The Development of Audio Texts for Distance Education in Primary Education Level

Abstract

The objectives of this research were (1) to develop audio texts for distance education at the primary education level; (2) to study learning achievement of primary education students who learned from the audio texts for distance education; (3) to study the satisfaction of primary education students who learned from the audio texts for distance education; (4) to study training achievement of teachers who received training on designing the system of producing audio texts for distance education; and (5) to study satisfaction of the trained teachers with the training program.

This study was a research and development type.  The research operation comprised two stages.  The first stage was the development and try-out of audio texts for distance education at the primary education level,  that comprised four steps: (1) acquiring the body of knowledge on production of audio texts for distance education; (2) producing of three types of audio texts, namely, audio text as exercises, audio text as programmed lessons, and audio text as content conclusion; (3) submitting the produced audio texts to the experts for quality verification; after that, the texts were improved based on the experts’ recommendations; and (4) preliminary try outs the developed texts with the sample consisting of 40 Prathom Suksa IV students of Wat Bo (Nanthawitthaya Nakhon Pak Kret) School during the 2017 academic year, obtained by cluster random sampling.  The preliminary try-outs were conducted in three steps, namely, the individual try-out with three students, the small group try-out with six students, and the field try-out with 31 students.  The employed research instruments were (1) the three types of audio texts for distance education, (2) a learning achievement test for the students, and (3) a questionnaire on satisfaction of the students.  The second stage was the organizing of a training program on designing the system of producing audio texts for distance education for primary education teachers.  The employed training media were in the form of a training package comprising the training documents, computer slides, and resource persons.  The sample for training consisted of 30 randomly selected primary education teachers teaching during the 2017 academic years at primary schools in Nonthaburi province.  The employed research instruments comprised (1) a training package on designing the system of producing audio texts for distance education at the primary education level; (2) a test on training outcome in the form of learning achievement; and (3) a questionnaire on satisfaction with the training of the trained teachers.

            The research results were as follows: (1) the three types of the developed audio texts for distance education were efficient at 81.77/80.97, 80.81/79.44, and 81.90/80.00 respectively, all of which met the set 80/80 efficiency criterion; (2) the post-learning achievement scores of the students who learned from the audio texts were significantly higher than their pre-learning counterpart scores at the .05 level of statistical significance; (3) the students were satisfied at the highest level with the audio texts in both the pattern of presentation and the outcome of learning from the audio texts; (4) the post-training achievement scores of the teachers who were trained with the training package on designing the system of producing audio texts for distance education were significantly higher than their pre-training counterpart scores at the .05 level of statistical significance; and (5) the trained teachers were satisfied with the training at the high level in both the aspects of obtained knowledge and the application of the obtained knowledge.