Awareness and Effectiveness of the Modes of Learning as Perceived by Students of a Graduate School Program

Abstract

With the advent of technology, students are aware, albeit informally, that there are several modes of learning. The Academe should be familiar with these modes of learning to stay relevant. From the online course Modes of Learning offered by edX (Harvard University X), there are four modes of learning: Hierarchical Individual, Hierarchical Collective, Distributed Individual and Distributed Collective. This is a descriptive research which assessed the awareness and effectiveness of the modes of learning as perceived by the Master of Science of Industrial Engineering and Management students of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP). Hypotheses were tested on perceptions of the respondents on the modes of learning relative to their profiles. Findings indicate that, while the students are informally aware of the all the modes of learning, there are differences on their level of their awareness and their perceptions on effectiveness when grouped according to their profiles. New students appear to favor the online courses more than the older students. On the other hand, engineers tend to favor more the non-traditional method of learning than the non-engineers. Also, the engineers are more leaning to the knowledge provided by the online courses compared to those who are non-engineers.It is recommended that since students are very familiar with the use of information technology, the PUP system, more particularly its faculty members should likewise continuously update their knowledge about technology to understand how students can maximize their learnings. Future research should include awareness of other PUP Graduate School programs on the Modes of Learning.