The Need for Scientific Experiments: The Experience of Pre-service Science Teachers

Volume 4 Issue 1 August 2014

Email: [email protected] Website: www.taylors.edu/KTLE/journal_of_interdisciplinary_research_in_education.html.

Chief EditorDr. Rozita DassTaylor’s University, MalaysiaEmail: [email protected]

Using Wikis to Carry Out Project-Based Learning 1Simon Williams Centre for Languages, Taylor’s University, Malaysia

Encouraging Collocational and Colligational Fluency: 11Pedagogical Chunking, Word and Verb Mapping, Pause Readingand Other StrategiesAntoon De Rycker School of Communication, Taylor's University, Malaysia

Students’ Perspectives on the Use of Peer Feedback in 27an English as a Second Language Writing ClassKavitha SukumaranSchool of Hospitality, Tourism & Culinary Art,Taylor’s University, MalaysiaRozita DassSchool of Education, Taylor’s University, Malaysia

The Need for Scientific Experiments: The Experience of 41Pre-service Science Teachers Jasmine JainSchool of Education, Taylor’s University, MalaysiaNabilah Abdullah & Beh Kian LimUniversiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

Values Education and the Malaysia Education Blueprint 59Abdul Rahman bin Md AroffUniversiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia

Student-Teacher Relationship and Student Academic Motivation 75Adibah Najihah JasmiKolej Tunku Kurshiah, MalaysiaLim Chong HinSchool of Education, Taylor’s University, Malaysia

Examining Taylor’s Center for Languages IEN Students’ Perspectives 83on the Usefulness of Corrective Feedback in Writing Class Clarence LimCentre for Languages, Taylor’s University, MalaysiaRozita DassSchool of Education, Taylor’s University, Malaysia

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Using Wikis to Carry Out Project-Based Learning

Journal of Interdisciplinary Research in Education Volume 4, Issue 1, 2014

AbstractAs technology becomes ever more prevalent in the modern classroom, teachers are looking at ways to utilise it for the benefit of their students’ learning. One such tech-tool is the Wiki. Although they are not the most common feature in education, their uses are numerous. This paper will discuss wikis as a tool to carry out, monitor and assess project-based learning.

Key words: Wikis, project-based learning, blended learning, alternative assessment, peer- and self-assessment.

INTRODUCTIONDigital devices in the classroom, such as laptops, phones and tablets, are now becoming as ubiquitous as the whiteboard. Today, it is common to see many students peering into their devices as the lecturer covers the material for the day within a university setting. The same lecture is then reviewed via the lecture-capture system, quizzes are taken via a learning management system such as the Taylor’s Integrated Moodle e-Learning System (TIMeS), and essays are uploaded onto Turnitin, which allows instructors to assess and provide feedback for students’ written work using the assessment tools available within the system. Slowly but surely much of the learning experience is increasing its digital footprint, with new teaching and learning systems and procedures being developed and tried out week by week. Therefore, this ‘how-to-teach’ paper proposes an approach for the use of wikis in project-based learning (PBL). This paper covers features of wikis and explains why they are conducive for project-based work, as well as explains how wikis can be used to monitor progress and accurately assess students’ work.

Journal of Interdisciplinary Research in Education (JIRE) ISSN 2232-0180Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2014, pp. 1-10


Simon WilliamsCentre for Languages, Taylor’s University, Malaysia

© The Author(s) 2014. This article is published with open access by Taylor’s Press.

* Corresponding author: Simon Williams Email: [email protected]

JIRE is a publication of the Centre for Research in Education & InstructionalTechnologies, School of Education, Taylor’s University Sdn Bhd

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WHAT ARE WIKIS?Ward Cunningham first conceived wikis in the mid-90s to create a place where collaboration could be carried out easily and quickly. Since then, wikis have been used in platforms such as Wikipedia, WikiLeaks, as well as other numerous privately created websites. Additionally, their collaborative features have also been utilised in platforms such as Google Docs. Although it is difficult to define wikis, there is a general consensus that wikis are the place for webpage creation, editing and collaboration (Chao, 2007; Chen, Chen, & Sun, 2010; McMullin, 2005). Generally, wikis have a number of features, which make them especially suited for project-based learning.

Table 1. Five uses for a wiki (Adapted from Tonkin, 2005)

1 Information display and dissemination Video, audio, text, PDFs, word files, PPTs, hyperlinks and images can be uploaded/embedded onto a wiki page, and subsequently downloaded.

2 Collaboration Pages can be created where one to fifty students can collaborate.

3 Progress Lecturers can constantly monitor project progress simply by checking the page of each respective group of students.

4 Feedback Each project page can be accessed by the lecturer which means comments can be provided to help the group stay focused or refine their ideas.

5 Assessment Each student has a login ID that tracks all updates made to a single page. A lecturer can then monitor who is actually doing the work and use this to produce more accurate assessments based on a student’s contribution.

The information presented in Table 1 has been adapted from a study by Tonkin (2005) and further expanded to illustrate how other features presented by wikis can benefit project-based learning. The next section explains in detail how each step presented above is carried out and why they are beneficial for project work.

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Information Display and DisseminationAt first glance, a wiki page is a blank canvas ready to be filled with text, audio, video and hyperlinks. At the beginning of each project, a number of pages can be created such as aims and objectives, assessments and sample work.

Figure 1. A screen shot taken from a wiki illustrating the objectives of the project

Figure 1 shows the screen shot from a sample page with the aims, objectives and links to external documents and websites. Pages such as this can be created quickly and easily to allow both teacher and student to find, download and share information relevant to the project in one location.

CollaborationThe most discussed attribute of wikis is their collaborative nature as this allows users to either work synchronously or asynchronously (Cunningham, 2013). In addition, collaboration has long been perceived by many researchers as an effective element for student learning (Gokhale, 1995; Hew & Cheung, 2008; Johnson & Johnson, 1986; Li, 2002; Slavin, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978). Therefore, wikis now present the lecturer with the ideal tool to harness effective collaborative learning both inside and outside the classroom.

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The first step in collaboration work is to place students into their respective groups and assign them a page to work on. Next, this page can be locked to allow only the group members and the teacher to see it, or in the spirit of sharing, can be left open for all groups to monitor each other’s progress. The students are now able to continue working in one central environment, where new information can be shared and updated instantaneously.The advantage of this setting is that the need for constant emails and regular meetings is reduced, as each group member can keep track of their progress and know what the other group members are doing. Additionally, when content is uploaded or updated, each member can comment on the new information with regard to its relevance. They may also use the space to clarify and increase understanding on certain areas of the project. Thus, the collaborative nature of wikis creates an environment where students can share and discuss information all under the watchful supervision of the lecturer.

ProgressAs project work requires students to work more autonomously and take greater responsibility for their individual learning, the lecturer may only have a few opportunities to check in with each group’s progress unless face-to-face tutorials are conducted.However, monitoring progress has been identified as a contributing factor to a project’s success (Wang, 2009). Wikis simplifies progress monitoring as each project is contained within one website. This means that a lecturer can check each page on a regular basis, and if an issue arises, the lecturer is able to intervene with a comment, email or schedule a face-to-face meeting with the group. Thus, the lecturer can now be a part of the group project from the beginning and monitor it as a silent partner for each group. The lecturer can also encourage the groups who are on track by motivating them further, and assist the weaker groups who may have lost focus. In short, by following the project’s progress on the wiki page, a lecturer is able to remain with the group from the start of a project until its completion.

FeedbackAccording to Hattie & Timperley (2007, p.102), “Feedback is among the most critical aspect that influences students’ learning.” This is especially true, when the feedback informs students on how to complete a task more effectively (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). The researchers also commented that some of the most effective feedback is in digital forms such as audio, video or text. Another noteworthy feature of the wikis is their ability to support feedback options. For example, in the case of audio, a website called Vocaroo (www.vocaroo.com) can be used to quickly record and save feedback. This file can then be hyperlinked or embedded directly onto the wiki page. In the case of video, a screencast (http://screencast-o-matic.com) can be utilised and then linked or embedded onto the wiki page. Lastly, feedback in the form of direct text can also be written on the wiki page providing students with ideas, advice or suggested directions to follow.

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Figure 2 illustrates how some feedback features can be easily applied to a wiki page. At the top left is an audio file embedded from Vocaroo, and at the top right is a video, which has been embedded from YouTube. Finally, at the bottom of the page, is an example of direct feedback that has been written (highlighted).

Figure 2. Screen shot containing audio, video and text feedback

In short, wikis provide the lecturer with a tool that allows them to utilise various feedback methods that can further assist students in completing the project more effectively.

AssessmentFor some students and lecturers, PBL and collaborative work can cause a number of problems: namely, accurate grade allocation. Grades may be summative and given as a whole to a group. However, this notion presents the problem of “free riders” (James, McInnes, & Devlin, 2002), which refer to member(s) of a group who do not contribute as much as other members to the overall project. With summative assessment, these free riders obtain the same grade as members who contribute a lot, which can create frustration within the group (Strauss & U-Mackey, 2007), and subsequently, lead to a breakdown in the discussion process.

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Hence, wikis offer lecturers a solution to help assess students more accurately. Free riding can be quickly dealt with and decreased by monitoring which students log on to the wiki and how often (Caple & Bogle, 2011) (Figure 3). When a particular group member’s name is not featured on the log, the lecturer can intervene and find out the cause. Dealing with free riders early on and monitoring them throughout the project period will ensure a more cohesive group bond is formed. In addition, it will reassure the other group members that their grades will not be compromised. Although logs alone should not be the sole basis upon which an entire grade is awarded, as other considerations must be taken into account, it does however provide the lecturer with a deeper understanding of the group process, which in turn will allow the lecturer to make a more informed decision on grade allocation. Therefore, grade allocation can now be given to individual students within the group, instead of the group as a whole.

Figure 3. Screen shot of a wikis log, where user information is tracked and saved

Choosing the Right Kind of AssessmentThere are two types of assessment for projects: formative and summative. The former is carried out during the project period, the latter is given at the end of the project. As projects are incredibly complex and require students to carry out tasks beyond information retrieval, there is a need to assess soft skills such as the ones highlighted in Taylor’s Graduate Capabilities (TGC). Some of these skills include lifelong learning, problem solving, communication skills, interpersonal skills and computer literacy. More often than not, summative assessment is used simply because the only work that can be assessed is presented at the end of the project. Nevertheless, with wikis, the lecturer has access to data which reveals more about the project progress based on students who

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contribute actively. Therefore, there is now enough data to support and corroborate alternative forms of assessment. Along with peer-assessment (PA), self-assessment (SA) has shown encouraging potential as a reliable form of assessment (Bachman & Palmer, 1989; Chang, Liang, & Chen, 2012; Peirce, Swain, & Hart, 1993). Some researchers have raised concerns about its reliability stating that the results of the SA cannot be confirmed; however, by monitoring the progress on the group’s page and the logs, lecturers are able to make more informed decisions on the accuracy of each student’s SA. The rubric in Figure 4 illustrates how soft skills, such as sharing, collaboration and research can be self-assessed by the students themselves.

Figure 4. Self-assessment rubrics used with a wiki-based project to assess soft skills

Although wikis do not give a definitive answer as to the students’ level of contribution within the project, they do to a certain extent provide the lecturer with a better understanding of who is doing the work and when. In addition, since the lecturer is monitoring the process from beginning to end, and not at specific intervals unlike in the case of tutorials, he or she would be more aware of the students’ involvement as they carry out their work. This along with other techniques, such as peer-assessment, can then help to corroborate results from any alternative assessment.

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BENEFITSWikis present users with a versatile learning environment (VLE) where they are able to construct a customisable website which supports student learning as well as provide the lecturer with a platform to constantly monitor each group’s progress remotely. The lecturer becomes a silent partner by monitoring the progress of the group closely. In addition, the lecturer can intervene when necessary, with advice, comments or suggestions, all of which will maintain the group’s momentum and improve their success. Moreover, with access to more information on each group’s progress, the lecturer is now able to incorporate alternative assessment procedures. All these procedures enable the lecturer to make use of formative assessment techniques by providing constant feedback throughout the project, and allowing soft skills to be self-assessed and corroborated through the logs. Consequently, wikis allow a more holistic approach of assessment, where the ultimate goal is not solely the assessment of the final product but the process itself.

CONCLUSIONThis paper has outlined five pertinent uses of wikis, information display and dissemination, collaboration, progress, feedback and assessment that can aid in creating a more successful project. As described earlier, wikis provide lecturers with tools that can assist them in monitoring a project to ensure that it runs smoothly and finishes successfully.

Simply put, wikis can be referred to as a tool much like a whiteboard or an iPad. By this notion, they do not enhance learning as much as they help facilitate it because the real learning takes place during the collaborative dialogues between the students and lecturer. The role of the wikis then, are to support this dialogue by providing a learning environment where the lecturer can be a silent partner in each group and guide, advise and support students from the very beginning of the project until the end.

Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0) which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.

REFERENCESBachman, L. & Palmer, A. (1989). The construct validation of self-testings of

communicative language ability. Language Testing, 6, 14–25.

Caple, H. & Bogle, M. (2011). Making group assessment transparent: What wikis can contribute to collaborative projects. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/12602938.2011.618879

Chang, C. C., Liang, C. & Chen, Y. H. (2012). Is learner self-assessment reliable and valid in a web-based portfolio environment for high school students? Computers & Education, 60(1), 325-334.

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Chao, J. (2007). Student project collaboration using Wikis. Paper presented at the 20th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T 2007), Dublin, Ireland.

Chen, J., Chen, M. & Sun, Y. (2010). A new approach for enhancing student reading comprehension and assissting assessment of literary. Computers & Education, 55, 1367–1382.

Cunningham, W. (2013). c2.com. WikiWikiWeb. Retrieved March 2013 from http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki

Gokhale, A. A. (1995). Collborative learning enhances critical thinking. Journal of Technology Education, 7(1)

Hattie, J. & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112. doi:10.3102/003465430298487

Hew, K. F. & Cheung, W. S. (2008). Attracting student participation in asynchronous online discussions: a case study of peer facilitation. Computers & Education, 51(3), 1111–1124.

James, R., McInnes, C. & Devlin, M. (2002). Assessing learning in Australian Universities: Ideas, Strategies and Resources for Quality in Student Assessment. Melbourne: University of Melbourne.

Johnson, R. T. & Johnson, D. W. (1986). Action research: Cooperative learning in the science classroom. Science and Children, 24, 31–32.

Li, Q. (2002). Exploration of collaborative learning and communication in an educational enviroment using computer-mediated communication. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 34(4), 503–516.

McMullin, B. (2005). Putting learning back into learning technology. In S. Moore, G. O. O’Neill, & B. McMullin (Eds.), Emerging Issues in the Practice of University Learning and Teaching. Dublin: AISHE. Retrieved from http://www.aishe.org/readings/2005-1/mcmullin- D01-M10-2004.pdf

Peirce, B. N., Swain, M., & Hart, D. (1993). Self-assessment, French immersion and locus control. Applied Linguistics, 14(1), 25–42.

Slavin, R. E. (1991). Student Team Learning: A Practical Guide to Cooperative Learning. Washington DC: National Education Association Washington DC.

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Strauss, P. & U-Mackey, A. (2007). Group assessment: Dilemmas facing lecturers in multicultural tertiary classrooms. Higher Education Research & Development, 26(2), 147–161.

Tonkin, E. (2005). Making the case for a Wiki. Aridane. Retrieved from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue42/tonkin/.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psycological Processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Wang Y, Q. (2009). Design and evaluation of a collaborative learning environment. Computers & Education, 53(4), 1128–1146.

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Encouraging Collocational and Colligational Fluency: Pedagogical Chunking, Word and Verb Mapping, Pause Reading and Other Strategies


AbstractThe aim of this paper is to provide an exploratory overview of second-language classroom activities that can be used in order to stimulate students’ collocational and colligational fluency. For at least two decades, it has been acknowledged in second language vocabulary acquisition research that lexical proficiency extends beyond knowledge of single words, and thus, learners should be given exposure to longer stretches of language, i.e., what is sometimes referred to as “chunks”. After briefly discussing the motivation behind this theoretical stance, this paper will present and discuss a range of strategies that learners can successfully employ to notice, store and actively produce the many multi-word expressions that make up the bulk of language in use. The relevance of the current study lies primarily in its pedagogical implications. The selection of strategies has been based on a review of the current literature into the teaching of phraseology as well as the author’s own reflective practice. One of the main findings to emerge from this paper is that though many strategies have been suggested, only a small minority has been subjected to empirical or experimental verification, and that practitioners like curriculum developers, materials writers and teachers should be advised to judge the available array of activities critically.

Key words: second-language vocabulary learning, collocations, colligations, learning strategies

INTRODUCTIONThis article sets out to explore the wide range of vocabulary teaching strategies that can be successfully deployed when trying to improve second-language (L2) learners’ collocational and colligational fluency. The term “collocation” refers to one of the features of “vocabulary depth”, i.e., the quality rather than the mere quantity of a person’s lexical knowledge (Daller et al., 2007). It is generally defined as “the association of lexical items that regularly co-occur” (Halliday & Hassan 1976, p. 284). Examples include adjectives and nouns (e.g. scenic drive), nouns and nouns (e.g. test drive), verbs



Antoon De Rycker Taylor’s University, Malaysia


* Corresponding author: Antoon De Rycker Email: [email protected]


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plus nouns (e.g. take a drive), nouns plus verbs (e.g. the drive lasted two hours) and all sorts of more or less fixed templates or phrases (e.g. within an hour’s drive, be a short

drive away). As such, collocations refer to items that are syntactically related rather than just loose co-occurrences (Evert, 2004). Note that collocations are also known as “word partnerships”: lexical items partnered with other lexical items. For a recent discussion of the terminological issues in collocation research, see Antle (2012).

By “colligations” we mean recurrent combinations of lexis and grammar (Sinclair, 1987; Hoey, 1999, 2000, 2005). For example, it is far less likely to find a declarative utterance like the drive would have been being gone for (future progressive perfect in the past, passive voice) than the more functional let’s go for a drive (let’s imperative). The combination of go for a drive (lexis) and the exhortative imperative (let’s) then counts as a colligation.

Language production (Skehan, 1998) can be described and evaluated in terms of three dimensions: accuracy, complexity and fluency. Depth and breadth of vocabulary are, needless to say, important measures of that overall productiveness. It makes sense to devote our pedagogical efforts to expanding students’ productive vocabulary, not just by adding more and more words but also by deepening their store of words in terms of collocational and colligational potential. To quote Dellar and Hocking (2000, p. 32),

English has thousands of words—vocabulary, collocations, idioms, and expressions.

We express what we mean mostly by our choice of vocabulary. If you spend most of

your time studying grammar, your English will not improve very much. You will see

most improvement if you learn more words and expressions. You can say very little with

grammar, but you can say almost anything with words!

The paper is structured as follows. After a brief section on the theoretical background and methodology, an overview will be given of classroom activities and strategies aimed at enhancing learners’ depth of vocabulary knowledge through collocations and colligations. In the Discussion section, a first attempt will be made to critically evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies. It should be borne in mind, however, that much of the research reported here is exploratory.

RELEVANT THEORY AND REVIEWOver the years, there has been a growing realisation that the key to efficient and effective L2 learning may well lie in shifting our focus from single words to phrases and formulaic multi-word expressions. Though interest in these lexical phrases, idioms and the more formulaic aspects of language use go back at least 40 years (Bolinger, 1976), it is thanks to both the corpus linguistic revolution of the early nineties and the cognitive turn that was taking place at the same time that the lexicon and aspects of L2 vocabulary acquisition got into their own.

