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CHAPTER-I
INTRODUCTION
Since independence, India has made tremendous strides in the expansion of
educational facilities. The literacy rate of 5 per cent in 1901 that grew to about 19 per cent in
1951 (in the first 50 years of British reign) grew to more than 65 per cent during the next 50
years. Compared to a few million students in 1951, Indian education now reaches out to more
than 196 million students. This enormous gain in enrolment, largely gets reduced by massive
drop out at various levels especially between grades I and VIII. Also, students’ performances
are far from satisfactory level. Combining the two elements of drop out and performance,
what we achieve is: out of 100 children admitted in class I, only about 26 appears for grade X
examination; 13 pass out; and only about six complete XII grade examination; a large
majority of them pass in the third division. We need a quantum jump in improvement of
quality of education. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, in his address to the Parliament
emphasized the need to build quality in education fast. Technology provides that
empowerment towards building quality in education.
Universalization of elementary education has been an evasive goal. Despite sustained
efforts, the Indian elementary school system remained apparently far away from the goal of
universalization. During the last several planned efforts, we could see remarkable increase in
the enrolments, due to provision of a school within the reach of the learners and the
community. However, the satisfactory levels of increased enrolments were pre-empted by the
high dropout rates. For instance, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, the gross enrolment ratios are
found to be 100 and above in several districts for the 6 to 10 years age group. However, for
the classes I to V, it is observed that about 32 per cent children dropout in between classes I
and V. The object of provision of school in all the areas and to all communities could not be
realized since we could not contain the appalling dropout rates. Hence, there is a need for a
retrospective look at the reasons for the children dropping at the primary or elementary stage
(Prasad, P., 2006)
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Examine this from our day-to-day experiences. Quality of student learning and
performance depends largely upon the quality of teaching in the classroom. There is wide
variation in the quality of teachers and teaching from one school to another. Students have
restricted access to a good teacher. In a school, some have access to an excellent teacher of
mathematics, but not in Geography or English language; and yet some in other institution,
reverse may be the case. Technology network overcomes that important limitation. For
teaching say, Mathematics, or Physics or History from the teaching end (uplink station), we
need only about 10 excellent teachers who may be strewn around in the schools. Such
excellent teachers can be brought together to teach from the uplink stations, and every learner
can have access to the best of the teacher, the system has got. Also, students will have access
to interacting with such excellent teachers. Further, because of digital recording and
possibility of retrieval, such lessons can be revisited again for reinforcement. This process
will naturally enhance the quality of learning. “In March 1995, the White House challenged
the telecommunication industry to connect every classroom, library, clinic and hospital to the
information super highway by the year 2000”. The above quotes should suffice to make
Indian schools realize the importance of multimedia in schools (Benjamin, A.E.W. and
Shivakumar, P., 2007)
India has 627 thousand primary schools, and 111 million students. Over 42 million
children in the age-group of 6 to 14 years do not attend school. Only 47 percent of children
enrolled in the first class reach the final eighth class, a dropout rate of 53 percent.
Furthermore, over 100 thousand inhabited villages of the country do not have any facilities
for primary schooling.
In spite of these facts, India intends to provide education for all and it is an offence to
deprive a child of education. To school the 42 million out-of-school children, it would require
one million additional class rooms, and as many new teachers. Universities would require
thousands of additional senior faculty to educate one million qualified teachers. Add to this
the existing huge backlog of class-rooms and trained school teachers, and the numbers
become even more daunting.
Use of Instructional media in classroom enriches learning experiences of children.
Since this is an age of science and technology, the present day teachers must know to use
various media and instructional materials in the classroom environment. In this age of science
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and technology, we can see the influence of media everywhere. We have seen the influence
of media in the education. This media influence in education helps teachers and students to
make changes in their skills and attitude. It also helps them to change from the traditional
teaching methods (Ponnusamy, P. & Natesan, M., 2003).
Many villages are not yet connected by all weather roads or have electricity
connections. The extension of quality education to remote and rural regions is even more
difficult for a large country like India with a multi-lingual and multi-cultural population. Why
does India have so many children out-of-school? Why do they drop-out? There are many
reasons:
Some children support their poor parents by participating in economic activities like
farming, beedi rolling (Beedi is a low priced local tobacco product, made using
manual labour), working on looms, and making products like carpets glass bangles,
firecrackers, match-boxes and match-sticks.
In urban areas, children from urban slums make a living or contribute to the family
earnings by way of rag-picking, shoe-shining, domestic help, cleaning cars, working
at road-side eateries and tea-shops.
Children of migrant families have seasonal employment, e.g. at saltpans, in farms, at
construction sites, and brick-kilns.
Children in remote or inaccessible villages have no convenient access to a school.
Schooling may be restricted due to social or religious practices, especially for
adolescent girls
Non-availability of teacher and textbooks, a lack of drinking water and sanitation
facilities in the school.
The school curriculum is uninteresting and irrelevant; children are taught via
memorising rather than discovering knowledge and learning, and frequent failure to
get promoted to the next class.
The school schedule and duration are not compatible with demands made by the
child’s family and economic activities, which means the opportunity cost of education
is high.
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The school education does not enhance the employability. Indian planners and
administrators have been struggling to provide workable solutions. Compromises are
made in the required qualification for teachers by providing teachers with less than
the statuary education qualifications, but accepted after brief training (called “Para-
teachers”) to fill in the capacity gap. At present, there are more than 500 thousand
Para-teachers in a number of states. Non-formal and alternative schooling
programmes are also being provided to special categories of children, e.g. those of
migrant labourers.
Satellite based technology provides many answers to the above problems. Satellites
can provide education to villages which are not well connected, or where there is no
school and no teacher, where the school times are not convenient, or where the family
moves from one place of employment to another. Satellite based system can provide
easy and flexible connectivity, audio-visual education materials to improve quality
and they can make learning interesting. They can provide instructions in multiple
languages and social contexts, provide ease of monitoring, and often are compatible
with social or religious practices (which may prevent adolescent girls from going out
to attend regular schools). Moreover, they can reach illiterate adults too.
It is said that education makes a man “aman” whereas the primary education is of
prime importance in the sense that it is the first exposure of the child to this world. It prepares
the child competent for further education, exalts child’s personality and accelerates the
potentialities of the child and to say it is solely responsible in making a child a good citizen.
Moreover, primary education as we observe today, needs special and immediate attention of
the educator (Simlot, M.M., 1994). Singh and Singh (1986) stated that however, since the use
of TV for educational purposes is going to stay and expand, utilisation of TV in the
classroom may be made an essential component of the teacher’s training programmes in the
country. The sooner it is done, the better it would be. He also depicted that educational
programmes are relevant to the needs of the educational situation, the educational authorities
have assumed the responsibility of planning and production of the software. Studies indicate
that while adults and older children may learn from TV by themselves, young children find it
generally difficult to do so. They learn more from educational programmes viewing if an
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adult motivates them before hand and takes an active role in drawing attention to the
important contents, terms and concepts while they watch.
An education system is an extremely complex framework in which diverse disciplines
and a multiplicity of agencies participate through a variety of instructional programmes.
Educational processes are also characterised by a futuristic thrust. Education is no longer the
prerogative of the privileged few, but on democratic principles, our Government believes in
imparting the fruits of education to all the citizens, of any caste, religion, urban or rural. The
infusion of communication technologies into teaching and learning has generated much
interest in educational research in recent years. A vast array of instructional strategies using
information and communication technologies has been carried out in research studies. They
include Simulations (Pfahl, Laitenberger, Ruhe, Dorsch and Krivobokova 2004), Online
learning (Hanafi, Zuraidah, Rozhar and Mohd. Zubir 2003), static and animated modes of
presentation (Sadiah, 2003), internet and World Wide Web (Finger, 2003), Multimedia
software (A. Guilar, Arena, Clarin, Hulamani and Monirade, Keong 2003), Microsoft Excel
(Munirah, Shafia and Zurida 2003) and Multimedia Learning package (MML) (Mohanty,
2008 and Madan, 2009). One of the most rapidly changing exciting areas of education in the
world today is the development of computer based learning materials, especially multimedia
teaching-learning programmes. Multimedia Approach manifested by the emergence and
convergence of technological advances has provided an important stepping stone in the
evolution of teaching-learning. The virtual world of seamless digital integration of text,
images, animation and sound offers a fundamental transformation in educational system.
Incorporation of instructional technology into conventional teaching method is certainly
effective in facilitating conceptual understanding and fostering active and independent
learning. The recipient is also an active participant in the experience, not only seeing and
hearing the message, but interacting with it as well. (Kamat and Shinde, 1998).
Nimarathi (2008) reported that by the use of multimedia, the students get a live vision
of life’s aspects and scientific factors, e.g. a diagram can be explained in detail with three-
dimensional effect which helps the students in understanding the lesson clearly. Numerous
studies have also shown that student’s academic achievement improved when taught through
multimedia approach (Kulik, 1994; Simkins, 2002; Patil 2006; Shikhare, 2007 and Madan,
2009). Various explanations have been put forward with regard to the cognitive benefits
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provided by the use of various communications technologies in preparing multimedia
learning (MML) package of enhancing student’s conceptual understanding. Selinger (2004)
claimed that multimedia content helps to illustrate and explain difficult concept in ways that
were previously inaccessible through traditional teaching resources and methodologies.
Similarly, Ferror (2002) reported that the use of multimedia approach using interactive CD-
ROMS, Power point presentations and graphing software has been successful in generating
conceptual understanding in student’s studies conducted by researcher. Munirah, et al.
(2003), Chandra (2002) has also reported the use of different multimedia in bringing about
conceptual change. “Educational institutions, left to themselves may not be successful in
achieving the educational objectives of the developing societies without the support of the
new media”. (Media and Symbols – Nelson Henry). Hence, mass media, as channels of
education, gain relevance from their capacity to disseminate educational information to a
great number of people and make the present educational programmes more effective and
meaningful (Damayanthi, S. M.). During the last six decades Indian school education system,
especially primary or elementary has seen phenomenal growth in terms of access and
enrolment. However, inspite of provision of teacher and curricular reforms, the system could
not witness high retention rates. Thus, the problem of dropouts continues to plague the
primary level of school education. There is a need to examine the reasons time and again.
