Blended Learning in Saudi Arabian Girls' Secondary School Education - Essay Example

The school code, name, type, and location are illustrated in Table 4.1below:

Table 4.1: Schools’ name, type, and location

School code

School Name

Type

School Location

1st

50th secondary school

Public

Jeddah

2nd

48th secondary school

Public

Riyadh

3rd

2nd  secondary school

Public

Dahraan

All three schools were publicly owned and thus funded by the government. From the sample population of twelve teachers, five staff and thirty-one students, the researcher delved into exploring the issues surrounding the blended learning (BL) environment in the targeted schools. This was in part done by observing students and their teachers as they interacted with each other within and without the classroom environment. This stage describes and analyses the effects of existing learning environments on the practices of students. It also seeks to describe how the BL might affect students’ learning to determine a method for designing effective learning in Saudi Arabian schools to enhance learning.

4.2. Part one: Qualitative and quantitative data analyses

The qualitative data analyses of the results obtained in chapter three using viable research methodologies were vigorously done using the computer software tool QDAS to come up with any concrete significance. As clearly postulated by (), data analysis using this tool involves the researcher relaxing and letting the tool help in the analytic process. QDAS has the key advantage of easily supporting the researcher’s efforts to pursue and interpret new paths of inquiry (Kaczynski, 2004 qt in). The use of software for the purpose of qualitative analysis has been found to have tangible benefits in that it can shorten analysis timeframes, provide more thorough and rigorous coding and interpretation as well as provide researchers with enhanced data management (Jones, 2007).

4.2.1 Theme one: The perspectives and opinions of teachers on Blended Learning

This Theme sought to investigate the general perspectives and opinions of the teachers in the schools under study. The researcher subjected the sampled teachers to a number of questions on the research problem the study was investigating. The first aspect dealt with the teachers’ experiences in a blended learning environment concerning the first year of implementation. The question asked was Q: What is your opinion of the first year of implementation of blended learning in your school? Do you see any room for improvement? The responses given to this question were varied with teachers from Dahraan School generally terming the implementation phase as “very difficult” owing to certain inherent obstacles facing both the students and teachers at the outset. The teachers additionally claimed that there were some positive changes from previous learning techniques observed in students who have become more active and capable of undertaking “self-learning”.

The teachers in Jeddah School likewise reiterated the views held by those from Dahraan School on the first year of implementation of BL. They collectively agreed that there were some improvements over time although the implementation was ‘very weak’ and ‘difficult’ at the beginning. In addition to the foregoing claims, the teachers in Riyadh School indicated that several difficulties were encountered in the first year of BL implementation due to a lack of a clear plan or schedule for the implementation.