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Sinclair (1991) distinguished the open-choice principle behind language and the idiom one, and where Chomskyan linguistics emphasised the former, the increasingly sophisticated analysis of ever larger corpora of authentic language data pointed up the extent to which language use is idiomatic, in the sense of pre-fabricated or ready-made. Language production is not only a matter of making but also of taking, i.e., of creating new strings of lexical items (in particular syntagmatic patterns) and of simply helping oneself to pre-existing utterances and phrases. The revolutionary insight was that these pre-existing utterances and phrases are not just proverbs (e.g. a friend in need is a friend

indeed) and genuine idioms (e.g. between a rock and a hard place) but that they pervade language (as in the examples given in the Introduction section).

More recently, phraseology has become a major concern and research interest in Cognitive Linguistics (CL), witness volumes like Boers and Lindstromberg (2008) or De Knop et al. (2010). The basic assumptions of CL tie in well with conceptualisations of language as being more than just lexis plus grammar, and in fact, support views that the lexis-versus-grammar divide is a fallacy. The reality of language as a cognitive and interactional achievement is that lexis and grammar form a continuum along which different form-meaning pairings can be arrayed, including structures and words. Structures are as meaningful as words and vice versa. Words have their own grammar, for example, a point made in Systematic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1985). Both collocations and colligations are instances of how words and structures meet halfway to form meaningful units of language usage. Parallel to this development in linguistic theory is a remarkable increase in L2 collocation research over the past five years, with Barfield and Gyllstad (2009) as a case in point. This edited volume is entirely devoted to collocational knowledge and development among non-native speakers and learners, and offers ideas as well as research findings on how to present, for example, collocations/colligations in dictionaries.

Milton (2009) offers a concise overview of what it means to know a word. It involves:1. Understanding its meaning(s) in context, whether written or spoken.2. Recalling it when you need it.3. Using it with the correct meaning (e.g. beware of false friends ).4. Using it in the appropriate context (e.g. level of formality, connotations).5. Using it with its maximally useful partners (i.e. the right collocations).6. Using it in a grammatically correct way.7. Knowing its derivations (i.e., word grammar possibilities).8. Spelling it correctly.9. Pronouncing it correctly (word stress ).

It is well known that learners do not acquire this depth of vocabulary knowledge through grammar instruction and explicit vocabulary teaching alone, but that considerable progress can be made in a short period through memorisation of the recurrent patterns

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(see item no. 5). The following steps are generally agreed to be important (Hatch & Brown, 1995):1. Encountering new words.2. Getting the word form in both speech and writing.3. Getting the word meaning.4. Consolidating word form and meaning in memory.5. Using the word.

This sequence has sometimes been simplified into:1. Noticing.2. Retrieving or recalling.3. Creating (e.g. using the word in the proper context).

One of the best known pedagogical approaches to follow this through while underscoring the significance of prioritising lexis over syntax is the so-called Lexical Approach to teaching developed as of the 1990s mainly by Michael Lewis (1993, 1997, 1999, 2000). Firstly, students need to develop awareness of the language to which they are exposed and gradually develop ways, not of assembling parts into wholes, but of identifying constituent bits within the whole. Many of these are lexical items and form the most important single key to the Lexical Approach. For the theoretical point of view, reference can also be made to Wray’s (2002) work on formulaic language and the lexicon. The pedagogical implications of this theoretical stance have led to a range of strategies and activities meant to complement the L2 instructor’s available toolkit.

The purpose of this paper is to share some of the phrase-learning activities that have emerged in the literature as well as in classroom practice. In order to “teach” lexical phrases, students should be made to notice them first (e.g. by hearing them). Good noticing activities potentially require a lot of (mental) processing. The more processing that takes place, the better as more processing will arguably enhance retention and recall (future use or recognition). This refers to the level-of-processing (LOP) theory (Cermak & Graik, 1979). The more complex the cognitive processes involved in engaging with new lexical items, the deeper the overall processing and the more likely that these new items will enter the learner’s long-term semantic memory.

METHODOLOGYGiven the largely descriptive and exploratory aim of this study, activities and strategies were gleaned from the existing literature (Lewis, 1997, 2000; Lewis & Hill, 1992; Lindstromberg, 2005; Boers & Lindstromberg, 2008; Jiang, 2009; Antle, 2012). However, this paper will also share some of the activities that the author has been piloting himself over the past ten years. No attempt is made at this stage in the research to offer an exhaustive list. Gairns and Redman (1986) were one of the first to try and map out the many alternatives that were available. Nation (2001) alone, for example, described

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well over 30 different vocabulary teaching activities looking at form, meaning and use. Interestingly, only two of these, however, were collocational matching and finding collocations. It is this imbalance that the following findings are meant to redress.

FINDINGSAccording to Lewis (1993), the basic exercise types include (pedagogical) chunking, matching, completing, categorising, sequencing and deleting. The two most central strategies, however, are chunking and categorising. It is these two that will be discussed first. Note that tasks like categorising or matching and their corresponding teaching/learning strategies can be classified in many different ways. One classification that has been suggested recently is to use a system of families of task types based on the type of learning input involved, materials that are actually being used: (written) texts, lists, spreads and student-collected chunks (Lindstromberg, 2005). This approach makes it easier to plan one’s lessons, as much of the success in lexical phrase learning depends on how carefully the input materials have been selected. In this paper, the latter classification will be used when presenting pause reading and other strategies.

Pedagogical ChunkingWithout noticing skills, students will be unlikely to expand their collocational and colligational fluency. The term and technique originate from Lewis (1993). Setting out from an existing text, teachers will guide students towards “chunking” the text in terms of high frequency and maximally useful combinations of lexis and combinations of lexis and grammar. Developing a sixth sense for combinations that are central to the language (e.g. to lock the front door) and those that are not (e.g. to paint the front door green) is critical in deepening one’s knowledge of the word “door”.

Word and Verb MappingThis refers to the maps in Appendices A and B. Students can collect “chunks” whether guided or not but the question that remains is where to store the new vocabulary and how. Vocabulary notebooks have long been recognised as a valuable resource (Ellis & Sinclair, 1989) ever since the corpus-based language-learning revolution of the mid-eighties. Yet, there is surprisingly little research into what formats work and how to motivate learners. This observation does not only hold true for single-item learning but also for collocations and colligations.

One way of remedying this situation is through single/loose-sheet word maps and verb maps two worksheets that the author has piloted in his own teaching practice, and which, pending empirical verification, have helped students become more aware of the phraseological nature of language, on the one hand, and organise and revise lexical phrases more successfully, on the other. In both maps, the central item (the “node”) goes into the circle in the middle, with collocates (or “partners”) arranged around it in terms of position only. Though the maps use the proper syntactic terminology (e.g. adjective

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or direct object), in essence, what a learner needs to know is where the words are put vis- -vis each other. The maps thus offer a convenient but powerful aid to enhance students’ visual pattern recognition of salient word partnerships, be they noun-based or verb-based, with the emphasis firmly on directional relationships rather than syntagmata. To illustrate, the business word map would thus contain collocations and colligations like to set up a business, retail business, business conference, the business is growing, and fixed expressions like mind your own business. The verb map for drive, on the other hand, would have to include high-frequency combinations like those illustrated in the introductory section of this paper.

Pause ReadingThis strategy sets out from a text with the targeted collocations and colligations, which the teacher or language trainer will read out to the class. Collocations or colligations that have been selected for learning will be broken up, i.e., the teacher will insert a pause during which the entire class can fill in the missing next word(s). This technique works well for word partnerships that are relatively strong such as to go out of + business. The topic of the text as well as the local meanings instantiated through the utterances will guide students and limit the range of options. As Lewis (1997) pointed out, not all two words can be separated by a pause the teacher has to select only those phraseological units that demonstrate strong internal consistency.

Note that Lindstromberg (2005) refers to this technique by the phrase “What comes next?”. Teachers can do all the reading and pausing themselves but the exercise can also be profitably done in pairs or in fours. In that case, students will take turns reading and completing. It may help to have two or three different texts ready for the different groups. According to Lindstromberg (2005), the sequence of the technique can be as follows:

1. One student on the team receives a text that contains a number of double slashes (//).2. He/She reads out the text slowly and dramatically until he/she reaches //. The other

students in the group are then invited to fill in the missing word (a more or less predictable part of a collocation, part of an expression, etc.).

3. Halfway through the article (or when using a two-page article, when reaching the next page), the roles can be switched.

4. In the following stage, students can be asked to put in the slashes themselves. However, they have to make it as easy as possible for their partner by only choosing collocations they would certainly know.

Like many strategies, there is room for enhancing the pause reading activity by introducing choral work, individual turns, and by increasing the number of missing words to be filled in.

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Text-Based StrategiesUsing Existing Texts

Well-known activities include the chanting of rhymes and the singing of songs. Songs are probably the best way to become more lexically proficient at least if the songs contain enough collocations of interest, which they rarely do. Memorisation of texts (e.g. dialogues) is very useful too, and is related to the audio-lingual method of language learning prevalent in the sixties. However, aural processing may benefit certain learners and thus has to be included in the range of classroom activities. The same holds for dictation (including student-to-student dictation).

Less well-known activities are, for example, “What did I say instead of ?” The five-step procedure can be described as follows:1. Students receive a short or longish text that has been centred on the page. They are

asked to fold the sides so that there are no margins at either left, right, top or bottom.2. The teacher reads the text out loud fairly quickly and replaces certain words (these

can also be collocates or collocations). This time students can mark these changes (e.g. by underlining or highlighting them) while the teacher reads the text. If they are really fast, they can even write down the new words, or they can write them down afterwards or just write down the first letter of the change.

3. Then they check with a partner to see whether they have the same results. 4. The teacher goes over the text line by line and every time asks whether something was

changed (“Were there any changes?”, “What did I say instead of ?”) and if so, into what. Write these changes on the blackboard, if you like.

5. Finally, the students are asked to turn their papers over and to retell the story, news item, etc.

News articles, especially longer ones (like one A4 column), are a rich source of collocations and colligations. This activity focuses students’ attention on both. The following illustrates the changes that can be made:

Latinate words replaced by Germanic ones or vice versa (e.g. permission green

light, phone call, wake arouse). A synonym (home = house, sound = go off about a smoke alarm , provide = furnish)

as well as polywords (on the grounds that = for the reason that). Nouns and verbs (to be no longer under any obligation = to be no longer obliged). Adding an adjective (waste of time a royal waste of time).

Additions allow us to work with a basic version of a text (for example, stripped of its adjectives), which students are then invited to elaborate on.

A similarly underused exercise type is Dictogloss. Every student takes a blank sheet of paper (an A4 and they should hold it “portrait”-wise). They are told that they are going

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to listen to a story (not too long, about 10 lines or so, e.g. a short newspaper article that might interest the class). Consider, by way of example, the following snippet:

Top Skater in a ComaIn-line skating champion, Richard Taylor, 23, was in a coma in hospital after breaking both legs and fracturing his skull when he ran into a lamp post while skating near his home in Cardiff.

Note that selecting the right text (with the right collocations) is always the first step: top

skater, to be in a coma, to break a leg, to run into something, etc. The actual activity can be broken down into the following five steps:

1. Read the story once. Students should listen carefully but are not allowed to write anything down unless told otherwise (so “pens down”). Once the teacher has finished reading the story for the first time, students have to write down as many words as they can remember from the text, making a vertical list in the centre of the page (also taking into account the chronological order in which the words occurred). They can “cheat” by looking left and right, thus, adding more words (or phrases). This is what it may look like in the case of the text given above:

skaterchampion

comalamp post

broke both legsCardiff

2. The text is then read out loud for the second time. Again, the students can only start writing afterwards to complete their list of words. This can be done by adding other words next to the ones they already have (thus, creating collocations, e.g. in-line + skating + champion).

3. The teacher reads out the text for a third time very slowly and the students are allowed to write (so that it becomes a kind of dictation).

4. The students are then divided into pairs. One person of each pair is chosen to be the secretary. The students put their results together and try to come up with an exact reproduction of the text, which is then written down by the secretary.

5. Some of the “secretaries” are then asked to read their final copy out loud. If the final copy can still be improved, other teams may provide corrections (e.g. a team may have got the syntax wrong like broke instead of breaking or missed a piece of information).

Note that it is possible to mix this classroom activity with the “What did I say instead ?” exercise described above.

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Making New Texts

“Left-right dialogues” is one of the more effective collocational/colligational learning activities based on the free production of texts but, judging from the literature, not widely known. The following steps describe this activity:

1. Provide students with a list of idiomatic expressions that people might use to sum up a certain situation, e.g. “Well, what goes around comes around”.

2. Students work on these expressions for approximately 10 minutes, after which they put the sheet away.

3. Then they take a blank A4, turn it on its side (landscape), fold it exactly in the middle and open it out again, and finally, write a big A in the top left corner and B in the top right corner.

4. On the left hand side (the A side), they write down one of the expressions they have been working with. They then hand their paper to the person on their right who reacts to the expression on the B side. The paper is then returned to its original owner who continues the conversation. The students can shift the paper back and forth five times or so.

5. Both students then read out their dialogue.

List-Based StrategiesLists provide valuable learning opportunities: Make lists of word partners (including expressions) with their translation equivalent

(e.g. roundabout “bulatan” or toolbox “kotak peralatan”). Make lists of word partners (including expressions) with their translation equivalent

plus a hint in English ( .) (toolbox “kotak peralatan” tool). Make lists of word partners (including expressions) with one half in English and the

other half in translation (e.g. finishing “garisan”). Make lists of word partners (including expressions) with initials in different places

(e.g. “menubuhkan s.” “m. syarikat”). Make lists of word partners (including expressions) with a hint (e.g. raw materials |

oil).

Make a numbered list of word partners (including expressions) on a strip of brown cardboard and their translation on the other side. Students can hang this anywhere and use it to review collocations by going through the list and flipping the cardboard around to check answers.

A similar set of strategies involves partly ordered lists, spreads, split boards and split handouts. Any activity based on an existing text (e.g. “What did I say instead of ?”) can be used as a preamble to split boards or split handouts. The reading passage will probably contain some phrases or expressions that students need to remember better. Collocations, colligations, phrases, etc. are often easy enough to understand but this does not mean

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they are part of a learner’s productive vocabulary. To push these phrases from reception into production, (i.e., to convert input into intake), more hearing, deeper processing, and more repeated encounters may be required. One relatively straightforward technique is as follows:1. Split up the lexical or lexico-grammatical phrases into two parts and put them up on

the whiteboard randomly but on two sides, left and right.2. Students are asked to establish the link between the first part of a particular target

phrase (e.g. I feel ) and the second part (... the same way).3. The teacher can give students a little hint or mime something to get them to recreate

the whole target phrase (e.g. I feel the same way).

Alternatively, teachers can provide students with an A4 with all the phrases, ask them to fold the A4 in the middle and open it out. The students are asked to go through the same steps as listed earlier. This time, they can draw a line between the two parts. By folding the A4 sheet, the students get a neat little completion exercise (starting from either the first or second parts of the target phrases).

Card-Based StrategiesFinally, sets of shuffled cards can also motivate the more kinetic learners to focus on collocational and colligational expressions. On the basis of the lists with target phrases, one can make two-sided word cards: on one side of the card partnership words are written, while on the other side, the main partners are added. File these cards thematically, alphabetically or by some other principle (from long to short, from very frequent to less frequent, from “difficult” to “easy”, from unfamiliar to well-known) or even randomly (just put them into a shoebox or plastic bag). DISCUSSIONThough obviously full of potential, a collocational and colligational approach to teaching vocabulary has its limitations. The main reason is that, as in the Lexical Approach (Lewis, 1993), the Present-Practice-Produce paradigm is rejected in favour of a paradigm based on the Observe-Hypothesise-Experiment cycle (Harmer, 2001). Observing (as in noticing during intensive reading or listening) and subsequently forming one’s own hypotheses about the meaning of words and which words tend to collocate or colligate arguably take up more time than just being presented with the facts. As a result, nearly all of the activities are time-consuming; the main reason being that they are aimed at turning input into intake during class. Given the competing demands on the second-language teachers’ allocation of time (widening vocabulary, explaining basic grammar, providing incentives for extensive reading, practising essay writing, using linking words, enhancing listening comprehension, etc.), most teachers are restricted to giving input and practising the new input rather than real consolidation during classes. Much of the actual learning has to take place elsewhere in the student’s own time.

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Secondly, there is also a serious practical issue with teaching phrases, namely: the large number of phrases that can be formed from, say, the first 3,000 most common words in English is overwhelming (10 collocations per word). As Cobb (2003) observes, “ g iven that not all learners manage to learn 3000 basic words qua words, the idea of building a second phrasicon through deliberate instruction seems problematic”. A quick glance through the available collocational dictionaries like The BBI Dictionary of English Word

Combinations (Benson, Benson & Ilson, 1997), Dictionary of Selected Collocations (Hill & Lewis, 1997) or Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English (2002) is sufficient to reveal that the simplest of words especially (e.g. book) come with numerous collocations and not just compounds but also adjectives and verbs. There are so many collocations in common usage that teachers cannot begin to teach them all in class. Time has to be set aside, therefore, for helping students develop autonomous (i.e., out-of-class) learning methods, which will help them deepen their receptive and productive vocabulary.

A third limitation is that not all of these may work well at the higher education level. It takes courage to try and teach undergraduate students to sing a song Additionally, although mostly fun to do, some of the strategies discussed earlier may suffer from the “new toy” syndrome. Teachers can carry them out once or twice but not much more than that. The results of Rahimin and Momeni’s report (2011) are only confined to the secondary school level. Antle (2012), however, found that students’ perceptions of collocational activities in the classroom are positive, though not overwhelmingly so. Additionally, his study found that the number of targeted collocations has to be carefully chosen so as not to inundate learners.

As a final note, one should also take great care to select the right input materials (texts, collocations, expressions, etc.). After all, the purpose of these activities is to actually learn new vocabulary in class, and there is no time to “waste” on lexical items that are not maximally useful. As Boers et al., (2010) pointed out, maximal usefulness alone may be insufficient as a criterion for selecting the right input materials and much will depend on both the raw frequency of occurrence and psychological aspects such as cognitive salience and learnability. Though the later issues can be addressed through semantic and structural elaboration (Barcroft, 2002), it remains a fact that classrooms are heterogeneous and learners with different multiple intelligences will benefit differently from the strategies implemented.

CONCLUDING REMARKSThis study brought together a relatively wide range of activities that can be used in the second-language classroom. A common feature of the activities and strategies is that they foreground collocational and colligational fluency rather than single lexical items. However, from a lexical selection point of view, collocations act like “semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices for the speaker” (Sinclair, 1987, p. 320). This explains why they have to be noticed, stored, learnt and used as unanalysable wholes. As

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was observed earlier, vocabulary is learnt in stages, which take the learner from noticing to storing to activating the new vocabulary in social contexts. Current insights consider how lexis and grammar interface have extended this approach to include recurrent lexis-and-grammar patterns, i.e., the so-called colligations. Despite the theoretical rationale for a phraseological approach and the many useful pedagogical interventions based on it, many questions remain unanswered and many hypotheses untested. Boers et al. (2010) found that it is only recently that teaching/learning strategies are being examined by means of correlational or experimental research designs. Initial findings show that claims made in the early days can indeed be made robust through corpus analysis, empirical research and pre-post experiments. There will be fewer claims in future but they will be more substantiated. Pedagogical effectiveness should not be based on the current fad or trend but instead grounded in solid research. De Knop et al. (2010), for example, highlighted a number of focussed studies in which collocational teaching was shown to yield results superior to other methods. At the same time, Rasekh and Ranjbary (2003) and other scholars have shown that much can be expected from lexis-specific “learning to learn” strategies rather than trying to address vocabulary knowledge issues directly.


