Background: Kenya has transitioned from the long-established 8-4-4 education system to the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), sparking widespread debate regarding the effectiveness of their respective grading systems. While the 8-4-4 system primarily emphasized academic achievement through summative national examinations, the CBC emphasizes formative and continuous assessment strategies designed to evaluate a broader range of learner competencies.
Purpose: This study aims to conduct an analytical comparison of the grading systems used in the 8-4-4 and CBC frameworks in Kenya, focusing on their effectiveness, strengths, and challenges in assessing learners.
Methods: A mixed-methods research design was employed. Quantitative data were collected through surveys administered to 67 participants, including 60 teachers and 7 policymakers. Additionally, qualitative data were gathered via interviews with 13 respondents—10 teachers and 3 policymakers. The survey data were analysed using descriptive statistics, while thematic analysis was used to interpret interview responses.
Results: Survey findings revealed that 78% of respondents favoured the holistic and competency-oriented approach of the CBC, with a mean score of 20.23 (SD = 0.92). However, concerns were raised about the inconsistency and resource limitations of the CBC, which averaged a lower score of 16.61 (SD = 2.75). Interviews highlighted the CBC’s flexibility and inclusiveness, as it assesses a range of 21st-century skills such as creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving. Conversely, the 8-4-4 system was appreciated for its structured and transparent grading, though it was criticized for promoting rote learning and lacking practical engagement.
Conclusion: While the 8-4-4 grading system provided clarity and structure, the CBC represents a forward-looking approach by offering a more comprehensive and competency-based learner evaluation. Nonetheless, successful implementation of the CBC depends on addressing critical challenges such as teacher preparedness, resource availability, and standardized assessment criteria. A balanced integration of both systems’ strengths could guide Kenya toward more inclusive and effective learner assessment practices.
Background and Purpose: The purpose of this research was to find out how virtual reality instruction affected students’ conceptual understanding of physics concepts.
Method: This study used a quasi-experimental approach with control groups before and after the test. 117 SSII physics students comprise the study’s sample. chosen at random from two public co-educational secondary schools in the Dutsin-Ma Education Zone. The Physics Conceptual Understanding Test (PCUT) with a reliability of 0.781 was used. Means, standard deviations, and a t-test with independent samples were used to analyze the data (P = 0.05).
Result: In fostering students’ conceptual understanding of physics concepts, virtual reality instruction was found to be more effective than the teacher-centered method. The result shows no significant differences in the conceptual knowledge of male and female students.
Conclusion: To enhance their conceptual understanding of physics, it was suggested that teachers expose their physics students to virtual reality instruction. It was also suggested that it be incorporated into teacher training institutions’ curricula to enhance the conceptual understanding of both male and female students.
Background: Vygotsky’s theory accentuates the importance of social and cultural context and meaning. The newspapers provide contextual, meaningful, and authentic input that makes it easier to understand the passage, syntactical structures, unfamiliar vocabulary, and social and cultural issues as well. Reading newspapers regularly works towards improving learning outcomes and reading comprehension skills.
Purpose: The study was conducted in Malerkotla, Punjab, and explored the effect of gender and English newspaper reading on the reading comprehension of 9th-class students.
Methods: The investigator intended to conduct that study on 100 randomly selected students. But during the experiment some students got absent, so investigators decided to remove the 8 pairs of students. In the final stage the investigator performed an experiment on 42 randomly selected pairs with respect to gender. The study employed an experimental research design, with 84 students from two selected schools using a lottery approach. The experimental group received instruction while dedicating 45 minutes every day to reading newspapers under the supervision and assistance of teachers. Mean, S.D., Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances, and balanced two-factor (2×2) factorial design were applied.
Results: The results showed that there is a significant effect of English newspaper reading and gender on the reading comprehension of 9th-class students. Reading comprehension of 9th-class students was found independent of interaction between gender and newspaper reading.