This study attempts to highlight the incidence of dropout and the reasons for the same. It also
suggests measures based on the specific reasons and the expressed opinions of the respondent
dropouts.
1.1 EDUSAT
EDUSAT beams lectures to 10,000 classrooms in technical universities and primary
schools across the country. But is the initiative a success? Is EDUSAT a ‘turkey in the
sky’?
EDUSAT is the acronym for Educational Satellite — a satellite dedicated to education
with as many as 74 channels — brain child of Dr. K. Kasturirangan and carefully nurtured by
Development and Educational Communication Unit (DECU) of ISRO under the leadership of
Sri B.S. Bhatia; concept and project documentation are contributions of Prof. Marmar
Mukhopadhyay of NIEPA. Actually, EDUSAT is a technology network of uplink stations in
selected national and state locations (to act as teaching ends), and downlink stations or
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facilities in various educational institutions (as learning ends) supported by satellite. The
EDUSAT satellite has six Ku-Band transponders and six C-Band transponders, as shown in
the map below:
EDUSAT, according to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), is the first
exclusive satellite for serving the educational sector. It supports radio broadcasting, along
with audio-video on C-band and Ku-band, and is built around the concept of digital
interactive classrooms and a multimedia system. EDUSAT provides connectivity to schools,
colleges and higher levels of education and also support non-formal education including
developmental communication. The nation-wide beams are being harnessed by agencies like
IGNOU, NCERT and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), to reach
hundreds of Receive Only Terminals (ROTs) and Satellite Interactive Terminals (SITs)
located in schools and colleges, many in remote areas. India ventured into satellite based
learning experiment way back in 1975. The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment
(SITE) was an experimental satellite communications project, designed by NASA and the
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) using the American Application Technology
Satellite (ATS-6, see figure 1.1). The project made available informational television
programs to rural India. The joint experiment ran for one year, from 1 August 1975 to 31 July
1976, covering more than 2500 villages in six Indian states. The experiment played a major
role in helping India to develop its own satellite network as part of its INSAT program.
The special SITE Research and Evaluation Cell under ISRO did the social research
and evaluation of SITE. This evaluation provided information about the reaction of the
villagers to different programs, and included the Impact Survey to measure the impact on
adults, the SITE Impact Survey Children (SIS-C) to measure the impact on school children,
and the qualitative anthropology study to measure change brought by TV in rural structure at
the macro level. Besides the social evaluation, a technical evaluation was also carried out to
help India develop future systems. Each major sub-system of the earth system was tested and
evaluated. The impact of the SITE transmissions was tremendous. For the entire year,
hundreds and thousands of villagers gathered around the television set and watched the
shows. During this unique experiment, programs pertaining to health, hygiene and family
planning were telecast directly to about 2,400 Indian villages over six states. The Problems
Evaluation studies concluded that the general interest and viewership was highest in the first
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few months of the program (200 to 600 people per TV set) and then declined gradually (60 to
80 people per TV set). This was caused due by several factors like faulty television or
hardware, erratic electricity supply, and the villagers’ pre-occupation with domestic or
agricultural work.
1.1.1 Concept of EDUSAT
On the 21st September 2004, ISRO launched the 1950 kg EDUSAT satellite
dedicated to education EDUSAT, using India’s Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle
(GSLV-F01). The satellite has multiple regional beams, with their footprints covering the
entire country. EDUSAT provides connectivity to schools, colleges and higher education
institutes, and also to support non-formal education, including developmental
communication. EDUSAT is a collaborative effort of the Central Ministry of Human
Resource Development (MHRD) and ISRO. The implementation at the field level is carried
out by: Providing education access to the children in the age group 6–14 years is a
constitutional obligation and challenge for the union as well state governments, as the
development of elementary education is a key factor for a nation's development. Due to the
non-availability of required number of trained and expert teachers’ knowledge-divide exists
between students population of urban and rural/remote areas. To bridge this gap Distance
Learning or Tele-education is the best option. A dedicated satellite for the purpose EDUSAT
was launched. In the glare of the media flash bulbs about years ago, the Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO) launched EDUSAT, the world's first satellite dedicated
exclusively to education. Conceptualised by K. Kasturirangan, then the ISRO chairman,
EDUSAT was launched under the chairmanship of G. Madhavan Nair. Expectations were
naturally pitched high as the satellite made its way skyward on the evening of September 20,
2004. Possibilities for education suddenly seemed infinite. Space technology could now be
harnessed to “reach the unreached” and to “bridge the divide” between rural and urban
schools and colleges, ISRO predicted.
Virtual classrooms could solve the problem of the low teacher-student ratio.
EDUSAT, equipped with 12 transponders, each with a massive bandwidth of approximately
36 megahertz, beams lectures to 10,000 classrooms in technical universities and primary
schools across the country. These include the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU)
in Karnataka, the Indira Gandhi National Open University in New Delhi, Anna University in
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Chennai, the Technical Education Board in Rajasthan, the West Bengal University of
Technology in Kolkata, and Manipur University in Imphal. In Karnataka, for example, the
lectures are prepared by VTU and the Department of School Education Research and
Training (DSERT) for technical colleges and primary schools respectively. The lectures are
delivered by specialists in the fields and broadcast live from a studio with an uplink facility at
DSERT. The country’s first satellite dedicated exclusively to education, EDUSAT has
started impacting the way in which distance education is carried out for teacher training and
for providing support to remote classrooms. The Department of Space has activated one
National Hub to support national level networks. The initial focus of EDUSAT use has been
on teacher training at the BRCs. The SSA supports EDUSAT initiatives in seven states:
Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu and
Karnataka. In the first group of four states, the Rajiv Gandhi Project for EDUSAT supported
Elementary Education (RGPESEE) is in its pilot phase. One district in each state has been
taken up for the creation of infrastructure in schools and academic support structures to
receive satellite signals and for the development of educational content.
India faces the twin challenge of providing quality of life for her people and be
competitive in a globalized world. These are interrelated and interdependent. Without an
educated populace, India will not be able to be competitive in the global arena. Hence, an
educated India is an imperative for her to be competitive. Also, a literate and educated world
community is the only guarantee for a prosperous, peaceful and happy world living in
harmony. The E-9 conference in New Delhi in 1993 declared education as the only defence
of the country. It is not without reasons that beginning with the Jomtien conference in 1990,
the world came together in order to create an educated and ever learning world. This was
again reiterated in the Dakar conference in 2001. The spirit of an educated and continuously
learning world was the central theme of the report to the UNESCO by the International
Commission on Education for the 21st Century-Learning: The Treasure Within. For India the
challenge is educating one billion people, the number that is growing every year.
1.1.2 Why EDUSAT
The national Policy on Education, 1986 - 1992 (p.22) has rightly observed. “The
media have a profound influence on the minds of children as well as adults; some of them
tend to encourage consumerism, violence, etc., and have a deleterious effect. Radio and TV
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programmes, which clearly militate against proper educational objectives, will be prevented.
Steps will be taken to discourage such trends in films and other media also. An active
movement will be started to promote the production of children’s films of high quality and
usefulness”. At present, multimedia have immense influence in communication field and are
playing an important role in literary, scientific and educational programmes.
It is no doubt a big challenge. If it appears to be a Utopia; it is a ‘necessary Utopia’.
The challenge, of course, is very complicated because of India’s multicultural, multi-
religious, multi-linguistic composition within a multiparty democratic polity. The issue of
educating the nation is equally complicated because of regional diversify and disparity, and
gender inequality in education. Educating such a complex fusion of a nation can be
accomplished in addition to organized conventional educational institutions by well planned
and well executed adjunct initiatives. EDUSAT is not the first and maiden effort in pressing
satellite in Indian education. The history of satellite in education spans over more than four
decades. There have been several landmark experiments with satellite in education including
interactive instruction. Satellite began to play its role in Indian education with the
introduction of educational television in 1961-62. Nonetheless, Indian landmark in satellite in
education is considered to be the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) in
1971. By mid 1990s, a committee comprising heads of major national institutions was
already involved in shaping the concept of a dedicated channel for education. Gyan - Darshan
and Gyan Vani are the dedicated television and radio channels in education. It would be
evident that EDUSAT is the culmination of years of micro and meso-level experiments in
satellite delivered interactive learning. Bates (1989) suggested such parameters as voice,
written language, colors, still pictures, animation, dramatic events and full movement where
we make the choice between media such as lectures, audio, print, computer and television.
1.1.3 Origin of EDUSAT
The first draft of the conceptual document that titled, 'Educating the Nation: Need for
a Dedicated Satellite' was presented to a group of experts comprising scientists, technologists
and a few former space scientists from ISRO in Pune. The 35 page document published
originally by DECU, and republished by NIEPA later, was organized around the challenge of
educating a nation-adult literacy, school education, higher and professional education,
massive gap between the targets and achievements so far, response to the challenge, policies,
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programmes and ground realities, facilities on ground, content development, educational
software, and management-cost and budgeting, coordination and collaboration and
management structure.
The document contains elaborate details of developments in various levels of
education since independence with tables, charts and graphs. This brings into focus the
spectacular expansion, diversification and developments in education since independence,
with yet a massive gap in fulfilling national obligations in education. The innovative aspect
was highlighting the challenge of creating the Knowledge Society that requires educating i.e.
nation on a continuing basis. ‘Educating the Nation’ requires educating everyone in the
nation within and outside the school. 'In practical terms, education has to be provided in
curricular as well as in other areas. Should we accept this new paradigm of human
development, it offers us a three-dimensional challenge of education for all ages, education of
in and out-of-school people, and education in various occupations (Figure 1.1).
Fig. 1.1 Three-dimensional challenge of Educating the Nation
Edu
cati
on
Th
rou
gh A
ge
Educational Space (In and out of school)
Education within Occupation
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Since the challenge is multifarious, colossal and complex, simple and routine response
will be grossly inadequate. Search for a possible solution must venture into the domains so
far unknown. Developments in technology, particularly in computers, television, Internet,
telephone, satellite, fiber-optic cabling, etc. provide significant and meaningful instruments to
respond to this challenge. Over the years, Indian scientists and technologists have developed
considerable mastery over such technological tools, and India has emerged as a major
software and leading satellite producing country with capabilities of launching its own
satellites. The document enlisted the following avenues:
One way TV broadcast
Interactive TV via phone in
Interactive TV through computer support through e-mail,
Video conferencing
Computer conferencing
Telephone conferencing
Web-based instruction etc.
