A Comparison Between Educational
Self-concept and Entrance Behavior
of Humanities Students in Distance
and Conventional Education Systems of Iran
Dr. Abolfazl Farahani
Payame Noor University
Tehran, I.R. Iran
Abstract
One of the main questions of higher education curriculum planners of Iran in general and decision-makers of Payame Noor University (PNU) in particular is with what scientific background students enter and with what scientific competence they graduate. This study has been conducted to answer the questions raised in Humanities field. In this study, the scientific background, the educational self-concept and some of the important factors of educational efficiency in students of Physical Education, Education and Public Administration programs have been compared to each other in two educational systems. The research results show that students of distance education system enter Payame Noor University with low scientific background. The details of this difference are as follows:
- The GPA of the students’ entrance examination in Physical Education, Education and Public Administration programs in distance education system respectively are 6047, 6155 and 5974, which is lower than those of the students of conventional education in the same disciplines. The GPAs difference groups has been meaningful in a = 0/001 level.
- The GPAs of conventional education students have been higher in Public Administration, Education and Physical Education programs respectively, while in distance education system, students of Education, Physical Education and Public Administration programs respectively have been entered in university with higher GPAs.
- High school GPA of conventional education students in all 3 programs is higher than the other comparative group. This difference is meaningful at
a = 0/001 level. Furthermore, the imagination of distance education students regarding their academic and occupational future is lower than their conventional education counterparts. The details of this difference are as follows:
- Educational self-concept level of distance education students in Physical Education is lower than conventional students. This difference is meaningful at a = 0/001 level.
- There is no difference in educational self-concept of the two educational systems’ students in Public Administration and Education programs.
Besides, the findings of the research revealed that about 70 percent of distance education system’s students are female, 62 percent are not involved in any formal activity other than education, and 70 percent of them are dependent on their parents for providing their educational expenditure.
The samples of this study are selected from the employed students of 72 classes of all the universities all over the country. The method of selection was random-cluster sampling.
To analyze the collected data, the following formulas have been used: T-student Test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Nonparametric Chi Square (x2) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test.
Keywords: Distance Education System, Educational Self-concept, Entrance Behavior, Humanities Students
Introduction
Different countries have benefited from distance education system according to their cultural, social and educational conditions. It is about three decades that the first distance universities have been established in Iran. Although, this system was active only during last two decades, it had an important role in creating equitable access to education in different regions of the country.
Payame Noor University (PNU) is the unique distance education university and also the greatest state higher education institution in Iran which the basic portion of its students studies at humanities fields. The university enrolls students at bachelor’s, masters and doctoral degree levels. Since the essential part of Iranian university students are being accepted through university national entrance exam and due to various reasons PNU is set among the last choices of students and in some cases it is taken as the only way for entering in university.
On this basis and considering the low interaction between educational elements of distance education, the study function of the students is a challenge which distance education policy-makers are faced with. Regarding the expansion of humanities fields in PNU, this research has been conducted to study the situation of distance education system’s students from their scientific background and educational self-concept in three selected fields and its comparison with conventional system’s students, recognition of insufficiencies and disadvantages of distance education system with emphasis on student centered nature.
In this study, three below secondary aims are considered for finding the answer:
1. The comparison of scientific background (GPA of high school diploma and the score of the university entrance exam) of two educational systems’ students in the selected study fields
2. The comparison of educational self-concept of the two educational systems’ students in the selected study fields
3. The comparison of some of personal factors effective in educational efficiency of the students such as age, gender, occupation, marital status and the method of securing the study expenditure of the two systems’ students.
Entrance Behavior (Scientific Background) and Its Role in Study
Entrance behavior is consisted of the abilities that a learner should have acquired before starting an educational level. It indicates to the preparedness of the individual for learning educational objectives (final and intermediate). What t
he learner has learned before which is considered as prerequisite for learning the new materials and also all of the positive and negative experiences resulted from previous taught which are effective in instructing new materials are called as entrance behavior. Though it may be assumed as an evident matter, the preparedness of the learner is very important. In many cases, the learner cannot behave in the way that the teacher expects. It should be recalled that if the learner is not prepared for learning the materials, the instructor will not succeed in teaching them.
Providing a basis for determining the adequacy of education is the reason for measuring the entrance behavior of the learners. If at the end of the instruction, the educational organization finds out that some of the learners have not acquired the final objectives, this will help it to decide whether it is due to insufficient education or inadequacy of learners’ preparedness (entrance behavior). Entrance behavior is not restricted to a behavioral class, but “these behaviors have recognition, emotional, psychological movement aspects. Recognition entrance behaviors point to recognition learning of prerequisites, psychological movement entrance behaviors include movement skills of learning prerequisites and emotional entrance behaviors indicate to interest, encouragement and the methods of learner’s behavior with the subject.”
In this paper, the entrance behavior of the learners has been studied from the viewpoints of scientific preparedness in variants with university entrance exam and high school diploma as scientific background and some personal features effective in learning such as age, gender, marital status, occupation, securing instruction expenditure and the level of educational self-concept.
Research Methodology
For comparison between entrance behavior and former experiences of subjects the causal-comparative method has been used. Through this procedure, the entrance behavior of the students, their scientific background (including university entrance exam score and high school GPA) and some of their personal factors such as age, gender, marital status, occupation and securing educational expenditure which might affect on the quality of learning and educational improvement have been compared.
