Developing mathematical exercise software for visually impaired students

This study aims to develop an Android-based math exercises application for the visually impaired. This research is development research carried out with research steps, namely: (1) preliminary research, (2) prototyping stage, and (3) assessment phase. The research was conducted between April 2020 and December 2020. The material chosen in the application developed was a plan taught in 8 grade. The research process involved six experts in assessing the product, namely three mathematics education experts to assess the validity of the aspects of mathematical content, two blind education experts to assess visually impaired content suitability and accessibility, and 1 IT expert to assess product performance. The product was tested on nine visually impaired. The quality of teaching materials is based on three basic aspects: feasibility, practicality, and effectiveness. The conclusions of this study are: (1) the product has good quality because it has been declared feasible by experts, practical, which can be seen from the enthusiastic response and student testimonials, and is effective because it can be used to learn and measure abilities, (2) the application is divided into three sections, preamble (contains the opening tune and instructions for use), practice questions, and results. Application development is based on two elements, namely accessibility and compatibility of the content with the cognition of the visually impaired, (3) the question page consists of questions (will be read when entering the page and can be repeated when the user taps the question section), under the question, there is a question number. There is a question; answer choices are arranged twice in two (the answer choices will be read out when pressed by the user). There is an answer lock button at the very bottom, and (4) the visually impaired want an application that has a simple operating system, provides challenges to the user and has two functions, namely measuring their abilities and facilitating their learning.

The intertwining of vocational aptitude and interest: A study among university students in Indonesia

Vocational aptitude and interest are the fundamental factors that education and career counselors utilize to provide suggestions to clients. These concepts are often considered as separate constructs. However, aptitude and interest are interrelated and should both be considered when making career decisions. This study involved as many as 343 university students as participants. Two measurement tools were used: Employee Aptitude Survey (EAS) to measure aptitude and Self-Directed Search (SDS) Holland to measure vocational interest. The data were analyzed using canonical and Pearson product-moment correlation analysis. The findings show that there is a correlation between several types of interest and several types of aptitude. Vocational interest that has the strongest correlation with aptitude was the investigative interest, while the numerical aptitude test has the strongest correlation with interest. In the process of career decision-making, particularly for university students, both aptitude and interest must be taken into consideration, especially the investigative interest and numerical aptitude.

Development of learning module to improve competency achievement in the department of civil engineering education in Indonesia

The purpose of this study was to determine the process of preparation and feasibility of the Building Maintenance learning module in the Department of Civil Engineering in vocational high schools. This research is a research and development (R&D) study using the Four D (4D) model. The Building Maintenance learning module is validated by one material expert and one media expert and the Building Maintenance subject teacher. The module contains a title, introduction, learning, evaluation questions, UAS, answer key, and bibliography. The analysis shows that the learning module as a whole is very feasible to be used as a teaching material. The results of the analysis of the data obtained an average score from the material experts is 90.0% so that it belongs to the "very feasible" category, the average score from the results of the media experts is 74.194% so that it belongs to the "feasible" category, and the average score of the teacher is 88.46% so it is included in the "very feasible" category. Then it can be concluded that the Building Maintenance module is in the very feasible category.

Validity and reliability of cognitive tests study and development of elementary curriculum using Rasch model

The instrument for measuring knowledge in the subject of Elementary School Curriculum Study and Development has been created to measure students' understanding of teacher candidates in applying concepts, implications and curriculum development at the elementary school level. In order to make reliable and feasible instrument for measuring students knowledge in the subject of Elementary School Curriculum Study and Development, this study aims to produce empirical evidence about the validity and reliability of test instruments using the Rasch model analysis. The study was conducted by testing 20 items on 142 elementary school teacher candidate at one of the State Universities in the City of Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara. The validity and reliability of the instrument were measured by the Rasch analysis model using the Winstep program. The one-dimensional testing of 20 items has a variance measured at 42.7% which exceeds the minimum points of 40.0% desired by the Rasch model. The reliability index of the respondents was 0.65 and the item reliability index was 0.98. All items show a positive value for Point Measure Correlation (PMC) in terms of item polarity which means there is no conflict between the item and the construct being measured. Outfit Mean Square value also shows that all items that almost all items have an MNSQ Outfit value smaller than 1.5 which means the measurement value can be said to be productive except for item 13 (3.77) and item 16 (3.77). Both of these items need to be re-examined because they have problems in measuring their validity. The results of this study have proven that the knowledge measurement test instrument in the Elementary School Curriculum Study and Development course has validity and reliability values that meet and are empirically feasible to be used in measuring Basic School Curriculum Study and Development knowledge for prospective teacher students.

Indonesian students’ learning attitude towards online learning during the coronavirus pandemic

Now, the whole world is facing the coronavirus pandemic. In the meantime, students in China are required to do social distancing and not go to school. This coronavirus pandemic resulted in the use of online learning to teach students. In this research, we will get to know the students’ learning attitude towards online learning during the coronavirus pandemic. The sample population for this research are students in West Java, Indonesia. The data will be collected by using questionnaires and there was a total of 16 questionnaires that is collected for this research. The result of this research shows that online learning during this coronavirus pandemic is not very effective. Also, the students’ learning interest towards online learning is also very low. Based on the interview done on students and teachers, most of them stated that there are various factors that can affect online learning in China such as learning environment, internet and etc. The suggestion that is given in this research is that aside from online classes, teachers can also use video learning media that are used by developed countries so that it can solve the bad internet problem. The result of this research hopefully, can become a reference to improving a more effective learning media that can be used during the coronavirus pandemic in Indonesia.

