1.0 Introduction
1.1.
Background
In this 21st Century, many countries are very
competitive in developing technologies and multimedia field in order to reduce
the communication gap. In this regard, the government of Malaysia is making a
lot of efforts to establish the Multi-media Super Corridor (MSC) in the area of
750 kilometres square, the covered area from Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC)
and extended to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). The implementation
of this project is giving a lot of implication that seen from different view
such as the aspect of education, economic, industrial, social and politic.
Nowadays, the exponential growth of technologies in the
global markets makes people easier to learn more effectively. Meeting this new
approach in gathering knowledge, the Ministry of Education Malaysia are decided
to look forward and doing a lot of research regarding the learning style and
thus design the E-Learning system to motivated students to develop
self-learning skill to achieve higher performance especially at higher
education level.
1.2 Objectives
1.21 To investigate the
effectiveness of E-Learning method to students.
1.22 To study the
purpose of implementation of E-Learning in higher education level.
1.23 To compare between
E-Learning and traditional learning.
1.3 Procedure
1.3.1
Questionnaire
The
survey was conducted by distribution of 40 sets of questionnaire to the
students of UiTM as the main respondents to this case of studies. They were 26
numbers of respondents are from female students and 14 numbers of respondents
are from male students. From the result
that we found from the survey, there are several findings that can be obtained
and thus be the main elements to be
taken into consideration in implementation of E-Learning based studies in
tertiary education level in Malaysia.
2.0 Findings
2.1 Learning Time
The
amount of time spent learning (or time-on-task), the quality of learning time
has a real influence on learning performance. Quality of time in online
learning depends on students’ time availability and their willingness to devote
quality cognitive time to learning activities (Margarida & Elena, 2011).
Learning
quality and quantity of the time spent by students on e-Learning can be reduced
by several factors which are social activities, internet access, and time
constraint due to university activities.
Student’s lives especially in the university are quite busy due to a lot
of assignment, quizzes and tests. So the time allocate to their learning is
reduced (after doing all the activities).
 |
| Figure 1: Total time spends by students per week. |
Based on
the pie chart above, the highest total
time spends by student for e-learning are 3 hours with 65% followed by 1 hour
with 20%, followed by 5 hours with 12.5% and lastly 12 hours and above which is
2.5%.
Internet access is one the factors why student
spend less time on e-Learning system. In UiTM Shah Alam, the internet
connection is provided by the university. Student may online by connect with
student’s Wi-Fi known as “uitmsalamstudent”. However the connection at UiTM
Shah Alam, is quite poor and slow, maybe due to excessive user or the modem is
not good enough to support users in this campus which have more than ten
thousand people. Thus, the time spent by student on the internet is lesser.
2.1.2 Learning Time Quality
Time
quality is depends on student lifestyle. Time quality is made up of attributes
related to a certain kind of activity. In academic, the quality of students’
learning time is considered to be cognitive. Depending on the nature of the
learning activities, different attributes of the students’ time are required.
These attributes depend not only on the task difficulty (Belmont &
Butterfield, 1971; Kobasigawa& Metcalf-Haggert, 1993). Quality of learning
time also based on learner ability to understand and digest whatever
information gathered.
2.1.3 Learning Time Flexibility
According
to Margarida and Elena (2011) time flexibility as the students’ ability to
regulate their time-on-task according to their learning time availability, the
instructional time requirements, and the flexibility of the learning tasks.
Learners’ time flexibility is determined by their capacity to allocate time to
academic activities and the quantity and quality of time they can spend on
these activities. Therefore, online learning time flexibility is in terms of
both instructional time flexibility and student time flexibility.
On
e-learning, time and location are flexible, learners can adjust their time when
to study or do some revision on the internet. They also can save whatever information
they want and can study whenever they free.
2.2
Learning Materials
The learning materials will be the important element
of e-learning process. Without a good preparation and selection of the topics
as well as the elaboration the contents may be useless to students. There are a
lot of considerations to be taken into accounts when using the virtual mode of
studies, they were the availability, the accessibility, and the scopes of those
particular materials were being used as a main reference.
2.2.1 Availability
A survey was conducted by our group members by
distribution of 40 sets of questionnaire to the students of MARA University of
Technology (UiTM). It was found that 60% of the UiTM students preferred to gain
knowledge via electronic media rather than printed media, 65% of the students
are spending time online 3 hours per week, and 65% of the students agreed that
they are satisfied with the information
that they gathered from the Internet.
 |
| Figure 2: Learning Media |
The Pie Chart above shows that the media
that the students prefer the most to gain knowledge. It was found that 60% of
the respondents choose an electronic media as the main reference whereas 40% of
them are prefer to use printed media as the main materials in their studies.
This situation will encourage students
to learn very quickly because the materials are available and easy to get
compared to traditional classes whereas the text books have to be read page by
page because the elaboration of a particular topic is very details and students
take a long time to understand the whole ideas. Hence, the available of
learning materials will contribute to the successful of the implementation of
e-learning based studies in tertiary education level.
2.2.2 Accessibility
Typically in the university the system is developed
by the experts, normally a Web Master. Once the system is standby and connected
to the server the learning materialswill beuploaded and always keep up-to-date
by the lecturers who have the responsibility to prepared the useful contains
for students. Then, the students will freely access the system with their own
username and password, and the system is known as I-Learn in UiTM Student
Portal.
