Republic of virtue, 7/09

PPSMI -- 20 questions on the UPSI study on the teaching of Maths and Science in English PDF Print
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Saturday, 11 July 2009 14:22

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Below is a Bahasa Melayu version of the UPSI (Universiti Perguruan Sultan Idris) study on the teaching of science and mathematics in English

Azly Rahman

http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2009/07/ppsmi-20-questions-on-upsi-study-on.html

Think of the following questions as you read the summary. I invite comments as well.

1. Who sponsored the research?

2. What methodology is used?

3. What is the nature of the sampling strategy?

4. How is the data triangulated to check for validity and reliability?

5. What are the strategies of data gathering used?

6. How complex is the analysis, given that the questions are simple (the questions asked are not higher order questions nor phenomenological)?

7. What paradigm governs this research?

8. What theory informs the process and premises of data interpretation?

9. What dimensions of race, gender, class, and ethnicity, school culture, curricular design, ecology of the child, etc. is at play here?

9. How are recommendations made in vis-a-viz influencing factors and political demands?

10. Who are the researchers? What political affiliation do they hold, if any? How political is the institution?

11. How does the institution influence the reporting and next, public sharing of the findings?

12. How conclusive, as claimed, is the finding? Why does the finding warrant such a political decision?

13. How will policy-makers use findings?How has it been used now and will continue to be used?

14. What long-term consequence will this brief and inconclusive study have on the politics of education, race, teacher professionalism, human capital development, and national preparedness on globalization as well?

15. Is there a qualitative/discursive dimension of this research available in order for another set of findings to be be compared to; dimensions such as narratives, ethnographic observation, document and conversational analysis, etc.?

16. Is there a follow up study on teaching strategy, teacher qualification, etc.?

17. What is the level of competency desired as baseline and what set of rubrics is used to define competency?

18. Since the beginning of the implementation of the program, has the Teacher Education Research Unit of the Ministry of Education develop a cumulative research strategy (say, over a five-year period) to collect baseline data on the multidimensional aspects the effectiveness of the strategy?

19. How is ideology tied to this research agenda?

20. What premises inform the claim of neutrality of this research? In other words, what is this study neutral against, if any?

THE STUDY

Kajian PPSMI oleh UPSI

Kajian dijalankan oleh sekumpulan penyelidik dari Fakulti Sains Kognitif dan Pembangunan Manusia, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris Tanjung Malim yang diketuai oleh Profesor Emeritus Isahak Haron anjuran Yayasan Kajian dan Strategi Melayu.

Kajian tersebut membabitkan hampir 4000 murid tahun 5 di 68 buah sekolah rendah di Semenanjung Malaysia antara tempoh Februari 2007 dan Januari 2008.

Kajian UPSI tersebut adalah berkaitan dengan PPSMI dalam menjawab beberapa isu Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran berikut:

1. Sejauh manakah guru menggunakan Bahasa Inggeris sebagai bahasa pengantar Sains dan Matematik ?

Kajian dari sample yang berlainan pelajar sekolah rendah sepanjang 2003-2007 mendapati:

i. Lebih 85% pelajar melaporkan guru mengajar Sains dan Matematik dengan campuran Bahasa Inggeris dan Bahasa Melayu . Ini adalah kerana guru-guru ingin membantu murid-murid yang lemah Bahasa Inggeris memahami apa yang diajar.
ii. Hanya 02% guru menggunakan Bahasa Inggeris sepenuhnya.
iii. Dan 05% menggunakan Bahasa Malaysia sahaja.

2. Sejauh manakah pelajar sukar mempelajari Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris ?

Berdasarkan sampel Januari 2008:

i. 83% murid pelbagai kaum menyatakan sukar belajar Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris.
ii. 87.2% di kajian di kalangan pelajar Melayu mengatakan sukar belajar Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris.
iii. 65%kajian di kalangan pelajar Melayu mengatakan sukar belajar Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris.

