Sara & Abu Haimed Prince Sultan University College for Women

Dr. Roz Section; 110 Drrozmohamed@gmail.com Email; sara.abuhaimed@gmail.com

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Abstract This quantitative study aims to look into the relationship between the students' performance, along with that of teachers, that is greatly affected either positively or negatively by applying information technology at schools (Reeves, 1998; Ringstaff & Kelley, 2002). IT has become a key player in the education sector. (McHale, 2005) The primary setting for this study will be two schools in Riyadh City. This study strives for providing an answer whether hi-tech aids enhance academic performance or not. To get such an answer, the researchers will depend mainly on students' responses, staff contributions, school database, and surveys. This study affirms that highly-academic performance at schools is noticeable when applying IT and poor performance is also evident in case of lacking hi-tech equipment. Introduction This crucial focus of this study aims to examine how well-equipped classrooms with the state-of-art excel those traditional text-based ones. The setting for this study will be at two schools in Riyadh City. The predominant hypothesis that will outline this study is that students and teachers, who have classrooms equipped with IT, are more likely to achieve massive improvements in their educational performance than those who depend mainly on traditional ways. The purpose of the study is defined as highly-academic performance at schools is marked with applying IT and poor performance results from lacking hi-tech equipment. IT has a tremendous effect upon education whose role has changed from a limited computer class into an adaptable learning tool that could change how we

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demonstrate concepts, assign projects and assess progress at our schools / Reeves, 1998; Ringstaff & Kelley 2002. Therefore Fulton, Yoon, and Lee believe that educators should be well-equipped with the latest forms of technology/ Fulton, Yoon, & Lee, 2005.This includes Video Conferencing that connects schools with either education faculties for professional assessment, feedback and enlightenment or other schools on a national scale for mutual collaboration and exchange of expertise. This implementation is obviously observed at the well-equipped schools as the staff members make the best use of the facilities they have access to such as; phonic labs, computer labs, overhead projectors, and the internet gigantic information bank whose services are rendered in all school subjects and applications fruitfully. Studies of Goldman, Cole, and Syer (1999) and others have shown that students familiar with technology show improvements in their writing, reading and mathematical skills. Technology has also led to the decrease in drop-out rates, improvement in student attendance and enhancement in their learning abilities. Interactive media have proven to be useful in boosting the concentration levels of students. Even the expected drawbacks have been amazingly and effectively minimized to the extreme due to regular maintenance and up-to-date upgrading of software programs. In brief, most everything that is used in todays classroom has been an outcome of technology. Thus it is needless to say that technology has become a key player in the education sector. (McHale, 2005)

Research Design, Abu Haimed

Literature Review Technology We have got to consider that technology as a whole is not a mixture of wires and metal but a living, developing organism that has its own unconscious needs and trends according to Mark Prensky (Prensky 2005). Technology is the making, alteration, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems, methods of organization, in order to solve a problem, improve a former solution to a problem, attain a goal or carry out a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, modifications, arrangements and procedures. The National Council of Staff Development, 2001; Kanaya & Light (2005) According to Kevin Kelly (2012), various technologies notably affect humans along with other animal species' ability to control and adapt to their natural environments. The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include construction technology, medical technology, and information technology. Also technology can be used in a lot of fields as technology in education, military and in business. Well, there are many uses of technology; one of these is to simply provide a way to communicate with others such as cell phones, satellites and so on. Another is to provide safety, such as the technology used to navigate aircraft. Another use of technology is to merely make life easier, and less manual. For instance, a hundred years ago, we would have to read a book to find out information on a topic. However, we can just 'surf the net' with a click of a mouse. Technology also helps in companies as it can store information that is easily accessible and editable. Another use of technology is simply for entertainment, such as using IPods, DVDs, videos, TV sets, and so forth. (What Technology Wants? By Kevin Kelly 2010) The term Technology is generally a very broad subject, therefore Im going to narrow such a topic and focus on one major and easily-observed use of technology; Education Technology.