Conclusion: the study indicates that both gender and treatment type significantly affect reading comprehension scores among 9th-class students, with females and the experimental group performing better than their counterparts. Overall, the analysis indicates that both gender and treatment significantly influence the dependent variable reading comprehension, while the interaction between these two factors does not have a significant effect.
Background: A cyclical relationship has been documented among a teacher’s self-efficacy, stress, and segments of their professional wellness (i.e., psychological, financial). Despite the recognized importance of teacher wellness and self-efficacy, research pertaining to public school elementary teachers specifically regarding these constructs is sparse.
Purpose: The current exploratory study aimed to discover the relationship between teachers’ self-efficacy and teacher wellness, controlling for factors such as time spent teaching, and potential site-based differences in the relationship.
Methods: The sample was comprised of 33 elementary school teachers across two elementary schools (K-5th grades), in two geographically different states, who completed the standardized Teacher Sense of Self-Efficacy Scale Short Form and the Five Factor Wellness Inventory.
Results: Results from a Spearman’s rho indicated that, for both schools, there was a moderate, statistically significant, positive correlation between teachers’ self-efficacy and wellness with higher self-efficacy related to higher wellness.
Conclusions: Given the results, the new insights into the relationship between teacher wellness and self-efficacy, regardless of location, indicates that preservice higher education training programs must emphasize the critical priority of building, supporting, and creating sustainable practices for teacher wellness and self-efficacy. As these practices begin prior to entering the profession, teachers can implement their coping skills to maintain higher wellness and self-efficacy levels, providing healthy modeling to others and potentially increasing effectiveness of instruction and retention levels.
Background: Teachers often provide students with independent practice activities, such as completing worksheets or other written assignments, after receiving content-area instruction. Many students understand independent practice is part of a teacher’s daily routine. However, some students who display challenging behaviors or who are at-risk for developing an emotional or behavioral disorder (E/BD) often do so during independent academic work activities as a way to escape a task they perceive as unpleasant.
Method: Teachers often respond to continued misbehavior by removing these students from the classroom as a form of discipline. However, their removal only reinforces them engaging in additional misbehavior as a way to escape a task. Unfortunately, the approach of using exclusionary practices takes away from instructional and independent practice time these students would otherwise receive.
Result: Teachers often do not know how to simultaneously positively address increasing work completion while also decreasing inappropriate escape behaviors during these tasks without the use of exclusionary practices.
Purpose and Conclusion: The purpose of this article is to provide teachers with a fun, positive way to simultaneously increase students’ accurate work completion while decreasing inappropriate behaviors that otherwise would be performed to escape the task and result in exclusionary discipline practices.
Background: The use of technology in education is significantly increasing. Its primary focus is to improve educational standards and facilitate the learning process. Recent developments in educational technology, which emphasize accessibility, greatly influence the future of education and the learning process.
Purpose: This paper analyzes the recent trends in educational technology in India by reviewing the research articles published in the Indian Journal of Educational Technology (IJET) by NCERT from 2019 to 2024 (up to January 2024).
Method: The content analysis technique was used in order to achieve the research objective.
Results: The result of the study shows that online teaching and learning, as well as the use of ICT-based tools, were the most frequently discussed topics, indicating the need to investigate other aspects of educational technology as well. The study also highlights a strong lack of collaborative research practices among authors. The most commonly used sampling techniques were purposive sampling and random sampling, with most studies considering a sample size of fewer than 100 participants. For the majority of authors, the primary focus areas were teacher education and school education. Questionnaires were the most commonly used to collect data.
Conclusion: However, this study’s limitation was its exclusive analysis of research articles published in IJET-NCERT, excluding other journals. The study aims to help researchers, policymakers, and academicians develop a roadmap for promoting and conducting technology-based research.
Background: The higher education institutions will achieve autonomy traversing the path of graded accreditation. The autonomy of higher education is linked with the quality of education and accreditation. Higher education institutions will not only achieve autonomy but will sustain it in ever-changing external and internal environments.
