| Summary: | 碩士 === 朝陽科技大學 === 應用外語研究所 === 95 === ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate learner perceptions of integrating blogs and English learning. The perceptions will be mainly discussed through the field of education, using three domains, cognition, affection, and psychomotor. A blog is an on-line journal where individuals can post the contents which vary from daily diaries to academic research and from the base of entertainment news to political and social issues. By providing bloggers with a simple operation and identifiable authorship, the application of blogs has created a major new social phenomenon on the Internet. In the present study, participants post opinions or discussions of English grammars on their blogs. Those contents include not only participant answers, but also abundant references from the web resources and feedback from other bloggers. In this research project, a blog is taken as a previewing tool for an English class, and a medium for free-flowing exchange of suggestions that is difficult to carry out in a formal class period.
Participants in this research comprised 62 first year students of a girls’ comprehensive senior high school (equal to tenth grade in the US system). All participants were female. A total of 62 responses to the questionnaire named “Survey of Learner Perceptions of Using Blogs in English Learning” were received, representing a return rate of 100%. A quantitative research method was adopted to analyze the data collected from the questionnaires consisting of three sections: demographic information, questions for evaluating perceptions, and open-ended questions. Bloom’s taxonomy and Simperson’s psychomotor domain were applied to design the evaluative questions. A t-test was adopted to test the relationship between learner experience learning English and participant perceptions; and the relationship between the experience using blogs in English learning and participant perceptions. In addition, the descriptive statistics were used to examine the differences between participant perceptions of this research project. Furthermore, the written responses which generated at the end of research questionnaire were analyzed.
Findings based on the descriptive statistics, a t-test and the responses of open-ended questions are illustrated as follow:
1. The participants are at least at the level of analysis in the cognition domain, except for the level of synthesis.
2. The participants perceived every level of affective domain, except for the level of internalizing value are comparatively with a lower mean value.
3. The participants perceived every level of psychomotor domain, except for the level of set, complex over response, and adaptation are comparatively with a lower mean value.
4. The length of learning English affects participant perceptions of complex overt response and adaptation in the psychomotor domain.
5. The participants who had experience using blogs in English learning enhance them to achieve the level of internalizing value in the affective domain.
6. Both experiences of English learning and integrating blogs in English learning don’t affect learner perceptions of the cognitive domain.
7. The integration of blog and English learning is accessible to the first-year female students at a comprehensive high school.
8. The difficulties of using blogs in English learning include participant-self factors, situations resulting from the use of blogs, the low efficacy of the hardware, and concerns originating from design of this research activity.
This research is expected to act as a reference for instructors who are interested in using web based programs and resources in English teaching. Participant (blogger) viewpoints are offered to blog designers as a reference for using in the educational field. Finally, the results of the research may be useful as a reference for decision makers considering the integration of blogs and English instruction.
Key words: blog, bloggers, blogsphere, cognition, affection, psychomotor, perception
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