Berdasarkan sampel Februari 2007:

i. 70-80 peratus pelajar Melayu sekolah kebangsaan masih menghadapi masalah mempelajari Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris walaupun telah menggunakan Bahasa Inggeris sejak tahun 2003.

3. Adakah mempelajari Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris meningkatkan pembelajaran dan prestasi Matematik pelajar ?

Kajian Sampel murid Tahun 5 Januari 2008 mendapati:

i. Skor prestasi Matematik pelajar-pelajar berkenaan adalah rendah iaitu 7.89 daripada skor maksimum 20.0.
ii. Skor murid Melayu (7.66) adalah lebih rendah dari skor murid Cina (13.0) dan India (8.21)
iii. Peratus murid Melayu yang memberi jawapan tepat adalah lebih rendah dari murid Cina dan India terutama dalam soalan yang memerlukan murid memahami ayat atau arahan dalam Bahasa Ingerís.
iv. Murid Melayu lemah dalam operasi asas dengan hanya 58.2 peratus yang mampu menjawabnya.
v. Dalam asas darab hanya 53.9 peratus murid Melayu mampu menjawab berbanding murid Cina 80 peratus boleh menjawab dengan betul.
vi. Dalam asas bahagi yang memerlukan membaca ayat dalam Bahasa Ingerís , hanya 14 peratus dan 35 peratus sahaja murid Melayu yang mampu memberi jawapan yang betul.

4. Adakah mempelajari Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris meningkatkan pembelajaran dan prestasi Sains pelajar ?

i. Prestasi am Sains murid semua keturunan adalah rendah dengan skor hanya 4.28 daripada maksima 14.00.
ii. Skor murid Melayu lebih rendah (4.11) dari skor murid Cina (7.22) dan India (4.64).
iii. Kira-kira 83 peratus murid Tahun 5 dari semua keturunan mendapati sukar mempelajari Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris dengan peratusan tertinggi di kalangan murid Melayu (84 peratus).
iv. Hampir 83 peratus murid Melayu tidak faham pengajaran guru Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris.

5. Adakah pengajaran Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris membantu meningkatkan pembelajaran dan prestasi pelajar dalam Bahasa Inggeris ?

i. Prestasi am Bahasa Inggeris murid Tahun 5 dari semua keturunan adalah amat rendah dengan skor 11.97 daripada skor maksimum 31.0. Skor murid Melayu hanya 11.87. Skor murid Cina (21.77) dan India (16.14).

ii. Kira-kira 73.7 peratus murid Tahun 5 dari semua kaum menyatakan sukar mempelajari Bahasa Inggerics dengan peratus tertinggi ialah murid Melayu (81.4 Peratus).

iii. Lebih 75 peratus murid Melayu tidak faham pengajaran guru Bahasa Inggerís.

Sumber: Suara Keadilan 24-31 Dis 2008


OUR USUAL REMINDER, FOLKS:
While the opinion in the article is mine,
the comments are yours;
present them rationally and ethically.
AND -- SET ALL I.S.A. DETAINEES FREE]

Comments (13)Add Comment
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written by cheemengwong, July 11, 2009 16:04:24
1. Who sponsored the research?
Answer: Raayat of course lah.

2. What methodology is used?
Answer: Objective method... Yes or No answer.

3. What is the nature of the sampling strategy?
Answer: The sampling is from UMNO members only. The branch head answers all the questions after being allocated RM1 million each.

4. How is the data triangulated to check for validity and reliability?
Answer: Triangulation via Najib to DPM to all branch leaders.
5. What are the strategies of data gathering used?

6. How complex is the analysis, given that the questions are simple (the questions asked are not higher order questions nor phenomenological)?
Answer: Yes or No question. Eg. Does UMNO brach leaders requires more money? Yes/No.

7. What paradigm governs this research?
Answer: Confusion paradigm is use to boombazzle the Raayats. Spinning issues makes it complicated!