Technology in Education Technology is helping teachers to change their traditional way of straight text-based teaching into a much more interactive and vivid learning process that helps students learn best in other innovative ways. Its role in schools has evolved from a limited computer class into an adaptable learning tool that could change how we demonstrate concepts, assign projects and assess progress at our schools. (Reeves, 1998; Ringstaff & Kelley, 2002).Technology has had a large impact on the materials that are used and the way we use these materials to teach in the schools. Most everything that is used in todays classroom has been a result of technology. Thus it is needless to say that technology has become a key player in the education sector. (McHale, 2005)

Research Design, Abu Haimed

Fulton, Yoon, and Lee believe that educators should be well-equipped with the latest forms of technology. (Fulton, Yoon, & Lee, 2005).This includes Video Conferencing that connects schools with either education faculties for professional assessment, feedback and enlightenment or other schools on a national scale for mutual collaboration and exchange of expertise. This also facilitates for various schools to help their students listen to important lectures by their teachers if they are not physically present in classrooms. Technology provides the students with Books on Tape - a proficiently recorded digital version of the text book or novelthat they can listen to. It is of great help to those students who struggle with reading. Computer and phonic labs can be of great impact on the students learning process as they certainly enable them to enhance their involvement and understanding. The internet is a gigantic bank of information on almost every known subject. You just need to type the information required and you get the information. Other instructional technologies such as interactive white boards, the net books, laptops, and projectors are effective tools for improving many aspects of the learning experience. Technology, however, is just an enabler.

Studies of Goldman, Cole, and Syer (1999) and others have shown that children familiar with technology show improvements in their writing, reading and mathematical skills. Technology has also contributed to the decrease in drop-out rates, improvement in student attendance and enhancement in their learning abilities. Interactive media have proven to be useful in boosting the concentration levels of students. Also the advent of technology in schools has made the administration process simpler and less confusing. School records, attendance and school data base maintenance has become very simple, allowing the schooling system to be simpler.

Technology in education has lots of merits and demerits. One of its advantages is that its often fascinating to students and leading to a higher degree of student motivation. Due to their everlasting interest, students focus more attention on the completion of the task and thus learn more. Another benefit is easily-accessed information with the aid of technology; students can gather information via the internet almost instantly. Another good point is that technological tools allow students to efficiently communicate with others across the globe. Through email, chat rooms, social networking websites like face book hotmail, discussion boards and other digital communication methods, students can exchange ideas and information with others. (Honey, Chang, Light, Moeller, in press)

On the other hand, there may be some loss of time because of connection problems, downloading issues, policing software and other difficulties that can cause road blocks when putting a lesson in the technology based classroom into practice. Another demerit is lack of technical support that can turn that overwhelming purchased technology into a completely useless means in times of crisis or disrepair.

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Another drawback is the cost of upkeep and maintenance that can be too great for the building to maintain. Outdated software and hardware components can be incompatible with available programs whose update can overload the school budget.

I genuinely believe that today's knowledge economy demands a new kind of learning environment. Every job profile demands use of technology. For educators schools, community organizations, and parents - our responsibility is to shape opportunities for youth that help build the skills, ideas and attitudes to help them succeed in work and life. There are both sides of the use of technology in education but if we analyze advantages then they certainly outweigh the disadvantages, because in due course technology is a necessity in today's life

Purpose of the Study The purpose of this projected study is to add to the presented body of my research that tackles the implementation of information technology and hi-tech audio-visual aids at schools to enhance the educational process. The study aims at shedding the light on the crucial importance of applying technology within schools as it helps both students and teachers promote their performance. The purpose of the study states that highly-academic performance at schools is manifest when applying IT and poor performance results from lacking hi-tech equipment. Goldman, Cole, and Syer (1999) and others have proven that students, who are familiar with technology, show evolving progress in their writing, reading and mathematical skills. Technology has also reduced drop-out rates, and led to improvement in students attendance and development in their learning abilities. Interactive media have proven to be useful in increasing the concentration levels of students. IT definitely facilitates the teaching process to a great extent because it saves up time, effort and makes learning and instruction more attractive and interactive. (Goldman, Cole, and Syer 1999)

Research Design, Abu Haimed

Research Questions and Hypotheses Research question /questions:

What is technology according to Mark Prensky? How does technology affect all creatures? What are the fields of technology applications? What are the fields of technology applications? How is technology applied in companies?

Focus the research question /questions:

How has technology become a key player in education? How could it help both teachers and students? What skills do students, who are familiar with technology, develop? What drawbacks does technology have?

Hypothesis

The hypothesis of this study is that students and teachers, who have classrooms equipped with IT, are more likely to achieve a considerable development in their academic performance than those who depend mainly on traditional ways. On

the other hand, classrooms that lack IT equipment enable neither teachers nor

Research Design, Abu Haimed

students to enhance their academic performance as much as the former ones, Goldman, Cole, and Syer (1999).