The document contended that separate dedicated channels are required to service the
educational needs of different groups of learners in different languages. Accordingly, a
channel count was developed (Table 1.1). As mentioned earlier, the number of educational
channels had to be decided on the basis of careful need analysis in order to provide education
through 16 different regional languages. Adopting a wide range of interactive techniques, the
minimum number of channels was worked out to be 72. However, ISRO had maintained all
along that number of channels will not be a constraining factor. The original Channel Count
considered reaching out to every kind of citizens in the country with the basic spirit of
educating the nation. Another important feature was creating provision for delivery of non-
formal education through Hindi and English. Although this was not ideal, this was the most
feasible option given the large number of languages in which the people of India speak. The
other important feature was provision of state channels separately for school education, and
higher and professional education. It is only through such dedicated state channels that it will
be possible to deliver education through the regional languages. Original proposal of 72
channels were shown vide table 1.1.
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Table 1.1 : The Channel Count
Content
Remarks
No of
Channels
School education One dedicated channel per state 28
Higher and professional
education
One dedicated channel per state
28
Science and technology for all Hindi and English (e.g. Discovery/National
Geographic)
02
Language learning Indian and foreign languages 01
Youth Channel Education in sports, music, dramatics, etc. 02
Executive and career
development
Continuing education of workforce-Hindi and
English
02
Gold Channel For senior citizens-Hindi and English 02
Women's development Hindi and English 02
Heritage Education in Indian scriptures and culture 01
Toddler's Channel Cartoon network type 02
Health Hindi and English 02
Total 72
1.1.4 Technology Configuration of EDUSAT
There are two components of the technology configuration, namely the space segment
and the ground segment. The requirement of the space segment is necessarily based on need
assessment. The initial analysis indicated a requirement of 72 channels and additional eight
channels for further expansion over 10 years and 14 transponders. Accordingly, the
configuration of the proposed satellite was (shows vide figure :
Three satellites each of:
KU band
1. To meet the former educational needs
4 regional beam, EIRP = 54dBw, G/T = 8dB/K
2. To meet nonformal educational needs
1 India beam EIRP 49dBw, G/T = 3dB/K
Extended C band
1. 1 national beam with 6 transponders
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EIRP 37dBw, G/T-SdB/K
2. to support existing INSAT educational requirements
Fig. 1.2: Transponders of EDUSAT
The first satellite can be GSAT 3. The other two satellites can be with onboard
regeneration and multiplexing facilities like:
4dB advantage due to no back off goes to better availability
smaller uplink station due to link isolation, and
facing out of extended she band to accommodate OBP payload
The space segment needed to be corroborated with programmes and infrastructure
support at the ground level. The ground segment component was proposed to comprise:
use of DVB-RCS open standard in KU band
small two-way interactive remote stations at district levels
DRS at remote stations with WLL and repeater attached for talkback
In terms of geographical locations, ideally ground segment will require:
server and studio at state level
ROT at all primary and upper primary schools,
SIT at all DIETs and BRCs (Block Resource Centre),
SIT at all secondary and senior secondary schools,
SIT+ROT+CORDECT at all colleges and universities,
ROT+CORDECT at all gram panchayats:
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The document also made a detailed assessment of facilities on ground, primarily
flagging the NIC network connecting all districts, expanding computer facilities in schools,
colleges and universities, the DRS installations for interactive teleconferencing in DIETs,
IGNOU Regional Centres and several other networks, expanding outreach of PSTN and
ISDN telephone networks throughout the country.
1.1.5 Organization and Management:
The conceptualization of the technology configuration, Channel Count in the given
backdrop of multilingual society that India is, organization and management of satellite based
education pose a serious challenge. Without active and significant involvement of the states,
there will be very little opportunity of making much headway in translating the magnificent
concept of EDUSAT. Accordingly, it was proposed to set up a Satellite Based Educational
and Instructional Technology Authority (SEITA) to provide direction and manage EDUSAT.
The proposed configuration is reproduced below:
Fig.:1.3 SEITA Composition (Satellite based Educational and Instructional
Chairman
Vice-Chairman-I Vice-Chairman-I
Secretary Secretariat
Members
Formal Education
NIEPA
NCERT (School Ed)
CEC/UGC (Higher Ed)
NOS (ED -School Ed)
IGNOU (ED - Higher Ed)
AICTE Technical &
Management Ed)
ICAR (AGri. Ed)
NCTE (Teacher Ed)
ICMR (Medical Ed)
Non-Formal
Education
Department of Adult
Education
Rural Development
Health and Family
Welfare
Women and Child
Development
Help Age India
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Technology Authority
The proposal is to have a full-time secretary to assist the authority. As a general
pattern, it is visualized that the Department of Space will look after the space segment
whereas the Ministry of Human Resource Development will be responsible for the ground
segment; Ministry of Information Technology can be involved in management of IT
component of the ground segment; the member institutions will be responsible for content
development and development of relevant software. As mentioned earlier, the success of
EDUSAT will necessarily depend upon the involvement and contribution of the states.
Hence, the conceptual document proposed setting up of state authority in the pattern of
SIETA. The common parameter is setting up inter-ministerial authority of management of
EDUSAT at the national and state levels. As mentioned earlier, the conceptual document was
designed, produced and published by DECU, Ahmedabad for limited circulation. Later, it
was republished by NIEPA with permission from and acknowledgement to DECU for larger
circulation. The immediate inspiration for reprinting the copies was the national consultation
on EDUSAT where copies were needed for distribution among the participants. The
publication was free of charge from both DECU and NIEPA. The copies are still available
from the publication department of NIEPA.
While drafting the project document on EDUSAT, President APJ Abdul Kalam
appreciated the initiative of ISRO and mentioned with sense of pride about his Indian
mission on space technology. He, however, advised to look for alternative technologies also
like fibre-optic cable network. His basic contention was that there is a gap between the
audible sound and the lip movement, though extremely small, when communication is made
through satellite based technology. Although adult learners may not be distracted, 'children
are extremely sensitive and perceptive; they are likely to observe it and find fun in the
lessons'. His critical and penetrating observation is admirable. On his own, he picked up the
issue of students learning through virtual classroom methodology. He advised to package
learning and ensure that the students learn their contents and subjects and are able to get
scores in the examination which is extremely important for their future career. There are
about 8,000 private schools affiliated to CBSE and ICSE; then there are about 1250 Kendriya
Vidayalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas. Private schools would not need any government
funding; they need to be involved and asked to install the reception facilities. KVs and NVs
are not only best of the schools but are also financially well provided by the government.
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They too should be able to afford Rs. 2.50 lakhs from their annual budget for installing the
SIT terminals. There are two different faces of development so far. One is the development at
the instance of ISRO. It is characterized by achievements before time, holistic thinking as
indicated by launching pilot projects and proactive management approach by offering
technical and financial support. The development in education is characterized by slow pace,
loss of vision and restricting the growth through centralized management.
The constructivism is built into the multi-channel learning system. Multi-channel
learning system comprises multiple learning channels or opportunities to suit the learning
styles of students at various levels and at various ages. Such channels can be used either as
stand-alone or in combination with one another depending upon the educational goals and
learning styles of the learner. EDUSAT provides at least the following channels:
Virtual classrooms through two-way videoconferencing,
Educational broadcast with or without interactive facilities,
Virtual classrooms through computer conferencing -both real time as well as
asynchronous,
Digital storage and retrieval of educational software at convenience, and
Internet supported interactive learning.
1.1.6 Importance of EDUSAT
It is important to recognize that instructional science and technology is well
researched and well developed science and do not belong to the domain of common sense, as
it never was. For making effective use of EDUSAT, scientific principles and practices of
interactive learning have to be adopted. Then, there is the problem of understanding and
responsiveness to the science and techniques of interactive instruction. There is non-
responsiveness to the science of interactive learning among the uninformed planners and
managers of the education system in general, educational technology in particular. There is a
common belief and insistence that a teacher in the studio should present for half the time
followed by interaction. There is no pedagogical sanction for such an approach. For, it means
asking human minds not to be instantly inquisitive and curious; it must allow subsequent
contents to overcrowd and make learning victim of retroactive inhibition. To quote an
instance, we decided to host a two-way videoconferencing between experts at one end and a
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group of eminent pedagogical scientists, namely the education professors from different
Indian universities at the other end. Both were connected through two-way video interactive
facilities. The experts at the teaching end started making the presentation right on time. When
a few of the participating professors wanted to ask questions within the first five minutes and
seek certain clarification from the experts on the other end, they realized to their dismay that
they cannot speak with the experts on the teaching end - the teaching end had switched off
their reception facility. Finally, one had to call on the telephone line from outside the studio
to the teaching end requesting them to open up their reception facility.
There is no pedagogical or andragogical sanction to this practice of half an hour
lecture followed by half an hour question-answer. This is based primarily on the belief that
students learn only when taught by the teacher which itself does not have any necessary
evidence. Student learning is guided and impacted by a large number of variables; teaching is
one of those variables. More significantly, learning is best achieved when a learner’s
inquisitiveness is met ‘on time’ which is called “just-in-time solution” in the world of
computers. Postponing the question and the interaction for half an hour not only dissuades the
learner and he or she loses the question itself but it also creates negative impact on learning
due to retroactive inhibition. The alternative pedagogy is: a few teachers with outstanding
teaching skills and competence in a particular subject can be selected. The teachers will
conduct the classes in the studio, may or may not be in presence of a live audience, with an
uplink facility. The live teaching session will be uplinked. The lessons will be downloaded in
the schools or colleges, as the case may be wherever SIT facilities are established. The
learner will be able to view the presentation by the teachers on the television screen; and ask
questions, make comments, or enter into interaction with the teacher. The learner intervention
will be uplinked which the teaching end can view. Teacher will have the facility or option to
accept an intervention. However, whenever he or she decides to accept an intervention, such
interaction will be audible and visible to all other learning centres. This will open up all the
reception or learning centres and the teaching centres into a virtual classroom across the state
and the nation.
