Effectiveness is more important than success. This is what ought to be in the minds of the academics as their leading motto which, unfortunately, is missing. Successful delivery of content from the point of view of a professional teacher need not satisfy students and hence may not be effective. Success is easily achievable whereas effectiveness in that success is what is to be checked to declare success itself. Despite the fact that other universities established earlier than Oxford and Cambridge, had several good systems in them to guarantee effectiveness, it so happened that the domination of the never setting sun of the British Empire had great impact on the structure as well as the processes of education in different countries across the world. There are several systems of British education which are commendable, but it has to be stated that several other facets of the same systems of education that the British Universities offered the world have had disastrous consequences for universities in other countries.
One such is the lecture methods that were, and also are, successfully adopted by professors in almost all colleges of about one thousand universities in the country, and it also happens that it is the greatest disaster in Higher Education Institutions. It is also equally disastrous that all lectures are for one hour, to be precise for fifty-five minutes, using the other five minutes for the professors or students to move from one classroom to another. No professor worth his designation has received a Ph.D., the highest educational course available in any university, on the effectiveness of the classroom lectures in different classes in different colleges and different universities, most likely because it is not a subject that will be approved by the guides who thrive on the learners for doctorates because they can earn a name for the work done by the researching student. It is ununderstandable why when a learner student pursuing her or his doctorate should include the name of the guide for any discovery that the discoverer makes and publishes in any of the journals.
The institute that I am associated with always propagates the need for research. However, this was more Action Research than bestowing of a doctorate except in one case where the scholar tried to measure the impact of learning and development intervention on teachers through their participation in it. His research, in fact, was an action research from the point of view of its definition that such research which contributes to or leads to or supports an action because of the discoveries made in the research. He started with a couple of them in his hypotheses. Yet twenty-two additional discoveries in his research, could lead to actions, both individually and collectively, by teachers for the improvement of learning and development of students.
All interventions of the institution that I work with have always been evaluated. If or when there was a three day, eighteen hour, intervention for learning and development, at the closure of each day, a measurement was taken with responses of all participants who would have evaluated the participation that they did on a scale of 01 to 09 as a rating scale with 01 as very poor and 09 as excellent. A close look at 09 learning and development interventions for students done recently numbering about 2,400 and 03 of the same for 320 professors provided any assessor a result on the average of above 90% satisfaction rating. As these are direct responses from the participants at a time when they have not forgotten the details of participation and strategies, methods and techniques adopted to deliver the concepts, the evaluations allow the doers or organisers or facilitators not only to get satisfied with the work done but also start thinking about how the remaining 10% would have considered the intervention less appreciable in comparison with the others. On the last day, an evaluation sheet, with ten areas, is to be filled in by every participant. The compiled results, therefore, and the grading calculated provide for improvement of each of the areas by the facilitators who are involved in their work.
The action research does not end there. Each participant is asked to give in writing answers to three questions. The first question is on their participation and what they liked about the intervention itself. The second question is on what they benefitted from the intervention. The third question is on their suggestions for improvement of the intervention. Answers to all the three questions, in the examples provided in the previous paragraph, refer to the opinions of 2,400 students and 320 professors which they expressed at a time when they would have just closed their participation in the interventions. In fact, these expressed opinions point towards the type of actions that have to follow later, depending on the opinions. Therefore, the action research helps in providing opportunities for improvement of the learning and development intervention.
There is no doubt that if every professor who delivers lectures takes an evaluation from students on each day or even once in a way at the end of the lecture, it will be of immense use. The rating scales on different grades of classification, with the reasons provided by the students for their choice of grades in their evaluations, the professor would know what changes she has to make in her delivery of the lecture the next time she does it. One assistant professor who took a cue from a discussion on action research on lectures designed an evaluation sheet and administered it to a batch of 60 students. He had definite shocks after he compiled the data of the evaluations given by the students. The data showed that fifty percent of students who sat in the last rows could not hear him properly and that an equal percentage of students did not understand the seven concepts that he explicated to them in that lecture. His action research led to these two discoveries and he decided to make necessary changes or alterations in his delivery of the content.
Sometimes one can get very interesting discoveries from the responses provided by students. It will be worthwhile to go through the responses of a student from the opinions all participants had to give in writing as answers to three questions. His written document is provided below.
Qn. No.1: What did you appreciate?
Johny Johny Yes Papa
Qn. No. 2: What did you benefit?
Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars
Qn. No. 3: Suggestions for improving the programme
Ringa Ringa Roses
Any assistant to an action research who reads this paper submitted by a student is legitimately right in getting angry with the student for misusing an opportunity provided to him. All the same, a true teacher would anlayse the three answers as the humourous attitude that is still with the student after three days of interventions in which he participated. Such a teacher would discover that the student is in a happy mood after the three days of hard work which in itself is a hundred percent appreciation of the learning and development opportunity provided by the professor. In addition, one has to admire the originality of the writing even when one understands that he could write a better appreciation. More than both, one cannot avoid noticing the courage to express what comes to one’s mind.
Fun apart, what is important is to discover how each delivery of a professor can be made more useful, more entertaining, more to be remembered, and more than anything else, more to be considered a flow of thoughts and imagination together. Every professor in every classroom should do an evaluation on a rating scale or even ask students to write out answers for questions that are provided to them. Compiling and calculating the results of this will definitely lead to the enhancement of quality of the next delivery of content. There is no doubt that there could be some disappointments in the opinions provided by any learner or a group of learners because one cannot dictate a satisfactory rating to anybody who is a listener in a classroom condition once opportunities are provided for free expressions.
Sometimes there could be very painful experience in conducting action research for improvements of classroom work. A facilitator once reported that he came across a participating professor who wrote in his evaluation sheet ‘Don’t come back to our state with such interventions’. This has to be taken in contrast with large numbers of others who had appreciated the intervention by denoting 09 as the grading that they had given. One can understand and decide that these could be considered ‘Outliers’ and therefore, have to be excluded from the compilation. Sure enough, if someone writes asking the performer not to come to his or her state, it more or less sounds as if the whole state belongs to him or his family, a thoughtline which is in the lines of air of superiority without checking. Similarly, in yet another place, another had written asking the professor not to come to the institution again. Same arguments are available for this too. These are minority opinions because of mostly external reasons. A person has to learn to dismiss them as irrelevant.
A professor in a university or a college or a teacher in a school ought to learn not only to conduct action research on her or his performances in the classroom but also develop an attitude towards learning and development in a manner in which she or he is the recipient for greater success and consequential effectiveness. It is also possible that a large number of professors and teachers may find it difficult to swallow when they discover that their wards are not satisfied with the performance of the person who assists them to learn. The only consolation in such action research is that the quality of the delivery of lectures or teaching will become far more effective and gradually reach a very high level of standard of performance.
There is a caution to be applied. Such action research should not be done for the benefit of authorities or managements so as to decide on the standard of performance of any professor or teacher. Such action research should be only for the benefit of the professor or the teacher concerned. In no way it should be available to anybody else unless the performer wants to consult and get the benefit of pieces of advice or diagnosed opinions which could be made available only through people who know what action research is.
Action research of classroom performances and classroom strategies, particularly in the case of participatory conceptualisation or discussion-centric learning processes will go a long way in improving not only the delivery as well as reception of the content of classroom work but also the relationships between professors and teachers on one side and students on the other.
………………………………….
Prof. Sunney Tharappan, is Director of College for Leadership and HRD, Mangaluru. He trains and writes and lives in Mangaluru.
Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash