Figure 2.2: Factors affecting media selection
This model above, Figure 2.2 shows that the effectiveness of instructional media to be used in the teaching and learning process is influenced by various factors such as; instructional media’s richness has an impact of what is learnt or what is to be conceptualized is made easier through multimedia. The concept of media richness is making a very important categorization, and this may be a source of a teacher reaching out to students’ different learning styles or cognitive styles. The other factors include the teacher, and the teaching philosophy, the technological skills possessed by the teacher; the learner who plays a crucial role in determining the learning, learning theories and effective teaching techniques, the institutional constraints, location and time factors. All these factors do impinge upon the selection of instructional media. The effectiveness of
Media Richness: Plan text through
multimedia
Time: Synchronised, a synchronised
Location: Together, apart
Relationship: Professor Student,
student-student, outsider-student
Institutional constraints:
Equipment availability, classroom connectivity, software and material availability
Course content: Entire course,
individual session
Learners: Sensory channel,
cognitive ability, motivation class size
Teachers: Teaching, philosophy,
technology skills
Learning Objectives Cognitive: Knowledge, comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation
Skills: Oral and written communication
problem solving, creativity, computer, team leadership
Attitude: Motivation to learn and
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instructional media in tertiary students’ conceptualization of intended learning outcomes is a function of the factors that influence the selection of instructional media. In other words, the model is purporting to suggest that educational technology alone is not a panacea to effective conceptualization of intended learning outcomes, but, instructional media has other factors that should be taken in to cognizance to make instructional media more effective in the conceptualization of intended learning outcomes at tertiary level of education.
Instructional media to be effective in order to enhance conceptualization of intended learning outcomes depends on different factors mentioned above (see figure 2.1above). When it comes to tertiary students’ learning, students in tertiary education are considered to be adults and therefore, their learning is a fusion of the concepts of pedagogy (teaching of children) and andragogy (teaching of adults). Andragogy generally is argued that , since it is premised on Knowles’ following assumptions: that adults have (i)Self-concept, as a person matures, his/her self-concept moves from one of being a dependent personality to one who is a self-directed human being, meaning learning is self-directed and students are generally intrinsically motivated to learn, which means at tertiary level students learning is a result of individual self-motivation, and this enhances conceptualization of intended learning outcomes(Erasmus and Dyk 2003:128-129). (ii) Experience, as a person matures he/she accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes and increasing resource of learning, meaning experience plays an important part for the learner(at tertiary level of education) to conceptualize the intended learning outcomes, simply put; they draw from experience to conceptualize the intended learning outcomes. This helps the learners to understand the concepts. (iii) Readiness to learn is one of the principles of learning, developed by Thorndike. The principle of readiness states that as a person matures, his/her readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles, meaning that the readiness to learn is associated with their social roles, apart from this, readiness implies a degree of single-mindedness and eagerness (Erasmus and Dyk 2003:128-129, Madhurima and Sharma 2009:319).This principle of readiness is also associated with putting the learners in the right frame of mind to receive the new
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learning of that day, thus preparing the learner to conceptualize the intended learning outcome. The principle of readiness is associated with setting of induction or the motivation phase during the teaching and learning process, to make learners, receptive, responsive and ready to receive the new learning, which is the concept that the learners need to conceptualize. (iv)Orientation to learning, as a person matures his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application. Accordingly, this orientation towards learning shifts from one of subject centeredness to one of problem centeredness. In other words the immediate application of knowledge learnt, helps the learner to conceptualize the intended learning outcomes. Thus an indication of effective learning when the information learnt can be applied. (v) Motivation to learn, as a person matures the motivation to learn is internal. This is so, because learners have different maturity stages in the cognitive development; some are early maturers, some are late maturers, and others are generally fast and slow learners (Erasmus and Dyk 2003:128-129). This internal motivation makes the learners conceptualize the intended learning outcomes, because a need to learn is already within the learner and the need is the one that drives them to learn.
In other words students’ achievement, at tertiary level of education, cannot be purely attributed to the use of instructional media as other factors do impinge upon the use of instructional media. Max (2006) asserts, “What I will take away from Clark/Kozma debate is that no media in and of itself has the power to really influence learning.” Marx’s (2006) argument here is that, instructional media alone cannot be accountable for the tertiary students’ conceptualization of intended learning outcomes, because other variables in the teaching and learning process also play a crucial role in the process of tertiary students’ conceptualization of intended learning outcomes.