The most significant advantage of this pedagogical process is the availability of best
of the teachers to all the students in a state or the country. Further, students across the state
will be able to interact with one another; this indirectly gives an opportunity for the average
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and the poor students to be able to interact with the brilliant ones. From the angle of
administration and management, to teach a subject at its best through virtual classroom may
require five to ten excellent teachers who are available in any state. Hence, this provides a
quantum jump into instructional quality, with a paradigm shift in the pedagogical processes.
It is possible that many of the otherwise brilliant teachers may not be familiar with the
modern instructional aids. The teacher support material in the form of Power Point
presentations, computer graphics, animations, etc. can be prepared in advance; the selected
teachers can be trained in the use of such kind of aids to enhance their teaching ability. The
entire interactive instructional session should be recorded, digitized and stored in a software
archive in a server. A learner should be able to access any such session at his or her own time
and place. This will automatically become a mechanism of content generation. In two-way
videoconferencing, a reception centre classroom can have either a large screen television, 29
inch, that can comfortably help about 40 to 45 students to view. Alternatively, the reception
centre may have a computer terminal with an LCD projector. This can also accommodate
about 40 to 45 learners in one single unit. The virtual classroom can have many such units at
any given time, creating a large virtual classroom. Although there is no restriction to the size
of virtual classroom, empirical evidences indicate that for quality learning, virtual classrooms
should preferably comprise not more than 400 learners. Hence, for school level, most relevant
would be district level classrooms, for higher education optimal would be state level and for
professional education, virtual classroom can be national.
Compared to the two-way videoconferencing, computer-based virtual classrooms
require computer terminals, preferably one terminal for a maximum of three or four students.
This particular mode of virtual classroom will require significant expansion of availability of
computer terminals in schools and colleges. It will, hence, be more expensive. Further, the
cultural ethos of teaching-learning process in India demands a teacher figure. Whereas face-
to-face classrooms are ideal from the angle of classroom ethos, virtual classrooms through
two-way videoconferencing offers the second best choice; but it overcomes this marginal
limitations because of significantly different quality of teaching.
Accordingly, right pedagogical choice is two-way videoconferencing based virtual
classrooms as the main instructional platform for the school and undergraduate education.
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Computer-based virtual classrooms are recommended for comparatively higher levels of
education, particularly professional education.
As mentioned earlier, the result is not very encouraging. There are several factors
associated with such frustrating results. Major ones are:
Educational television is alien to educational culture,
Time mismatch between ETV and schools
Poor quality of educational software,
Emphasis on enrichment programs rather than curriculum based programs,
Teachers are unfamiliar (and untrained) with the methods of integrating educational
broadcast programmes with curricular learning in the schools and colleges.
1.1.7 Functions of EDUSAT
There has been a steady shift in attitude towards television in general and educational
television in particular. The channels like National Geographic, Discovery, etc. have
provided a different orientation to what educational television can be. Further, there have
been some important innovations in building interactivity in the television programmes as
evident in the various news channels where the journalists from the field supplement
broadcasting from the studio. In many of the educational and entertainment programmes,
channels have introduced phone-in facility. Also, extensive cable television network almost
throughout the country, even in some of the rural areas, has taken large number of channels to
homes for a token payment. This new cultural and technological scenario can be fully
exploited and utilized to reconstruct educational broadcast for EDUSAT. Accordingly,
broadcast mode should be used outside the school and college hours, preferably in the
evenings, coupled with phone-in facilities so that the viewers can ask questions and seek
clarifications; it also implies that there should be a subject expert available in the studio
during the broadcast of the programme. Cable operators need to be involved so that
programmes can be taken to homes. If the programmes are directly onto the content and
curriculum and of quality and relevance, the programme shall be watched by millions and
will attract advertisers making cable operation viable. The pedagogy or delivery of education
through EDUSAT demands careful planning with open mind and receptivity to science of
education and human learning.
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Fig. 1.4: Potential Uses of EDUSAT
Progress of EDUSAT’s organizational management at the ground level has naturally
been rather slow. This needs to be picked up as early as possible. There seems to be no other
alternative but get back to the original concept of inter-ministerial authority and full time staff
to look after EDUSAT by different stakeholders, including important national institutions that
can play their role freely and equally without subjugating the interests of one another. The
only interim arrangement is to constitute a national steering committee headed, may be, by
one of the former education secretaries, truly representing different interest groups. EDUSAT
is unconventional. It cannot be managed by conventional management approaches. It cannot
be managed by people who are entrenched within their own institutional framework, and
cocooned within administrative ‘tribalism’. It cannot be managed with myopic vision. It will
need, as the Union Education Secretary rightly said, ‘people who can think outside their
hats’. It will be necessary to follow the footsteps of ISRO to construct utilization of EDUSAT
in a project mode with dedicated authority, dedicated staff, dedicated fund and a culture of
social and economic accountability. There is a rich stock of experience in managing such
projects in different parts of the world as indicated in a chapter on international experience in
interactive television (Parhar, 2006). There are some outstanding experiences in managing
massive projects in mission mode in India. What is needed is an open minded approach to
learn from previous experiences. When the teacher teaches in front of the camera in the
uplink station, the audio and video signals gets beamed to the satellites. The satellite sends
22
signals back to the earth that can be received by the reception terminals, where the reception
dish antennas have been installed and are oriented towards the satellite transponders. The
teaching in the studio can now be seen and heard in the classrooms. The classroom is
provided either with a large 29 inch television, with a camera and audio equipments, or a
computer with an LCD projector and audio equipment. When a learner asks questions the
audio and visual signals gets beamed to the satellite which in turn sends it back to the
teaching ends. By using the facilities on the console, the teacher can see and hear the student.
Also, student will be visible to all the other learners in various others learning ends, creating a
virtual classroom. The network has the facility of recording the lessons taught at the teaching
end as well as the questions asked by the learners and store in digitized form in the server.
Lessons thus stored can be retrieved by anyone with access to computer. As a result, it will be
possible for a student to revisit and relive the classroom experience.
1.1.8 Will EDUSAT Replace Teachers?
No, Never, Nothing can replace the teacher, leave alone a technology network. Such
virtual classrooms involving best of the teachers will provide much needed additional support
and reinforcement and the teaching and learning processes in the schools, colleges and
universities for improving the quality of education. However, the effectiveness of the virtual
classroom will depend very largely upon the role played by the teachers in the classrooms.
For effective learning through virtual classrooms, the teachers in the teaching end and at the
reception end must, play the role of a team member (team teaching). The teacher at the
reception end will help students in formulating questions, seeking clarifications from the
virtual classroom teacher, solving problems on the spot, and also taking the lessons further
where virtual classroom teacher concludes. Eventually, this may help million of teachers
improve their own teaching. Is any good teacher in the classroom good enough to be the
teacher in the virtual classroom? Both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Yes, because he or she has the
potentiality to become a good virtual classroom teacher. No, because just being a good
teacher in a conventional classroom is not enough to be an effective teacher in a virtual
classroom; it requires a few more additional skills over and above the knowledge of the
subject and ability to communicate in a face to face situation. Conventional classroom
consists of largely monologues of teachers where students remain passive listeners.
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This is detrimental to achieving higher levels of cognition by the students. Interactive
learning is a necessary condition for achieving higher order cognition like application,
analysis, synthesis, creativity, etc. One of the important, rather necessary skills of a virtual
classroom teacher is to encourage students to raise their doubts, seek clarifications, make
observation and generates an interactive environment. Associated skill is to manage virtual
classrooms that often have 400 to 500 students - staggering and choosing questions to
respond, using generic reinforcements, etc. Ability to use audiovisual aids is an important
skill for the virtual classroom teachers. Unlike the conventional television broadcast or
conventional classroom of chalk and talk, the teachers will have to use a variety of
educational software to make virtual classrooms interesting and effective. Besides the
conventional aids like charts models, experimental demonstrations, teachers will also require
electronic aids like Power point presentation, computer animation, graphics, flash, etc.
Depending upon the nature of the subject and the theme, teacher may also use a fully
developed interactive CD followed by discussion with the learners at distant locations. In
EDUSAT, students can ask questions during the virtual class; it is also possible to post the
questions on the web site or sent by e-mail which the teacher can respond at his or her
convenience. Thus EDUSAT provides both time synchronous and asynchronous interaction.
1.2 CURIOSITY
“I think at, a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with
the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.”
-Elean Roosevelt
Curiosity is an emotion related to natural inquisitive behaviour such as exploration,
investigation, and learning, evident by observation in human and many animal species. The
term can also be used to denote the behaviour itself being caused by the emotion of curiosity.
As this emotion represents a drive to know new things, curiosity is the fuel of science and all
other disciplines of human study.
Although curiosity is an innate capability of many living beings, it should not be
categorized as an instinct because it is not a fixed action pattern; rather it is an innate
basic emotion because while curiosity can be expressed in many ways, the expression of an
instinct is typically more fixed and less flexible. Curiosity is common to human beings at all
ages from infancy to old age, and is easy to observe in many other animal species. These
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include apes, cats, fishes, reptiles, and insects; as well as many others. Many aspects of
exploration are shared among all beings, as all known terrestrial beings share similar aspects:
limited size and a need to seek out food sources.
1.2.1 Concept of Curiosity
Curiosity – a tendency to wonder, to inquire, to investigate, and to seek information
about anything novel or unknown – has not only contributed to a great deal of the world's
progress but it has been considered as one of the essential constituents for mental
development and the sign of a vigorous intellect. It has been recognised as an important
human characteristic or trait which contributes to learning, problem solving and creative
thinking. Curiosity is defined as a need, thirst or desire for knowledge. The concept of
curiosity is central to motivation. The term can be used as both a description of a specific
behavior as well as a hypothetical construct to explain the same behavior. Berlyne (1960)
believes that curiosity is a motivational prerequisite for exploratory behavior. The term
curiosity is used both as a description of a specific behavior as well as a hypothetical
construct to explain the same behavior. Exploration refers to all activities concerned with
gathering information about the environment. This leads to the conflict and question of
whether exploratory behavior should be defined in terms of the movements that an animal or
human performs while exploring or in terms of the goal or purpose of the behavior observed.
