Abstract:
Sri Lankan education system is based on a teacher-centered education approach.
Mostly the students do not have an opportunity to learn according to their learning
modality. According to the statistical reports released by the Department of
Examinations of Sri Lanka, there is a considerable failure rate in the General
Certificate of Education Ordinary Level Examination, especially in Mathematics.
Through these reports, we can observe that there is a weakness in the current teaching
approach. This study addresses the above-mentioned problem by evaluating the
effectiveness of learning according to the learning modality-based e-learning approach
instead of the teacher-centered education approach. Visual, Auditory, and Kinaesthetic
learning modalities are considered in this study. Grade eight English medium students
were randomly selected into two samples with twenty in each. Similar portions were
selected from the units ‘Sets’ and ‘Volume’ from the Grade eight Mathematics
syllabus. One sample was selected and their learning modality was identified through
the e-learning platform and facilitated to learn through the e-learning platform based on
the identified learning modality. The other sample was facilitated to learn the same unit
with the teacher-centered education approach. The learning approach applied for the
samples was interchanged in the next unit. A paper-based test was given to the two
samples at the end of each unit and marks were recorded. Two sample t-test was used
to analyse the results. Analyzing the results, calculated p-values for the units ‘Sets’ and
‘Volume’ are 0.03530 and 0.03542 respectively with a 95% confidence level. It is
concluded that there is an improvement of marks in the learning modality-based elearning approach than the traditional teaching approach. This modality-based elearning approach can be applied to increase the effectiveness of the education system
by mitigating weaknesses that occurred in the teacher-centered education approach.
Keywords: E-learning, Learning-modality, Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic
