Understanding of Building Knowledge Community - Research Paper Example

UNDERSTANDING OF BUILDING KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY: BASES AND COMPONENTS. BY YOUR NAME A RESEARCH PROPOSAL SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL/FACULTY/CENTRE OF ……….. IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE …………. DEPARTMENT OF………… SCHOOL/CENTER/FACULTY OF …………… YOUR UNIVERSITY JUNE, 2011. (year of submission) ABSTRACT A community is defined as a group of individuals having a collective pursuit and those individuals have agreed to share resources. It is very vital for a community to have knowledge where the wealth and health of the community depends on the knowledge its individuals exhibit. Building knowledge of the community is an important process where the members of the community have to be well trained and mature with appropriate knowledge. The problem is differentiating between building knowledge and learning, the bases and components of building knowledge community. The purpose of the study is to bring up the Understanding of building knowledge community; bases and components. The importance of this study is to provide findings that will be useful to the community, lecturers and education policy makers. Survey design will be used in this study .Systematic random sampling technique will be used to select the sample population of the study. Stratified Random sampling technique will be used to select samples of the population. The data collection procedure will be through designed questionnaires, interview schedules and observations. Chi-square (χ2) test and Spearman Correlation will be used to analyze the data. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 2 1.0 CHAPTER ONE 5 1.1 Introduction 5 1.2 Background of the Study 5 1.3 Statement of the problem 6 1.4 Purpose of the study 7 1.5 Objectives 7 1.7 REARCH QUESTIONS 7 1.8 Scope and limitations of the study 7 1.9 Assumptions of the study. 8 1.10 Theoretical framework 8 CHAPTER TWO 9 Literature Review 9 3.0 CHAPTER THREE 11 Research Design and Methodology 11 3.1 Introduction 11 3.3 Area of study 11 3.6 Validity and Reliability of the instrument 12 3.7 Scoring of questionnaires items 13 3.8 Administration of Questionnaires 14 3.9 Serialization 14 3.1.0 Data analysis 14 Data processing will commence by coding all the responses in all the questionnaires to ensure easy analysis using computer Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) 14 4.0 REFERENCES 16 5.0 APPENDICES 17 5.1 APPENDIX A: Time schedule 17 Table 1: Work plane for the entire study 17 5.2 APPENDIX B: Budget for the whole study 19 List of acronyms and abbreviation KBC – knowledge building community 1.0 CHAPTER ONE 1.1 Introduction This section deals with the description of background to the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, objectives of the study, research questions, justification of the study, scope and limitations of the study, assumptions of the study and theoretical framework. 1.2 Background of the Study Knowledge building community is a group of people where they have a commitment of investing its resources and sharing a common way of understanding within the group members (Hewitt et al, 1995). Given that this is a knowledge age where society’s health and wealth depends on how much the people in community know or how innovative they are. This does not only mean the trained or specialized individuals who need to work creatively but everyone in the community. Peter (2001) points out that “innovation must be part and parcel of the ordinary” the ordinary here means the society in general. This poses a challenge on how do we build knowledge community where we have individuals with not only basic knowledge but current and up-to-date relevant knowledge. There has been little effort in building knowledge in the community. Knowledge building can be defined as production and continual improvement of ideas of value to a community, where what knowledge building is not limited to learning or education. The major problem is getting students who can be developed, natured then mature with knowledge that is desirable by the community because knowledge building starts from childhood throughout the life of every person in the community. There are four approaches that are used to ensure that knowledge building in the community is achieved; the first approach focuses on base or foundational knowledge where one has to clearly understand what is already known. This is best applied to individuals who have completed school and they are at age of working. The second approach which is the most common approach because in looks at specific objectives emphasizes on subskills. The focuses on critical thinking, collaborations and scientific which are the component skills mastered. The third approach is indentified by words describing as a ‘learning community’, ‘project-based learning’ or ‘guided discovery’ (Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. 2000). The design focuses on sharing of knowledge and problem solving projects in the community where adult teamwork which presents real-world contents and the application of varied skills from different sources. The fourth approach which is the main focus of study is knowledge building; this approach provides a way in addressing the need to educate the community where knowledge creation and innovation are vital components. 1.3 Statement of the problem The wealth and health of a community highly depends on the knowledge of the community (Peter, 2001 ). The knowledge here does not mean elite individuals in the society but the innovation and the creativity that a community exhibits. Most communities depend on few trained or educated individuals in solving their problems and improving basic development structures in the society which are fundamental to their lives. There has been confusion between building knowledge community and learning. The question that arises is what does building knowledge community entails. Hence the study will seek to uncover the scenario by looking at, ‘Understanding of Knowledge Building Community’ by looking at the base and components. 