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| Full Text : Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris |
| Unlike weather forecasting or share market forecasting, or even consumer and employment monitoring, education were viewed as complex processes and any changes within a short span of time were not possible to be monitored. Attempts towards indexing would not yield accurate pictures of the schooling processes. For example, how would one assess classroom processes which at the best provided global scenario while at the worst the events and the happenings were impossible to be deciphered let alone be arranged in some forms of comprehensible patterns? In the past in education the use of indicators to capture the overall performance of each of the school factors was rather alien. Educators were always on the defensive when indices were suggested to be used as a part of the school monitoring system. They would argue that education unlike market or weather conditions, or even psychological phenomenon dealt with complicated processes and the outcomes were in the forms of human constructs. To simply reduce the schooling processes sometimes referred to the black box would not do justice to the efforts put in by so many parties. However, it was timely that indexing of the parameters be explored in order to equip education and school managers with efficient and effective tools to quickly evaluate the status of each of the school learning parameters hence able to conclude its effectiveness. In reviewing the management of the school systems throughout the world it was found that there was glaring weakness in the systems whereby evaluations of their effectiveness did reflect the roles and the contributions of the parameters involved. The inferences from students' performances in the public examinations to gauge schooling effectiveness were too far fetched and unreasonable. For a school or any school system to be able to justly assess its own status, and its effectiveness and thereby took consequential steps for remediation or further improvement it would need to have a valid, reliable and practicable method of evaluation which should be on going. It was within the backdrop of this need that this study was undertaken. In general the study was an attempt to explore both the possibility and the practicability of using indices as means of assessing the schooling parameters. In trying to establish the indices of the school learning the study focused on the following prerequisite objectives: formulating a model for school learning, identification of parameters of school learning environment which would be contributing to the indices, determining critical indicators within each of the identified parameters to represent the parameters for indexing, establishing weightage for each of the parameters, identification of a formula for the index, and the main objective of the study was producing specific and composite indices of the school learning environment. For this study, constructs were understood as inferred phenomena and interpreted as something latent while variables were those phenomena which were observable and measurable and in short manifested. The assumption underlying the suggested model of the study was that the interactions which characterized the environment for learning were complex, and in the form of formal learning these interactions could be depicted at the best in the behaviors taking place in the classroom. Since learning is organized in units made up of lessons, the teaching learning behaviors are presumably able to be observed and if so measured during the units of the lesson. Each of the constructs involved would have its own dynamic. The school context for instance, could be depicted in terms of its characteristics be they static or in the form of process. The interactions among the various school contextual parameters would generate school contextual environment. Hence interactions of different kinds and different intensity would result in different contextual environment. The school context created by the different mixes and intensity would have different impact on the environments of other constructs. Likewise the varied environments of other constructs would also impact the school contextual environment as the interactions were reciprocal in nature. Therefore the interactions of the various parameters within each construct together with the interactions with other constructs would create an environment for learning for the particular construct and when each environment interacts with another environment a much more complex environment is produced, until when all the environments related to each one of the parameters compo sited together one would then have the environment for learning. Hence this operational model would be able to yield specific information of an environment of a particular construct or an environment resulting from a combination of a number of constructs. The assumptions needed to be met in this study were firstly, the model proposed in the study was adequately reflect the reality of the schooling processes. Implied in the assumption was that important contextual, input and process parameters which were the dependent parameters and their contributions towards learning should sufficiently account for the model to be valid. Also implied in the assumption was that these identified constructs were related in the manner that they contributed towards establishing the overall school learning indices. Secondly, each of the constructs were to have its weightage in relation to the overall contributions to the learning in school. The allocated weightage to each of the constructs and also the allocated weightage of each of the parameters within each of the constructs were validated. Implied in the assumption was that not only the decision on how much weight were to be allocated to the respective construct but also whether the sum of all the weightages from the identified constructs would adequately reflect the school learning indices. Thirdly, the indices yielded from the study were relatively stable or easily calibrated if required so that comparison of indices across time could be maintained. Thus what was implied in the assumption was that for each set of respondents from which the data were gathered there would be strong foundations from which validity and .. reliability were derived. The sample chosen, the methods and the instruments used to gather the data, the way and the manner the questions were asked and the allocations of the weightage to the constructs and the parameters, for example, were checked for reliability. Reliability were also checked through ensuring the validity of the constructs and the parameters. The final findings for the study were in the forms of indices which ware extracted from the sample of over 200 secondary schools throughout Malaysia. In the followings a sample of those indices is shown: School context Teacher profile and professional commitment Student history and background = Management of the students = Management of learning = Management of the students = School Learning Environment = The myth that some schools are far more effective than others may be unraveled by critical scrutiny of the parameters related to academic achievement in school. If the public at large is really concerned with what and how much a student can learn and perform it should not simply choose schools which happen to produce good examination results without looking critically into what caused the results to be commendable. Perhaps it would be better to look at the student improved score which may be a better measure of both school and also of the student learning and performance. Looking into gained score although much more desirable than simply looking into percentage of students getting good grades, however accurate could not account for what and how much each one of the schooling parameters contributes towards learning and achievement. One has to ascertain the contribution each one of the parameters through research and this would definitely take tolls on time and money. On top of that calibration of results in terms of time and schools may not be possible. As a result indexing of the parameters contributing to school effectiveness vis-a-vis student academic performance may be a way out of the problem in evaluating school effectiveness. Creation of an index as proposed in this research work can be applied on a single school parameter or can be summed into a composite index giving an aggregated scenario of the working of the different contributing school parameters to school performance. In this case one must not be diverted from the objective of the exercise in indexing which is to measure the environment of the school which together with student historical background namely, his general ability, his aptitude and motivation render to the variation in the degrees of academic performance. |
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