Rationale, Relevance, and Significance of the Study The underlying principle of this proposed study is to examine the issue of the students and teachers performance that is greatly affected either positively or negatively by applying IT within schools. This study may focus on the facts that students who have access to hi-tech equipment at schools can easily achieve progress in their learning skills compared to those students whose schools lack such state-of- art. Such schools may also suffer from increasing drop-out rates. (Fulton, Yoon, & Lee, 2005) The study may be of valuable significance to educational leaders, teachers, students and community leaders who are in charge of the educational system and aspire to ambitious expectations. Also private sector investors who are interested in education and building schools may benefit from such a study. It helps parents follow up their childrens performance easily through web-sited school archives, online quizzes, tests and regular reports. (Honey, Chang, Light, Moeller, in press)

Definition of Terms Books on Tape - a proficiently recorded digital version of the text book or novel Drop-out rates the statistics of students skipping schools IT Information Technology is the use of computers and telecommunications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit and manipulate data.

Research Design, Abu Haimed Web-sited school a school that has a web site which difers from the virtual school or cyber-school as an institution that teaches courses entirely or primarily through. The state-of- art this term refers to the latest version of high technological equipment in any field as of a device, technique, or scientific field achieved at a particular time. (All adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Assumptions The responses to surveys and questionnaires will be straightforward. Classroom visitations and observations will be objective. Samples of participant students will vary to cover all grades. Limitations The study will focus mainly on student responses. It will also target teachers of different subjects and their comments. Research Design

The research design method that will be used for the purposed study is a nonexperimental design with a correlational investigative study. This study is planned to examine the relationship between the students and teachers performance that is greatly affected either positively or negatively by applying IT at schools. Such a quantitative correlational research aims to systematically investigate and explain the nature of the relationship between variables in the real world, Porter & Carter (2000).

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A 'Quantitative research is a formal, objective, systematic process in which numerical data are used to obtain information about the world. This research method is used: to describe variables, to examine relationships among variables, to determine cause-and-effect interactions between variables.' (Burns & Grove 2005) This research will involve the collection of data that will provide an explanation of individuals, groups or situations. Instruments used to obtain data in such studies include; questionnaires, interviews (closed questions), objective observation (checklists, etc.), student surveys, staff comments and so on. It is non-experimental because there is no experimental treatment to the participants. Population and Sampling Target population and Sampling Method and Related Procedures The target populations of the purposed study are students of two schools in Riyadh City. The two schools have been chosen for the purposed study because they are well-equipped with the state-of- art technology applied in education. Both international schools have about three thousand students in grades Pre-KG -12th. Students have full access to all IT equipments at school whether inside their classrooms such as smart boards, overhead projectors or other school facilities as phonic , computer, and science labs, web sited school quizzes, tests, weekly plans, monthly reports and online experimental tests.

The probable, purposive and stratified random sampling procedures will be used because the population has different groups (strata) to ensure that those groups will be fairly represented in the sample. In stratified random sampling,

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independent samples will be drawn from each group. The size of each sample will be proportional to the relative size of the group (ten students from each grade participated and a teacher in each subject).The samples chosen from all grades will definitely meet the criteria based by the researchers so as to get objective and factual results that consolidate the hypothesis stated at the introduction of the study. Statistical Analysis The best criterion to measure that relationship is the correlation coefficient represented by the letter (r) which may vary from the correlation of zero that can indicate no linear relationship between the two variables to the correlation of +1 that indicates a perfect linear relationship between the two variables; as one increases, so does the other. All individuals fall on the same straight line (a deterministic linear relationship) or the correlation of 1, which also indicates a perfect linear relationship between the two variables; however, as one increases, the other decreases. There is a positive correlation between highly-academic performance and applying IT at schools which indicates that the variables increase together. On the other hand there is a negative correlation between poor performance and lacking hi-tech equipment which indicates that as one variable increases, the other decreases, Bajraktarevic, Hall, and Fullick, (2003). The implementation of technology into education is an innovation process. Miettinen, Lehenkari, Hasu, &Hyvnen (1999) regard this as co-evolution, a reciprocal interaction among a social network of actors, a technological solution, economic markets and development of learning.