It is indicated from the review of related studies that the earlier attempts to study
curiosity in school children were primarily concerned with the quantity and quality of
children’s questions. However, a few researchers, in later years, have focused on other
aspects of children's curiosity. But curiosity has almost been a neglected area of research in
India. There was hardly any test available to be used to measure curiosity of elementary
school children of Hindi-speaking areas of India. That is why the investigator thought it a
fruitful exercise to conduct a research on curiosity of primary school learners.
According to Maw & Maw (1964):
“An elementary school child is said to demonstrate curiosity when he (1) reacts
positively to new, strange, incongruous, or mysterious elements in his environment by
moving toward them, by exploring them, or by manipulating them; (2) exhibits a need
or a desire to know more about himself and/or his environment; (3) scans his
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surroundings seeking new experiences; and/or (4) persists in examining and/or
exploring stimuli in order to know more about them.”
What exactly is curiosity? Loewenstein (1994) pointed out four central issues of
curiosity: definition and dimensionally, cause, voluntary exposure to curiosity, and situational
determinants. He added a fifth issue of superficiality and intensity since he stated that
curiosity can arise, change focus or end abruptly. Loewenstein believe that despite its
transience, curiosity can be a powerful motivational force. “Curiosity often produces impulse
behavior and attempts at self control” (Loewenstein, 1994). Just look at the stories of Pandora
and Eve, in which curiosity causes people to expose themselves knowingly to terrible
consequences. Langevin (1971) has conducted research in the area of curiosity and classified
measures of curiosity into two categories. First, curiosity is viewed as a motivational state
and measured with behavioral indices. Second, he conceptualized curiosity as a personality
trait that is assessed by personality measures. It has been suggested that curiosity is not a
unitary construct. At the conceptual level there are numerous definitions of curiosity which
tend to encompass a broad range of characteristics. For Fowler (1965), boredom is one
prerequisite or motivation for curiosity.
Strong curiosity is the main motivation of many scientists. In fact, in its development
as wonder or admiration, it is generally curiosity that makes a human being want to become
an expert in a field of knowledge. Though humen are sometimes considered particularly
curious, they sometimes seem to miss the obvious when compared to other animals. What
seems to happen is that human curiosity about curiosity itself, combined with the ability to
think in an abstract way, lead to mimesis, fantasy and imagination - eventually leading to an
especially human way of thinking (“human reason”), which is abstract and self-aware,
or conscious. Some people have the feeling of curiosity to know what is after death.
The degree to which a person says that they have curiosity about trivia questions links
to activity in both in the Broca’s area in their left inferior frontal gyrus, and the putamen in
their basal ganglia. This suggests people that are curious activate both parts of their brain that
comprehend and anticipates information, and those in which such information acts as
a secondary reinforcer or reward. Curiosity also increased activity in memory areas such as
the hippocampus when subjects guessed trivia questions incorrectly and this suggests that it
might act to enhance a person's long term memory for surprising new information. Such
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activation linked to curiosity predicted better recall of surprising answers one or two weeks
later. Dopamine receptors in part of the hippocampus called the dentate gyrus contribute to
the generation of curiosity in mice. These receptors are also important for plasticity and
learning and therefore are proposed to represent a molecular link between intelligence and
curiosity. The most exciting thing about multimedia is that it reaches all the senses and that is
why, its use in the field of education, is even more justified, “Say young, chairman of the
Department of Technology, Cognitive at the university of North Texas, Dentan, “Students all
given more fodder for their imaginations”. (Young 2005).
The earliest discussions of curiosity were conducted by philosophers and religious
thinkers and centered on the question of curiosity's moral status rather then on its
psychological underpinnings. Cicero referred to curiosity as a “passion for learning” and
argued that the story of Ulysses and the Sirens was really a parable about curiosity. Several
forms of curiosity related behavior such as search behavior, movement toward an unknown
object and asking questions are included in the area of motivational psychology, however,
curiosity does not fit well into the conceptual framework developed along the traditional
pathways of behavioral sciences. Firstly, the conception of an intrinsically motivated
behavioral system, which cannot be linked to a reducible drive raises serious questions about
motivational psychology since the 1950's. The idea of curiosity was rediscovered when
laboratory researchers wondered about the maze activities of the lab rat when none of the
drive states such as thirst or hunger were aroused. Secondly, Wohlwill (1981) states that the
curiosity phenomena cannot be investigated without reference to the natural environment of
an individual. Before 1950 curiosity was seen in the light of its social function, for example:
the eagerness or greed to get to know something new for the sake of newness, and in early
psychological literature the term curiosity had a negative connotation. The scientific term
“curiosity” is more neutral.
The most basic problem that has occupied curiosity researchers and theorists is the
underlying cause of curiosity. Is curiosity a primary or secondary drive? A primary drive is
inborn or innate whereas a secondary drive is learned or acquired. The research is
inconclusive. If secondary, from what more basic drive or motive does it derive? Older
theories oriented toward instinct and drive concepts. The defining feature is that curiosity
produces and unpleasant sensation (usually labeled arousal) that is reduced by exploratory
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behavior. William James (1890) pointed out two kinds of curiosity. He emphasized the
biological function of curiosity as a mechanism of instinct driven behavior that serves in
approaching new objects. Approach and exploration are described as being characteristic
forms of behavior. The second kind of curiosity pointed out by James is “scientific curiosity”
and “metaphysical wonder” with which “the practical instinctive root has probably nothing to
do” rather “the philosophical brain responds to an inconsistency or a gap in its knowledge”.
In the psychoanalytical literature Freud views curiosity as a derivative of the sex drive. The
partial impulse of looking motivates the child's great interest in all things and all events that
have to do with sexuality. Whereas the looking impulse and curiosity are primarily sexual in
origin, the child's exploratory interest and desire for knowledge can be considered to be a by
product of cognitive development. Due to social pressure, sexual exploration is later
abandoned.
Blarer (1951) state that the inhibition of curiosity may result in different forms of
pathological behavior, such as depression, and higher levels of sensation-seeking or thrill
seeking behavior. Blarer proposed curiosity to be intrinsic to the individuals perceptions and
world experiences and thus Blarer has the basis for the intrinsic motivation viewpoint in
curiosity theory. Originally, Berlyne (1954a, 1960) thought that the aversive and drive-
reducing effect of deviations of the arousal potential from the individual's optimum level as
the underlying mechanism of curiosity. Since then, Berlyne has come to believe that curiosity
is externally stimulated, and that the curiosity drive is aroused by external stimuli specifically
stimulus conflict. This encompasses complexity, novelty and surprise. Berlyne believed that
in the short term, stimulus change and novelty is accompanied by physiological change.
However, over longer periods of time, investigating behaviors are not accompanied by
readily identifiable physiological changes.
1.2.2 Importance of Curiosity:
It makes mind active instead of passive. Curious people always ask questions and
search for answers in their minds. Their minds are always active. Since the mind is
like a muscle which becomes stronger through continual exercise, the mental exercise
caused by curiosity makes mind stronger and stronger.
It makes mind observant of new ideas. When a learner is curious about something, his
mind expects and anticipates new ideas related to it. When the ideas come he will
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soon be recognized. Without curiosity, the ideas may pass right in front of him and
yet he misses them because his mind is not prepared to recognize them. Just think,
how many great ideas may have lost due to lack of curiosity?
It opens up new worlds and possibilities. By being curious learners will be able to see
new worlds and possibilities which are normally not visible. They are hidden behind
the surface of normal life, and it takes a curious mind to look beneath the surface and
discover these new worlds and possibilities.
It brings excitement into your life. The life of curious people is far from boring. It’s
neither dull nor routine. There are always new things that attract their attention, there
are always new ‘toys’ to play with. Instead of being bored, curious people have an
adventurous life.
1.2.3 How to Promote Curiosity
Primary School learners don't come with an owner’s manual, and sometimes it can be
hard to figure out how to nourish their minds as well as their bodies. Developing a curious,
inquisitive mind is just as important in parenting as developing a strong, healthy body. Do the
right things and teacher can promote curiosity in primary school learners:
Read the child, and pause to ask them questions about what they are reading such as,
“What do you think Red Riding Hood is looking for?” Try to make the questions open
ended, that is they can't be answered by a simple yes or no. This will allow the
children’s imagination to engage in possibilities beyond the basic storyline.
Ask them what they think about a movie they have just watched. Examples are,
“What was you're favourite part?” “How would you have done that different?” and
“What would be a better ending?” After a few movies, they will be thinking about
these things while they’re watching movies, and become more curious about the way
stories work.
Explore museums, historic sites and parks with the children. Encourage them to ask
questions: remember the basics: who, what, where, when, why and how.
Encourage the child to try new things, such as foods, crafts, sports and hobbies. Let
them expand their world and always encourage them to ask questions.
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Motivate the child to learn new things by themselves so that teacher is setting an
example and don't be afraid to tell the children that they don't know something. Teach
the children how to find answers, both in books and online.
Unfortunately, many post-elementary students see school as a means to an end, and
have long stopped rushing home bursting with must-share information and asking non-stop
questions about the world and how things work.
It’s been said that children nowadays enter school as question marks, but come out as
periods, their curiosity stilled. Whatever happened to all that “why is the sky blue”
inquisitiveness, and how do we get it back? Best but: before blaming schools, parents should
think about home. Is it an electronic wonderland, or do books, magazines, newspapers,
almanacs, and encyclopaedias dominate the living space? Wide reading-plus plenty of
inquiring talk--holds the key. Hours of video gaming, television viewing, text and instant
messaging don’t. Be inquisitive and never lose own sense of wonder. Fortunately, it’s
contagious. Keep on asking questions, like what makes rainbows or what causes an itch.
Then go searching, find out, and share the news. Meanwhile, learn something new everyday–
like these cool facts–and pass it along to children and let them ask the questions like
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump, Women blink twice as often as men, It’s
physically impossible to lick your elbow. (Did you just try?), No English word rhymes
with month, Our eyes remain the same size from birth, but our noses and ears keep growing,
The shortest complete sentence in English is “Go” etc.
1.3 LINGUISTICS ABILITY
Education and communication are like two sides of the same coin. Information
dissemination is not the only function the communication performs. Mass Media are capable
of influencing the systems of education. They can help extend the reach of the educational
system. Mass Media can also help the education system to achieve its goals such as
conveying knowledge and improving the levels of information access. Together, they can
serve the larger interests of the society. Roger E.M. (1986) says “one important function of
telecommunications is to provide a substitute for transportation: instead of moving people to
ideas, telecommunications move the ideas to people.” Now-a-days, education dies not stop at
the borders of the campus. Media enables us to reach out and serve people wherever they are.