8. What theory informs the process and premises of data interpretation?
Answer: We use the theory of relativity espounded by Dr.Lostmah. The premises use is the Raayat are all stupid.

9. What dimensions of race, gender, class, and ethnicity, school culture, curricular design, ecology of the child, etc. is at play here?
Answer:The sample selected i.e the UMNO brach leaders are representation of all UMNO members which is about 4million of the total population in Malaysia.

9. How are recommendations made in vis-a-viz influencing factors and political demands?
Answer: Recomendations are made under the influence of fear. The anwsers sought are intuitive i.e already expected. Any leader whose answer deviates from the sample will be severely dealt with. In short we use the Ringgit and Rotan influence aka R&R.


10. Who are the researchers? What political affiliation do they hold, if any? How political is the institution?
Answer: Researchers comprised of a team of housewives headed by one very lost mother called LostMah. The institution undertaking the study is very political and is UMNO.

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written by cheemengwong, July 11, 2009 16:05:33
11. How does the institution influence the reporting and next, public sharing of the findings?
Answer: Influence is total and reports are written by a Dr. Lostmah.

12. How conclusive, as claimed, is the finding? Why does the finding warrant such a political decision?
Answer: We are not concerned with conclusiveness but rather political correctness. Therefore, there is no congruent objectives here.

13. How will policy-makers use findings?How has it been used now and will continue to be used?
Answer: Findings are not used at all.

14. What long-term consequence will this brief and inconclusive study have on the politics of education, race, teacher professionalism, human capital development, and national preparedness on globalization as well?

Answer: We are not concerned with conclusiveness of the findings but rather the political correctness. That is why we reversed the earlier findings under Dr. M. We foresee reversing the current decision to suit the polical climate.

15. Is there a qualitative/discursive dimension of this research available in order for another set of findings to be be compared to; dimensions such as narratives, ethnographic observation, document and conversational analysis, etc.?

Answer: Our comparison on quality/discursive dimension use will the all the by election strategies in the past. If the method to be use suits the political end in the current state, we shall adopt it. There is no long term consideration on the consequence of our decisions. All decisions made is based on the current political need and urgency to ensure survival and long term ability to plunder the country's treasury to the maximun.

16. Is there a follow up study on teaching strategy, teacher qualification, etc.?

Answer: Follow up are done by the parents whose children are affected by our policy change. As far as the requirement of teachers' qualification is concerned, we are not interested. So long as the number of teachers are produced, we are happy. Of course, attendance of the teachers in school are not important. We are more interested in the numbers rather than the quality of teachers available.

Parents of affected children must play their part by sending children to tuition, home schooling, internet teaching etc. The government is the the keeper of your children.

17. What is the level of competency desired as baseline and what set of rubrics is used to define competency?
Answer: The level if conpetency desired is baseline. Wehat we require from the implentation of this new decision is that the Raayat especially those from the UMNO membership ones are happy. We only recommend what they like to hear. If the policy fails within the next 5 years, they the Raayat would anyway have forgotten about it.

The children who are not taught to be fluent in English can opt not to participate in global business. We rather encourage them to do farming, fishing, hawking and lepaking. International business does not equate to betterment. It is better to be local rather than glocal.

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written by cheemengwong, July 11, 2009 16:06:30
18. Since the beginning of the implementation of the program, has the Teacher Education Research Unit of the Ministry of Education develop a cumulative research strategy (say, over a five-year period) to collect baseline data on the multidimensional aspects the effectiveness of the strategy?

Answer: Most teachers earmarked for our policy are doing rather well. In line with Malaysia's aspiration to be a high income society, teachers in government school are now encouraged to give tuition part time. Our studies and data collected over the last 5 years have indicated that these teachers' income has tripled even without any pay raise during this recessionary times. W

We say kudos to these teachers and on reflection and hindsight our policies are sucessful.No further intervention is required. These teachers are now self trained to destruct the system in place at most schools.