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Questionnaire Instrumentation The instrument proposed is merely a combination of various methods such as; surveys, questionnaires, face-to-face or telephone interviews, field observations, school reports and documents of evaluation, to ensure objectivity and accuracy. To construct validity and reliability, the sample contained variability in the students grades that represented all students at the two schools. These analyses can show connections between or among various factors that may have an effect on the results of the evaluation. Some types of statistical procedures look for correlations among variables. Certain dependent variables may change when others do. These changes may be similar i.e., both variables increase and decrease (e.g., as childrens proficiency at reading increases, the amount of reading they do also increases). Or the opposite may be observed i.e. the two variables change in opposite directions (as the lack of hi-tech utilities increases, students academic performance decreases). Correlations dont mean that one variable causes another or that they both have the same cause, but they can provide valuable information about associations to expect in an evaluation, Lincoln & Guba (1985).

Data Collection Plan Procedures Contact with the school principals for the proposed location of the study will be established first of all. Second, oral or written approval will be obtained from both principals. Third, another important approval will be obtained from the

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Department of Foreign Education in Riyadh City as the nominated representative of MOE, supervising the two schools. A time will be arranged with the two principals to meet both staff members and students and distribute the consent forms among all participants. The participants will be informed about the criteria used for choosing the sample of the proposed research study. An informational session will be held so as to clarify the purpose of the study, procedures and effective participation. Parents will be formally informed through written consent forms distributed to the students that should be handed within a week maximum. All forms will be collected and afterwards the researchers will prepare a database that contains all information gathered to document it accurately. This database includes all data collected; names, scores, survey results, quizzes, tests, school reports and every detail in hand. The researchers will spend a whole week at these two schools to collect all data possible in order to assess the students and teachers academic performance objectively and thoroughly. Expected Findings The expected results of the data analysis in respect to the hypothesis; students and teachers, who have classrooms equipped with IT, are more likely to achieve massive improvements in their educational performance than those who depend mainly on traditional ways, Reeves, 1998; Ringstaff& Kelley (2002). Therefore Fulton, Yoon, and Lee believe that educators should be well-equipped with the

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latest forms of technology, Fulton, Yoon, & Lee (2005). It is expected that the proposed study will support that hypothesis. Results and Discussion (Proposal) The expected results of the data analysis in respect to the hypothesis; students and teachers, who have classrooms well-equipped with IT, are more capable of accomplishing enormous improvements in their educational performance than those who rely largely on traditional ways, Reeves (1998) ; Ringstaff& Kelley (2002). Expectations are quite in harmony with the research in progress. According to Fulton, Yoon, and Lee believe that educators should be well-equipped with the latest forms of technology as this facilitates both teaching and learning processes to a great extent. The performance of both learners and faculty has gone beyond our expectations since they both have managed to make the best use of the technological aids in hand to enhance their academic performance, Fulton, Yoon, & Lee (2005). It is supposed that once IT is fully applied at schools, the targeted performance is clearly attained. This is what has been proven till this stage of the research.

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References: (Reeves, 1998; Ringstaff & Kelley, 2002) Computer Information Systems in Education/Chapter 2/Section 3 -- Influential factors in developing IS for schools. The Learning Return On Our Educational Technology Investment by Cathy Ringstaff and Loretta Kelley (2002). Leach, J. (2008). Do new information and communications technologies have a role to play in the achievement of education for all? British Educational Research Journal, 34(6), 783-805. Reeves, T. C. (1998). The impact of media and technology in schools: A research report prepared for the Bertelsmann Foundation. (Roschelle, J., Pea, R., Hoadley, C., Gordin, D., Means, B. (2001). Changing How and What Children Learn in School with Computer-Based Technologies. (Goldman, S., Cole, K., & Syer, C. (1999). The technology/content dilemma (Honey, M., Culp, K. M., & Spielvogel, R. (1999). Using technology to improve student achievement, Pathways to School Improvement The Learning Return On Our Educational Technology Investment by Cathy Ringstaff and Loretta Kelley (2002). Leach, J. (2008). Do new information and communications technologies have a role to play in the achievement of education for all? British Educational Research Journal, 34(6), 783-805. Reeves, T. C. (1998). The impact of media and technology in schools: A research report prepared for the Bertelsmann Foundation.

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Appendix Consent Form Dear parent, Wed like to inform you that your kid will partake in a survey about the role of technology in education. If you either agree or disagree to that participation, would kindly sign the form below. I gladly accept my kids participation. I regret to say that I dont accept my kids participation. Parents signature .