REFERENCESAntle, J. B. (2012). Two words are better than one. In A. Stewart & N. Sonda (Eds.),

JALT 2011 Conference Proceedings (pp. 704–712). Tokyo: JALT.Barcroft, J. (2002). Semantic and structural elaboration in L2 lexical acquisition.

Language Learning, 52(2), 323–363Barfield, A., & Gyllstad, H. (Eds.) (2009). Researching Collocations in Another

Language. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Benson, M., Benson, E., & Ilson, R. (Eds.) (1997). The BBI Dictionary of English Word

Combinations. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Boers, F., & Lindstromberg, S. (2008). Cognitive Linguistic Approaches to Teaching

Vocabulary and Phraseology. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Boers, F., De Rycker, T., & De Knop, S. (2010). Introduction. In S. De Knop, F. Boers,

& T. De Rycker (Eds.), Fostering Language Teaching Efficiency through Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 1–26). Applications of Cognitive Linguistics 17. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Bolinger, D. (1976). Meaning and memory. Forum Linguisticum, 1, 1–14. Cermak, L, & Craik, F. (1979). Levels of Processing in Human Memory. Hillsdale, NJ:

Erlbaum.Cobb, T. (2003). Review of Alison Wray (2002). Formulaic Language and the Lexicon.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6(1), 105–110.

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Daller, H., Milton, J., & Treffers-Daller, J. (2007). Modelling and Assessing Vocabulary

Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.De Knop, S., Boers, F., & De Rycker, T. (Eds.) (2010). Fostering Language Teaching

Efficiency through Cognitive Linguistics. Applications of Cognitive Linguistics 17. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Dellar, H., & Hocking, D. (2000). Innovations: An Intermediate/Upper Intermediate

Course. Hove: Language Teaching Publications.Ellis, G., & Sinclair, B. (1989). Learning to Learn English: A Course in Learning

Training. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Evert, S. (2004). The Statistics of Word Cooccurrences: Word Pairs and Collocations.

Unpublished PhD Dissertation. University of Stuttgart, Germany.Gairns, R., & Redman, S. (1986). Working with words: A Guide to Teaching and Learning

Vocabulary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Halliday, M. (1985). Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.Halliday, M., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Harmer, J. (2001). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow, UK: Pearson

Education Limited.Hatch, E., & Brown, C. (1995). Vocabulary, Semantics and Language Education.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Hill, J., & Lewis, M. (Eds.) (1997). Dictionary of Selected Collocations. Hove, UK:

Language Teaching Publications.Hoey, M. (1999). Patterns of Lexis in Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Hoey, M. (2000). A world beyond collocation: New perspectives on vocabulary teaching.

In M. Lewis (Ed.), Teaching Collocation: Further Developments in the Lexical

Approach (pp. 224–245). Hove, UK: Language Teaching Publications.Hoey, M. (2005). Lexical Priming: A New Theory of Words and Language. London:

Routledge.Jiang, J. (2009). Designing pedagogic materials to improve awareness and productive use

of L2 collocations. In A. Barfield & H. Gyllstad (Eds.), Researching Collocations in

Another Language (pp. 99–113). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Lewis, M., & Hill, J. (1992). Practical Techniques for Language Teaching. Hove, UK:

Language Teaching Publications.Lewis, M. (1993). The Lexical Approach. Hove, UK: Language Teaching Publications.Lewis, M. (1997). Implementing the Lexical Approach. Hove Language Teaching

Publications.Lewis, M. (1999). 10 Point Checklist “Of What We Know about Teaching”. In BESIG

Conference 1999: Proceedings of Annual Conference (pp. 7–8).Lewis, M. (Ed.) (2000). Teaching Collocation: Further Developments in the Lexical

Approach. Hove, UK: Language Teaching Publications.Milton, J. (2009). Measuring Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Bristol:

Multilingual Matters.

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Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English. (2002). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lindstromberg, S. (2005, March). New applications of the Lexical Approach for students of intermediate level and higher. Staff seminar held at Lessius Hogeschool, Antwerp, Belgium, 8 March.

Nation, I. S. P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.

Rahimi, M., & Momeni, G. (2011). The effect of teaching collocations on English language proficiency. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 31, 37–42.

Rasekh, ., & Ranjbary, R. (2003). Metacognitive strategy training for vocabulary learning. TESL-EJ, 7(2), 1 14.

Sinclair, J. (1987). Collocation: A progress report. In R. Steele & T. Threadgold (Eds.), Language Topics: Essays in Honour of Michael Halliday, Volume 2 (pp. 319 331). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Sinclair, J. (1991). Corpus, Concordance, Collocation: Describing English Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Skehan, P. (1998). A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wray, A. (2002). Formulaic Language and The Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Appendix A: Word Map

noun/adjective/... noun/adjective/...

verb + object subject + verb

fixed expressions

business

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Appendix B: Verb Map

subject

no preposition(in)direct objectobject complement

prepositionprepositional object

adverbial

fixed expressions

drive

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Students’ Perspectives on the Use of Peer Feedback in anEnglish as a Second Language Writing Class


AbstractPeer assessment and peer feedback are considered alternatives to teacher-based feedback and their effects on writing have been substantially researched. This study aims to examine the perspectives of a group of university students, who are mainly second language learners, on peer feedback in an English writing class. Many of the studies conducted on the perspectives of students regarding peer feedback provided conflicting findings. While some found that peer feedback was viewed with doubt and encouraged little revision, others found it helped learners to recognise their strengths and flaws in writing. This study aims to better understand students’ perspectives regarding peer feedback and to identify the concerns raised by students involved in the study. The findings from this study revealed that the participants of the study had a positive perspective on the use of peer feedback and on the use of an online peer feedback tool. The study also showed that past experience did not contribute towards a negative perspective of peer feedback among the participants. The findings from this study are useful for future research in designing a better peer feedback process and improve its implementation.

Key words: Peer feedback, online peer feedback, peer assessment, English as a second language learner, feedback tools

INTRODUCTIONThe use of peer assessment and peer feedback in English writing classrooms has been widely supported by many researches as a learning tool that holds a variety of benefits. However, the majority of the literature concerning peer feedback in English classrooms are focused on first-language learners (L1). Only a small number of research had studied the use of peer feedback in an English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom or among second-language learners (L2) of English. What is interesting to note is that research


Students’ Perspectives on the Use of Peer Feedback in an English as a Second Language Writing Class

Kavitha Sukumaran School of Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Arts, Taylor’s University, Malaysia

Rozita DassSchool of Education, Taylor’s University, Malaysia


* Corresponding author: Kavitha Sukumaran Email: [email protected]


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Kavitha Sukumaran & Rozita Dass


regarding peer feedback on L1 and L2 writing classes provided conflicting findings. In the case of L1 writing, studies showed that peer feedback was as effective as teacher comments whereas studies on L2 writing revealed that students mainly had doubts regarding the value of peer feedback ( hang, 1995; Cheng & Warren, 1997). On the other hand, Chaudron (1984) conducted an attitude survey and found that students had a more positive attitude if feedback was received from native speakers, suggesting that “foreign students are cautious about the value of peer feedback as a source of aid in revising their writing” (p.10). Smith, Cooper & Lancaster (2002) in their research on peer feedback in a L2 classroom highlighted that although students expressed a higher level of confidence in the peer feedback process over time and continual experience, there still remained within them an ‘‘unease about fairness and consistency regarding peer feedback’’ (p. 76).

Although these studies documented students’ attitudes toward peer feedback, they offered absolute no information on the factors that cause such negative attitudes. Most research provided a qualitative observation of what may have caused such perspectives, for example, Liu & Carless (2006) noted that one reason being that students doubt the expertise of their fellow students (as compared to their instructors) or the problematic power relations that students associate with assessing their peers (Falchikov, 2001; Liu & Carless, 2006; Smith et al., 2002). These studies indicate that students are not comfortable with the non-traditional idea of their peers assessing their writing in place of an instructor.

In order to encourage the use of peer feedback in an ESL classroom and recognise the benefits from using peer feedback, studies have been carried out to identify certain steps to alleviate students’ negative perspectives of peer feedback. Some have advocated for teachers to include more peer feedback experience (Wen & Tsai, 2006), to provide more clarity about peer feedback criteria (Falchikov, 2001; Smith et al., 2002) and to provide support and training with regards to the peer feedback process (Cheng & Warren, 1997; Falchikov, 2001). Liu, Chiu, Lin & Yuan (1999) also indicated that online feedback systems may reduce the negative perspectives of peer feedback because of the anonymity of the reviewer which reduces the problematic power relations that appear between peers when assessing. This method also frees writers and reviewers from time and location constraints to complete their work as well as facilitates an increased teacher-student and student-student interaction and feedback. However, these recommendations are not based on empirical evidence about the origins of students’ anxiety and negativity about peer feedback. As such, there is a need for further investigation into students’ perspectives on peer feedback and factors that influence such perspectives.

The main purpose of this study is to understand how students perceive peer feedback in an English writing class with mainly L2 users. This study makes use of an online peer feedback tool which takes into account the major concerns students had regarding peer feedback in previous studies. The concerns of students regarding the use of peer feedback

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and the online peer feedback were also investigated. Information gathered would be used to create and implement a better peer feedback tool in the ESL writing class.

REVIEW OF LITERATUREPeer Assessment and Peer Feedback in GeneralPeer assessment and peer feedback have recently been used in higher education institutions as an alternative feedback method. Falchikov (1995) defined peer assessment and peer feedback as the practice through which groups of individuals provide formative reviews or summative grading for their peers. Falchikov (2001) further elaborated the concept of peer assessment:

In peer assessment, members of the class grade the work or performance of their peers using relevant criteria In peer assessment, students engage in reflective criticism of the work or performance of other students using previously identified criteria and supply feedback to them (pp. 2-3).

Therefore, a peer feedback exercise entails students using their knowledge and skills to review and clarify works of their peers (Ballantyne, Hughes & Mylonas, 2002). Due to the highly cognitive demand of these tasks, the quality of learning is improved and learners are empowered, especially the student assessors (McDowell, 1995; Topping, 1998). Student involvement can be directly seen not only in the final judgement of the student work but also in the selection of the achievement criteria (Biggs, 1999; Brown, Rust & Gibbs, 1994).

Thus the whole process of peer feedback inspires students to be critical, autonomous learners as they become more adept at using feedback criteria and developing a clearer notion of the topic that is assessed (Falchikov, 1995; Searby & Ewers, 1997). If peer feedback is thoughtfully carried out, it can assist the student in developing various learning and life skills, as in learner responsibility, thinking strategies and appraisal skills.

Studies on Students’ Perspectives of Peer FeedbackMany studies established that students view the use of peer feedback positively. Warkentin, Griffin, Quinn & Griffin (1995) explored peer and self-assessment in a study involving 83 undergraduate educational psychology students. The study showed that the students reacted significantly positive towards the peer and self-assessment process and they thought it contributed to their learning.

In Gatfield’s (1999) and Stefani’s (1994) studies, student attitudes regarding peer assessment were also explored. Gatfield (1999) utilised peer assessment in an international marketing management course and got students to provide feedback regarding their attitudes on the peer assessment that was conducted. Data analysis showed there was a

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high level of student satisfaction. In Stefani’s study (1994), students revealed that peer assessment made them think more, and 85 of the students preferred peer assessment in the learning process in comparison to traditional assessment.

On the other hand, not all students who had to undergo peer assessment had positive views of the assessments. In several studies, the concerns and negative perspectives of students regarding peer feedback were explored. Lopez-Real & Chan (1999) carried out peer feedback with a group of students at Hong Kong University and assessed it using questionnaires and in-depth interviews. Their findings showed that, although most of the students revealed that the peer feedback had improved their contribution in the project, some of the students stated that they were uncomfortable when assessing their peers. They did not want to use comments like “Fair” or “Poor” on their peers because they believed this could affect the person’s feelings, spoil relationships, and make the student look bad to the teacher and other students.

Brindley and Scoffield (1998) studied a sample of 80 students regarding their attitudes and experience of a peer feedback exercise. Several students highlighted the limitations of peer feedback, such as personal bias on the feedback exercise, the interpretation of criteria, and the capacity of the students to be reviewers. Some students viewed peer feedback as a motivation to accomplish the task, while others saw it as an unfair system that lacked reliability. More than half the students considered feedback and marking as a role exclusively for the teacher.

In terms of studies regarding peer feedback in English writing classrooms, hang (1995) pointed out that ESL students generally favour feedback from their teachers rather than peers. Students are generally unclear about the objective and benefits of peer feedback. L2 learners generally feel that only a better writer or a native speaker is qualified to judge or comment on their written work and that feedback received from peers whose English level is approximately the same as theirs is a poor substitute to the teacher’s written feedback.

Similarly, Cheng & Warren (1997) studied the attitudes of 52 undergraduate Hong Kong Chinese students enrolled in a English for Academic Purposes class towards peer assessment, prior to and after a peer assessment activity. At first, students were not entirely at ease or confident in their skills to review their peers. After the peer assessment activity was conducted, however, there was an overall positive change in both attitude and confidence. The study indicated that there was still a number of students who continued feeling negative about peer assessment for the following reasons: the students did not feel competent enough to award marks, the students doubted their own as well as the peer’s subjectivity when awarding marks, students felt limited training was provided for peer feedback, and felt that the responsibility to award marks to peers was too big.

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Recommendations by Previous Studies on Peer Assessment and Peer FeedbackAlthough most studies revealed that ESL students preferred teacher feedback, some students still wanted feedback from peers as one type of response on their work (Cheng & Warren, 1997). This positive attitude can be further enhanced by taking into account the concerns raised by students. Cheng & Warren (1997) proposed that in order to help students cultivate positive attitudes towards peer assessment, it was necessary to : a) provide comprehensive training to them, b) involve them in the discussion of establishing feedback criteria, c) come to a mutual agreement between teacher and students on the appropriate weightage of the final grade/mark, and d) instil a sense of awareness and responsibility in the group of students. Bloxham & West (2004) also explored how training provision for the assessment process might develop students’ understanding of assessment criteria. Their findings revealed that students believed that the feedback criteria appeared to help them improve their performance and mark their peers’ work more accurately.

Another aspect to be taken into account in peer feedback is subjectivity and prejudice and one way to avoid them is through online peer feedback. Li & Steckelberg’s (2006) study that explored students’ perspectives and attitudes toward online peer feedback revealed that one of the features that was well-liked was the anonymity aspect provided by this online peer feedback system. This method provided a “calmer” environment and lessened the feeling of pressure from peers. By ensuring student anonymity, it minimises the effect of peer pressure, therefore making the feedback more accurate. As such, Li & Steckelberg (2006) suggested using online feedback systems that guarantee anonymity to lessen peer pressure, which seems to contribute directly to the negative outlook on peer feedback.

The literature on peer feedback outlines the benefits of implementing peer feedback in a classroom and reveals that students generally have a positive attitude when involved in the process itself. However, there are a number of students who continue to have negative perspectives regarding peer assessment and grading by peers. This negative perspective implies that improvements must be made to the whole process of peer feedback. This study thus intends to design peer feedback in a writing classroom that takes into account the various issues that have been raised by students in previous studies.

METHODOLOGYResearch DesignThis study used a mixed methods approach. The primary source of data for this study came from questionnaires and open-ended questions administered to each participant in the study. The administration of the questionnaires and open-ended questions were conducted after students had received their final feedback from their peers and completed their final essay draft. By combining the datasets, the problem could be better understood than if datasets from either quantitative or qualitative approach had been used on their own.

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A quantitative approach might have excluded important perspectives about how students perceive peer feedback individually in the collaborative learning environment, therefore open-ended questions were employed as well to uncover personal experiences, feelings or perspectives that might be significant to the central research questions. According to Creswell (1999), the use of mixed methods research provides more comprehensive evidence for studying a research problem than either quantitative or qualitative methods alone.

Population and SampleThe participants chosen for this study were final year students who were undertaking a culinary arts degree. There were two main reasons for choosing this group of students as the participants of the study. The first reason was the course that these students were taking has an English language learning module which requires them to write academic essays as well as creative food write-ups as part of the learning outcome. This enabled the researcher to conduct writing tasks and implement peer feedback for those tasks. Secondly, the researcher had access to a wide range of the participants’ activities as the researcher was also the teacher for the particular module the participants were taking. This allowed the researcher to be able to observe almost all of the participants’ activities and help students who had problems during the course. As such, participants were able to feel comfortable with the presence of the researcher and this in turn, created a mutual relationship of trust.

Instrumentation and Data CollectionTo understand what students think about peer feedback and online peer feedback, a 4-point Likert scale questionnaire and 5 open-ended questions that were based on previous studies (Brindley & Scoffield, 1998; Cheng & Warren, 1997; Falchikov, 1995) was developed.

Before the participants provided feedback on their peers’ essays, they were trained by the researcher on how and what to provide feedback on. They were also taught to use the Workshop module under the TIMES (Taylor’s Integrated Moodle E-Learning System) which is a Web-based client-server application that allows students to submit their essay drafts online. The Workshop module was the online peer feedback tool that was used for this study. Each draft was then distributed to two students who reviewed and evaluated their peers’ work. The reviews that the students submitted back to their peers must include written feedback. When all the reviews were received, the Workshop module provided students with their peers’ feedback. After receiving their reviews, students rewrote their papers and turned in a final draft to the teacher who assessed the paper. For this study, the participants were engaged in this writing-reviewing-revising-reviewing process for each paper that they wrote.

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The participants were subjected to a survey that analysed three dimensions, namely positive attitude, online attitude and negative attitude, after the peer review exercise. The five open-ended questions that were also included investigated about the students’ perspectives and concerns on peer feedback and the use of an online feedback system:1) How did you feel when you had to assess your peer?2) Why do you think peer review has been placed in this course?3) Do you have any concerns regarding the use of peer feedback?4) Do you have any concerns regarding the use of online peer feedback?5) What is your general view regarding using an online peer feedback tool compared to

a normal peer feedback exercise?

The scores for each dimension were obtained by adding the scores from the items of the same subscale and then dividing by the number of items in that subscale.

Ethical ConsiderationsWhen conducting the study, participants were informed of the procedures involved in the study and the potential problems that may arise from it. For example, students who were unfamiliar with the use of online feedback tools or uncomfortable with using technology-assisted learning may find the process of reviewing their peers using an online tool too difficult. Students who faced such complications with the system were given the necessary help or an alternative was provided to them by getting them to review without the online tool. Participants’ confidentiality was maintained and they were informed that their responses in the survey would not affect their grades in any way. Only when students had consented to participate in the study after being informed of the necessary details, were they allowed to participate in research. In addition, the participants were also assured that they could withdraw from the study at any time.

FINDINGSInstrument validationThe first part of the questionnaire contained 19 Likert scale statements (1 to 4) concerning the use of peer feedback with “1” indicating strong agreement and “4” indicating strong disagreement (2.5 being the neutral value). The exploratory factor analysis of the 4-point Likert questionnaire yielded 3 subscales and 19 items (Table 1). Based on the characteristics they shared, the three subscales were called Positive Attitude Subscale (PAS), Online Attitude Subscale (OAS) and Negative Attitude Subscale (NAS). PAS contained 12 items related to students’ positive attitude towards peer feedback in general. These items asked the perspectives of students on the usefulness of peer feedback in learning, in enhancing classroom interactions and the element of fairness. OAS comprised five online related items, including the advantage of online peer feedback to save time, increased classroom interactions and fairness. The last subscale, NAS, had two items describing peer feedback in a negative sense. These items described the time-consuming

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aspect of peer feedback and students’ perspective on who should be responsible for providing feedback.