Research Methodology and Data Collection
Subjects’ entrance behaviors have been studied by variables of university entrance exam score, diploma GPA, variables of personal features (age, sex, marital status, occupation and securing educational expenses). University entrance exam score and diploma GPA have been obtained by student’s report card in the Organization of Education Assessment or student’s records in the university office of education. Information about the other variables of subjects entrance behavior, such as their personal states has been obtained by a questionnaire which has contained some questions about the individual and familiar status of subjects. This questionnaire has contained twelve close tests questions about subjects personal states.
Statistical Society, Number of Samples and Sampling Methods
Statistical society has been consisted of all of the Bachelor’s degree students of public universities in Physical Education, Public Administration and Education fields in 2004-2005 academic years. Their number were 37,500 people, 31,000 people have studied in conventional system and 6500 ones have studied in distance education.
The selected sample capacity of each of the educational systems has been 12 classrooms of each system in each discipline and 36 classrooms in total statistical society. The sample capacity of conventional system has been 970 people and distance education system has been 1350 ones.
Based on the extension of statistical society and research quality, sampling of statistical society has been conducted in two stages as follows:
A. Classical
B. Accidental Clustering
Data Analysis
In this study, indexes of descriptive statistics have been applied for getting average, standard deviation, coordination study and relations between the variables. For comparison subjects’ scores in university entrance exam, parametric t student exam is used to compare subjects scores with different individual features and also non-parametric Chi Square (x2) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov are used to compare subjects number regarding their sexes, ages and the other nominal variables. Person coordination index has been applied for measuring coordination relevancy between educational function with entrance exam score, diploma GPA and Spearman coordination index has been applied for testing coordination between educational function with the other independent variables, with nominal scale including the type of diploma, age, sex, occupation, marital status and securing educational expenses.
The acceptable meaningful level of this study is at least 5% level and all of the statistical stages have been done by computer and SPSS5. V. statistical software packages.
Findings
Research results show that the students of distance education enter PNU with weak scientific background.
Details of this difference are as follows:
· Entrance examination average in Physical Education, Education, and Public Administration is 6047, 6155, and 5974 respectively. In comparison with the students of the same fields of education in conventional system, these grades are lower. The difference between the GPA's in each of the three groups at α=0.001is meaningful.
· GPA of students of management, education and physical education is higher in conventional systems whereas in distance education, students of education, physical education and public education have entered the university with higher grades.
· Diploma GPA of the employed students in conventional systems in all three fields of education is higher in comparison. With the comparison group This difference is meaningful at α=0.001
The prospect of the distance education students about their future education and job is less than of the conventional students.
Details of this difference are as follows:
The level of self-concept among the distance education students of the physical education is lower than conventional students. This difference is meaningful at α=0.001
There is no difference between the self-concept of the students in public education and education.
In addition the results show that students are in some cases different from personal characteristics and in other cases there are no differences. Following is the short outline of the findings about personal characteristics.
Age: The age of the most of the students in both systems of education is between 21-25. This ratio is higher in conventional students (75%) and in distance education is lower (69%). In addition the number of students of lower than 20 years and higher than 31 years old is more in distance education system.
Sex: Most of the students in both systems of education are female.70% of the students in distance education and 1% of the students in conventional education systems are females.
Employment Status: There is no distinct difference between employed and unemployed students in the education systems.63% and 62% of the students in conventional and distance education systems are engaged in occupations other than study.
Living Expenses Status: There is also no distinct difference between the students.72% of the conventional education system and 70% of the distance education students are dependent to their family regarding to their expenses.
Marital Status: Most of the students in both systems are single. This accounts to 77% in conventional and 69% in distance education. The number of married students is higher in distance education.
Results and Discussion: University entrance examination score: Results of the both researches showed that distance education students versus conventional students enter the university with less preparation. (x-1, x-2, x-3 respectively equal to 6648, 7876 and 8131 for the students of conventional system opposite to x-1, x-2, x-3 respectively equal to 6047, 6155 and 5974 for the students of distance education system in Physical Education, Education and Administration), and these differences in each of the three fields have been meaningful statistically at the level of α = 0/001.
Diploma GPA :It is indicated that there is a meaningful statistical difference between the subject’s diploma GPA of the two educational systems. (x-1, x-2, x-3 respectively equal to 14/21, 14/7, and 13/3 for the students of conventional system opposite to x-1, x-2, x-3 respectively equal to 12/42, 13/01, 13/22 for the students of distance education system in Physical Education, Education and Public Administration fields). This difference in each of the three educational fields has been meaningful statistically at the level of α = 0/001. The findings of this study is coordinated with Lockyer (1976) research achievements, based upon “the high school diploma scores have been the best factor for predicting the educational succession of the Iranian students in the United States”, Attaching (1996), based upon “the existence of positive and meaningful relation between the high school diploma and the GPA of the university courses in distance education system”, and Klinjer (1973), based upon “the existence of 59% positive coordination between the scores of the high school courses and the university first year scores” and Izenberg and Dawest (1990), based upon “the promotion in distance education period of England is influenced by the educational function of the students in some of the previous courses.”
Educational Self-Concept
There is no meaningful difference between the self-concept of the students of education and public administration in distance and conventional education systems. This issue was not observed in the field of physical education. The findings of the educational self-concept in this field indicates a meaningful statistic difference of third variable.
(GPA of the conventional students in physical education is 111 and for distance education is 105 which is meaningful at a= 0.001). It seems that practical nature of the physical education and unsatisfactory conduct of practical courses, together with the students' outlook about their findings and educational experiences and future job requirements make them worried and this in turn lowers their self-concept.