Those children who does not participate in tuition are left behind. We do not see any reasons that these children should be given any attention. If every children are good and become doctors and engineers, who is left to do the farming, fishing and washing?

19. How is ideology tied to this research agenda?
Answer: Oure basic ideology and premise of this research is base on the belief that UMNO and only UMNO members should go forth and continue to rule the rest who do not take steps to overcome their deficency. The policies we implement speaks for itself.

Take the chinese for example... they are discriminate and they do even better! We call this reverse psychology.

20. What premises inform the claim of neutrality of this research? In other words, what is this study neutral against, if any?

Answer: Why are people so obssessed with neutrality, fairness and transparency. If we are to implement policies in this manner, who are to rule and who will be ruled over?

We are not interested in merit. We are interested in how to be more biased, more impartial and more non transparent. We use reverse psychology in our policy making. For example... if we want the UMNO members to work hard, we must give them everything they need as oppose to the Chinese... i.e don't give them anything and they will work hard!

Do you understand our approach Dr.? I am now wondering if you really are a Dr. Such basic things even Dr. Watson can tell you one lah smilies/smiley.gif

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written by Ken Liew, July 11, 2009 16:36:16
All i know is.... Government powered by BN, are good in theory Bad in Praticle. Meaning, good in talking, bad in action.

Check our Proton cars, Looks good, but Bad performance.... u can even start ur cars with gear 1 without clutch. Which car is capable of this??
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written by densemy, July 11, 2009 17:36:18
C'mon Azly... this is Malaysia. Who is interested in your high class academic gobble-de-gook? Anyway all that scientific methodology and statistical analysis crap of yours is a western fabrication created to try to fool ignorant people from third world countries that the only way to do anything Its simple Malaysian style. You make your decision then you pay some desperately underpaid academic chicken feed to come up with some stats to support your original contention

I wonder where UPSI ranks on the world scale of Universities?
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written by Loh, July 11, 2009 21:28:09
Mahathir’s chedet blog shows 85% disapproval of the discontinuation of PPSMI. Superficially, it would appear that people have overwhelming supported PPSMI as though it was the only sensible approach to improving the standards of English language. The poll as it was constructed on a simple yes and no answer has not catered for the choice of yes-but, or no-but.

The students who had been made to accept PPSMI over the past 6 years had gotten used to the English term, and they certainly do not want to switch language midway. But PPSMI is not about the preference of those who have been in it. It has to take into consideration of the choice if the students had not been forced into it.

Students in the secondary schools might have been able to accept PPSMI because they had sufficient grounding of the language to follow the teaching in English.

But PPSMI is definitely a bad policy for primary school. Those who had supported the reversal of PPSMI are parents in the primary schools. There are necessarily smaller in number who would vote on TDM’s blog. It is to be expected that students who are in the secondary schools would prefer status quo. Further, it has been generally accepted that English is important because of its wide reach and use in all spheres of live. Voters are worried that a reversal of PPSMI would see the rise of Bahasa Malaysia nationalism, as TDM wanted to convert the technical issue into ideological dispute.

The government is certainly right to oppose PPSMI for primary schools. If they still accept that it is the lack of teachers who could conduct proper oral teaching in English, then they should modify it to accept the use of English textbooks, but allow the teachers to choose the medium of oral instruction in secondary schools. Students should be given a choice to answer them in either language, English or BM.

Taiwan adopted English text books for science and mathematics since 1950s, and students from Taiwan went on to collect Nobel prizes. That should be the revised PPSMI the government should look into.
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written by Milo, July 12, 2009 12:18:45
Perhaps, if we can all agree (government, opposition and rakyat) on the importance of English for the future development of malaysians, we should start thinking of a Ministry fully dedicated to the development of the language!
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written by chastity thedamned, July 13, 2009 14:24:32
Admin, you deleted my comment, didn't you? Where's your transparency now eh? Why don't you delete this one too?
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written by Ku Osman, July 13, 2009 17:11:42
Azly,
I do admit that the survey is not adequate. However, many studies done on teaching science in a foreign language did show its detrimental effect on the students' learning. One example, findings from a paper presented at the Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 6, Issue 2, Article 2 (Dec., 2005).