Table 1. Description of subscalesSubscale Item and description n Mean SD

PAS 1. Peer feedback is helpful in improving the quality of my written work

2. Peer feedback makes me understand more about the teacher’s requirement for a written work

3. Providing feedback for others can improve my skills in assessing my own written work

4. Peer feedback activities motivate me to learn to write better

5. Peer feedback activities increase the interaction between my teacher and me

6. Peer feedback helps me develop a sense of participation in my writing class

11

11

11

11

11

11

1.91

1.82

1.82

2.00

2.00

2.09

0.539

0.405

0.751

0.447

0.894

0.539

7. Peer feedback activities increase the interaction between my classmates and me

8. I think using peer feedback is a useful method in providing feedback to students

13. Peer feedback activities help me understand what other classmates think

14. Having a criteria for peer feedback helps me to construct meaningful feedback

15. Students should participate in the development of criteria for peer feedback activities

17. There should be a sample essay and sample feedback given to help with the peer feedback process

11

11

11

11

11

11

1.82

1.64

1.64

1.82

2.18

1.64

0.751

0.505

0.674

0.751

0.874

0.505

OAS 9. Online peer feedback activities can be time-saving

10. Online peer feedback activities can increase the interaction among classmates

11. Online peer feedback activities can increase the interaction between the teacher and students

12. Online peer feedback activities is a fair method when used to provide feedback to students

16. The aspect of anonymity in online peer feedback activities enable me to provide a more critical feedback

11

11

11

11

11

1.91

2.64

2.45

2.09

1.64

0.831

0.505

0.688

0.539

0.674

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NAS 17. I think students should not be responsible for providing feedback on peers’ written work

18. Online peer feedback is time-consuming

11

11

1.91

2.27

0.831

0.647

The composite reliability of this 19-item instrument was 0.69 which was within the acceptable reliability value.

Overall AttitudeThe overall attitude of the respondents is shown in Table 2. Results from the analysis showed that respondents generally had a very positive attitude towards peer feedback (mean 1.96, s 0.25).

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for overall attituden Mean SD

PAS, OAS & NAS 11 1.96 0.257

Responses to OASA detailed descriptive analysis of the participants’ responses in the OAS subscale is presented in Table 3. Item 9 asked students if online peer feedback can be time-saving, item 10 asked if online peer feedback activities can increase interaction among classmates, item 11 questioned if online peer feedback activities could increase interaction between teacher and students, item 12 inquired if online peer feedback is a fair method when used to provide feedback and item 16 sought to determine if the aspect of anonymity in online peer feedback activities enables the student to provide a more critical feedback. A sample t-test was conducted to compare the mean of students’ responses to these items with the value 2.5 (a value of equal to or lesser than 2.5 meant that students viewed the item positively). Table 3 confirms that students perceive positively (statistically) the benefits of online peer feedback. A highly positive attitude was seen for the anonymity aspect of the online peer feedback activity (item 16, mean 1.91) and its time-saving factor (item 9, mean 1.91). A more negative attitude was seen regarding increasing classroom interaction through the online peer feedback activity (item 10, mean 2.64 and item 11, mean 2.54).

Table 3. Descriptive statistics and one sample t-test of OAS item responsesItem N Mean SD T

9 11 1.91 0.831 -2.35810 11 2.64 0.505 0.89611 11 2.45 0.688 -0.21912 11 2.09 0.539 -2.51616 11 1.64 0.674 -4.249

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DISCUSSIONAs this study is an initial attempt to investigate peer feedback, the composite reliability measure of 0.69 is acceptable; however, this instrument needs to be revised in future to achieve a better reliability score. Using the data deduced from the factor analysis, several t-tests were conducted and two interesting points emerged. Firstly, past experience in peer feedback did not play much of a role in the students’ attitudes towards peer feedback. 54 (9 respondents) of the participants in the study had never been exposed to peer feedback before and this implies that in this study, the reluctance towards peer feedback is not necessarily affected by the lack of past experience with peer feedback. The responses given by the participants in the open-ended question section reiterated this as 81 of participants gave a positive response towards the question “What did you feel when you had to assess and provide feedback to your peers?” The response most often cited was that it gave students the opportunity to find different writing ideas (27 ) and that students were able to learn from their peers (27 ). These positive responses corresponded with the mean obtained from items 1 and 3 (Table 1) of the questionnaire which asked if the students felt that peer feedback helped improve their writing and whether peer feedback enabled them to learn from their peers.

One student’s response to this question sums up the attitude of a majority of the participants regarding the use of peer feedback:

“I feel it is one way to learn instead of just assessing other’s work. From others’ writings, there can be styles that may be used by the author that is relevant and new to me.”

18 of the participants (2 respondents) initially had negative feelings which later turned into a positive attitude regarding the use of peer feedback. One respondent mentioned:

“Uncomfortable initially but felt normal after a period of time.”

and another respondent who viewed the difficulty of providing feedback from the standpoint of a teacher:

a or hea ache o no ho ifficu t a teacher s ife can e

Both these responses do not show a complete adverse reaction towards peer feedback but merely showcased the initial reaction and understanding of the complexity of the activity.

An itemised analysis of the descriptive information from the OAS subscale showed that students agreed that online peer feedback was very beneficial especially in terms of the anonymity that it creates for the user and the time-saving factor. This is also supported by the open-ended question which asked “What is your general view regarding using an

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online peer feedback tool as compared to a normal peer feedback exercise?” 54 of the participants answered that it was less time-consuming and saves money from not having to print the essays. The participants also liked the anonymity that an online peer feedback tool provides, citing reasons like:

“Being online helps me to be more critical and generally not partial to my peers’ feelings”

and

“It is or is at least more fair under the face of anonymity.”

However, the statistical analysis on OAS revealed that students did not have a highly positive perspective that online peer feedback activities could be advantageous in increasing interaction in the classroom. It is possible that students treated the online peer feedback method as only a technical tool to facilitate communications and to upload and download classroom assignments rather than a process of learning and sharing experiences. If so, then online peer feedback is perceived only as an exercise for information delivery and communication. Therefore, in implementing online peer feedback, educators need to design appropriate strategies to help students focus more on the learning processes involved in peer feedback activities and not simply on the technical support of the Internet technology. Instead of just allocating the essays to the reviewer, the peer feedback tool should enable students to communicate with the writer of the essay so that questions arising during the review process can be communicated.

Lastly, the open-ended questions of “Do you have any concerns regarding the use of peer feedback?” and “Do you have any concerns regarding the use of online peer feedback?” sought to understand better the negative attitudes of the participants which could not be captured from the statistical analysis. 63 of participants replied that they had no concerns for peer feedback and the use of an online tool for peer feedback. However, two common concerns for both methods of providing feedback was the issue of fairness with one participant asking:

“Do our peers actually understand how to evaluate our essays?”

and feedback being too critical with a participant saying:

“I’m scared they comment very negatively till I lost the motivation to write.”

These concerns resemble issues highlighted by students in similar studies (Lopez-Real & Chan, 1999; Chang & Warren, 1997) with students feeling uncomfortable about the peer feedback process and some students feeling that the process of providing feedback is best done by the teacher.

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CONCLUSIONThe findings from this study found that the participants viewed positively general and online peer feedback activities but they generally seem to consider online peer feedback as a technical tool rather than a tool for interaction among classmates and teacher. The instrument designed in this study could be used in future to examine changes in students’ attitude before and after a peer feedback (or an online peer feedback) exercise. More in-depth interviews with students coupled with the use of this instrument may provide a fuller understanding of students’ views towards online peer feedback methods in the context of learning. One may also argue that different online peer feedback activities may have different effects upon students’ acceptance of peer feedback; however, this point needs to be supported by further research. More research integrating the use of interviews and quantitative instruments, such as the one developed in this study, may also reveal students’ views toward peer feedback using online interfaces and the relationship between feedback and learning processes/outcomes.

Although students are mostly in favour of peer feedback, there is a need to consider the minority who had expressed their concerns towards the notion of peer feedback. The comments of these students indicate that students’ understanding of the feedback criteria is crucial at every stage of a peer feedback exercise. There are good reasons, both pedagogical and psychological, for giving systematic and comprehensive training to students, involving students in discussing and establishing the feedback criteria (see for example, Williams, 1992, pp. 52-55), and building up a sense of awareness and responsibility in the group of students. These measures should go a long way in ensuring that the peer feedback exercise is administered fairly and responsibly as well as helping students to feel more comfortable about the whole activity.


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Brindley, C. & Scoffield, S. (1998). Peer assessment in undergraduate programs. Teaching in Higher Education, 3(1), 79–89.

Brown, S., Rust, C. & Gibbs, G. (1994). Strategies for diversifying assessment in higher education. Oxford, UK: Oxford Centre for Staff Development.

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Searby, M. & Ewers, T. (1997). An evaluation of the use of peer assessment in higher education: A case study in the School of Music, Kingston University. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 22(4), 371–383.

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The Need for Scientific Experiments: The Experience of Pre-service Science Teachers


AbstractThe availability of scientific information nowadays necessitates scientifically literate learners and teachers well versed in both content and nature of science . espite a clear description of in the alaysian ducation lueprint elements have been sidelined by educational practices in alaysia. This study illuminates the conceptions of pre service science teachers in alaysia about one aspect of the purpose for scientific e perimentation. phenomenographic approach was used to achieve this aim where pre service teachers were interviewed. indings revealed three categories namely a periments prove b periments invent and c periments support ideas. The findings also inferred that there are more ways to conceptualise the purpose of scientific e periments other than what has been previously reported. This paper concludes with suggestions on improving the current practices of e perimentation in schools and calls for a rethink on the current teachers preparatory course in alaysia.

Key words: ature of cience scientific e perimentation pre service teachers alaysia scientific literacy

INTRODUCTIONThe exponential growth of technologies has fostered dynamism in various walks of life. It has also vastly transformed and continues to transform the education system and at the same time, bring in cohorts of learners who grow up surrounded by digital media. These learners are different as they learn in non-linear ways through a myriad of gadgets, enabling them to communicate with others and gain information virtually (Pedro, 2006). The current information age exposes them to overwhelming scientific and pseudo-scientific information over the net. Consequently, the demand of teachers in



Jasmine Jain Taylor’s University, Malaysia

Nabilah Abdullah & Beh Kian LimUniversiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia


* Correspondence author: Jasmine Jain Email: [email protected]


42

Jasmine Jain, Nabilah Abdullah & Beh Kian Lim


the present century is increasingly changing as they are now required to not only teach science content, but at the same time cultivate scientific literacy among their students.

LITERATURE REVIEWLiteracy in Science“Scientific literacy” refers to the skills “essential for effective citizenship” (Hurd, 1958, p.13). The need for scientific literacy has evolved over the decades where the mere aim of producing scientists in 1960s has changed into nurturing citizens who can make informed scientific decisions in the 21st century (Kings, 2002). Every individual is expected to be able to make sound decisions in their daily life, considering the impact science and technology have on the society today (DeBoer, 2000). Such heightened need is reflected in numerous reform documents and has been made the primary objective of science education worldwide (AAAS, 1990; NRC, 1996; Chen, Shi & u, 2009; Chai, Deng & Tsai, 2012).

Similarly, science education in Malaysia urges students to be scientifically literate to shoulder the vision laid out by the former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. Vision 2020 which envisions the growth of Malaysia as a developed country with a mature economy by the year 2020 lists scientific society as one of the challenges to be met (Department of Information Malaysia, 2012). It is detailed as follows:

The sixth is the challenge of establishing a scientific and progressive society, a society that is innovative and forward-looking, one that is not only a consumer of technology but also a contributor to the scientific and technological civilisation of the future (para. 12).

The challenge details the need for all Malaysian citizens to be independent and become sound decision makers of issues pertaining to science.

Corresponding to the importance of being literate in science, academicians and researchers have put forth various ideas in fostering such literacy among learners from a young age. One of the strongly proposed paths is ensuring that learners understand well the nature of scientific knowledge.

Nature of ScienceUnderstanding of scientific content alone is insufficient for an individual to understand and apply science effectively. Various reform documents in science education have regarded the understanding of Nature of Science (henceforth NOS in this paper) as a critical factor in being scientifically literate (NGSS, 2013; AAAS, 1990; NRC, 1996; Chen et al., 2009; Chai et al., 2012). NOS is widely referred in the literature as an epistemology of science or how science is done (Lederman, 1992; Keiser, 2010). It describes how scientific knowledge is developed as a result of human endeavour to

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understand the world. Various research and documents have supported the benefits of understanding NOS, which include helping learners to understand why certain ideas in science are changeable, thus

promoting better science understanding where scientific contents are concerned (Tobias, 1990)

assisting learners in engaging and solving real life scientific issues (AAAS, 1990; NRC, 1996)

improving learners’ general understanding in science (Smith, 2010) advocating critical thinking and analysis in using science knowledge in daily life

(Wheeler-Toppen, 2005).

Other than the students, it is also documented that diverse groups such as practitioners and educators should achieve NOS understanding standard because every group is part of an interconnecting system (NRC, 1996). A successful achievement of NOS hence is dependent on the accomplishment of all respective groups making up the system (NRC, 1996). This includes the need for teachers to have sound NOS understanding so that they will not impart their naive understanding to students.

Despite acknowledging the importance of understanding NOS, disputes among sociologists, historians, scientists and academicians in regard to what constitutes NOS remained unsettled due to the distinctive paradigms adopted by these groups. However, Lederman (1992) argued that there is a set of consensus which is non-controversial and pertinent to be highlighted to K-12 students for the sake of science literacy. Among them are: (i) the tentativeness of scientific knowledge, (ii) the creativity and imagination in science, (iii) the nature of experimentation in science, and (iv) the social and cultural embeddedness of science. In this paper, only the conceptions about the nature of experimentation as part of the research participants’ understanding of NOS are reported.

NOS in Malaysian Science EducationConsistent with the global aim of science education, Malaysian science education also highlights similar interest for NOS understanding among science students. The Ministry of Education in Malaysia has enumerated 11 objectives emphasising students’ critical thinking skills with 2 of these objectives focusing on NOS understanding (2006, p. 5). They are:

Second objective: Understand the developments in the field of science and technology.

Tenth objective: Realise that scientific discoveries are the result of human endeavour to the best of his or her intellectual and mental capabilities to understand natural phenomena for the betterment of mankind.

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However, it is common to find a gap between the desired and actual outcome. A close scrutiny on the local science curriculum revealed that the features of NOS are not explicitly highlighted to learners despite the emphasis on inquiry-learning specified in the school’s science curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2005). The only experiment which aims to reflect scientists’ endeavour in understanding the world is the “black box” experiment. This experiment constitutes one of the experiments in the Science subject at Form One level, and is the sole experiment which reflects the endeavor of scientists in the five year span of science learning in secondary school.

Past Research—Global settingA prominent study that investigated the understanding of aims and structure of experimentation was conducted by Abd-El-Khalick (Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell & Schwartz, 2002). Abd-El-Khalick revised the VNOS (B) in heeding the need to address the experimental aspect in science. VNOS (B) was improvised to VNOS(C) with the addition of two items to assess the understanding of the aim and structure of science by various groups. It was revealed that most respondents defined experiments as “procedures” or “a sequence of steps” which are used to answer relevant scientific questions. This was consistent with McComas’ descriptions on the common myths held about NOS (1998). Lederman et al. (2002) drew similar claims based on their study. The researchers alleged that their respondents who held sophisticated views on NOS understood that experiments are conducted to validate ideas but the naive ones viewed experiments as activities to “prove” a theory. Lederman et al. further clarified the word “prove” when their respondents explicated their understanding of “prove” as “proven by collecting evidences and doing experiments” (2002, p.510).

The use of the VNOS(C) was also extended to other distinct groups, namely pre-service elementary teachers (Abd-El-Khalick, 2001) as well as pre-service and practising secondary science teachers (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Lederman, Schwartz, Abd-El-Khalick & Bell, 2001; Schwartz, Lederman, & Crawford, 2004). Although all the forementioned studies utilised VNOS (C) and reported that their respondents have both “naive” and “informed” views, it was found that the differences were not highlighted despite the large contrast between the two categories. The problem with such dichotomous classification is the lack of details on the exact understanding held by the participants of the studies. An attempt to close this gap was carried out by Keiser (2010) in his doctoral thesis, where he investigated high school chemistry students’ understanding of NOS using an in-depth approach and deriving further categories from raw excerpts. His analyses resulted in three categories namely “Experiment test”, “Experiment prove” and “Experiment discover”.

Past research—Local settingThe heightened need for NOS understanding has also prompted several studies to be conducted in the local settings. Most of the studies conducted in Malaysia used Nature

45



of Science Knowledge Scale (NSKS) developed by Rubba and Anderson (1978) in their research to gauge the understanding of NOS among their subjects of study. The studies were largely similar, where sets of NSKS instrument were used to gauge the NOS understanding of Form Five students (Sivaratnam, 2004), Lower Form Six students (Eng, 2002), and pre-university students (Sathasivam, 2002). All three studies delivered a somewhat average percentage (over 50%) mean score for NOS understanding and concluded that the understanding of their research participants were “satisfactory”. However, an action research investigating the effectiveness of NOS instruction in a local university claimed contrasting findings. Through a pre-test, it was revealed that 94.2 of the pre-service biology teachers felt that theories are the true depiction of the world which provides facts and proof while a substantial 77.8% believed that experiments in science generate proof for theories (Jain, Beh & Abdullah, 2013). Through a two-tiered instrument, the participants of the study provided naive views in almost all the NOS aspects that were investigated which led to the conclusion that there is inadequate understanding of NOS among the participants of the study (Jain et al., 2013).

A justification made for using NSKS as an instrument in the studies was the assumption that the local respondents understood and interpreted the statements in the instrument in the same way as the instrument developers (Sivaratnam, 2004). However, scholars are of the opinion that Malaysia with its different religious denominations and societal values puts it in a unique position when compared with Western countries such as the United States (Sutherland & Dennick, 2002; Karabenick & Moosa, 2005; Chai et al., 2012). Besides that, reports from the local research did not specifically probe on the facet of experimentation. An in-depth study as presented in this paper intends to close this gap by illuminating more details about the conceptions of pre-service science teachers’ understanding.

The StudyThis paper focuses on the conceptions held by pre-service science teachers in regard to the aim of scientific experimentation. In the effort to probe such conceptions, the following question was posed:

What is the variation in conceptions held by pre-service science teachers about the aim of scientific experimentations based on their experience?

By understanding the variation of the pre-service teachers’ understanding, further initiatives can be taken to specifically target these conceptions during the NOS instruction at the teacher preparatory level.

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METHODOLOGYThe data for the present study was collected through a phenomenographic approach where 10 first year pre-service science teachers from a university in Selangor, Malaysia were interviewed. These pre-service teachers are in the first semester of their freshman year, anticipating to graduate from the four-year program and become science educators in Malaysian secondary schools.

Phenomenography is regarded as the best method for this study because it describes a phenomenon as experienced by individuals (Marton & Booth, 1997). Phenomenography adopts a second-order perspective in which it solely describes the conceptions held by the participants without injecting the researcher’s conceptions (Trigwell, 2000). Hence, it provides a holistic way of describing conceptions and allows a wider range of conceptions to be captured (Bruce, 1999).