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1.3.1 Concept of Linguistics ability
Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a
number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language
structure (grammar) and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Grammar
encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the rules that
determine how words combine into phrases and sentences) and phonology (the study of
sound systems and abstract sound units). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics
concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phonemes), non-speech sounds, and
how they are produced and perceived. Other sub-disciplines of linguistics include the
following: evolutionary linguistics, which considers the origins of language; historical, which
explores language change; sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic
variation and social structures; psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and
functioning of language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which looks at the representation of
language in the brain; language acquisition, which considers how children acquire their first
language and how children and adults acquire and learn their second and subsequent
languages; discourse analysis, which is concerned with the structure of texts and
conversations, and pragmatics with how meaning is transmitted based on a combination of
linguistic competence, non-linguistic knowledge, and the context of the speech act.
Language is a human being’s finest asset. Many essential human activities spring
from this unique characteristic by which we become detached from our physical world. As
far as we can tell, animals normally go into action because they are prompted by physical
stimuli (internal as well as external). A cat stalks a bird which has attracted attention; a dog
begs for food when it can smell or see it, when feeding rituals are set in motion or as a result
of ‘feeling’ hungry. In contrast, humen can indulge in reveries which take them well beyond
the present reality into the realms of abstract through. They communicate to themselves in
some symbolic form. Moreover, they can communicate their ideas to others by using these
symbolic forms. These two uses of language, personal and social communication, are very
important for teachers because their work is built around the efficient communication of
ideas. The importance of language competence and the role of teachers in making sure that
such competence is relentlessly encouraged in schools are the concern of both the teaching
profession and the Department for Education (EfE). A good number of studies in the area of
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reading have been reported in India and abroad with various perspectives. The investigators
identified some of the factors that influence the achievement of children and included them in
their respective students. The following are some of the findings of the studies which dealt
with the related subject. Intelligence is found to be one of the important factors that influence
the reading achievement of children. Harry Bell (1942) Gray (1960), Hage and Shroud (1960)
and Odle Florance Neal (1976) found high correlation between the intelligence and reading
achievement of children. Hearing ability of children was studied in relation to their reading
achievement by Bond (1935), Witty and Kopel (1936), Kennedy (1942), Robinson (1946),
Henry (1947 & 1948) Polins (1953), Johnson (1957) and Weintralib (1972). They found high
and positive correlation between the hearing ability of children and their reading
achievement.
Dawe (1942) set up a special educational program involving pictures, stories,
excursions, and discussion sessions for eleven preschool-aged children living in a culturally
impoverished orphanage. These children were matched on age, sex, IQ and vocabulary status
with children in a control group who also resided in the orphanage. The investigator tried to
supplement the meagre word-concept experiences of the children in the experimental group
by a variety of direct experiences and a “rich” language commentary. “The child cannot
manipulate certain facts if his environment has kept him ignorant of those facts. In this sense,
the language training involved in the experiment is analogous to what goes on in the home
and school life of any child who is not neglected.”
Through the use of text, graphics, audio, video and animation, edutainment steers
away from the traditional teaching method. These multimedia appliances help to reinforce
learning, and make learning more fun rather than a hassle. Another advantage of edutainment
in that it allows the students to control their own learning pace. When students have the
ability to control the speed at which they learn the material, it usually required less time to
learn it (Attewell, 2001). Linguistics is narrowly defined as the scientific approach to the
study of language, but language can be approached from a variety of directions, and a number
of other intellectual disciplines are relevant to it and influence its study. Semiotics, for
example, is a related field concerned with the general study of signs and symbols both in
language and outside of it. Literary theorists study the use of language in artistic literature.
Linguistics additionally draws on work from such diverse fields as psychology, speech-
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language pathology, informatics, computer science, philosophy, biology, human anatomy,
neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, and acoustics. Worbois (1942) has shown that the
school environment has a significant influence on language growth. Children attending one-
room and consolidated schools in the same rural area of Iowa were given a large battery of
vocabulary, information, and intelligence tests. The children enrolled in the consolidated
school were clearly superior in language development. When children in the one-room and
consolidated schools were matched on age, sex, and IQ, the pupils of the consolidated school
were much superior in verbal effectiveness.
Another striking case of the effects of cultural deprivation upon language retardation
is reported by Coppinger and Ammons (1952). They found Negro children in the first eight
grades to be about three years behind white children in vocabulary size as estimated by the
Ammons Picture Vocabulary Test.
Children notice certain features of language behaviour, and use these features to form
their own individual system of combination. However, the needs of communication, the
requirement for more words and more complex ways of combining them, force them to
approximate more and more to adult systems. So, of course, does the need to be under-stood
by a variety of other people. When his only communicant is his mother or his twin, the child
may be held back baby language. But as soon as he needs to speak to other members of the
community, the rules of the conventional code of language become more necessary (Herriot,
1971). Within the field, linguist is used to describe someone who either studies the field or
uses linguistic methodologies to study groups of languages or particular languages. Outside
the field, this term is commonly used to refer to people who speak many languages or have a
great vocabulary. Marsh Academic Dean for Worcester country school, Berlin, MD. Agrees
her school uses multimedia right through from the kindergarten to the senior grade. She says
both the students and teachers find it exciting to use the encyclopedias, research program,
presentation tools and curriculum specific CD-ROM that come under the banner of
Multimedia (Marsh 2007). “How can you measure linguistic skills and instruction suddenly
excels using multimedia? I’ve seen student’s manner when teachers used multimedia
approach. Multimedia takes children for beyond what would normally be learning through
the textbook. Multimedia works wonders”.
33
Historical linguistics studies the history and evolution of languages through
the comparative method. Often the aim of historical linguistics is to classify languages
in language families descending from a common ancestor. This evolves comparison of
elements in different languages to detect possible cognates in order to be able to reconstruct
how different languages have changed over time. This also involves the study of etymology,
the study of the history of single words. Historical linguistics is also called “diachronic
linguistics” and is opposed to “synchronic linguistics” that study languages in a given
moment in time without regarding its previous stages. In universities in the United States, the
historic perspective is often out of fashion. Historical linguistics was among the first
linguistic disciplines to emerge and was the most widely practiced form of linguistics in the
late 19th century. The shift in focus to a synchronic perspective started with Saussure and
became predominant in western linguistics with Noam Chomsky’s emphasis on the study of
the synchronic and universal aspects of language. Relationship between the study habits and
reading achievement of children was studied by Joshi and Chaudhary (1966) and Samuel and
Soundararaja Rao (1967). They established positive and significant relationship between the
study habits and reading skills of children. School is a common place where students acquire
linguistic skills, especially reading & writing. The studies conducted by Alagiriswamy (1970)
established significant difference between urban & rural schools with regard to the reading
achievement of children. Linguists nonetheless agree that the study of written language can
be worthwhile and valuable. For research that relies on corpus linguistics and computational
linguistics, written language is often much more convenient for processing large amounts of
linguistic data. Large corpora of spoken language are difficult to create and hard to find, and
are typically transcribed and written. Additionally, linguists have turned to text-based
discourse occurring in various formats of computer-mediated communication as a viable site
for linguistic inquiry.
The study of writing systems themselves is in any case considered a branch of
linguistics. There are a wide variety of approaches to linguistic study. These can be loosely
divided (although not without controversy) into formalist and functionalist approaches.
Formalist approaches stress the importance of linguistic forms, and seek explanations for the
structure of language from within the linguistic system itself. For example, the fact that
language shows recursion might be attributed to recursive rules. Functionalist linguists by
34
contrast view the structure of language as being driven by its function. For example, the fact
that languages often put topical information first in the sentence, may be due to a
communicative need to pair old information with new information in discourse. During the
last half of the twentieth century, following the work of Noam Chomsky, linguistics was
dominated by the generativist school. While formulated by Chomsky in part as a way to
explain how human beings acquire language and the biological constraints on this
acquisition, in practice it has largely been concerned with giving formal accounts of specific
phenomena in natural languages. Generative theory is modularist and formalist in character.
Formal linguistics remains the dominant paradigm for studying linguistics, though Chomsky's
writings have also gathered much criticism.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a new school of thought known as cognitive linguistics
emerged as a reaction to generativist theory. Led by theorists such as Ronald
Langacker and George Lakoff, linguists working within the realm of cognitive linguistics
posit that language is an emergent property of basic, general-purpose cognitive processes,
though cognitive linguistics has also been the subject of much criticism. In contrast to the
generativist school of linguistics, cognitive linguistics is non-modularist and functionalist in
character. Important developments in cognitive linguistics include cognitive grammar, frame
semantics, and conceptual metaphor, all of which are based on the idea that form-function
correspondences based on representations derived from embodied experience constitute the
basic units of language. Learning a new language is about much more than passing exams or
getting good marks. It is about opening up new life opportunities, making new friends in
different countries, experiencing other cultures and broadening your horizons. Language
learning is also about “training your brain”. Researches show that people who speak multiple
languages are better at problem solving. Language skills can improve your career prospects,
help you live in another country and boost your confidence. The European Union actively
encourages language learning at all ages, and a wide range of opportunities are available to
school learners. Languages are for everybody, whatever your age and whatever your reasons
for wanting to learn. They help to break down personal as well as national barriers, allowing
Europeans to communicate with each other, to work together and to move between countries.
1.3.2 How to learn?
35
Learning a language can be an enjoyable and deeply rewarding experience. The main
thing is to find a method that suits your needs and the amount of time they have available.
For example, learners can:
1. Learn by themselves- self-teaching courses are available in a wide variety of
languages and media, from DVDs and CD-ROMs to audio-cassettes and textbooks.
2. Watch TV - many broadcasting companies offer language courses via television or
radio programmes.
3. Surf the Internet - a growing number of websites offer lessons in foreign languages,
often with sound and pictures.
4. Learn with a teacher - the advantage of taking lessons with a group of other learners
is that students have friends to encourage them in their learning and a teacher to guide
them according to their specific needs.
5. Learn at work - more and more employers are recognising that foreign language
skills are vital to the success of their business, and many larger companies offer free
or subsidised language courses.
