Research context

The research context section first provides a brief overview of the Singapore primary education system, then describes the primary school participated in this study. After which, this section introduces the participating level of students involved in the research and the role of the researcher in this study.

3.1.1. Brief overview of the Singapore primary education system

The Singapore primary education is a six-year compulsory education, with primary 1 to 4 as the foundation stage to lay the foundation for learning, and primary 5 and 6 as the

45

orientation stage to prepare for the secondary level of education (Ministry of Education Singapore, 2011a). The primary school curriculum consists of three subject disciplines, namely (1) languages (English and Mother Tongue languages), (2) Mathematics and Sciences, and (3) Humanities and the Arts (Social Studies, Arts and Music), and at the core of the curriculum framework is life skills which are taught through Co-Curricular Activities (社團 活動) and subjects like Physical Education, National Education, Health Education and Civics and Moral Education (CME). While English and Mother Tongue languages, Mathematics and Science are core examinable subjects, the rest are non-core non-examinable subjects. The Mother Tongue languages and the CME are taught by the Mother Tongue languages teachers (Chinese, Malay and Tamil teachers) and the others are taught by the respective subject teachers in English language.

The primary school students face two key milestones along their primary education journey, which are the Subject-based Banding Examination (分科分級能力考試) at primary four and the Primary School Leaving Examination (小六離校會考) at primary 6. Based on the Subject-based Banding Examination results, the primary 4 students are offered a combination of standard or foundation level of the core subjects, which they will study in their primary 5 and 6 education years. By the end of the six years of education, the primary 6 students will sit for the Primary School Leaving Examination and choose the secondary school they wish to be posted to according to the results.

The Singapore primary school runs on a term and semester basis. Each academic year, starting in January and ending in mid-November, consists of four school terms of ten weeks each and two semesters of two terms each. In the academic year of 2012, the school calendar runs from 03 January to 16 November. After each term of ten weeks, there are school holidays. School holidays after Term one and three are of a week each, while school holidays after Term two and four are of four and six weeks respectively. Table 4 displayed the 2012

46

academic year for the Singapore primary schools. Semestral assessments take place in Term two and four respectively, and depending on schools, certain schools may conduct term tests in Term one and three.

3.1.2. Participating school

The participating school, established in year 2000, is a neighbourhood primary school (一般鄰里小學) in Singapore, and is the school where the researcher was posted to from June 2007 to February 2010. In year 2012, the school employs 107 full-time teachers, of whom thirty teachers are teaching Chinese Language (CL), and Civics and Moral Education (CME).

There are a total of 1766 students in the school, with an ethnic composition of Chinese (80.6%), Malay (10.9%), Indian (6.3%) and others (2.2%). The total number of students in the primary 5 level is 335, with an ethnic composition of Chinese (76.1%), Malay (14%), Indian (6%) and others (3.9%). The total number of classes in the school is fifty. In the primary 5 level, there are nine form classes (級任班) and seventeen Mother Tongue classes (母語班).

The classes are named after values, and among which integrity, responsibility, respect, perseverance and care are the ones the school uphold.

Table 4

The 2012 Academic Year Calendar for Singapore Primary Schools

Semesters Terms School terms School holidays

Semester 1

Term 1 03 January to 09 March 10 March to 18 March

Term 2 19 March to 25 May 26 May to 24 June

Semester 2

Term 3 25 June to 31 August 01 September to 09 September Term 4 10 September to 16 November 17 November to 31 December Adopted from “School terms and holidays for 2012,” by Ministry of Education Singapore, 2011b. Retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.sg/schools/terms-and-holidays/2012/. Copyright 2011 by Ministry of Education Singapore.

47

The school has four computer labs with forty-one computers in each lab. One of the computer labs is an iMac hub, usually used for music composition, art creation and video-editing purposes. In addition to the stationary computer labs, the school has invested in a mobile computer lab with thirty laptops, allowing teachers to conduct ICT-integrated lessons in or outside of classrooms. Other than the iMac hub which runs on the Mac operating system, the rest of the computer labs run on the Windows XP system and were installed with the Microsoft Office 2007. During the course of the field trial in March 2012, the school underwent an upgrading phase of the ICT resources, improving the operating systems of the computers to the Windows 7 Enterprise and the Microsoft Office to the 2010 version.

3.1.3. Student participants

Primary 5 students were selected to participate in the formative evaluation stage of the instructional design for practical and realistic reasons. According to the ministry and participating school baseline ICT standards, the primary 5 students should be equipped with the skills to operate basic word processing, presentation slides, spreadsheets, Wikipedia and Internet search engines. Thus, the primary 5 students were chosen for the research as they process the prerequisite ICT skills needed for making of digital stories (DS), such as creation of presentation with images and text, voice recording and uploading of files onto the Internet.

In addition, for realistic reason, the primary 5 students are chosen as the primary 4 and 6 students are facing crucial phases in their primary school education; while the lower primary students of the participating school may not have the required ICT skills, the primary 4 batch is under pressure of the subject-based banding examination (分科分級能力考試) and the primary 6 seniors are preparing for their Primary School Leaving Examinations (小六離校會 考). Hence, students in the primary 5 level are deemed as the most suitable participants for the research.

48

Based on the primary four CL results and the students’ preferences, the primary 5 CL students are accordingly grouped to attend three different modular curriculums: (1) bridging course (導入課程), (2) school curriculum course (校本課程) and (3) enrichment course (深廣 課程). Majority of the students are allocated in the school curriculum modular structured class, indicating that their CL competence is of average, above their counterparts in the bridging class but below those in the enrichment class. Thus, the selected student participants are from a primary 5 class taking the school curriculum course.

3.1.4. Role of the researcher

The researcher is a qualified in-service teacher with four years of teaching experience, teaching the CL and CME subjects. She had taught in the participating school from June 2007 to February 2010 and had held the positions as the CL level coordinator and the ICT level representative. During the course of research, besides designing and developing the new CME curriculum, the researcher had taken over the CME periods to personally conduct the field trial with the participating class. In other words, the researcher was directly involved in the natural setting to gather data. The researcher served as the main data-collection instrument, immersing in the research context to observe and conduct the research as a participant-as-observer. Her position as a researcher and her intention to conduct research in the class was made known via consent forms to the student participants and their parents for ethical reasons.