The interview sessions were guided by a semi-structured interview guide consisting of items adopted from VNOS (C) developed by Lederman and his team (Lederman et al., 2002). The items chosen were intended to probe the participants’ conceptions about the aim of experimentation in science. A panel of five experts who validated the instrument suggested that the participants should draw their mental images of “scientific experiments”. This is to ensure that the participants are inferring to the same meaning of experimentation as perceived by the researchers. A pilot study was then carried out with another two pre-service science teachers who are in their first year, resulting in the revision of items to ensure the interview guide was clarified well. The questions asked during the interviews are as follows:

a) Can you please draw the first image which comes to your mind when I mention “scientific experiment”? Papers and pen were provided

b) Why do you think we need to conduct experiment in science? OR What is the purpose of experimentation in science?

Additionally, the quality and rigor of the present study was enhanced through the framework of awareness used at the outset of the study (Sin, 2010). A phenomenographic study pinned to the structure of awareness is regarded as integrated and internally consistent, making it defensible (Cope, 2004; Smith, 2010; Sin, 2010). The purpose of such framework is discussed in the next section.

Due to the ontological and epistemological perspectives adopted by phenomenography which is different from other qualitative studies, the validity and reliability of findings are dealt with differently (Morse, Barett, Mavan, Olson & Spiers, 2002). The validity of the analysed data was established using the communicative and pragmatic validity (Sandberg, 2000) while its reliability was established through inter-judge communicability (Saljo, 1988) and interpretive awareness (Sandberg, 1997).

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The Framework of AwarenessFrom the phenomenographic perspective, an individual must be aware of something in order to experience it (Marton & Booth, 1997). As experience is always within the context of a phenomenon, an individual’s experience about a phenomenon depends on how his or her awareness is structured. Marton and Booth (1997, p.87) explained that there are two aspects in which experience can be conceptualised, namely the “referential” and the “structural” aspects. The referential aspect refers to what is experienced, that is, the meaning of the phenomenon as experienced, while the structural aspect focuses on how an individual thinks about the phenomenon through his or her experiences. However, individuals can be aware of the myriad phenomena at the same time but not in the same way. There are three levels of awareness namely theme, thematic field and margin (Gurwitsch, 1964). They are elaborated as follows:

Theme: The concepts which are focused upon when contemplating about a phenomenon.Thematic field: Other conceptions which exist but are not focused upon.Margin: The field where the themes are derived from.

In the present study, initial responses provided by the participants when answering the questions in regard to scientific experimentation (the phenomenon) inferred the attached meaning brought to the fore of their awareness (theme) as they reflect about the phenomenon. Besides that, it was mentioned earlier that the participants were required to draw their first mental image of the word “experiment”. It should be clarified at this juncture that no specific way was used to analyse the drawings. It is regarded sufficient as long as the drawings by the participants inferred the same meaning of experiment as the researcher’s.

FINDINGSThe drawings provided by the participants depicted that experiments in science are generally activities carried out in an enclosed laboratory with science apparatuses and chemicals. It was found that all the notions of “scientific experiment” are as intended by the researcher, signalling a unanimous meaning of “scientific experiment” between the researcher and research participants. These images are provided in the appendix.The findings revealed that the conceptualisation of experiments in the context of Science can be categorised into three groups. The aim of experiments has been associated with proving ideas or theories, for invention and supporting ideas. These three categories refer to the three distinctive ways participants of the present study conceptualise the aim of scientific experiments.

a) Category 1: Experiments prove The understanding under this category was inferred by 6 out of 10 participants,

implying it as the most typical way participants perceive reasons for experiments

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to be conducted. The theme brought to the participants’ awareness in this category emphasised the generation of proofs through scientific experimentation. Proofs generated in the form of experimental data are regarded as the concrete evidences for scientists to claim that theories are true. The following excerpt illustrates such notion:

“There must be experiments behind all theories...so that we have concrete evidences to support that the theories are true. All of the theories I learnt have been experimented before they were derived.” (R9)

Another participant, R10 also echoed similar sentiments.

“...cannot just observe, they have to conduct experiments...they can produce theory [only through that way]. It means that, theory is different [during observations] and they will realize that it is different when they investigate it further E eri ent is to confir the theory Theory has to go through e eri ent to no that it is rea to confir it

The thematic field of this category consisted of the experiences the participants have had in science learning where they articulated examples arising from experiments they have conducted. On the other hand, the margin of their awareness stemmed from the conception that scientific experiments are processes which filter true theories from the “wrong” ones. Hence, scientific knowledge is regarded as an absolute knowledge that has been repeatedly validated to ensure its truth.

b) Category 2: Experiments invent This category was inferred to by only two participants. The focal of this category

viewed experiments in science as a route for discovery and invention of new knowledge. The reasoning given by the participants of this category described experiment as a route towards new invention. The conceptions held were framed on the notion of inventing better technology through scientific experimentation. For example, R2 mentioned

“We want to know how a theory or law...[sic]...works...[through] experiment. For scientists, they are looking for new theories; to do more things, to make life easier.” (R2)

For R2, the purpose of doing experiments is seen from a dualistic perspective. A layperson carries out experiments to learn how a particular science theory works while scientists carry out experiments for invention purposes. R4 too, inferred the same idea. The excerpt provided by R4 is as follows:

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“Investigation done [by] scientists [as they] try to invent new things.” (R4)

The thematic field from which such an idea was derived is their daily exposure to various new technologies and knowledge developed from scientific field. The participants described innovations as one of the products endeavoured by scientists in experiments. The margin of this category on the other hand, reflected experience of science as a dynamic knowledge. The development of scientific knowledge contributes to the advancement of the world, implying science as a dynamic epistemology but this conception is only peripheral in the participants’ awareness.

c) Category 3: Experiments support ideas The theme brought to the foreground of awareness under this category

portrayed experiment as a set of procedures that support claims by comparing experimental outcome with the predicted outcome. The emphasis is more on the believability of scientific ideas or theories, rather than the truth of theories.

R8 provided an explanation inferring the focused theme as follows:

“When they conduct experiments, they do observation that they can see. Some people believe what they see. So, when they do experiments, they know what they see, then they believe in that theory.” (R8)

According to R8, experiments provide concrete evidences for them to be believable, further suggesting that theory can be real. R5 who supported the same view commented the following:

“Experiments are important. Other people will claim that it’s crazy to get a theory ust y ere y thin ing a out it no e ge a one is insufficient it ust be proven by something which showed that the research is true.” (R5)

R9, in a similar vein, went to the extent of believing that experiments help with decision making. He pointed out the following:

“When scientists are doubtful of something and have two options, they conduct experiments to know which is better...there will be evidence in support of a theory. This is because most of the theories that I had learnt have experiments conducted before the emergence of that theory.” (R9)

R9 inferred that experimentation assists in deciding which the better idea is while data obtained from the experiment will serve as evidence for the chosen idea. According to R2, experiments also function as a procedure for revising any existing theory with generated empirical data. This is to ensure that the theory is still useable and acceptable. R2 who reflected this notion, said that:

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“If we do experiments, we want to do experiments to test our theory and look for result whether it is same or not with the theory and the law.” (R2)

All of the conceptions inferred by the respondents under this category demonstrated that scientific experiments are designed accordingly to produce concrete evidences in order to support the theory or idea they are based on. Other than that, an experiment is also depicted as an endeavour to reconfirm the claims made by other existing theories.

The thematic field refers to the awareness of learners that was not focused upon while discussing the aim of experimentation as experienced by them. When focusing on experiment as a way to substantiate ideas, the participants contemplated on the social interactions among scientists. This includes the validation of findings by other scientists in ensuring the transparency of data reported is as claimed.

Science is perceived as a rigorous knowledge which is constantly revised and rechecked to ensure its believability and credibility. Hence, being aware of the credibility and trustworthiness of theories in science due to its rigour forms the margin of this understanding.

RELATION TO OTHER FINDINGS: A DISCUSSIONThe nature of phenomenographic analysis emphasised at a collective level which allows comparison with other studies has been recognised by other phenomenographers (Schmidt & Volke, 2003; Stefani & Tsaparlis, 2009). The findings reported earlier are compared in relation to other studies in this section.

The Experiments prove category found in this study was also reported in another local study by Jain et al. (2013). Their study reported that 77.8% of the pre-service Biology teacher respondents held the notion that experiments in science generate proofs for theories (Jain et al., 2013). Both Jain et al.’s study (2013) and this study describe the contrived ways of conducting experimentation in Science where evidences produced are perceived as confirming theories. This category is also identical with the categorisation carried out by Keiser (2010) based on the responses for conceptions that he gathered from college students. The striking similarities between the category of this study with that of Keiser’s is no surprise as McComas (1998) has reported that perceiving experiments as an act to prove scientific theories is the most prevalent conception held by most individuals. It is also common to hear participants of this present study use the word “proven” while explaining their understanding about theory during the interview sessions. Individuals who indicated such notion about experiments are labelled as having “naive” views about NOS (Lederman et al., 2002).

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The category Experiments support ideas found in this study is similarly reported in other studies, recognised as “informed” view about the process of experiments in science (Lederman et al, 2002). The responses under this category are similar to other studies investigating conceptions among pre-service elementary teachers (Abd-El-Khalick, 2001), seventh grade students (Carey, Evans, Honda, Jav & Unger, 1989) and high school chemistry students (Keiser, 2010). While the two former studies categorised acknowledging responses as “informed” or “naive” views, Keiser (2010) reported that he categorised such views under “Experiment test”. Under this category, he alleged that the respondents were informed about the role of experimentation in testing ideas or hypotheses and not about proving theories. However, it was found that this kind of informed view was not as dominant as compared with the naive ones (Keiser, 2010).

One category revealed by this study which is not clearly reported in the literature is the Experiments invent category. The responses under this category claimed that experiments are carried out to invent new things or to find out about something new. Although Keiser (2010) reported “Experiments discover” as a category found in his study, his descriptions of that category was different with that found in this study. He explained that “Experiments discover” characterises experiments as processes that are carried out to discover new information. Such conception does not reflect science as an absolute knowledge. In this study however, the Experiments invent category co-existed with the Experiments prove category described earlier. The co-existence of both conceptions reflects experiment as a process serving various purposes, ranging from “proving a theory”, “inventing new things” or “to finding out about something new”. The focus of Experiments invent in this study however, emphasises on the generation of new inventions such as technology to “make life easier” (R2) or “invent new things” (R4), and not on new pieces of information as highlighted by Keiser (2010).

Experiments with the purpose of inventing was somewhat explicated in a study by Akerson & Hanuscin (2007). Although they did not specifically investigate the aim of experimentations in science, they asserted that the notion of exploratory and discovery are more common among elementary students. Such conceptions then gradually dissipate as individuals experience science learning longer, and eventually adhere to the notion that experiments are conducted to accumulate facts (Driver, Leach, Millar & Scott, 1996; Khishfe, 2008). The participants of this study who are pre-service science teachers indicated that such conception still persist among them, suggesting for more research on this topic to be undertaken before classroom experience can be associated with the development of exploratory notion about science.

Implications Of StudyExperts blame science experimentation carried out in contrived ways as causing students to perceive that experiments prove scientific theories (Driver et al., 1996; Rivas, 2003).

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A similar notion was inferred by the majority of participants in this study, providing reasons for theories to be true as theories have been tested and proven by scientists. More alarmingly, the participants of this study are pre-service science teachers who are the product of the Malaysian education system and who will be posted into schools to teach science. Instead of encouraging thinking, the nature of experimentation in schools train individuals into carrying out experiments to yield data as described in textbooks. Substantiated by the experience of teaching science in schools, the researcher reckons that such a naive notion about the purpose of experimentation lies in specific words being used loosely. For example, the word “proven” is usually used in laboratory report to conclude whether the experiment’s hypothesis is “proven” or “confirmed”. Although these words are merely used to describe the hypotheses tested, the words entailing truth might cause students to accept an understanding that once the hypothesis is confirmed, then the theory is proven as well. It is lamented that more neutral words such as “support” are not being used as it provides a notion of “strengthening” the understanding and ideas in science, and the premise of “it is now a true idea” is adopted instead. In short, the phrase “hypothesis is supported” reflects a more neutral view compared to “hypothesis is proven”.

The researchers also recognise that learners have a poor understanding of the principle of theory falsification in this regard. Popper (1963) alleged that the generation of predicted empirical data derived from an experiment only supports the theory used to predict such an outcome, convincing us that there is a possibility for the theory to be true. However, that particular theory can be directly falsified when the findings turn out to be the opposite (Kosso, 1997). In a way, experiments are conducted to falsify a theory and not to prove them. The falsification principle should be made clear to students because it is an apt strategy that helps individuals to understand that experiments do not prove theories.

A Consideration for Pedagogical NOS KnowledgeThe findings from this study clearly points out that the practice of experimentations has led to various different understandings, which are largely undesired by educators. The use of words in science learning and teaching might be the contributing factor as to why scientific knowledge is conceptualised as an objective among students. Apart from having sound NOS understanding, it is imperative to ensure that future teachers are aware and cautious about their choice of words used in science classrooms as they may impart a different meaning to their students from what they intended. However, it is a challenging task when they are not equipped with proper guidance during their preparatory courses prior to teaching. One major implication arising from the findings of this study is the heightened need to develop the pedagogical content knowledge for pre-service teachers, focusing on NOS (henceforth, pedagogical NOS knowledge). The assumption that teachers’ sound understanding translates directly to their students has been falsified (Lederman, 1986) and this calls for a more scrutinised inspection into teacher education courses. The authors lament that although NOS understanding is an

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essential knowledge for teachers, it is insufficient in preparing the teachers to channel their NOS understanding to their students.

Pedagogical NOS knowledge should be weaved into the teachers’ education programmes to equip them with the knowledge of addressing NOS explicitly in their instructions. Such pedagogical courses on NOS should also emphasise how their choice of words influence the way their students interpret meanings. In this regard, teachers should be trained to use the phrase “the hypothesis is supported with the data found”, instead of “the hypothesis is confirmed or proven with the data found”. The naive conceptions uncovered in this study can also guide the development of pedagogical courses that can correct the misaligned NOS understanding of learners.. In short, the findings of this study provide information critical to the design and plan of quality teacher education courses.

CONCLUSIONThis paper highlights the importance of sound NOS understanding, especially regarding the aim of scientific experimentations. As was pointed out in the introduction of this paper, it is pertinent to mould learners who are literate in science. In pursuing this aim, more changes need to be considered at the outset, specifically at the teacher preparatory level to produce science teachers who are well-versed both in NOS and teaching NOS. Such measures are vital as teachers make up the workforce that will in turn produce science-literate individuals who will shoulder the development of the future.

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APPENDIXSamples of participants’ drawings depicting “scientific experiments”.

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Values Education and the Malaysia Education Blueprint


Abstractn several parts of the alaysia ducation lueprint one can find several

statements that rightly give importance to values education related to the spiritual and moral development of students in alaysian schools. These statements can be identified in the aspirations of the blueprint towards the education system and also towards the students as well as in one of the 11 main shifts underlined by the authors of the blueprint to transform the national education system. While some of the action plans and initiatives recommended in the blueprint come across as efforts to strengthen values education in Malaysian schools, other initiatives could raise concerns. First, these initiatives are somewhat not substantive and secondly, some of them are perhaps questionable, both in theory and in practice. Hence, this paper aims to point out these concerns to those who have interest in values education and concurrently offer suggestions for consideration regarding other related matters. A general aim of the blueprint is to produce Malaysian citi ens who internalise values and specifically to strengthen values education thus ensuring the spiritual and moral development of Malaysian students. Indeed, there is no shortage of ideas concerning ways to promote students’ maturity in values and this network of ideas and measures entails placing the responsibility for values education not just on one group (the values education teachers) or programme (the Islamic Education and Moral Education subjects), but on all school heads and teachers as well as adults at home and in the community outside the school.

Key words: Values education, national education, spiritual and moral development, Education Blueprint

INTRODUCTIONIn Malaysia, the word “transformation” has been and still remains a buzzword since the unveiling of the National Transformation Programme (NTP) on January 28, 2012. One of the aims of NTP is to “create a society whose akhlak and morals are of high standard”. Naturally, transformation entails changes in the education system. Hence, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has addressed this need via the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-



Abdul Rahman bin Md AroffFaculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia


* Corresponding author: Abdul Rahman bin Md Aroff Email: [email protected]


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Abdul Rahman bin Md Aroff


2025. Aligned with the National Education Philosophy (NTP) and its aim to create a moral society, the Blueprint aspires to create: “An education system that gives children shared values and experiences by embracing diversity” and an environment where, “Every student will have ethics and spirituality”. The Blueprint then states that the outcome or impact on Malaysian students would be that they “will have strong moral values”. Considering all these aspirations and the expected impact on Malaysian students, values education then is certainly one of the priorities in the Malaysia Education Blueprint. There are altogether 11 strategic and operational thrusts or shifts proposed to transform the education in the country, and, indeed, one shift (i.e. the third shift) in the Blueprint is dedicated to ‘values education’. This shift is to “develop values-driven Malaysians”.

WHY VALUES EDUCATION?Before we proceed to commenting on the transformation of values education in the Blueprint, i.e. whether or not the transformation is reasonable and realistic, it would not be much of a digression if we briefly state the case for values education in the school. First, it is crucial to underline the notion of the inevitability of values education. This can be clearly seen if we define education as a process related to obtaining “desirable qualities” (Hirst & Peters, 1970), or transmission of what is “worthwhile” (Peters, 1973); and if we accept that values are “in-built” in our idea of education (Chapfika, 2008), or consider values as the “soul” of education (Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, NST, 2012). In short, education is not value-free.

Secondly, values education is essential as a preliminary solution to the ever increasing horrors and violence in the world. Indeed, since the 20th century (perhaps since time immemorial) till today, in some countries, cruel rulers and world powers have slaughtered millions of innocent people. In some other countries, unbridled corruption, fraud and greed among political and corporate leaders have unquestionably brought great sufferings and poverty to many more millions of people. It is also said that adults are to “bear primary responsibility for creating the environment where character is developed” (Davidson as cited in Lapsley & Power, 2005), but there have been many instances where some have failed to do so. In fact, not being righteous themselves, they are the source of teenage dysfunction. This has led to society’s “litany of alarm” (Arthur, 2003), that is, moral panic or widespread worry and anxiety of society regarding moral deterioration, social ills, negative habits, extremely reprehensible behaviour, and destructive conduct among young people. For example, Lickona (1993) states that the USA “is in deep moral trouble... is now the most violent of all industrialised nation”. In the UK, according to Arthur (2003), “the ills facing society… have increased rapidly since the 1960s and there is clear evidence… that the problems are increasing with greater rapidity”, and it was reported in the New Straits Times, 27 July 2007, that “British teenagers are the worst behaved in Europe”. Naturally, we should also be alarmed with the level of ethics, morals and other values-related matters among us, the young and the old, in Malaysia. As pointed out by a leader in the ruling government:

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“di Malaysia... masalah moral membimbangkan” [Deputy Prime Minister, Utusan Malaysia, 17 April 2007).

