Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 4(23): 5236-5242, 2012
ISSN: 2040-7467
© Maxwell Scientific Organization, 2012
Submitted: May 01, 2012
Accepted: May 22, 2012
Published: December 01, 2012
Learning Behavior in Using Portal System for Architecture’s Students in the
Research Methodology Course
1,3
A.I. Che-Ani, 3N.M. Tawil, 1N.A.G. Abdullah, 1M. M. Tahir and 2,3A. Zaharim
1
Department of Architecture,
2
Head of Centre of Engineering Education,
3
Centre of Engineering Education, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
Abstract: E-learning is one approached in the learning style of the courses for UKM Bachelor of
Architecture program, namely Research Methodology. The e-learning is not a new paradigm in today’s
teaching and learning process, thus, using the platform of UKM portal system, SPIN we start to adapt this
approach and make it as practical to the students. This study is highlighting 4 learning approaches that
might be preferred by the students in encouraging them to use SPIN, namely class contact hours of every 2
weeks time, 1 h lecture, white board style and let the student talk and do. The findings from the study
reveals, in principal the students agree to use the SPIN, with the lecturer observing the usage of the system
in SPIN via progress monitoring report and correlate the total time, numbers of visit and page hits of the
students. High total time does not guarantee the student is an active SPIN user. Nevertheless the study also
found that there is a cheater in this system.
Keywords: E-learning, learning behavior, research methodology, spin,
students satisfied in using e-learning as their platform
of self learning.
However, studies on the fundamental nature of
student’s use of Internet have not kept pace with their
Internet use (Havick, 2000). According to learning
theory, learning process is enhance when students
participate in the learning, when assignment given help
them to get better understanding and it involves critical
thinking by applied and reflective activities (Metzger
et al., 2003).
Furthermore, e-learning has the potential to
become an efficient education tool with low cost
(White, 2003). Lord Dearing of the United Kingdom
proposed the use of e-learning to resolve problems
arising from growing numbers of students and to
decrease universities’ funding. He also agreed that elearning will ‘accommodate new and innovative
learning models and strategies’ (Woodfine et al., 2008).
In addition, university graduates these days need to be
familiar with and knowledgeable of contemporary
issues, including ICT knowledge (Zaharim et al., 2009).
E-Learning programmes not only reduce costs but also
help students to enhance their ICT skills.
In UKM, the e-learning platform is called SPIN
system. It provides the benefits as listed by the scholars
above. This study provides discussion about learning
experience using the SPIN system. It highlights earning
INTRODUCTION
The e-learning is not a new learning platform in
Malaysia. Various forms of e-learning portal are
available on the internet and almost all Malaysian
public universities have its own e-learning platform.
Most of them are running on the web-based technology
that makes it available from any part of the word at any
point of time (Tang and McCalla, 2005). As mentioned
by Anuwar (2010), e-learning market had an annual
growth rate of 50% up to the year 2004; and the
greatest growth rates for e-learning will be in the Asia
Pacific region. This shows the e-learning become the
most preferred method of learning in the future.
Benefits of e-learning include flexibility, accessibility,
convenience, cross platform, low delivery costs, ease of
update, collaborative learning and scalability (Hansen,
2003; Anuwar, 2010).
There are dramatic impacts in the last few decades
that information technology has grown rapidly towards
the educational practice (More-Buzetto, 2008; Chou
and Tsai, 2002). As the Internet is broadly used for
educational purposes, students may have more rich
experience of utilizing the Internet. Undoubtedly,
appropriate attitude plus basic knowledge towards the
Internet is a prerequisite for successful internet based
instruction. Tawil et al. (2010, 2011) experimenting elearning mathematics engineering and found that most
Corresponding Author: A.I. Che-Ani, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
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Res. J. Appl. Sci. Eng. Technol., 4(23): 5236-5242, 2012
Table 1: Summary of class activity
Class date
23 Jul
2010
Activity
discussion and
lecture
3 Aug
2010
discussion and
lecture
Time frame
from previous
class
not applicable
(1st class)
Output
within 2 weeks
time
‘
5237 Res. J. Appl. Sci. Eng. Technol., 4(23): 5236-5242, 2012
5238 Res. J. Appl. Sci. Eng. Technol., 4(23): 5236-5242, 2012
17 Aug
2010
discussion and
lecture
within 2 weeks
time
5239 Res. J. Appl. Sci. Eng. Technol., 4(23): 5236-5242, 2012
21 Sep
2010
discussion and
lecture
approach in the class, as well as analysis based on the
SPIN progress monitoring report.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The course under study in this study is KKSB 5151.