Based on the observation, 100 % of the UiTM students
from Faculty of Civil Engineering are familiar with the blended learning system
which is the combination of traditional classes and e-learning session. In
virtual classes for example the students have to complete about an hour classes
for the attendance and submit the tutorial within the timeframe that given by
the lecturer. As a result,the adaptation of e-learning based studies is
accepted in Malaysia educational system in according with the divergence of
technology and the Internet.
2.3
Benefit of e-learning
There are several
benefits of e-learning for UiTM students. These benefits that respondents can
obtain includes easy to use,lower cost ,more effective learning and can develop
knowledge of internet and computer skills.
 |
| Figure 3: Benefit of E-Learning |
The chart shows the
benefits of e-learning for UiTM students. It shows that the highest percentage
of 40% is to develop knowledge and computer skills.Then followed by more
effective learning and lower cost which are 30% and 20% respectively.The lowest
percentage of benefits of e-learning is easy to use which only contributes 10%
of the total percentage.
From the data,we can
say that almost the student uitm get benefit to improve their own knowledge
about to use internet and computer skill.For example during the student do
their assignment by using e-learning program,they are have train their ownself
to use internet to get the information and use the computer to complete their
assignment. At the same time the student also can improve their knowledge about using the
internet and computer skills.Other than that,today many of student use the
smart phone as a electronic media to get the information and do their assignment
by the e-learning.That have proved by the result of questionaire gets almost
60% student more choose electronic media compare to printed media.This is
because its maybe to easy to get and and fasters compare to other.The result
shows from the data such as the chart at below in Figure 4.
 |
| Figure 4: Media preferred by students |
The lower percentage of
benefit of e-learning that are student uitm get are easy to use.Almost of the
student said that e-learning is not simply use.This is because once want to use
e-learning that people should know properly to use computer or internet.Other
than that, e-learning most use the connection of internet data and sometime if
the internet data have a problem will give the bad impact to student when use
e-learning.That why some part the student uitm like to prefer use hard copy or
doing class like usually.From the report that why benifit e-learning easy to
use only 10%.Otherwise, student also always takes the old way to study in a
classroom compare the other develop country.
2.4 The Ways to Encourange the Attraction to Use E-Learning
2.4.1
Students’ Prefer to Use
There are several ways
to encourage the students to use the e-learning. The most students' prefer
includes post video / audio lecturer recording, group forum / chat, open
licensed learning materials and create a pleasant look and feel notes.
 |
| Figure 5: Method of study prefered by students |
The chart shows the
students' prefer to use the e-learning. Most of the respondents surveyed are
prefer to choose post video / audio lecturer recording which is 40%. Then
followed by group forum / chat which is 30%. Only a small number of respondents
implied that to use open licensed learning materials and create a pleasant look
and feel notes which is both are 10% respectively.
From the data, we can
say that most students are prefer to use e-learning based on post video / audio
lecturer recording because the students can always refer when they have time or
needed to know about the information. Otherwise, the students can repeat to
watch the video or listen to the recorded to help them to remember about the
important points that they have to remember. It also helps students when the
final examination is around the corner. Then, the group forum / chat also are
students chosen because lecturer likes to give an
assessment to the students to interact them to communicate with the others.
Other than that, lecturer can evaluate the students' potential such as soft
skills, knowledge, writing skills, and others. However, not all students know
about licensed learning materials so they are not prefer to use it. Lastly, not
all the lecturer has enough time to spend to make the colourful and attach more
picture as an example in their slides. Some of the students also doesn’t mind
about look but most prefer about the contain that they can get from it.
3.0
Conclusions
3.1 Learning Time
Based on
the data obtained, most of the respondents only spend about 3 hours per week on
internet to study or to do their assignments. This indicates that students
spend less time on e-learning compared with traditional learning system which
is attend a lecture.
3.2 Learning Materials
The results of the investigation shows that majority
of UiTM students are preferred to gain knowledge via electronic media and most
of them are spending time online about 3 hours per week. Hence, they are
satisfied with the knowledge and information that they gathered from the
Internet.
3.3 Benefits of
E-Learning
It means that, most of student uitm get more benefit to
develop knowledge internet and computer skill during e-learning compare to
others.
4.0 Recommendations
Based on the
findings and conclusions of the study, here are several recommendations to be
considered:
4.1 Learning Time
Students
should have a proper timetable to divide between social activities and studies.
Other than that, student should spend more time on e-learning because nowadays
a lot of information can easily obtained from the internet. However, E-learning
is just a tool to help students to gain more knowledge and get more
understanding outside the classroom.
4.2
Learning Materials
The
university should improve the contains of the learning materials and the
Internet connectivity to encourage students to gain knowledge via electronic
media so that they can select the best quality of materials provided online to
be the references in order to enhance the ability of students to learn based on
their own effort by using e-learning mode of studies .
4.3 Benefits of E-Learning
Goverment or all institution should take
action to expose about to study using e-learning all students and
people.Goverment make sure that all
people especially student to know about e-learning because to create that
student people know about internet and to use computer with the same time can
improve skill to use it.That institution that use e-learning program such as
uitm, it should introduce to their students about e-learning and to use it.By
that ways, it will easy to study and understand to student use it.
References
Anuwar
Ali (2007, May). Issues and Challenges In Implementing E-Learning in Malaysia.
Open University Malaysia.
Belmont, J. M., & Butterfield, E. C.
(1971).Learning strategies as determinants of memory deficiencies. Cognitive Psychology, 2(4), 411–420.
Jason. R & Maria,
H. (2003,Oct). The Business Case for E-Learning.Advantages of E-Learning.