To many people then values education is important and necessary; in fact, values education “is a timeless need of all societies and cultures” and it “often accompanies periods of cataclysmic change in society” (Lapsley & Power, 2005). The upsurge of interest in values education, as if values education is a newly discovered goal in education, has led many educators to state that education should not only produce “human capital” but must also produce the “human being”. Some of them further opine that integrating the teaching of values in the curriculum is as (or perhaps more) important as teaching language, science and math subjects. Additional views that emphasise the importance of values education in producing the “human being” are as follows:

…In 1996, at the UNESCO headquarters, the report Learning: The Treasures Within was presented to the International Commission on Education for the 21st century...The commission felt that education throughout life is based on four pillars: Learning to live together; learning to be; learning to know and learning to do. The last two are the ones that most are familiar with and are closely examined... Now that we are now more than a decade into the 21st century, it is time to put all the four pillars of learning on an equal pedestal where learning to live together and learning to be must claim their rightful place alongside learning to know and learning to do Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, New Straits Times, 26 February 2012].

…Demands of the 2lst century are such that the focus of education needs an important structural adjustment: moving away from a one-dimensional objective of economic development to a more balanced inculcation of knowledge and morality to the individual, community and nation…[Editorial, New Straits Times, 29 February 2012].

What is Values Education?Before we examine the rationale and content of values education according to the Blueprint, values education must first be defined. Only then can we justify our deliberations and comments concerning the Blueprint.

Values education has many meanings, and it occurs everywhere, at home, at the workplace, and in any organisation or institution. Be that as it may, in the school, the following description of values education could be considered as reasonable. Values education, according to Robb (1998), is an activity during which students make clear or explicit those values underlying their own attitudes and behaviour, and assess the effectiveness of these values for the long-term wellbeing of self as well as others. They also reflect on

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other values, and will acquire these values and associated behaviour if found to be more effective in realising the long-term wellbeing of everyone. This description of values education carries cognitive weighting, that is, it deals more with the thinking or reasoning aspect of values education.

Next, there are other components in values education such as the emotion and action aspects. Thoughts that are not translated into actions are merely cheap talk, while behaviours without thinking are blind conformity. Without emotions, both thoughts and actions can be insensitive or impersonal while emotions without thinking and not followed by actions could be irrational and considered as just warm feelings to comfort oneself. Therefore, in describing values education, besides “knowing the good to be desirable” there must also be “desiring to do the good” (Hill, 2004) among students. The latter implies readiness or disposition to act in certain ways given the opportunity, and for students to act out or live by the values being commended, they usually would feel strongly that they should do it. This feeling or emotional side of character “serves as the bridge between judgment and action” (Lickona, 1993). So, values education is to educate students to “know the good, love the good, and do the good”. In short, values education is ultimately about improving behaviour or changing behaviour for the better. Since this behaviour is a translation of thoughts and feelings concerning worthy values, then the good behaviour is one that is autonomous and rational-altruistic.

Along with other definitions, the word ‘education’ is also used to describe the teacher-student relationship. But, what then is the role of the values educators? Fundamentally, theirs is to assist students in thinking about worthy values and to augment students’ commitment, or at least their capacity, to connect their thoughts and feelings into actions. As for the word ‘assist’, it means that values educators are facilitators who guide students in collaborative discussions and personal reflections of particular values, code of conduct, or other value-related issues, as well as in guiding them to appreciate and accord mutual respect when faced with differing opinions. However, values educators themselves should not impose their personal views in relation to any values issues. Instead, they must strive towards creating an environment for students to benefit from uncovering for themselves what behavior is desirable and what behavior is undesirable, and what values are required for their own long-term wellbeing as well as others. On the other hand, if values educators act like preachers and practise direct instruction instead, values education would then become values indoctrination.

Values Education in the Malaysia Education Blueprint

Rationale for the Malaysian Values EducationBriefly, according to the Blueprint, the need to “develop values-driven Malaysians” (the third shift) is based on the belief that students

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will inherit a world fraught with challenges. Successfully navigating these issues will require students to have strong universal values such as integrity, compassion, justice, and altruism to guide them in making ethical decisions. At the same, it is important to balance the development of global citizenship with a strong national identity.

The successful implementation of the third shift will create an environment where:

Every student leaves school as a global citizen imbued with core, universal values and a strong Malaysian identity. The values that they have learnt are applied in their day to day lives, leading to more civic behaviour such as increase in volunteerism; a willingness to embrace peoples of other nationalities, religions and ethnicities; and a reduction in corruption and crime. Every student also leaves school prepared to act as a leader, whether in their own lives and families, or as part of the broader community and nation.

Initiatives to Transform Values EducationTo achieve the above aims and to elevate the cause for values education, the Blueprint has identified several initiatives as follows:1. Strengthen Islamic Education, Moral Education and civic elements by 2017 a. Community service (civic) element will be a prerequisite for graduation b. Islamic Education curriculum for Muslim students will include a greater focus

on understanding the core values and underlying philosophies of Islam and other main religions in Malaysia

c. For non-Muslim students, Moral Education will include an understanding of the core values of all main religions in Malaysia.

2. Develop students holistically by reinforcing the requirement for every student to participate in 1 Sport, 1 Club, and 1 Uniformed Body.

3. Enhance and scale up RIMUP from 2016 to facilitate interaction across school types.4. The Ministry will also look into: a. Having Moral Education and Islamic Education students share certain classes

together when common universal values are taught b. Making participation in the co-curriculum a requirement for graduation and

scholarships for further education CRITIQUERationale for the Malaysian Values EducationIt is commendable that values education in our Malaysian schools will give priority not only to public morality and citizenship (such as those related to unity or integration, national identity and global citizen) and religious values but also to personal values and life commitments (such as integrity, honesty, compassion, justice and altruism) and universal moral values. As for the need and objectives of values education as stated in

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the Blueprint, we found it to be acceptable. More importantly it is something that is not too ambitious, that is, we can consider the agenda of the values education in our school as somewhat ‘modest’, and it should be so. Indeed, we would feel uneasy if MOE plans to treat values education as a reaction to the perversities that surround our society from all sides, and as a tool to fight the atrocities and insanities that are rampant in this world. Given the short span of about 13 years from 2013-2025, the aim to cure this “imperfect” world would surely be difficult if not impossible.

1. Strengthen Islamic Education, Moral Education and civic elements by 2017; 2. Develop students holistically by reinforcing the requirement for every student to

participate in I Sport, 1 Club, and I Uniformed Body, and3. Enhance and scale up RIMUP from 2016 to facilitate interaction across school types.

In general, we concur with the initiatives (1)-(3) as mentioned in the section above. It is widely acknowledged that the offering of Islamic Education for Muslim students and Moral Education for non-Muslim students does contribute to values education of these students respectively. This is because religion “is durable” and it offers “practical guidance” in coping with matters related to values (Thomas, 1997). As for Moral Education, it describes character in the language of values, and involves inculcation of virtues, appreciation of rules and deliberation of moral principles to develop students’ moral automaticity, moral understanding and moral reliability.

The community service and co-curriculum activities as well as RIMUP are also programmes that could further advance values education. Indeed, community service is expected to develop students’ self-esteem and help them learn the values of being a volunteer as well as gain valuable experience in assisting or working alongside individuals with special needs. Thus, students learn to be altruistic and care about the welfare of others. Community service also brings students into contact with responsible adults outside of school who have views on values that are somewhat different but more mature. As for co-curriculum activities, they are conducive for students to learn the values of respect, tolerance and fairness.

Thus, values education cannot be dealt with using one specific approach, as if it were ‘monolithic’. Indeed, it is not confined to just Islamic Education or Moral Education. As stressed by Nucci (cited in Walberg & Haertel, 1997), values education “cannot be isolated to one part of the school day, or to one context but must be integrated within the total school experience”. Indeed, many people view values education as a multidimensional activity that relies on the naturally occurring settings and situations of life in school that is, it capitalises on the values implications of all school subjects and explores the whole range of school activities, experiences, environments, and so forth, which have potential for values education of students.

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However, certain concerns arise regarding some of the values education initiatives in the Blueprint. They are as follows:

Strengthen Islamic Education, Moral Education and Civic Elements by 2017a. Community service (civic) element will be a prerequisite for graduationIndeed, the “prerequisite for secondary school qualification” could serve as a motivating factor for students to be involved in community service programs. But we would not want students to be merely motivated by instrumental values like scores and grades while intrinsic values of community service such as cooperation and respect are sidelined. If this happens, then the prospect of values education to be successful via community service, is greatly undermined.

b. Islamic education curriculum for Muslim students will include a greater focus on understanding the core values and philosophies of Islam and other main religions in MalaysiaThe first thing that comes across our mind is this question: How do we identify the core values of the other main religions? Also, what happens if there are conflicting views regarding values propagated in Islam and other religions? This may pose some problems for both the curriculum developers and the Islamic Education teachers. Nevertheless, exposing Muslim students to the core values of other religions may probably make the Muslim students more sensitive and understand better non-Muslims.

c. For non-Muslim students, Moral education will include an understanding of the core values of all main religions in MalaysiaDrawing out moral values from a transcendental source, that is religion, has its justification and is widely accepted. Indeed, many religious values are alike or compatible with the noble values taught in Moral Education. However, we should not overlook the ultimate aim of Moral Education as its goals are fundamentally different from the goals of teaching religious values. Hence, we should also ask:

a. Which set of norms and values of the main religions in Malaysia should be given attention by the Moral Education curriculum?

b. How do we resolve conflicts that arise between religion and morality in the course of Moral Education teaching and learning?

We must be aware that there may be individuals in whose lives religion does not play a significant role, and some of them, for a variety of reasons, may be even be opposed to religion. For them, according to the ASCD Panel on Moral Education Report, “moral education based on religion and appeals to religious principles to solve moral issues are serious affronts”, that is, any moral decision has to be justified without reference to (and may involve challenging or repudiating) religion. Barrow (2006) adds that if teachers fail to differentiate morality from religion, “they will give a misleading picture

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of what morality is and how one should morally educate the young”. Thus, is there a way out regarding this controversy or issue? Apparently, it looks like these teachers must approach this religion and/or moral values question carefully with some understanding of religious teachings. While stressing the rational basis for morality, these teachers need to be sensitive to students’ religious beliefs and respect their legitimacy by encouraging students to bring their religious resources to bear on moral issues. In other words, teachers must not impose or ignore religious beliefs or values, but instead explore their contribution towards moral education, in particular and values education, in general.

The Ministry will also need to look into:4a. Having Moral Education and Islamic Education students share certain classes together when universal values are taughtThe idea of grouping together Muslim and non-Muslim students when universal values are taught in either Islamic Education or Moral Education classes could raise some concerns. For instance:

a What are universal values and what yardstick can we use to label a particular value as a universal value?

b Which universal values are not religious values, or which religious values are not universal in nature?

Clearly, MOE may find it difficult to answer these questions. In addition, taking into account logistics such as classroom size and timetable for teaching universal values as well as considering the ethnic homogeneity of the students in most Malaysian schools, the concept would prove to be arduous and intricate for the school headmaster to put into practice.

Two other comments can be added here. Firstly, if Moral Education teachers consider referring to other religious teachings as unappealing and an affront; likewise, there will also be some Islamic Education teachers who will be equally affronted by schools teaching students to look outside their religious traditions, beliefs or convictions (aqidah) for guidance in the realm of values. Secondly, in both the Islamic Education and Moral Education curriculum, the core values of the main religions in Malaysia are to be taught. The question that arises then is: What about the values related to the beliefs, traditions and conventions of the indigenous Bumiputras in the country? Are those values then considered less significant in values education? Furthermore, we must also take note the values pluralism of our society and within the school context, school staff and students are more so. 4b. Making participation in the co-curriculum a requirement for graduation and scholarships for further educationThe comment related to (1a) can be applied here to (4b), if, after conducting a survey,

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MOE pursues this matter. Just for the sake of obtaining secondary school graduation and scholarships for further education, some students may be motivated to participate in the co-curriculum activities. However, this would go against the spirit of the activities and values education. We must also be mindful regarding the ethical implications related to these instrumental values or rewards; for we know that there are students with different or special needs. Certainly, they would find it difficult to compete with their ‘normal’ peers.

Other ConsiderationsFor a complete and effective grasp on values education, we should also consider some other relevant matters. While some of them are already in place in our Malaysian schools, a failure to not highlight and stress these matters may leave them to be forgotten or not dealt with thoroughly. Lest we forget, we must also highlight the capacity of our school to transform values education. Some of these other areas or matters that need further clarification and/or reconsideration are discussed below.

Values Across the CurriculumFirst, our concern is on what comprises values education in the Malaysian schools. The question is: Does everything about Islamic Education, Moral Education, community service, and co curriculum activities deal with values education? Clearly, the answer to this question is “No”. This is because there are certain contents in these school subjects and informal activities that have nothing to do with values but are in fact, just factual information. Even if they do touch on values, it still cannot be considered values education if the teaching-learning process involves indoctrination or bad and imperfect practices in the pedagogy. Another question that requires attention is: Are we satisfied with the MOE’s composition of values education? Again, the answer to this question is another distinct “No”. Values are also implicated in many other formal subjects in the school. For example, some academic content of literature and history do deal with moral exemplars and moral traditions to facilitate good habits and virtues, physical and health education can prevent unhealthy addictions and the living skills subject stresses the values of self-esteem and positive social attitudes. Discussion about values can also be carried out in mathematics, science, and other forms of values education concerning road safety, sex drugs and the environment.

Hidden CurriculumBesides the approach discussed above, there are other projects, programmes and activities that can potentially advance values education. Although the Blueprint has identified some hidden curriculum activities (co-curriculum and RIMUP), we could also add just and caring community projects. School community projects indeed promote democratic values, responsibility, consideration and respect through emotional bonding as well as social and interpersonal relationships. Such projects allow talking to a person rather than talking at a person, that is, values education “comes from how people treat each other

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more than from what people tell each other” (Berkowitz & Bier as cited in Lapsley & Power, 2005).

Whole School EthosIn addition to values found across the curriculum and the hidden curriculum, the whole school ethos can also contribute to values education. According to Pekarsky (1998), values are woven into the very fabric of day-to-day life in the school community, and students encounter and absorb them as a matter-of-fact by-product while participating in this community life. So we must make an effort to successfully embody a culture that aligns with our highest values aspirations and throughout our school life (not only in the classroom, but also in the canteen, school corridors, toilets, on the bulletin board, etc.),these value aspirations live as a social reality. Only then will our values education be a success.

School-community PartnershipsProgrammes and activities that would encourage and allow parents, the public and private sectors, NGOs, and society at large to forge a partnership with the school in regard to values education should also be pursued. These school-community partnerships can be related to the ninth shift in the Blueprint which is “partnering with parents, community and private sector at scale,” although, the emphasis of this shift is more on students’ academic progress (New Straits Times, June 19, 2013).

School CapacityIndeed there are many strategies for values education and strategies that emphasise engaged pedagogy and hands-on learning or experiential education are especially crucial. Hence, our schools must build their “social capital”, that is, the intangible network of relationships that fosters unity, cooperation, commitment and trust among all staff in promoting values education. We must also ensure “programme coherence” of our values education projects and activities, whereby all the instruction, resources and staff in the school are coordinated and integrated into a common framework. School “resources”, that is, the physical and organisational tools to make our values education goals a reality must also be adequate. (According to Campbell in the New Sunday Times, 17 February 2013, the work of Beaver & Weinbaum deals with the question of capacity in education). The question is: Are these three capacities satisfactory and adequate in our schools?

Last but not least, concerns “human capital” that is related to the knowledge, skills, dispositions and intellectual ability of our teachers. Are they well-trained and equipped to handle values education? Currently, from an emic perspective, it is not a stretch to say that many of our Islamic Education and Moral Education teachers may not be as effective in teaching about values, mainly because they practise imperfect pedagogies. They may be predisposed towards certain character traits or “bag of virtues” and some moral messages and codes, and they may even indulge in overly simplistic interpretations

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of values. In addition, a focus by these teachers on didactic methods or traditional, authoritarian techniques of direct instruction, preaching or telling students what is right and what is wrong may involve inappropriate practices such as exhortation and coercion, drill, and unreflective, uncritical and unquestioning acceptance of values. As a result, conditioned conformity may arise.

Teaching students about values by getting them to memorise values is probably easy. However, in order to get them to think maturely, be affected emotionally, act responsibly and be accountable for their behavior involves a great deal more effort and is more complex. In getting (Islamic Education and Moral Education) teachers to teach the philosophies and core values of other main religions, it is easy to conclude that this will make their task more complicated. Nevertheless, we hope that these teachers will not become jaded or daunted by the foreseen difficulties related to this extra burden.

In fact, at this juncture, we would like to see some transformation in the pre-service teacher education and continuous professional development programmes for values educators. If we are serious about values education in our school (which currently is mainly through Islamic Education and Moral Education), we really will not want it “to be a random charade of the blind leading the blind” (Barrow, 1975). Regrettably, there seems to be a blind spot regarding human capital in the Blueprint, that is, the teachers required for values education. For an effective values education, the pre-service teacher education and in-service training programmes need to be transformed, for we believe that all teachers are values educators. Therefore, they must, to the best of their ability, fulfil their responsibility towards the values education of their own students. It should also be noted here that “after the the parent and child, the most profound (values) relationship our children experience is that between the teacher and the taught” (Clark as cited in Goodlad, Soder & Sirotnik, 1990). Additionally, in the teaching of values, the personal examples of the teachers are said to be the testimony or the bottom line and students do not like teachers who are phonies, do not practise what they preach or those who discriminate and practise double standards (Wolfgramm, 1991). In other words, teachers themselves must have good values and be identified as moral exemplars. SUGGESTIONAs pointed out earlier, there are people who associate values education with the hidden curriculum of the non-academic activities and the whole school ethos. However, these approaches have certain deficiencies or controversies, and in certain cases, can be counter-productive. Let us, first, look at the hidden curriculum of the non-academic activities (such as co-curriculum activities, community service programmes etc). It is true that values can be taught or are “caught” and students “pick-up” values from watching others behave. The question is: What if the behaviours that students observe or witness are bad and irresponsible? Thus as the hidden curriculum is implicit, it would mean that the students’ attitudes can be shaped or modified unconsciously and their values assimilated

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unthinkingly. However, according to our concept of values education, students must also be made “more aware of the ‘values’ which are being... ‘transmitted’, in order that they may examine them openly and critically” (Straughan, 1982). Also, if some of the hidden values in the school are not subjected to open and reflective enquiry, then these values will always remain hidden.

Next, the whole school ethos has its problems too. Our Malaysian society is very much driven by its pluralistic values. If so, then what should the make-up of our school ethos be? Some non-Muslim parents feel that the environment in our mainstream national schools is set up to convert their children to Islam. Conversely, for the fundamentalists among Muslim parents, our national schools have not done enough to instil Islamic values. So, these two groups of protectionist parents have gone their separate ways, but their common sentiment is that the national schools are not their choice for their children’s education. We have to admit that this situation is partly responsible for the social-racial fragmentation found in our country. The MOE, therefore, has a big task of convincing certain groups in our society that the mainstream national schools are truly educational institutions that offer students from all kinds of background the opportunity to learn the values to be human and learn to embrace living together in a democracy. Again, is this goal merely a pipe-dream? To answer this, we must first note, that irrespective of school type, almost all school ethos in Malaysia favour academic excellence. Thus, if our Malaysian school is only interested in test scores and examination grades, then it is not promoting a healthy and conducive environment for values education. Utusan Malaysia (18 April 2007) pointed out that examination pressure is a major factor in schools ignoring activities that can build good character and a healthy culture among students. In worst cases, some schools have turned into places where students learn from their peers and adults in the school to curse, swear, cheat, and finally to become bad. Indeed, some school rules, practices and experiences can certainly sabotage values education or teaching of values in the classroom.

We could surmise that the hidden curriculum and school ethos approaches are not enough on their own to promote values education. Nevertheless, values education can be an essential part of these approaches; but the form and structure of the hidden curriculum and school ethos must be responsibly planned, and their contents must include appropriate values. Put in another way, these two school components are integral and distinguishable parts of values education; however, they are mainly concerned with “love the good” and “do the good”. The part of values education that the hidden curriculum and the school ethos will not be able to cover is pertaining to the “know the good”.

Some people claim that the “know the good” aspect of values education can be taught by means of the values found across the (formal) curriculum approach. While it is true that every school subject contains values issues, upon closer examination of classes in mathematics and science, history and literature, and other subjects, we would find the

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extent of values education (as we have understood it) is minimal. Some of these subject teachers do not avail themselves of the opportunities to transmit values and there are others who do not understand the complex nature of ‘values’. In fact, most of them are not specifically trained to undertake the role of values educators. As such, without proper training, they cannot deal ‘off the cuff’ with any values issues which impinge upon or emerge in their teaching subjects. Yet another reason is that the teaching of their own subject would suffer if they spend time on values, that is, their lessons will be interrupted every time they take time to impart or educate on a value.

The above arguments suggest to us that values education requires a specific time slot dedicated to it. This specific subject or slot is mainly to handle the “know the good” part of values education, that is, the ‘reasoning’ part or cognitive aspect of values education that leads students to intellectually and philosophically explore and accept worthy values. We should recognise the distinctiveness of the values concepts, truth criteria and methodology of values reasoning and we must provide values reasoning with the same opportunities as being intensively taught or learned as other forms of reasoning. Indeed, values education can be systematically planned for and carefully implemented as a regular, formal school timetable subject, because as we have just said, values education has its own peculiar concepts, truth-criteria and methodology; that is, it has features that qualify it to be considered as a distinct ‘form of knowledge’ or ‘form of thought’ in its own right (Wilson, 1973). If we agree with this suggestion, then we have indeed realised the claim that values education involves the total school experience, whereby a distinct subject will explicitly and formally teach and transmit values to students, but this subject must be complemented with values across the curriculum, hidden curriculum and the whole school ethos. So as not to stretch or add another load to the existing, overloaded school curriculum, we would like to suggest instead that MOE relooks or re-examines the subject Moral Education in our schools and consider transforming it into a subject that can truly champion values education for all Malaysian students.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION Certainly, there is no shortage of means or ways to promote values education in the school. However, no one of them alone can provide adequate values education and as such values education remains incomplete. In other words, effective values education employs a network of ideas and arrangements. As for the responsibility for values education, it would be inaccurate to solely place it on teachers. Instead, it should be the responsibility of various parties inside and outside the school. We would suggest to also allot a time slot dedicated specifically to values education and this formal subject must be continuously complemented by other relevant programmes and activities. At the same time, MOE must seriously build the school’s capacity (human capital, social capital, programme coherence and resources) to support and sustain values education as a formal school subject and also re-evaluate other academic and non-academic programmes and activities that transmit worthy values. In conclusion, as we look at the state-of-the-art of

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values education in our Malaysian schools and the contents of the Blueprint in regard to values education, we have to admit that we still have a long way to go.


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acific ora Civic an Citi enshi E ucation Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya.

Arthur, J. (2003). Education with Character: The Moral Economy of Schooling. London: Routledge.

ASCD Panel on Moral Education. (1988). Moral Education in the Life of the School. Retrieved from http://www.crvp.o rg/book/Serieso6/Vl-3fa ppendix.htm.

Barrow, R. (1975). Moral Philosophy for Education. London: George Allen & Unwin Ud.

Barrow, B. (2006). Moral education’s modest agenda. Ethics and Education, 1(1), 3-13 Berkowitz, M. W. (1997). Integrating structure and content in moral education. Paper

presented at the Nucci, L. (Chair), Developmental Perspectives and Approaches to Character Education, Chicago.

Chapfika, B. (2008). The role of integrity in higher education. International Journal of

Educational Integrity, 4(1), 43-49. Goodlad, I., Soder, R., & Sirotnik, K. A. (Eds.) (1990). The Moral Dimensions of

Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Hill, B. V. (2004). Values education in schools: Issues and challenges. Paper presented at

the National Values Education Forum, Melbourne.

Kirst, P. H., & Peters, B. S. (1970). The Logic of Education. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Howard, R. W., Berkowitz, M. W., & Schaeffer, E. F. (2004). Politics of character education. Educational Policy, 18(1), 188-215.

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Lapsley, D. K., & Power, C. (Eds.) (2005). Character Psychology and Character Education. Indiana: University of Notre Dame.

Lickona, T. (1993). The return of character education. Educational Leadership. 51(3), 6-11.

Ministry of Education Malaysia (2012). Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025. Putrajaya: Ministry of Education Malaysia.

Pekarsky, D. (1998). The role of culture in moral development. Retrieved from httpjfparenthood.libra ry.wise.ed u.fPerkasky.html.

Peters, R. S. (Ed.) (1973). The Concept of Education. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Robb, W. (1998). What is values education And so what? The Journal of Values Education, 1(January), 1-13.

Straughan, B. (1982). Can we Teach Children to be Good? London: George Allen and LJnwin.

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Walberg, H. I., & Haertel, G. D. (1997). Psychology and Educational Practice. Berkeley: MacCarchan.

Wilson, J. (1973). A Teacher’s Guide to Moral Education. London: Geoffrey Chapman. Wolfgramm, K. F. (1991). Teaching values: Examples is the bottom line. Contemporary

Education, 62, 3.

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Student-Teacher Relationship and Student Academic Motivation


AbstractThis qualitative study investigates the link between student-teacher relationship and student’s academic motivation. Two 16-year old male students from a public boarding school in the Peninsular of Malaysia were chosen as participants. Data were gathered from two unstructured interviews. Five themes within the student-teacher relationship were identified throughout the interviews: care, support, trust, approachable and expectation. The findings suggest that academic motivation is fostered when teachers show genuine care towards the students, provide continuous support to the students, build trust in the relationship, be approachable to the students, and have a reasonably high expectation towards students’ achievement.

Key words: Student-teacher relationship, academic achievement, motivation

INTRODUCTIONAcademic achievements are always of interest to many parties including teachers, parents, school administrators and governments alike. Malaysia is no exception, having spared no effort in attempting to enhance student learning and academic performances in its public schools. These efforts are mostly centred on curriculum development, teaching approach and most recently, assessment. Student-teacher relationship, however, has received scant notice from its policymakers. Similarly, when it comes to investigating the link between student-teacher relationship and student’s academic motivation, especially in boarding schools, local researchers pay little notice to it. This is despite the fact that in such schools, students stay in hostels for a number of years interacting with their teachers more than their family, and meeting the schools’ demands that they maintain high academic achievements. This study was an attempt to fill in some of this gap in knowledge.



Adibah Najihah Jasmi Kolej Tunku Kurshiah, Malaysia

Lim Chong HinTaylor’s University, Malaysia


* Corresponding author: Adibah Najihah Jasmi Email: [email protected]


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Adibah Najihah Jasmi & Lim Chong Hin


LITERATURE REVIEWMany studies have examined the effect of student-teacher relationship in enhancing students’ motivation towards learning (Hanrahan, 1998; Paulson, Marchant & Rothlisberg, 1998; Tuan, Chin & Shieh, 2005). For instance, Hanrahan (1998) studied the effect of learning environment on students’ motivation, and concluded that, “I believe that teachers had to give more importance to the nature of the teacher-learner relationship, particularly as it affected students’ learning related motivational beliefs” (p.750).

Other aspects in the student-teacher relationship that had been studied include types of feedback given by teachers, students’ age, social observation, teacher’s level of patience, sense of belonging, teacher support, emotional connection between student and teacher, students’ perception of their teachers’ care for them, teacher expectations of students, and teacher motivation.

SupportWentzel (1998) defined teacher support as providing emotional support to students, while Griffing (2006) defined teacher support as providing extra academic help and assisting students’ personal concerns. Based on their studies, both of them concluded that teacher support has positive influence on enhancing students’ academic motivation. Their findings were supported by Daniel and Arapostathis (2005) who made the point that reluctant learners became more motivated when they received teacher support.

Emotional ConnectionIn her study, Griffing (2006) noted that when participants feel emotionally connected to their teachers, their motivation to learn increased. In addition, participants mentioned that when they do not feel emotionally connected to their teachers, their motivation to learn decreased.

CaringIn their study, Murdock and Miller (2003) asserted that teacher care had a significant positive impact on student motivation. This assertion was supported by a study conducted by Wentzel (1997) who contended that students who thought their teachers were caring paid more attention during class and were more motivated. Griffing (2006) also noted that lack of caring teachers seemed to reduce student motivation.

Teacher ExpectationThe findings by Griffing (2006) suggested that when the participants perceived their teacher to have high expectations of them, their academic motivation increased. Conversely, low teacher expectation resulted in low academic motivation. The findings are similar to that of Murdock’s (1999) and Wentzel’s (2002) who found that teacher’s high expectation corresponded with the student’s end of year grades. Griffing (2006) further argued that teacher expectation may only act as superficial cover to the notion of how well the teacher knows the students and how much confidence the teacher has in the students.

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METHODOLOGYThe study used a qualitative approach. Data were gathered through two unstructured interviews, one individual and one group interview. Purposive sampling was used to select two 16-year old male participants from SEMESA (pseudonym), a public boarding school in southern Peninsular Malaysia. Both interviews, conducted in the Malay language in line with the participants’ preference, were recorded with the participants’ consent and the procedures to maintain confidentiality and anonymity were explained to them. The relevant parts of the interviews were then translated into English. The transcribed data were then reduced into meaningful categories under themes that emerged from them.

FINDINGSThe results suggested five interconnected themes in the student-teacher relationship that had a certain degree of influence on the participants’ level of academic motivation.

The five identified themes were care, support, trust, approachable and expectation.

Theme 1: CareThis theme looked at how much teachers’ care for the students affect participants’ academic motivation. Teachers who appear to care about their students increased the students’ academic motivation.

For instance, Arif, one of the students in the study, mentioned that when a teacher personally asked him about his studies, he felt that the teacher cared about him. This increased his motivation to achieve good results.

“Teacher Z was concerned; she sometimes dropped by and asked if I’m doing okay with my studies. For a student, when a teacher comes and asks us personally, we feel that it’s a huge thing for us already—for us, the teacher is concerned about us. It made me work harder to get straight As and make the teacher happy.”

Naim, the other student, mentioned that when the teacher cared about students, students actually could feel it. Arif agreed that a caring teacher was more like a parent to him. He mentioned that in a boarding school, students rarely saw their parents and spent more time with teachers. So, to have a good relationship with teachers was a great source of motivation.

Theme 2: SupportParticipants shared that they were motivated to learn and to complete academic tasks when the teacher supported them. As Arif explained:

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“Like in my class, 4F, teacher D was present during night preparation class and during weekends, just to be there so we can consult her and ask her things we don’t understand in the tasks she assigned.”

Lack of support from the teacher leads to a decrease in participants’ motivation, especially when they feel that they cannot complete the task given. Continuous support from their teachers made the participants believe that they could succeed in their studies. Naim pointed this out clearly:

“…because teacher A always supports me. She always guides me, and is willing to spend extra time to teach me outside class. The way she taught me, I knew that I can succeed if I worked hard.”

Theme 3: TrustBoth Arif and Naim mentioned trust as an important factor underlying the student-teacher relationship throughout the interviews. When participants believed that the teacher trusted them, their academic motivation increased. It led them to work hard to live up to the trust. Naim narrated how he worked hard and transformed into an A student in the second semester:

“For example, teacher A during the August test, she had a target for each of us. She targeted me to get A for Biology. At that time, in my heart, I felt the teacher’s trust. Teacher trusted me, so I had to prove it.”

Both participants shared that trust was built through the teachers’ caring and supportive attitude on a daily basis. When asked about how he knew the teacher trusted him, Naim explained,

“Because teacher A always supports me. She always guides me, and the way she taught me, I knew that she trusted me.”

Not only was the teachers’ trust important, participants also discussed that it was essential for students to trust their teachers. Both Arif and Naim mentioned that when they trusted their teacher, they were willing to support the teacher through active engagement in class, and this simultaneously increased their academic motivation.

Arif, when asked why it was important for him to maintain the teacher’s trust in him, said:

“In this school, we spend more time with our teachers. If we have a good relationship, it’s great. Class will be fun, especially when there is trust and we trust each other. That is important. It makes me feel safe to be present in class, or to voice out my opinion.”

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Theme 4: ApproachableFriendly and approachable teachers increased the participants’ academic motivation. Participants appeared to translate teachers’ friendliness and being approachable into teacher care. As Arif explained:

“A friendly teacher like teacher D is more approachable. She always talks to stu ents as s the hat they fee is ifficu t tu ents i fee ore co forta e to talk to her about studies. She makes us know that she cares. And that motivates us to keep going.”

Unfriendly teachers, on the other hand, were less approachable to students. So, students tended to keep queries and problems to themselves. This affected students’ motivation negatively. Arif, for instance, commented, said:

“If the teacher is not friendly, always has a serious-looking face, students will feel scared to ask questions, and just let the unclear concept remain.”

Arif also shared that teachers who made themselves accessible during class allowed students to ask questions in a more comfortable way:

“Or like teacher S, she often walked around the class, so it’s easier for students to ask questions. Students will be more motivated to complete their work.”

Theme 5: ExpectationsParticipants agreed that teacher expectation affected their academic motivation. Naim explained that teacher’s expectation played an important role in his academic motivation especially when the relationship with the teacher was good.

Arif however emphasised that too high an expectation could be counterproductive. He feels burdened by it, he said, and that decreased his academic motivation:

“Sometimes the teacher expects too much, but the student doesn’t feel like he can achieve it. I am like that. When teacher expectation is too high, I feel burdened, I feel anxious and it demotivates me.”

Arif also mentioned that high expectation should be complemented with support:

“When a student is good at one subject, don’t expect him to always get good marks; sometimes he fails too. And he needs full support like other students too”.

Low expectation, however, had the opposite effect. It usually made the students take it easy and lead them to put in less effort to succeed. As Arif further added, “But the teacher shouldn’t expect too little, it makes students lazy.”

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DISCUSSIONThe result of this study highlights five themes within the student-teacher relationship which affect students’ academic motivation. These components are trust, care, support, approachability and expectation. All five components are interconnected, and should not be seen in isolation from one another.

CareIn this study, teacher care seems to have a huge influence on participants’ academic motivation. This finding is consistent with other findings by Wentzel (1997), Murdock and Miller (2003), and Griffing (2006). All these findings support the positive correlation between caring and academic motivation. For instance, Murdock and Miller (2003) suggested that the more students felt that their teachers cared about them, the more motivated they became.

In this study, both participants mentioned that they felt it was important for them collectively as a class to make sure they kept good relationships with the teachers. This was especially true with the teachers that they perceived as caring. The participants strongly believed that when the teacher was not happy or uneasy with the class, he or she would not teach the class wholeheartedly. Surprisingly, both participants shared that students could differentiate whether the teacher was teaching their class wholeheartedly or not, and they found it more rewarding to have teachers who teach wholeheartedly. Hence, they make an effort to keep a good rapport with the caring teachers so that the teachers would teach and care for them wholeheartedly.

Another interesting finding is while Griffing (2006) made the point that only female students mentioned about teacher care in her findings, both male participants in this study mentioned teacher care extensively. One of the possible reasons underlying this finding, as suggested by both participants, was the fact that they came from a full boarding school where they spent more time with their teachers compared to their immediate family. Thus, these students treasured the good relationship with teachers.

SupportThe findings of this study also suggest that teacher support increased students’ academic motivation. The participants stressed that the teachers’ support, especially in academic tasks, kept them interested in completing the task, while the lack of support often had the reverse effect. This finding is supported by Griffing (2006), Wentzel (1998), and Daniel and Araphostasis (2005).

Daniel and Araphostasis’ (2005) findings suggest that reluctant learners are more motivated to learn from teachers who supported them and sincerely wanted them to succeed. As shared by the two participants in this study, there is a strong relationship between the teacher’s sincere desire for students to succeed and the support provided

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by the teacher. Sincere desire, however, is rooted in how much the teacher cares about the students. When the students recognise that the teacher really cares about them, they translate the teacher’s effort to help them as support. When the teacher cares less about them, students translate the teacher’s hard work as merely an effort to maintain the subject’s grade. Thus, it did not increase students’ academic motivation.

TrustThis study seems to suggest that trust is the ultimate pillar that holds the student-teacher relationship. However, trust is not built in one day. It has to start with how much the teacher cares about the students, and how much support the teacher provides to them. Through daily encounters with the teachers inside and outside the classroom, students develop trust in their teachers. Trust makes the students feel safe to try and to learn. Trust is translated into motivation to engage in classroom activities to complete the tasks assigned by the teacher.

ExpectationsTeacher expectation seems to affect students’ academic motivation in three ways. High teacher expectation increases students’ academic motivation. The findings of this study confirm that of other studies which suggest that high teacher expectations have a positive impact on students’ academic motivation (Murdock, 1999; Wentzel, 2002; Griffing, 2006). However, this study’s findings also suggest that high teacher expectation is only translated into how much the teacher trusts the student when the student perceives that the teachers care for them and support them.

Another interesting finding from this study is that when teacher expectation was too high, participants felt that the teacher did not know their capability. They felt burdened by the expectation which lowered their academic motivation. This is supported by Griffing’s (2006) study. Griffing (2006) explained that when the teacher has high expectations but the students are not able to achieve the goal, students seem to become discouraged which then lowered their motivation.

CONCLUSIONThis research offers an insight into how the student-teacher relationship affects the academic motivation of two 16-year old male students from SEMESA, a public boarding school in Malaysia. This study may prove useful to teachers who are interested in utilising the relationship they have with their students to increase students’ academic motivation. Several suggestions can be made for teachers to enhance their student-teacher relationship so that it will be more meaningful for the students. Suggestions include having teachers show genuine care for the students through continuous support and trust in the students. It is also suggested that teachers cultivate a friendly personality to be more approachable, and to have high expectations of students but complement it with support.

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REFERENCESDaniels, E., & Arapostathis M. (2005). What do they really want? Student voices and

motivation research. Urban Education, 40(1), 34–59.

Griffing, C. (2006). Student-Teacher Relationships: An Exploration of Student Motivation. Counselor Education Master’s Theses. Paper 42. Retrieved from HYPERLINK “http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc theses/42” http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc theses/42

Hanrahan, M. (1998). The effect of learning environment factors on students’ motivation and learning. International Journal of Science Education, 20(6), 737–753.

Murdock, T. B. (1999). The social context of risk: Status and motivational predictors of alienation in middle school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(1), 62–75.

Murdock, T. B., & Miller, A. (2003). Teachers as sources of middle school students’ motivational identity: Variable-centered and person-centered analytic approaches. Elementary School Journal, 103(4), 383–399.

Paulson, S. E., Marchant, G. J., & Rothlisberg, B. A. (1998). Early adolescents’ perceptions of patterns of parenting, teaching, and school atmosphere: Implications for achievement. Journal of Early Adolescence, 18(1), 5–26.

Tuan, H. L., Chin, C. C., & Shieh, S. H. (2005) The development of students’ motivation toward science learning questionnaire. International Journal of Science Education, 27(6), 639–654.

Wentzel, K. R. (1997). Student motivation in middle school: The role of perceived pedagogical caring. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89(3), 411–419.