"The results of the study indicate that there is a considerable difference between the two groups of students: those who studied the science course in the native language (Ss2) and those who studied in a foreign language (Ss1). Findings showed that Ss2 gave more scientifically acceptable answers to the questions than did Ss1. Besides, Ss1 had more difficulties in explaining the reasons for their answers; presumably because of the scientific language they used in their written explanations.

Abundance of scientifically unacceptable responses by Ss1 identifies a close relationship between the language and conceptual understanding in the science course. In other words, foreign language used in the science course becomes a barrier for students. Science is a discipline in which experiential and concrete examples should be presented as an in-class process in order to improve the level of students' conceptual understanding. Thus, if students are exposed to everyday concepts by using their native language, it will be easier for them to understand scientific concepts in a classroom setting. This will take the load off the students and will give more time to present experimental examples to comprehend scientific ideas more efficiently. From the teachers' point of view, it will also be easier to diagnose scientific misconceptions by asking students to give everyday examples for the topic taught." (End of excerpt)

Of course you don't have to accept this finding without critical review, and you might also find findings that support your views. My point is, don't just simply label those who oppose PPSMI as stupid, ignorant, nationalistic, racist, xenophobic, irrational, emotional unreasonable, mentally unstable,PAS/UMNO/Kampong malay chauvinist types. I really want the best for my kids and malaysians. For those city kids whose native language is English, I support your right to use PPSMI and the government should somehow provide opportunity for them to study science using their own language.. But please don't punish many of us whose mother tongue is not English.
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written by letsbefair, July 13, 2009 22:54:16
This flip flop from politicians is nothing new. It was Mahathir who switched from English to BM when he was the education minister.

Our government policies was, is and will be for a very long time racist policies.
Its this Malay and Islam rhetoric that guide their very action. Now most Chinese students go to Chinese schools and Malays Malay schools. But our university will teach in BM and so it is obvious who will qualify to study in this institution of higher learning.
This can translate into votes for those in power!

It doesn't matter if we ended up with hundreds of thousands of unemployable graduates. What is important is to stay in power!
Public office equates to power and wealth beyond ones imagination.
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written by letsbefair, July 13, 2009 23:13:30
India's politicians did not have to use the race card and they made a very pragmatic move. They allow the people to choose whether to study in their national language or to study in English.

The majority chose the later.

If we don't have this racist policies problem here and allow the people to make their own choice I am very sure the majority will make the same decision the Indians made.
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written by HJ Angus, July 14, 2009 02:27:52
This is a MAJOR blunder by the authorities.
To me, the MoE has failed miserably in training/producing enough qualified teachers to teach in English. (Some will claim many teachers are unqualified to teach in any language.
When BM was switched in the 70s it was supposed to be a unifying factor and now we also need the NS to boost racial harmony etc - that alone shows BM by itself cannot be a language to foster harmony when we have so many policies and practices that are purely racist - some even claim Malaysia practises apartheid.
Maybe there is some truth there - after all Malays of young age are taught a-part from the rest in their exclusive boarding schools.
It is better for the government to withdraw from such important decisions like language for schools - I don't believe anyone is capable of devising anything workable with the major mess they have created and not been able to resolve.
To cut a long story short, we really can learn a lot on how to de-politicise language from the little red dot. Do you know that English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil are all considered official languages?
Next time, take a look at all the official signs in lifts etc.- all 4 languages are shown.
For those who are considering sending their kids to study there, you may find this useful.
http://malaysiawatch4.********...dy-in.html
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