Abstract:
Educational technology, and concurrently information technology, have been developed at varying pace and excellence in Malaysia over the last ten years. Substantial fundings have gone into resource centres, Teachers' Activities Centres, State Educational Resource Centres and computers-in-education projects. The bulk of the research on any of these entities still remains with the universities either as individual postgraduate efforts or as fully-fledged research projects of university staff through external fundings. In the last five years most of these individual efforts have focused on three main areas, i.e., computers-in-education, educational resource management, and instructional design; and most of the group efforts are in Resource Centres studies, media inventory, and program evaluations.
These efforts, while salutary, needed more co-ordination for their results to be disseminated. While localised distribution networks are available, there is a need for a central clearing house for effective dissemination, especially with due regards to specific fields of interests. An informed research audience could bring about a sharper research agenda focus and at the same time generate better understanding of the national and local needs.
This paper identifies inherent problems associated with policy- sensitive research, attempts to find ways to make the findings available, and proposes that much more of these research efforts be made available to the practising teachers. It is contended that the present centralised educational system could accommodate an across-the-board information dissemination set-up to enhance research and practice in this field.
These efforts, while salutary, needed more co-ordination for their results to be disseminated. While localised distribution networks are available, there is a need for a central clearing house for effective dissemination, especially with due regards to specific fields of interests. An informed research audience could bring about a sharper research agenda focus and at the same time generate better understanding of the national and local needs.
This paper identifies inherent problems associated with policy- sensitive research, attempts to find ways to make the findings available, and proposes that much more of these research efforts be made available to the practising teachers. It is contended that the present centralised educational system could accommodate an across-the-board information dissemination set-up to enhance research and practice in this field.