6. Find a partner - tandem learning involves a partnership of two native speakers,
working together through correspondence (e-mail/telephone, etc.)
Verbally linguistic learners excel in activities like reading and writing skills. They are
typically very well spoken, have good listening ability, a keenly developed memory and can
vividly recall what they have read and have heard spoken to them. The subject of language is
fascinating to people with this learning style, and learners will often find them engaged in
trying to learn new words and exploring different methods on how to use the language more
creatively, like in poetry and creative writing. They enjoy studying and trying to learn new
languages, trying to memorize reading materials, and playing games such as jig saw puzzles,
scrabble and other language oriented games. Sometimes actually reading the dictionary rather
than just looking up certain words proves to be a fun activity for them. Individuals with this
learning style learn better if they are instructed with the help of written and spoken materials.
They enjoy and engage more in activities that involve linguistic reasoning instead of visual
stimulation.
36
Doing math problems for the learners is easier when they are in the form of word
problems rather than equations. These learners will strongly engage in written projects,
dramatic arts, speech presentations, language classes, books, and most of all, journalism of
any style. Educators should look into activities like creative writing, essay question and
answers, verbal debate and word games to assist this particular learning style. If the teacher
can use words to explain ideas and concepts to the linguistic learner, they will learn the
material better and can also retain it more effectively to memory. Their strength resides in
their ability to process information both verbally and by the written word. Various task
tracking software and mind mapper techniques available on the market can. The fields that
these learners often seek out are journalism, English and foreign language teaching, creative
writing, news anchors, editorial positions, attorney, advertising, and freelance writing, public
speaking, dramatic arts, and poetry writing.
This goes a long way toward countering the complaint that language- using apes are
merely responding to cues from researchers or, at best, learning rote behaviour to get rewards
without really comprehending the meaning of the words they employ. Part of the problem is
that the authors are playing by rules laid down by their critics. It was Rene Descartes, who
fashioned the longstanding paradigm of animals as automatons [sic], incapable of doing
anything other than mindlessly responding to whatever forces impinge on them. Descartes
insisted that animals cannot even feel real pain or pleasure, much less understand or
remember the experience. In our era, this tradition has been carried on by linguistics experts
equally intent on preserving language and reason for the exclusive use of humans. Each time
an ape demonstrates either ability, the linguists set about redefining language and reason in
more complex and confusing ways, erecting yet more artificial barriers for primates to hurdle.
1.4 ACHIEVEMENT:
Academic achievement at any point is a cumulative function of current and prior
family, community, and school experiences. A study of the entire process would require
complete family, community, and school histories, and such data are rarely if ever available.
Indeed, the precise specification of what to measure is poorly understood. In the absence of
such information, analyses that study the contemporaneous relationship between the level of
achievement and school inputs for a single grade are obviously susceptible to omitted
variables biases from a number of sources. An alternative approach focuses on the
37
determinants of the rate of learning over specific time periods. Previous studies of
instructional media were mixed in their findings. While Dewan (1966) had found televised
instructional material effective, and Roy (1974) had found no significant effect on cognitive
clarity of students through the television lessons of Delhi and that as simulation and
utilization bases were the most affected, the present survey contains some frank evaluations
of school broadcasts and school telecasts. The advantage of the growth formulation is that it
eliminates a variety of confounding influences including the prior, and often unobserved,
history of parental and school inputs. This formulation, frequently referred to as a value-
added model, explicitly controls for variations in initial conditions when looking at how
schools influence performance during, say, a given school year. While such a value-added
framework by no means eliminates the potential for specification bias, the inclusion of initial
achievement as a means to account for past inputs reduces dramatically the likelihood that
omitted historical factors introduce significant bias.
Several national studies have also examined the impact of student mobility on the
academic performance of students across grade levels. These studies were based on a national
health survey that provided controls for the demographic characteristics of students but not
prior educational performance. These studies found that only frequent, three or more, family
moves predicted grade retention (Simpson & Fowler, 1994; Wood et al., 1993). However,
another study based on the same data found that even one residential move had a negative
impact on a combined measure of both academic and behavioral aspects of school
performance, although the negative association was found only among children who did not
live with both biological parents (Tucker, Marx, & Long, 1998). The authors suggest that
two-parent families may have more so-called "social capital" that can help mitigate the
effects of residential mobility (Coleman, 1987).
1.4.1 Concept of Achievement:
An academic achievement is something one do or achieve at school, college or
university - in class, in a laboratory, library or fieldwork. It does not include sport or music.
An academic achievement, such as graduating first in one's class, is sometimes a purely
quantitative matter, while having the findings of lengthy, comprehensive research published
by a recognized journal is also a notable academic achievement. Being named head or
38
chairman of a particular department at a university is both a professional and an academic
achievement. Some other relevant statements to define academic achievement are following:
Academic achievement is all about what students can actually do when they have
finished a course of study,
Degrees and programs list this information and call it “competencies”,
Competencies are measured as students graduate,
The results are used to improve program and degree outcomes,
Each degree or program publishes an annual report,
The report is a way of knowing how well an individual program or degree is doing in
preparing students,
Studies that do not control for the background characteristics of students consistently
find that mobile students have lower achievement on average than non-mobile or stable
students. For example, one national study of third-grade students found that frequent school
changes were associated with a host of problems, including nutrition and health problems,
below-grade-level reading scores, and retention in grade (U.S. General Accounting Office,
1994). Yet studies that do account for background differences find that mobility may be
more of a symptom than a cause of poor school performance. One study of mobile students in
Chicago found that half of the achievement differences between mobile and stable students
could be attributed to differences between the students that pre-dated their school changes
(Temple & Reynolds, 1997). One well-designed study of elementary students in Baltimore
found that although mobility during elementary school had a negative association with test
scores, grades, retention, and referral to special education in fifth grade, the association was
largely insignificant once controls were introduced for the family and academic performance
in first grade (Alexander, Entwisle, & Dauber, 1996). In other words, mobile students came
from poorer families and had lower academic performance before they were mobile, a finding
supported by other studies (Nelson et al., 1996).
There is significant effect of competency based teaching through video on student’s
attainment at primary level. The main aim of our educational system is to develop various
skills and knowledge among the students. So that they can live more effectively and
39
intelligently in the technological world. The traditional classroom teaching has emphasised
the transmission of knowledge only. The essence of best teaching is that the subject mater has
to be communicated effectively to the students to make them understand the basic ideas
(Natrajan, P & Natesan N., 2004).
Achievement is the level of learning and attainment in a particular area of the subject
in terms of knowledge, understanding, skills and applications. The main focus of educative
process is to improve the performance or learning of the students. The learning outcomes of
the students are measured with the help of their achievement or performance. Performance
assessment is the process of measuring the terminal behaviours of the students at the end of
instruction. It is the job of the teacher to measure whether the students have acquired the
component concepts, as on achievement, before proceeding with the instruction which
arranges these concepts in proper relationship for the learning of the principles. The
achievement is the end product of the instruction usually verbal performance.
Academic achievement is the performance of students in the field of education and
the types of environment found at home plays, perhaps, a very important role in determining
academic achievement in children. The environment assessed in home was related to
emotional and verbal responsivity, acceptance of child’s behaviour organisation of
environment, provision of play materials, parental involvement with child and opportunities
for variety in daily stimulation. The child rearing issue is of major concern in contemporary
society. childhood has been accepted to be the most sensitive and vulnerable stage of an
individual’s life during which care and nurturance pay a significant role. The mind of a child
is considered as clean slate (tabla rasa) on which attitudes, values, beliefs etc. can easily be
inscribed. The kind of care children receive is greatly reflected in their personalities. The
child needs to be handled scientifically so as to develop desirable behavioural patterns
leading to the emergence of good human being, which can contribute to the ultimate progress
of family in particular and society in general. It calls for an environment that encourages
activity, experimentation and manipulative experiences. Deficiencies in the environment
during this period may cause irreparable damage to future development of the child where no
subsequent attention may really make up the loss. According to Ballard, family was the
original social institution from which all other institutions develop. It is, in fact, the
foundation of all social organisations.
40
Joseph Mazzini was right when he said that the child comes to have the first lesson of
citizenship on mother's knee and father's kiss. The family or the home is an important agency
of education and has been exercising an everlasting and immediate influence on the
behaviour, character, conduct and personality of its members. Education the child is not the
exclusive responsibility of the school. Parents can and should play an important role in
shaping and building the career of their children. Home is the place where we learn our first
lessons of living together, working together, working in cooperation, helping each other,
learning lessons of mutual help and adjustment,
Old members of the family were very particular that their children should follow
moral code and accordingly they used to set good examples before him. They were very keen
that nothing should be done which in any way brought slur on the name of the, family. The
old members of the family used to narrate stories of great men who always stood for higher
ideals in life and thereby exhorted the youngsters to follow their examples. By participating
in the religious activities of the family children got opportunities for their spiritual
development. Generally speaking, all the members of the family had the same religious views
and in this way home imparted religious education to a considerable extent. Children used to
inherit pate occupations. They learnt everything by imitating older people and by getting
instruction from them. The sons learnt the vocations of their father and girls got training of
becoming good housewives from their mothers. Family has been a center of social gatherings
where the child has been learning social behaviour. The family developed a code of
behaviour for regulating the interaction of its members. This code was also to be observed
outside the family. In this way family was an important agency for developing social
behaviour and attitude.
Poor academic achievement in school may be the result of an interplay between child
factors and the environmental milieu. Studies have shown that the effects of poor academic
achievement during the early school years often carry over to the adolescent years, with a
higher proportion of school dropouts, behavioural problems and even delinquency among this
population. It is important not only to identify children who are coping poorly in the early
years of school, but also to look at factors that have an impact on school achievement. While
earlier studies have looked at the child’s medical and cognitive problems, and socioeconomic
background, more recent studies have emphasised the importance of family involvement and
41
the child’s intrinsic motivation. A local study on early primary school children showed a
weak but significant association between poor nutritional intake and academic achievement;
however, these children were from low socioeconomic areas and of a single ethnic origin.