This is a research methodology with weightage of 1
credit. It is one of the courses for Year 5 Semester 1
Bachelor of Architecture UKM. For this semester, we
have only 5 students for the course. This course is a
preparation for the students to undertake Dissertation
course when they enter into Year 5 Semester 2.
This section describes about the initial reflection
and action plan in adapting SPIN system. Basically
when go online method of teaching, it has to be
interactive so that it will attract the students to stay in
the online platform. Not to forget is the offline system
need to be changed as well as to accommodate the
online method. Using the similar approach for both
situation of online and offline will make no difference
and defeat the purpose of online teaching.
Initial reflection: In the early semester within the first
week, the students are brief about UKM SPIN system
and its application for the whole semester. The WIFI
connection in the class is stable at most of the time, thus
make the SPIN demonstration smoothly running. The
students are also told that their SPIN activity can be
monitored via SPIN progress monitoring report. This is
indirectly to convey the message to the students for
them to become active learner of the SPIN. The
example of initial reflection about the SPIN is shown
below (this is captured via SPIN discussion board
system). In short, the students like using the SPIN.
within 5 weeks
time
Note:
Independence
day/Aidilfitri/M
idterm break
This means that information that we receive is
accurate and also will get the most recent addition
and/or changes which in turn saves time.
That's what I think at the moment, maybe my
classmates would like to add some more...
Reflection 2: spinnn just okayyyy...trying to put images
direct on screen so we can have discussion through our
skecth/pic...
Reflection 3: hahaha,,i just know tat here can post
pic = p
Action plan-learning approach in class: In providing
better learning environment and experiences for the
student, the teaching approach must be expanded from
its traditional way. Teacher-centered style, class room
concentration and normal lecture delivery is no more be
attractive to the students. One of the learning space that
contributes to better learning environment is by
utilizing virtual space (Sharifah Hapsah and Riza Atiq,
2010), that in line with today’s living environment. In
using SPIN for this class, we introduced a number of
approaches that reflects the offline method of teaching
for the class as below.
Class contact hours of every 2 weeks time: The class
is conducted within 2 weeks time as to update the
students about the progress of their learning. This also
will ensure both students and lecturer keep updates
about the topic of the class. More importantly is for the
students to feel that the class is running. The activities
during the class are discussion and lecture i.e., 2-way
communication. The summary of the class activity is
depicted in Table 1. The time frame from the previous
class is maintained within 2 weeks time.
Reflection 1: Salam friends, What I observed in using
spin is that not only the class contact hour is less, it also
formalizes and eases the dissemination of data and
information.
5240 Res. J. Appl. Sci. Eng. Technol., 4(23): 5236-5242, 2012
Table 1: SPIN progress monitoring report-total time
Student name
Total time
No. of visit
S1
57:12:55
31
S2
88:57:14
13
S3
424:36:26
4
S4
10:14:38
11
S5
283:37:39
7
the student project. As to stimulate this session, the
white board materials will help the students to do so.
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
One hour lecture: For every class, only 1 h is
dedicated for the lecture. The class might run more than
1 h as to include discussion and self-reflection from the
students about the topic that have been learn for the
particular class. This is to provide the optimum learning
time for the students. Giving a lot of input and materials
to the students in single class session will make them
lost and cannot gain much. One hour time seems to be
effective in achieving this goal.
White board style: As by using SPIN, all the notes in
the form of Microsoft Office Power Point and Portable
Document File (pdf) are pre-uploaded before the class
i.e., within first week of the semester. This makes the
students got ample time to read the notes and can do
forecasting of what is going to be learned throughout
the whole semester. During the class, the white board is
used for teaching. No power point projection since it is
pre-uploaded. With the white board, the students can
clearly see the process flow of the subject that is going
to be taught, one by one and step by step; whilst this is
not easy to be demonstrated with power point. Table 1
shows the example of teaching materials using the
white board.
