Department of Adult Education and Human Resource Studies
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Item Continuing professional development (CPD) at a distance: Teachers’ reflections on enhancing distance education (DE) provision(International Journal of Educational Research Open, 2024) Abakah, E.; Addae, D.; Amuzu, D.In Ghana, continuing professional development (CPD) initiatives for teachers are fragmented, with limited participation opportunities for all subject teachers, resulting in a high reliance on distance education (DE) programs. This qualitative study investigates teachers’ experiences with DE upgrading programs and their thoughts on improving. Data was gathered from 32 participants in the Ekumfi district of Ghana. The findings show that, despite the constraints, teachers in Ghana are taking an agentic stance in using DE for their profes sional development. However, while DE programs provide reliable paths to updating professional knowledge, they are insufficient as a CPD tool to assist teachers’ learning for improvements in classroom practice. Teachers’ DE experiences reveal a rigid program structure with content that is unreflective of current educational concerns and the utilization of didactic teaching and learning approaches. These are detrimental to active learning and unlikely to result in effective teacher improvement. To strengthen DE as an effective CPD tool in Ghana, the study recommends regularizing other CPD avenues, revising DE upgrading programs for teachers, and systematising mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating teachers’ competencies before and afterDE participation.Item Mobile learning behaviour of university students in Ghana(Cogent OA, 2023) Afful, D.; Boateng, J. K.Abstract: This study was planned to investigate the effect of distance education students’ attitudinal, social, and control beliefs on their mobile learning usage at the University of Ghana and the University of Education, Winneba. The Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) was modified to explain how students’ attitude, subjective norms, and behavioural control of mobile learning influenced their current mobile learning usage. The study used an explanatory sequential mixed-method approach. Congruent to that, structured questionnaires were administered to 400 distance learners selected by multi-stage sampling technique, and 20 distance learners selected by random sampling technique were interviewed via phone to collect data. Using correlation and multiple linear regression analysis, as well as hypothesis testing, the findings showed that, the university students’ attitudes towards mobile learning, subjective norms, and behavioral control insignificantly influenced their ongoing mobile usage thus providing meek support for the research model. However, it was found that university students’ mobile learning innovativeness, peer influence, and self-efficacy significantly affect their attitudes, subjective norms, and behavioral control respectively of their mobile learning usage. This supports the research model and can be inferred that university students’ mobile learning innovativeness, peer influence, and self-efficacy indirectly influence their mobile learning usage. The results of this study will enable educational institutions to engage in better strategic planning and implementation of mobile learning on a wider scale focusing on students’ behavioral, social, and control factors.Item Ghanaian mature students’ motivation to pursue degree programmes through distance education(International Review of Education, 2018-10) Amponsah, S.; Torto, B.A.; Badu-Nyarko, S.K.Mature distance education students in Ghana, like part-time students all over the world, need to be motivated in order to enjoy their studies and succeed in what they do. In order to come up with incentives for such learners to join and complete a course, universities have to be aware of the characteristics and the socio-economic background of this group of learners and use an approach that best suits their needs at any given time. Based on Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci’s self-determination theory, the authors of this article investigate the factors that motivate mature students to engage in distance education and how their motivation is sustained throughout their studies. Using a survey questionnaire, the authors collected data from 210 mature distance education students (106 males and 104 females; aged 30+) of the University of Ghana. Interestingly, some of the authors’ findings depart from the norm in terms of adult learners’ motivations and what extant literature holds as typified in the work of Ryan and Deci. Adult learners more generally are described in the literature as being mainly intrinsically motivated (e.g. by the desire to learn for its own sake, for the enjoyment it provides, or the feelings of accomplishment it evokes). Interestingly, this survey reveals that mature distance education students who were enrolled in a higher education programme offered by the University of Ghana were mainly extrinsically motivated, giving career development as their top reason for course selection. © 2018, Springer Nature B.V., and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning.Item Assessment of Challenges in Distance Education at University of Ghana(Indian Journal of Open Learning, 2017-05) Badu-Nyarko, S.K.; Amponsah, S.The purpose of this study was to assess main challenges in implementation of a distance education (DE) programme at tertiary level at University of Ghana. Quantitative data was collected from 49 tutors and 139 students. The key survey questions to tutors were on their background education, training received, challenges in tutoring, courses taught and inter-relationship between them. The important survey questions to students were on their profile, challenges in registration process, adequacy of tutorials, timeliness, prompt evaluation and feedback related to assignments. Qualitative data was also obtained from coordinators and organizers on main challenges inhibiting the implementation of the distance education programme. Inadequacy of training, inadequate financial motivation, learners shifting from one tutor to the other, inadequacy of time allocated for tutorial, late attendance of students, faulty public address systems, late delivery of modules to students and overloaded modules to be treated within the semester were major challenges reported by tutors. Majority of the students felt that registration process at the beginning of the semester was very difficult, tutorial periods were not enough and they were not enthused with assignments given to them during tutorials. The coordinators felt that some members of the implementation committee were not experts in the field of distance learning and that they had to learn on the job. Other major problems faced in implementation of the programme included the difficulty of getting course writers and low fee for writing the modules. To address the challenges it is recommended that finance and other logistics should be ensured beforehand and all stake holders should be duly informed and offered the necessary training to equip them with the requisite skills and knowledge to take part in new programmes. (PDF) Assessment of Challenges in Distance Education at University of Ghana. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317580368_Assessment_of_Challenges_in_Distance_Education_at_University_of_Ghana [accessed Sep 25 2018].