Another study examined recurrent abdominal pain and academic performance in children
who had already completed six years of education. A cross-sectional study was then
undertaken in 2001 to identify low academic achievers among primary school children
attending urban national type primary schools in Malaysia and to determine the cognitive,
socio-demographic, medical and nutritional factors that contribute to poor achievement:
Here are a Few Words about our Focus on Academic Achievement that it is our hope
that all young people will -
attend school, arrive on time, go to all classes
read at grade level or above
do well in the sciences, mathematics and technology
persist to high school graduation
be appropriately identified and served for any special needs
obtain good grades (C or higher)
have access to and do well in academically challenging courses
have opportunities to apply their knowledge while in school (through work- based
learning or service-learning)
follow a coherent course sequence leading to postsecondary education
take standardized and institutional entrance exams (e.g. Stanford 9, California
Achievement Test, SAT, ACT, Achievement, and Advanced Placement tests) and
obtain competitive scores
make thoughtful guided decisions about school attendance and financing
enrol in school
have no need for remedial education in school
sustain academic achievement and good grades in school
42
sustain financial aid (reapply as needed)
sustain school enrolment
The launching of EDUSAT at one hand, and transmission through EDUSAT for
elementary education on the other hand, has widened access to quality education but it is yet
to bring a revolution in the field of elementary education pertaining to improving professional
development of teachers and improving learning achievement of children as well. One of the
objectives of this project is to promote a shift from current passive learning to active learning
and help children to construct their own knowledge. In the context of effectiveness of
EDUSAT to improve quality o teaching-learning process at elementary level DEP-SSA
conducted a study recently at Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh to find out the effectiveness of
EDSUAT on learning achievement of children in Mathematic at primary grade.
1.5 JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY:
The primary objective of the primary education is to prepare the children for further
education, there is need to place total emphasis on learning of all subjects including language.
Use of instructional media in classroom enriches learning experiences of children. Since this
is an age of science and technology, the present day teachers must know to use various media
and instructional materials in the classroom environment. The present study is an attempt to
study the influence of satellite channel programmes on various cognitive aspects of primary
school students. Telecast of educational programmes helps learners to learn faster and
remember longer. While learner utilizes appropriate media in the classroom, teaching will
become real, arouse, and sustain interest, keep attention of the learner. Telecast of such
educational programmes is in the form of short length films.
There are of a great use in the teaching of primary students. They are more flexible
than Cinema and so they are quite useful in many respects. They are more directly associated
with the classroom. They are very useful for teaching grammar, oral and written composition
and for testing language skills. The outstanding advantages of satellite telecasts are gaining
popularity now-a-days in our country. The pictures itself is a source of clues for the pupil. He
can anticipate the vocabulary which will certainly be used. Other advantages of these are the
economy, simplicity of operation and the lengthened span if attention induced by the picture.
43
This study was a deliberate attempt to the influence of EDUSAT on certain cognitive aspects
i.e. curiosity, linguistic ability and achievement, of primary school students. The influence
measured by the students of schools having and not having EDUSAT. There has not been any
investigation regarding these variables and not been any proof of influence over students.
Hence, the investigator attempted to examine and compare the various cognitive aspects to
see influence of EDUSAT among primary school students. Primary learners were part of
study. Effect was seen by comparing the students studying in primary schools having as well
as not having EDUSAT. Thus effect could easily seen by comparing different dependent
variables.
The launch of EDUSAT has helped in providing quality instruction through video
programmes to students studying in the interior villages. The students have benefited from
the video programmes delivered through the Satellite. The benefit gained is in terms of gain
in knowledge and understanding of the content, improvement in attendance and holding
attention and interest in viewing programmes. The teacher involvement during the broadcast
as facilitator and conduct of Pre and Post broadcast activity is note worthy. Mayer and
Gallini (2007) found that coordinating text with pictures improved learning. They found that
students who were presented text with a narration by the teacher scored significantly higher
on retention, matching and transfer test. With the increase in development of science and
technology, there is change in pattern and innovation in educational system. Satellite
communication technology presents its special advantage and speciality. As India has used its
satellite for the educational purpose. It widens the teaching scale and contents of radio,
television and in universities. It improves the development of training of secondary and
primary teachers and of vocational education. It pushes forward the educational reform and
economic and educational development for the country. India is making effort on
transforming the educational satellite net to digital, interactive and Ku wave system with the
development of information technology. The study also focused on getting feedback about
use of the information technology resources. It concluded that interactive teaching and
transformed educational satellite net will play an important role in the country’s distance
education as it enhances academic achievement of primary school learners.
Students enjoy educational television programmes and multimedia prefers multimedia
learning materials and believe that multimedia as well as educational television programmes
44
help them to learn significantly (e.g. Bosco, 1989; Byant Brown, Silbeeberg & Flliot 1980;
Fletcher 1989, 1990, Holiday, Brunner & Donias, 1977; Rigney & Lutz, 1976; Samuels,
Biesbock & Terry, 1974; Moore, 1980).
1.6 STATEMENT OF THE STUDY:
“A STUDY OF EFFECT OF ‘EDUSAT’ ON CURIOSITY, LINGUISTIC ABILITY AND
ACHIEVEMENT OF PRIMARY SCHOOL LEARNERS”
1.7 OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS OF THE KEY WORDS:
(i) EDUSAT: EDUSAT (educational Satellite) launched by ISRO on 20th
September,
2004, aimed at meeting the demand for an interactive-based distance education system.
Actually, EDUSAT is a technology network of uplink stations in selected national and
state locations (to act as teaching ends), and downlink stations or facilities in various
educational institutions (as learning ends) supported by satellite.
In this study EDUSAT has been taken as an independent variable. The present study
has been conducted to see its impact on various dependent variables like curiosity,
linguistic ability and achievement of primary school learners.
(ii) Curiosity: According to Educational Dictionary Curiosity is a strong desire to know,
investigate or find out about something new. Curiosity is defined as a need, thirst or
desire for knowledge. Berlyne (1960) believes that the term curiosity is used both as a
description of a specific behaviour as well as a hypothetical construct to explain the
same behaviour.
In this study curiosity has been seen as the strong desire to know about new things
related to everyday life of the primary school learners.
(iii) Linguistic Ability: It refers to possession of ability in language skills either in first or
second languages. Mattingly (1972), described the linguistic ability is speaker’s or
listener’s ability to focus on the linguistic expression rather than on the linguistic
content, and to reflect consciously on certain linguistic symbols.
45
In the present study linguistic ability has been taken as dependent variable. Linguistic
ability has been seen in the area of the primary learners like there achievement in
listening and understanding and writing skill of English language.
(iv) Achievement: It refers to performance in school or college in a standardize series of
education test. According to Grondlund – “Achievement is the systematic procedure
for determining the amount a student has learnt through instructions.” In the present
study achievement of primary learners has been seen in the area of all subjects read by
the students in the schools. To see the achievement the investigator has prepared an
achievement test for primary school learners by taking into consideration all the
domains i.e. knowledge, understanding, application and skill.
1.8 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
A. CURIOSITY
O1.1 To compare the curiosity level of girls and boys of primary school having
EDUSAT.
O1.2 To compare the curiosity level of girls and boys of primary schools not having
EDUSAT.
O1.3 To compare the curiosity level of girls of primary schools having and not
having EDUSAT.
O1.4 To compare the curiosity level of boys of primary schools having and not
having EDUSAT.
O1.5 To compare the curiosity level of students of primary schools having and not
having EDUSAT.
B. LINGUISTIC ABILITY
O2.1 To compare the linguistic ability of girls and boys of primary schools having
EDUSAT.
O2.2 To compare linguistic ability of girls and boys of primary schools not having
EDUSAT.
46
O2.3 To compare linguistic ability of girls of primary schools having and not having
EDUSAT.
O2.4 To compare linguistic ability of boys of primary schools having and not
having EDUSAT.
O2.5 To compare linguistic ability of students of primary schools having and not
having EDUSAT.
C. ACHIEVEMENT
O3.1 To compare the achievement of girls and boys of primary schools having
EDUSAT.
O3.2 To compare achievement of girls and boys of primary schools not having
EDUSAT.
O3.3 To compare achievement of girls of primary schools having and not having
EDUSAT.
O3.4 To compare achievement of boys of primary schools having and not having
EDUSAT.
O3.5 To compare achievement of students of primary schools having and not
having EDUSAT.
1.9 HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY:
A. CURIOSITY:
H1.1 There exists no significant difference in the curiosity level of girls and boys of
primary schools having EDUSAT.
H1.2 There exists no significant difference in the curiosity level of girls and boys of
primary schools not having EDUSAT.
H1.3 There exists no significant difference in the curiosity level of girls of primary
schools having and not having EDUSAT.
H1.4 There exists no significant difference in the curiosity level of boys of primary
schools having and not having EDUSAT.
47
H1.5 There exists no significant difference in the curiosity level of students of primary
schools having and not having EDUSAT.
B. LINGUISTIC ABILITY:
H2.1 There exists no significant difference in the linguistic ability of girls and boys of
primary schools having EDUSAT.
H2.2 There exists no significant difference in the linguistic ability of girls and boys of
primary schools not having EDUSAT.
H2.3 There exists no significant difference in the linguistic ability of girls of primary
schools having and not having EDUSAT.
H2.4 There exists no significant difference in the linguistic ability of boys of primary
schools having and not having EDUSAT.
H2.5 There exists no significant difference in the linguistic ability of students of
primary schools having and not having EDUSAT.
48
C. ACHIEVEMENT:
H3.1 There exists no significant difference in the achievement of girls and boys of
primary schools having EDUSAT.
H3.2 There exists no significant difference in the achievement of girls and boys of
primary schools not having EDUSAT.
H3.3 There exists no significant difference in the achievement of girls of primary
schools having and not having EDUSAT.
H3.4 There exists no significant difference in the achievement of boys of primary
schools having and not having EDUSAT.
H3.5 There exists no significant difference in the achievement of students of primary
schools having and not having EDUSAT.
1.10 DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:
The study was delimited to:
i. Fourteen Primary schools: Seven primary schools having EDUSAT and Seven
primary schools not having EDUSAT.
ii. Six Hundred Students of Primary schools of Haryana.
iii. Students from class IV were taken as sample of study.
iv. The study was delimited to the students of primary schools of Haryana only.
v. The study was delimited to the primary schools of Haryana having and not having
EDUSAT.
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