Effect of insecure environment on the academic performance of female students in Pakistan

The study investigated the effect of an insecure city environment on the academic performance of female college students in Pakistan. Although studies are found in the insecure environment inside the institute, none investigated the insecure environment on the ways from home to college. This research specifically targeted female students of the age from 14 to 16 years who walked to their colleges and often experience unusual activities or harassment affecting their academic performance.100 Females who were studying in the Government institutes, were the desired sample of the current study who were studying at the government colleges and were students of 1st year. The result indicated that an insecure city environment is a significant negative predictor of academic performance among female college students who are attending Government colleges in Pakistan (β= -.81, p < .001). The findings drawn from this study are likely to help save the young female students from developing insecure feelings while moving on the road alone. This research helps in providing a secure environment for the female to ensure their optimized learning. This is ascertained through a better future by instigating some action planning for providing the females with a safe environment that promotes effective learning.

E-module as an emergency-innovated learning source during the Covid-19 outbreak

The COVID-19 pandemic has hugely changed various human activities. This "silent-killer" pandemic attacks almost every single aspect of life in this entire world. In this case, the writer will focus on the education sector as one of the most damaged fields by the pandemic. Every single of its elements has to be quickly adapted to the situation caused by the COVID-19 attack. Stakeholders are continuing hard to formulate the adaptation that can be taken quickly as the most effective way among the uncertain situation. Shortly, regarding the physical distancing campaigned by the most governments, online learning is then considered as the most possible way to keep the learning process going with all its strengths and weaknesses. In accordance with the background of the situation, the writer through this study purposed to determine the effectiveness of e-modules as the emergency innovative learning sources in the middle of this COVID-19 outbreak. Online learning is claimed as an effective solution to keep learning to avoid mass gathering that possibly causes the virus to spread at schools. E-modules belong to interactive teaching sources that are capable to facilitate student to learn independently. They still have chances to learn with interesting, practical, and online-accessible to pursue the learning outcomes as good as possible in term of the emergency self-learning process. To find out the improvement in students learning outcomes after using the e-module through the online learning process, the data analysis in this study was conducted using a paired sample t-test. At last, the results showed that student learning outcomes could be maintained and even improved after the use of the e-module as an emergency innovative learning source during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Examining guidance and counseling students interpersonal communication skill based on semester level

Interpersonal communication has been widely studied and proven to be an important skill possessed by school counselor. Interpersonal communication skills are activities that transfer certain information appropriately by the context of the communication. The purpose of this study was to determine the differences in interpersonal communication skills of students majoring in guidance and counseling. The subjects of this study were students of the guidance and counseling department at Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, who enrolled in the year 2017, 2018 and 2019. The research method used was quantitative research methods. Data analysis was performed using One-way Anova.The results of this study show that there is no difference in the interpersonal communication skills based on semester level.

An evaluation toward the post-certification teacher performance in the natural history learning process for the elementary school degree

The study aims at describing the teacher performance in the Natural History Learning Process for the Elementary School Degree throughout the Province of Yogyakarta Special Region from the four competencies namely personality competency, professionalism competency, pedagogy competence and social competency based on the self-assessment, the principal assessment, the peer assessment, the student assessment and the observation toward the learning process after the certification. The nature of the study is an evaluative study using the descriptive quantitative approach. The study itself was conducted in both the Public Elementary Schools and the Private Elementary Schools throughout the Province of Yogyakarta Special Regions. The subjects of the study were the teachers who had been teaching Natural History in both schools who had passed the certification test in 2007 and 2008 and who had also been receiving the certification allowance. During the conduct of the study, the data gathering instruments that had been implemented were questionnaire, observation sheet and documentation. On the other hand, the data analysis technique that had been adopted was descriptive statistical analysis with percentage. Then, the results of the study show that the post-certification performance of Natural History teachers have been “Very Good” based on the personality, professionalism, pedagogy and social competency and also based on the results of the self-assessment, the principal assessment and the peer assessment. The details on the results of the post-certification teacher performance in this regard might be elaborated as follows: (1) personality competence 96.70%; (2) professionalism competence 76.40%; (3) pedagogy competence 83.30%; and (4) social competence 88.90%. Furthermore, the results of the student assessment assert that the post-certification of Natural History teachers belongs to the “Very Good” category with the assessment rate of 96.70%. Last but not the least, the results of the observation toward the teacher learning process also belong to the “Very Good” category with the following details: (1) pre-learning activities 93.30%; (2) core activities 93.30%; and (3) closing activities 73.30%.

The development of audio-visual media with contextual teaching learning approach to improve learning motivation and critical thinking skills

The study aims at developing the valid Contextual Teaching-Learning (CTL) Approach-based audio visual learning media in order to improve the learning motivation and the critical thinking skills significantly and also at identifying the effectiveness level of the Contextual Teaching-Learning (CTL) Approach-based audio visual learning media in improving the students’ learning motivation and critical thinking skills. Therefore, autoatically the nature of the study is research and development. During the conduct of the study, the data were gathered by using the random sampling technique. Then, the data gathering instruments that had been implemented were the media assessment questionnaire, the observation, the motivation questionnaire and the critical thinking skills test. The results of the study show that the Contextual Teaching-Learning (CTL) Approach-based audio-visual learning media that has been developed by using the Borg & Gall model is considered valid. The students’ learning motivation has increased as having been confirmed by the fact that the students are more enthusiastic, more interested and happier in attending to the learning process. Furthermore, the results of the students’ critical thinking skills test in the experimental group show that 25 students have met the passing grade while the remaining 6 students have not met the passing grade. On the other hand, the results of the students’ critical thinking skills test in the control group show that 20 students have met the passing grade while the remaining 12 students have not met the passing grade. In other words, these findings show that the learning process through the use of the Contextual Teaching-Learning (CTL) Approach-based audio-visual learning media is able to improve the students’ learning motivation and critical thinking skills.