Purpose: The purpose is to design strategies for the sustenance of autonomy in higher education institutions.
Method: The paper is based on an exploratory qualitative study conducted during 2020. The research objectives emanate from the review of the literature and the experiences of the researcher. The research objective is further explored from the literature review to formulate the research questions.The population for the study constitutes the autonomous higher education institutions of the country including engineering, management, pharmacy, and polytechnic institutions. The researcher selected a purposive sample to gather the information and views of the respondents. Respondents were selected from all over India, all types of institutions, and all levels of the institute. The researcher designed a comprehensive, concise, precise, and accurate structured and semi-structured research instrument based on the literature, experiences, and focus group discussion. This research instrument was validated on content and construct in a group of six persons working in the area of autonomy. Then it was prepared in the Google form which was validated by forty respondents. The respondents are principals, heads of departments, senior faculty members working in national-level institutes, higher education institutes, and technical institutions.The instrument was mailed to more than 8000 respondents out of which 954 respondents provided information. The information is provided by principals, deans, heads of departments, and senior faculty members. Secondary information is also used to fill up the gap to achieve the research objective. The information received from structured instruments is compiled using Microsoft Excel Sheet to calculate the weighted mean and percentage.
Results: The strategies for sustaining autonomy at central government, state government, regulatory body, institute, teacher, and student levels are evolved.
Conclusion: To reap the full potential of autonomy and its sustenance strategies at different levels of hierarchy need to be effectively implemented on continuous basis.
Research in education is being conducted in central universities, state universities, deemed-to be universities, private universities, and institutes of India. The Indian education system has not utilized the findings of research in education for improving the teaching-learning process, evaluation procedures, the development of instructional material, curricular as well as co-curricular activities, etc. One of the reasons for not utilizing findings is the quality of research in education. In this paper an attempt was made to peep deep into the quality of research in education conducted at the doctoral level and available on Shodhganga. The criteria used for studying the quality of research in education were wording of title, objectives and hypothesis, sampling techniques, tools, experimental design (only for experimental research), data analysis, and findings. Data were collected from theses of 178 universities in India available on Shodhganga. Each thesis uploaded on Shodhganga was analyzed in respect of the wording of the title of research, the wording of objectives & hypotheses, sampling techniques, tools, experimental design, data analysis, and findings. On the basis of content analysis, it was found that, on the whole, research in education is too weak from all points of view. Thus, there is an urgent need to think of a strategy to be used for improving the quality of research in education.
This world we live in is increasingly prone to rapid technological change, where artificial intelligence (AI) is sculpting what we learn and what we perceive about learning itself. Even though AI is paving the way for individuals to access, analyze, and interpret information, it’s essential for us to remember the root qualities that help students thrive in thinking critically, analytically, and creatively. These high-order thinking skills are uniquely human and are shaping students in a world full of challenges and similar-looking choices.
Background: NETS-T Standards for teachers define the knowledge and skills that teachers or educators need to have in order to successfully and effectively integrate technology in teaching and learning.
Purpose: It is essential for every community to know the status of their teachers’ NETS-T educational technology practices.
Methods: A questionnaire consisting of 6 educational technology factors, with a number of items or performance indicators, under each factor was administered to 76 Grade 10 English medium Secondary School teachers. The sample included 14 male teachers, and 62 female teachers from 11 schools that were conveniently selected.
Results: Findings were that most teachers strongly agree to the items mentioned under the TOC factor and PPP factor, while most of them agreed to the items mentioned under PDL, AAE, SEL, and TLC factors. A significant statistical difference in the distribution of the average scores of items for pairwise comparisons of some schools was found under TOC, PDL, AAE and PPP items.
Conclusions:There was no significant statistical difference in the distribution of average scores of items for pairwise comparisons of schools under SEL and TLC factors.
