Abstract
The Influence of IB Math’s Level Based Education on Learning Ability and Affective Domain of High School Students
- Focused on International School in the Philippines -
Park, Yun Hye
Major in Mathematics Education
The Graduate School of Education
Korea University
Supervised by Professor Kim, Hong Chan
When a teacher instructs large number of students at school, the difference of learning capability level among students is not considered. In order to solve this problem, the Education Ministry instituted the level based education. However, due to the hardship of making process evaluation for each classroom and avoiding the influence of college entrance examination, the curriculum, instruction and evaluation could not be aligned. In 2018, Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation held the conference to introduce International Baccalaureate which reflected global aspects and aims for connection and fusion. Recent researches have focused on globalization and credit system of IB, but actually IB has continued the level based education which aligned curriculum, instruction and evaluation. In order to study about the influence of IB Math’s level based education on high school students and its implication on Korea education, two research questions were set up as the followings.
Research question 1) Analyze the influence of IB Math’s aligned level based education on learning ability and affective domain of high school students.
Research question 2) Investigate the opinions of IB Math teachers at international school in the Philippines on IB Math’s level based education.
To analyze research questions, I conducted the survey for Korean high school students and IB Math teachers at international school in the Philippines which has adopted IB curriculum since 1976. Since the students and teachers involved in the study stayed abroad, the survey was conducted online. Five consecutive multiple choices from ‘I totally disagree’ to ‘I totally agree’ were provided for them to choose in each question. The survey consisted of basic section which focused on background of students and teachers, and detailed section which had questions about curriculum, instruction, evaluation and alignment.
According to the result of Research question 1, IB Math’s aligned level based education had positive impact on learning ability and affective domain of high school students. Students agreed that IB Math’s curriculum, instruction and evaluation were separately designed but aligned for each level.
The first feature that influenced learning ability of students was learning material which teachers prepared for the class. Students responded that learning material not only played larger role in class compared to textbook but also was helpful for learning. Second, asking questions to teacher and students was helpful. Students asked questions actively to find solutions for better understanding rather than being ashamed of having questions.
The first feature that influenced the affective domain of students was the procedure of choosing the IB Math level where student’s opinion was reflected. Since students chose the level by themselves, they felt responsibility and had strong motivation. Second, students were brave enough to ask questions. Asking questions was helpful not only to improve learning ability of students but also to build strong self-efficacy.
According to the result of Research question 2, IB Math teachers had the following opinions regarding the level based education. First, even though IBO intervened for education system, the empowerment of teachers was guaranteed by school. When planning for the instruction, teachers were able to design it creatively but with the basis of IB curriculum. Second, IB Math was not influenced by SAT Math exam. Since IB Math was separated from SAT Math exam, students were able to concentrate on class contents. Lastly, IB Math’s level based education focused on process evaluation. IB Math’s evaluation was not only aligned with class activities but also had descriptive evaluation method in order to check and assess students’ understanding.
The following conclusions were obtained through this study.
First, student’s question had positive effect on learning ability and affective domain. In general, when students have questions in Math, mostly they first feel fear and embarrassment. However, since IB students actively asked questions to teacher and other students, their learning ability and affective domain were both improved.
Second, in order for teachers to proceed efficient level based education, the empowerment and cooperation among teachers should be strongly constructed. Once their empowerment is guaranteed, they can develop creative contents, and if they can share information and interact actively, they can guide students efficiently.
Lastly, students in Korea should have less pressure of college entrance examination so they can focus on the class. Evaluation should be based on students’ learning procedure not the results, thus students can check their improvement during the class.
International Baccalaureate, Level Based Education, Alignment