Wentzel, K. R. (1998). Social relationships and motivation in middle school: The role of parents, teachers, and peers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(2), 202–209.

Wentzel, K. R. (2002). Are effective teachers like good parents? Teaching styles and student adjustment in early adolescence. Child Development, 73(1), 287–301.

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Examining Taylor’s Center for Languages IEN Students’ Perspectives on the Usefulness of

Corrective Feedback in Writing Class


AbstractEver since Truscott (1996) commented on the use of written corrective feedback (CF), there has been a growing interest in this field of study. nfortunately despite the number of researches done in this field most of them has only focused on the pedagogical and fundamental aspects. ery few researches looked at students perception of written

. This paper investigates the perspectives of Taylor s niversity akeside ampus ntensive nglish rogram students on orrective eedback in their writing class.

This study was conducted using a uantitative approach and used T test to test the hypotheses. The results of this study shed light on the impact of in second language ac uisition .

Key words: orrective feedback second language ac uisition writing nglish as a second language learners

INTRODUCTIONThe debate on the case against correction in writing for second language learners (SLL) has been ongoing since Truscott (1996) published his article against the use of corrective feedback for SLL, claiming that it is detrimental to their acquisition of the language. This has brought a considerable amount of interest in the area of corrective feedback, which sees the divide among experts of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) arguing for and against the use of corrective feedback (CF). Truscott’s claim was based on that of Kepner (1991), Semke (1984) and Sheppard (1992) where he concluded that there is no concrete evidence to prove CF to be effective in helping student writers improve their accuracy in writing. On the other hand, other researchers such as Ferris (1999) pointed out that Truscott’s claim is premature and overly strong considering the fact that there is growing research evidence which suggests the effectiveness of CF, albeit minimal, in helping student writers improve their writing, and this can only happen provided that the error correction is clearly highlighted.


Examining Taylor’s Center for Languages IEN Students’ Perspectives on the Usefulness of Corrective Feedback in Writing Class

Clarence Lim & Rozita Dass Taylor’s University, Malaysia


* Corresponding author: Clarence Lim Email: [email protected]


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Clarence Lim & Rozita Dass


According to Lightbrown and Spada (1999), CF is the indication from teachers, native speakers or non-native speaker interlocutors, to learners that their use of the target language is incorrect. Therefore, CF can be in the form of teacher to students (TSCF), peer to peer (PPCF) and even self-corrective feedback (SCF). TSCF is the most common CF that can be found in a classroom but since the emergence of constructivist theories in learning, PPCF and SCF are highly encouraged by teachers so that students learn to identify their own mistakes as well as that of their friends.

The paper looks at students’ perspectives of CF in their writing, and encompasses the different types of CF, the many aspects of the writing feedback that supports SLL in their learning and also the medium in which CF is administered.

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDYMany previous researches on CF adopted the pedagogical standpoint where teachers sought to find answers to practical questions as to how and when to correct errors that are made by students in classroom (Kagimoto & Rogers, 2008). Researches have also been done at the fundamental level where the nature of corrective feedback and its relationship to language acquisition were investigated (Carroll & Swain, 1993; Ellis, Loewn & Erlam, 2006; Long, Inagaki & Ortega, 1998). Though many researches have been done on CF and its implications towards SLA and pedagogical approaches, few have actually looked at the perspectives of students on CF in writing. According to Schulz (2001), students’ beliefs towards language learning and error correction suggest that students may have differing views from teachers regarding how errors should be corrected. These differing views can lead to student frustration and demotivation (Sakui & Gales, 1999). Therefore, it is worthwhile studying students’ perspectives to gain a deeper insight on their preference in terms of CF for their writing and how they would like it to be presented. This would be beneficial in improving the learning environment for both students and teachers. In order to understand better students’ perception of CF within Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus (TLSC), a study was conducted on the Intensive English Program (IEN) which is a six-week intensive English course. The purpose of IEN is to ensure that students have the language ability to cope with the courses that they intend to study at TLSC. Over the course of six weeks, students are assigned various written assignments in the form of essays. As the timeline is short, students are usually given feedback by teachers on their work but do not have the chance to take any corrective action from the feedback provided. Even if there is any corrective action, it is minimal.

Written CF plays an important part in the instructional process of teachers of second language writing as it allows for individualised teacher to student communication that is rather difficult and time-consuming in the day-to-day operations of a second language writing class (Ferris et al., 1997). Furthermore, with the tight schedule that the students and teacher have in this six-week intensive English course, it is rather difficult for the teacher to provide one-on-one communication to the students. Although many researchers

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have challenged the effectiveness of providing written CF (Truscott, 1996; Ferris, 1999; Bitchener & Knoch, 2008; Truscott & Hsu, 2008), this study contends that providing written CF will help improve SLA. Second Language Learners (SLLs) want, expect and prefer teacher’s feedback on their written errors to be provided (Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Lee, 2004) in the written form over alternative forms such as peer and oral feedback (Leki, 1991; Saito, 1994). Besides that, the provision of different types of CF was found to have a positive effect on improving the accuracy of students writing (Lalande, 1982; Lee, 1997).

While many of the researches focus on the what, how and when of CF, understanding students’ perspectives on CF may actually assist in motivating students and increasing the speed of SLA. This study looked at students’ perspectives towards CF on their written work by teachers and its perceived usefulness for specific feedback type.

LITERATURE REVIEWTo investigate the perspectives of students enrolled in Taylor’s University Intensive English Program’s (IEN) on Corrective Feedback (CF), four areas were explored. The four areas are the SLA theories with regards to the corrective process in language learning especially in writing, the types and usage of CF in Second Language Teaching (SLT), the debate on the effectiveness of CF in writing for the Second Language Learner (SLL) and lastly, teachers’ perspectives on CF. The four areas were analysed and reviewed as their relevance to the present study will provide a fundamental understanding and a platform to further establish areas of study with regards to CF.

Watson’s behaviorist theory serves as the basis for native language learning. This theory believes that learning of any kind of behavior is based on stimulus and response (Ellis, 1994; Mitchell & Myles, 2004). On the other hand, Skinner coined the term “operant conditioning”, which states that behaviors are modifiable with reinforcement. In other words, the behaviorist theory suggests that when learning a language, humans’ responses to various language stimuli in the environment and the constant exposure to these stimuli will lead to the formation of a certain habits. According to Skinner (1957),

“A child learns verbal behavior when utterances relatively lacking in pattern, and which are selectively reinforced, gradually take on forms that produce the appropriate consequences in a given verbal community” (p. 40).

This suggests that when responses are repeatedly reinforced, habits will form based on the responses and given stimulus. Therefore, the implication for SLA is that the learning of language will happen when there are structures and forms for the SLL to imitate and repeat. Hence this implies that when teachers provide CF to students, it serves as the stimuli that students react to in order to learn the correct forms or structure, which in turn develops language acquisition.

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However, the behaviorist theory is not supported by the cognitivist theory. According to Chomsky (1959), Skinner’s theory does not fully explain the linguistic knowledge that is the result of a very complex learning process. Chomsky pointed out that learners create new sentences by themselves which they may not have learned before and do not simply reproduce an utterance that they have learned. Chomsky also went on to call attention to the fact that no two sentences created by two different learners are the same. He also believed that by internalising rules, learners are able to create new sentences rather than a string of words. Chomsky stated that language learning is a complex and abstract process where students could not possibly learn some of the structural aspects of language based on the language stimuli and responses provided by the teacher in a classroom.

The implication of Chomsky’s theory on SLA is that the SLL does not simply learn language through mimicking the teacher, but rather they learn better if they are presented with rules. In addition, each SLL is unique in that no two people can produce a similar sentence when attempting to produce a sentence with the same meaning. Stimuli and response provided by the teacher should be in the form of rules rather than direct correction. Based on the cognitivist theory, language learners learn by using their cognitive thinking skills.

Feedback plays a significant role in SLL, however it has always been seen wanting. In the behaviorist and cognitivist theories, feedback is looked upon as a contributing factor to language learning. As Skinner (1953) in his work on Operant Conditioning pointed out, feedback can be in two forms: positive feedback and negative feedback. Positive feedback affirms that a learner is doing things correctly and signifies the correctness of the activity that the learner is doing/performing. On the other hand, negative feedback aims to point out the mistakes that a learner has made during the course of learning. In a language learning course, negative feedback usually focuses on the linguistic structure or grammatical error and rarely highlights the meaning. In SLA, negative feedback has received more attention than positive feedback. Recent years have also seen an increase in SLA as well as the attention placed on corrective feedback (CF); however, the findings on CF have been so far inconclusive.

According to Ellis (2009), CF is a kind of negative feedback in response to a learner’s utterance which contains linguistic error. The response aims to repair the error and consist of (1) an indication that an error has been committed, (2) provision of the correct target language form, (3) metalinguistic information about the nature of the error, or any combination of these (Ellis, et.al, 2006). The corrective feedback can range from one corrective strategy to that of multiple corrective strategies. Recent years have seen development in the application of CF by SLA researchers. These are derived from descriptive studies by researchers such as Chaudron (1977) and Lyster & Ranta (1997) on the strategies observed being used by teachers in classroom. Recently,

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researchers have developed hierarchical taxonomies of strategies based on the theoretical view of how CF works for SLA. According to Ellis (2009), the key differentiator for written CF is between direct, indirect and metalinguistic forms of correction. Though it is the norm for teachers to give immediate response to students’ verbal production and provide written feedback on a student’s work (essay), a debate on whether to use CF and ways to use it has been sparked off by Truscott (1996) in his work, “The Case Against Grammar Correction in L2 Writing Classes.” Based on his analysis of studies by Kepner (1991) and Semke (1984), Truscott came to the conclusion that the effectiveness of CF is inconclusive as there is no research evidence that can prove that error correction helps to improve students’ language acquisition. On the other hand, Ferris (1999) claimed that Truscott’s arguments were inaccurate and too strongly worded. Ferris pointed out that there was growing research evidence on the effective use of CF including its effectiveness in SLA. At the same time, while Ferris did acknowledge that Truscott’s findings on the nature of the SLA process and practical problems with providing CF were compelling, he cited that the evidence Truscott provided to support his arguments were imperfect. Even though the debate on the effectiveness of CF and whether it should be applied in SLL is still ongoing, both Truscott and Ferris acknowledged that there were still many questions that remain unanswered with regards to CF and it would be premature to claim that research has proven CF not beneficial to SLA under any circumstances. Nevertheless, teachers’ beliefs are just as important as they are the ones who implement CF in the classroom. According to Sommers (1982), Zamel (1985), Lee (2004), Montgomery & Baker (2007), teacher beliefs are important aspects that influence their practice. Borg (2001) defined teacher beliefs as a set of consciously or unconsciously held propositions that serve as a reflection and guide to the teacher’s thoughts and behaviours. A study conducted by Lee (2009) outlined ten mismatches between teachers’ beliefs and their written error correction practices. The results of his study showed that while teachers may believe that error correction feedback assists students to learn and correct their own mistakes, the teachers tend to correct and locate the students’ errors for them. This just goes to show that teachers may not actually practice what they believe. In summary, CF can be a useful tool to help SLA, provided it is used correctly and properly. In addition, teachers’ beliefs are crucial in the acquisition process because the perspectives of teachers will influence their students’ perspectives as well. By reviewing previous studies on CF, further research can expand into studying the relationship between teachers’ perspectives and practices of written error correction with that of students’. The purpose of this study, however, is to investigate the perspectives of students undergoing

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Taylor’s University’s Intensive English Program (IEN) on written corrective feedback. This will allow teachers to reflect on their practices as well as provide a platform to further investigate the effectiveness of CF.

METHODOLOGYFifteen students from the Upper Intermediate and Advanced IEN program at Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus (TLSC) took part in this study. The 15 respondents are students from different parts of Asia such as Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Iran, Oman and Malaysia. Of them, seven were males and eight were females. The average age of the respondents was 20 years and 6 months. The youngest respondent was 18 years old and the oldest respondent was 22. The minimum number of years spent learning English was 5 years and the maximum was 13. The average English learning experience is around 6 years and 8 months. A questionnaire was administered to find out the students’ preferred type of feedback for their writing and the usefulness of feedback. The questionnaire was piloted in the first week of IEN in the sixth semester at the Advanced level before the final version was distributed to the students. Questionnaires were distributed in the fourth week of the semester. This is to make sure that students have already been exposed to different types of CFs in class. The questionnaire responses were recorded in an Excel spreadsheet and then imported to SPSS Version 21 for statistical analysis. The responses of the questionnaires were then calculated and compared. By looking at the frequencies of students’ responses for each of the question in the questionnaire, their preferences for the type of feedback can be determined. Furthermore, the respondents answered the questions individually which ensured that they were not influenced by each other, which in turn will affect the outcome of their answers. The findings from the questionnaire were used to establish a relationship between the students’ preferences and usefulness of feedback types to their acquisition of the language.

FINDINGSThe analysis of findings showed that most students did not like having their peers evaluate them. They felt that their friends were not able to give honest comments and marks. On the other hand, about 9 of the 15 respondents responded positively to self-evaluation and 8 believed that they were honest enough in their comments and self-assessment.

As for the students’ preferred type of feedback, the respondents preferred their teachers’ direct feedback about their mistakes rather than being given the opportunity to correct their work. This is possibly due to the nature of the latter feedback being non-judgmental and allowing students to improve their work. This type of feedback is a kind of positive reinforcement which can help students develop their confidence. Although the non-judgmental feedback style was preferred, having teachers mark all their mistakes came

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in second as the next preferred feedback type. This was not surprising given that the respondents were mainly from Asia who were used to this kind of feedback style as the classroom culture has always been harsh on students making mistakes and where teachers have always been considered the ‘all-knowing’. Based on the items that the respondents had chosen, the respondents’ preferences reflected two extremes. They either, preferred not to be marked and given a chance to do their own correction or to have the teacher mark every single mistake. On the other hand, when quizzed about their preference on how their teacher should mark their essays, most respondents preferred to be given clues or direction on how to correct a mistake. Most of the respondents might have felt that being given clues or direction on how to correct a mistake was useful for their learning. Respondents in the research also preferred having their mistakes pointed out, corrected, commented and provided with suggestions on how the errors should be corrected. In general, most felt that the feedback method mentioned earlier was useful. One of the possible reasons is that the respondents were able to recognise their mistakes that were highlighted and were able to identify their mistakes clearly, hence were able to make corrections where necessary. On the other hand, verbal feedback was less appreciated as they felt that it did not help them learn writing. As opposed to having their mistakes pointed out through writing, verbal feedback might lack the required clarity and the respondents might not be able to capture, remember and retain all the feedback given by the teachers.

The responses from the sample also showed that in terms of the type of language feedback provided, students preferred to have their grammar corrected. Their perspectives regarding grammar correction as being useful in their acquiring of the language was not surprising at all given that these students are very rule-bound and grammar is essentially the rule of the language. They also felt that feedback on organizational errors were useful as organizational structure, be it sentences or paragraphs, are linked to grammar; hence the perception of it being useful. As for content correction, the majority of the respondents perceived it as useful for them to learn English writing. Though this research did not probe further on this aspect, the probable explanation is that content presentation is closely related to the organizational structure of writing. When ideas are well-organised, its presentation will become clearer and more concise.

The respondents were agreeable to having their spelling and vocabulary corrected. They claimed that the feedback provided on these types of mistakes assisted them in their writing, whereas only a few felt that this type of feedback was of no use. The assumption that can possibly explain the latter group is that students nowadays rely heavily on devices that help translate and check spelling, giving them the confidence in their spelling and vocabulary usage. The only feedback that nearly half of the respondents (seven) felt did not help was the correction of punctuation. This is understandable as most students

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feel that punctuation is a trivial matter and no formal lessons were given on how to use punctuation marks correctly. Thus it is not surprising to find that the majority of students felt that feedback on punctuation was of no use.

CONCLUSIONWhile the study showed that different CF strategies are perceived differently, all of them are useful to a large extent. An interesting point in reference to the use of corrective feedback strategies is the number of years spent learning English. The differences in years can cause students to have different perceptions in the usefulness of CF strategies applied. Therefore, teachers need to identify their students and understand their respective backgrounds, in order to apply the CF strategies more accurately and benefically.


REFERENCESBitchener, J. & Knoch, U. (2008). The value of written corrective feedback for migrant

and international students. Language Teaching Research, 12(3), 409 431.

Carroll, S. & Swain, M. (1993). Explicit and implicit negative feedback. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15(3), 357 386.

Chaudron, C. (1977). A descriptive model of discourse in the corrective treatment of learners’ errors. Language Learning, 27(1), 29 46.

Chomsky, N. (1959). Review of B. F. Skinner’s verbal behavior. Language, 35(1), 26 58.

Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ellis, R. (1994). A theory of instructed second language acquisition. In N. Ellis (Ed.), Implicit and explicit language learning (pp. 79–114). London: Academic Press.

Ellis, R. (2009). L2 Journal, 1(1), 8 9.

Ellis, R., Loewen, S. & Erlam, R. (2006). Implicit and explicit corrective feedback and the acquisition of L2 grammar. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28(2), 339 368.

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Ferris, D. R. (1999). The case for grammar correction in L2 writing classes. A response to Truscott (1996). Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(1), 1–10.

Ferris, D.R. & Roberts, B. (2001). Error feedback in L2 writing classes: How explicit does it need to be? Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(3), 161–184.

Ferris, D.R., Pezone S., Tade, C.R. & Tinti, S. (1997). Teacher commentary on student writing: Description and implications. Journal of Second language Writing, 6(2), 155–182

Kagimoto, E. & Rodgers, M. (2008). Students’ perception of corrective feedback. JALT 2007 Conference Proceedings (pp.868–879). Tokyo, Japan: JALT

Kepner, C. G. (1991). An experiment in the relationship of types of written feedback to the development of second language writing skills. Modern Language Journal, 75(3), 305–313.

Lee, I. (2004). Error correction in L2 secondary writing classroom: The case of Hong Kong. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13(4), 285–312

Lightbrown, P.M. & Spada, N. (1999). How languages are learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Long, M. H., Inagaki, S. & Ortega, L. (1998). The role of implicit negative feedback in SLA: Models and recasts in Japanese and Spanish. Modern Language Journal, 82(3), 357–371.

Lyster, R. & Ranta, L. (1997). Corrective feedback and learner uptake: Negotiation of form in communicative classrooms. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19(1), 37–66.

Montgomery, J. & Baker, W. (2007). Teacher-written feedback: Student perceptions, teacher self-assessment, and actual teacher performance. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16(2), 82–99

Sakui, K. & Gales, S. J. (1999). Investigating learners’ beliefs about language learning. System, 27(4), 473–492.

Schulz, R. A. (2001). Cultural differences in student and teacher perceptions concerning the role of grammar instruction and corrective feedback: USA–Colombia. The Modern Language Journal, 85(2), 244–258

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Semke, H. D. (1984). Effects of the red pen. Foreign Language Annals, 17(3), 195–202.

Skinner, B.F. (1957). Verbal behavior. NY: Appleton.

Truscott, J. (1996). The case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes. Language Learning, 46(2), 327–369.

Truscott, J. & Hsu, Y. (2008). Error correction, revision, and learning. Journal of Second Language Writing, 17(4), 292–305.

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NOTE TO AUTHORS

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Email: [email protected]; Website: www.taylors.edu/ICTLE/journal_of_interdisciplinary_research_in_education.html.

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The Need for Scientific Experiments: The Experience of Pre-service Science Teachers

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Transcript of The Need for Scientific Experiments: The Experience of Pre-service Science Teachers