Let the student talk and do: In this approach, the
lecturer will just start the argument. The seating
arrangement is like a group discussion i.e., roundtable
set-up so that it will help the students to talk and
discuss. This approach is mentioned by Sharifah
Hapsah and Riza Atiq (2010) in creating holistic
learning experience i.e., the lecturer do less talking, let
the student talk and do their project and the lecturer
should concentrate providing effective supervision to
The initial reflection suggests that the students get
encouraged to use the SPIN for this semester. The SPIN
menu i.e., email, discussion board and upload
assignment is frequently being used by the students.
Table 2 shows the total time of SPIN progress
monitoring report as per 22 September 2010.
Based from Table 2, it shows the inconsistency of
the usage between the total time and numbers of visit.
Obviously, Student 3 (S3) shows the highest total time
i.e., around 424 h (about 17 days), but number of visit
is 4 times only. Similarly, this also happen for S5, with
total time of about 283 h (about 11 days), but number of
visit is 7 times only. The total time and numbers of visit
for S1, S2 and S4 seems to be realistic as compared to
S3 and S5.
This shows possibly there is a student who log in
into the SPIN, do nothing and just make the system idle
as to record their total time within the SPIN. As
students in the know their time and movement in the
SPIN is recorded, there is a tendency for this scenario
to be happen.
Table 3 shows page per hits and its relation to
students as per 22 September 2010. The top 4 pages
visited are discussion board, lecture notes, assignments
and lecture notes (download). For student name per
hits, it is interesting to record that the S1, S2 and S4
record a realistic visit to the page. For S3 and S5, their
hits per page are obviously low as compared to the
other 3 students.
From these 2 sources of data that simplified from
SPIN system, it shows there is inconsistency between
total time and numbers of visit, when we compared
with the page perhit. The high total time does not
necessarily support the theory that the students really
use the SPIN effectively. The students might visit to
other internet page while concurrently viewing SPIN
Table 3: SPIN progress monitoring report-student and page
Student name/hits
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Page
S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
33
8
0
2
4
Discussion board
Lecture notes
28
18
1
0
1
Assignments
17
12
1
12
1
Email
4
1
0
2
0
References
4
2
1
0
0
Course info
4
1
0
0
0
Tutorials
4
3
1
1
0
Lecture notes (download)
4
3
2
1
5
Tutorials (download)
3
1
0
1
0
Groups
3
3
1
2
0
Course outline
1
1
0
0
0
Quiz center
1
2
0
0
0
Model question
1
4
0
0
0
Chat
0
1
0
0
0
Total hits (student) ss
107
60
7
21
11
5241 Total hits
(page)
47
48
43
7
7
5
9
15
5
9
2
3
5
1
206
Res. J. Appl. Sci. Eng. Technol., 4(23): 5236-5242, 2012
for nothing. As observed occasionally, S3 and S5 are
very active in their Facebook page. Even though the
who tend ‘to cheat’ the system. Through observation,
the lecturer can see this shortfall via the attitude of
students i.e., attendance to the class, active Facebook
user, late comer, not participate in the class activity (as
referred to 4 learning approach above) and missing in
action. In short, total time and numbers of visit is not a
guarantee that reflects the good learning experience via
SPIN system.
CONCLUSION
Various teaching methods nowadays give the lecturer to
adapt numerous approaches in the e-learning system.
The combination of online and offline method has to be
integrated in providing better learning experience to the
students. SPIN system is good platform for e-learning.
Besides online, the 4 approaches of teaching, namely
class contact hours of every 2 weeks time, 1 h lecture,
white board style and let the student talk and do; are
likely to be accepted by students in encouraging them
to be active SPIN user. While the students in principal
agreed to use the SPIN, their progress monitoring report
somehow shown vice versa. The lecturer has to
carefully observe this matter as prevent “cheated SPIN
user”. However in using this system, the students and
the lecturer can interact at anytime and anywhere
parallel with nowadays character of the students. Thus
the method of teaching and learning need to move
towards their preferable way of learning and thinking.
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