1.4 Purpose of the study The purpose of the study will be to provide findings that will enable a clear understanding of knowledge building community. 1.5 Objectives The main objective of the study will be to find an understanding of knowledge building community by mainly looking at the bases and components. The main objective was guided by the following specific objectives. 1) To determine the process of knowledge building community 2) To investigate on various bases of knowledge building community 3) To find out the components of knowledge building community 4) To be able to understand what entails knowledge building community 1.7 REARCH QUESTIONS 1) What is the process of knowledge building community? 2) What are the bases of knowledge building community? 3) What are the components of knowledge building community? 4) Are there any misunderstandings of knowledge building community process? 1.8 Scope and limitations of the study The study will cover the national polytechnics, institutes of science and technology and technical training institutes in western Kenya. The findings of the study will be generalized to all national polytechnics, institutes of science and technology and technical training institutes in Kenya given the following limitations; 1.9 Assumptions of the study. I. The selected respondents will be a representative of the total population. II. That all respondents were honest and responded positively to all the issues in questionnaires and interviews. 1.10 Theoretical framework This study shall adopt system approach as a theoretical framework. The system approach according to Norman (2001) “view an organization as a social system consisting of individuals who operate within a framework, drawing resources from their environment and putting back into that environment their products or services.” Definition of terms KNOLWEDGE – BUILDING – COMMUNITY - CHAPTER TWO Literature Review According to Donald (2002), knowledge can occur in two stages the first stage is the information or declarative stage and the second stage is the application or procedural stage. Therefore knowledge construction is facilitated by both declarative and procedural stages. Forman (2000) discusses knowledge-building communities and gives five basic forms of knowledge. Knowledge can be definition in perspective of breadth and depth. Duncan, sates that there are five forms of knowledge; processes, concepts, tools contexts and taxonomy while basing on the breadth of the knowledge in depth perspective indicates levels of knowledge (Duncan, 2003). The above literature focuses on what knowledge is and knowledge building community although articles are very relevant to this study, they do not give us an insight understanding of the processes and steps of knowledge building community. Hence the study will looking at ways that can help us clearly understanding of knowledge building community. There are various examples of knowledge building communities, these includes; Classrooms, Academic researchers, modern management companies and modern business groups(Knowledge building communities, Wikipedia.com). According to an article written on Wikipedia websites, knowledge building communities through various researches are transforming classrooms to be the best venues for KBC. This article gives us the types of KBC and singly handles classroom as the preferred place for KBC without looking at other examples, their advantages and disadvantages. There is a confusion between learning and knowledge building, having a quick search at the internet gives various definition of knowledge building. Knowledge in business perspective means creation while in education the words learning and knowledge building are interchanged or used as synonym for each other. Therefore, clear definition should be sought, Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. in their article, “Knowledge Building” tries to give a distinction between the two terms, where they state that ‘learning is an internal, unobserved process that results in changes of belief, attitude, or skill’ (Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C., 2000) while knowledge is the creation or modification of public knowledge or community knowledge. According to Scott and Henness (1999), the communities are being urged to carefully consider and take responsibility of their future where a given community must be able to learn and be able to change according to changing situation both locally and regional where roles and functions are to be defined. Therefore a community should consider positive changes in order to remain relevant and sustainable. From the literature review it is therefore evident that researchers have not yet come up with a comprehensive discussion o the KBC which provides a clear understanding of the subject. Kate, James and Thomas in their research ‘building a knowledge infrastructure for learning community’ states that for a community to remain relevant in must adapt the changes in the society(Kate et al , 2001). Their main focus being information communication technology and its impact on the community while Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter tries to differentiate between building knowledge and learning. Therefore there is no clear understanding of knowledge building community what are its bases and the components. 3.0 CHAPTER THREE Research Design and Methodology 3.1 Introduction This chapter discusses the research design, study area, population and sample size and research methodology .It also focuses on sampling design and procedures for data collection. 3.2 Research Design Survey design will be used to conduct this study. According to Kothari (2004), surveys are used to systematically gather factual quantifiable information necessary for decision making. Surveys are efficient methods of collecting descriptive data regarding the characteristics of populations, current practices and conditions or needs (Kothari, 2005). They are also helpful in gathering information from large cases by employing use of samples hence reduces the costs. 3.3 Area of study This study will be conducted in ………... The areas chosen are convenient for the study as they are accessible to the researcher. 3.4 Population and sample size 3.5 Research tools and instruments of data collection. The research tools that will be used are questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis since the data is both qualitative and quantitative. The selection of these tools is dependent on the nature of the data to be collected, the objective of the study and the time available. 3.5.1 Questionnaires The researcher will construct questionnaires based on the research objectives Questionnaires are justified on the basis that they are free from the researcher’s bias, they allow respondents to answer in their own wards, they give enough time to the respondent to go through the responses given, and can reach as many respondents as possible. The method also enables the research to sample respondents who are not easy to approach. The researcher with the help of a research assistant will distribute the questionnaires to the lecturers and administrators. Then the respondents will be requested to give responses to the questions that will be collected later 3.5.2 Interviews The researcher will employ interview method on areas where questionnaires will not have captured the responses to satisfactory level. They will also be used to strengthen the information from the questionnaires (Kothari, 2005). The people to be interviewed will mostly be administrators. Most of the questions that will be captured in the questionnaires will also be used in the interview schedule. 3.6 Validity and Reliability of the instrument Reliability is a measure of the degree to which a research instrument yields consistent results or data after repeated trials (Mugenda and Mugenda, 2003). To verify on reliability of the instrument, the questionnaires will be pre-tested through a pilot study so as to ascertain their effectiveness in capturing the required and intended information. Pearson product moment correlation(r) will be used to calculate the reliability coefficient. The coefficient obtained will then be converted into an appropriate correlation for the entire test using Spearman formula. Correlation coefficient greater 0.5 (Amin, 2005) will be accepted as a good measure of reliability. 3.6 Development of the research instruments. Since the research design is a survey, the researcher will use questionnaires presented in the likert scale method for lecturers and administrators. In social science research, the most commonly used instruments are questionnaires, interview schedules and observations forms (Orodho, 2004).Thus questionnaires will be used to collect information from the population. Yes and No repossesses will provide direct answers to the closed ended questions while questions that require detailed opinion will be left pen ended to enable respondents to provide their detailed opinion. 3.7 Scoring of questionnaires items Different scoring formats will be used depending on the nature of items on the questionnaire of five point likert scales: Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A) Undecided (U), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD). Alternatively, Very good (VG), Good (G), Not sure (NS), Bad (B) and Very bad (VB). These will be awarded 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 respectively. 5 and 4 indicates positive attitude, 3 indicate neutral attitude and 2 and 1 indicates negative attitude. 3.8 Administration of Questionnaires The researcher hopes to administer the questionnaires to the respondents in the. A period of two days will be allowed for the respondents to respond to the items on the questionnaire. The researcher will collect the questionnaires for analysis 3.9 Serialization All the questionnaires will be serially numbered from 1 to 234. This will be their identification numbers. Two hundred and thirty four (234) Respondents out of six hundred and eighteen (618) Respondents will be used in the research which will represent 38% of the total population. 3.1.0 Data analysis Data processing will commence by coding all the responses in all the questionnaires to ensure easy analysis using computer Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) Descriptive statistics will be used to analyses the collected data. Descriptive statistics will give a summary of the characteristics of the populations from which samples are drawn. Chi-square (χ2) test and Spearman Correlation will be used to analyze the data The formula used for calculating the chi-square test is: χ 2ob = ∑(fo – fe)2 fe Where χ2 ob = the value of chi-square observed fo = Observed frequencies fe = Calculated expected frequencies Degree of freedom of chi-square will be obtained using relationship df = k-1 Where df = degree of freedom K = No. of independent variables Chi- square test will be used because the data the researcher will collect will be of type one-variable-many –levels and will be categorical frequencies of the descriptions of views, opinions, attitudes and feelings of the respondents towards understanding of knowledge building community. Spearman Bivariate Correlation will be used to analyze the strengths of the tabulated significant relationships based on the Likert scoring scale. All data will be analyzed at a level of 95% or p=0.05 confidence intervals. The value α=0.05 will be chosen because the sample size will be adopted from figures calculated based on 0.95 level of confidence. 4.0 REFERENCES Cohen, L. and C. Manion (1980) Research Methods in Education, London Croom Heln Ltd. Drucker, Peter. 1985. Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles. New York: Harper and Row. Donald, J. G. (2002). Learning to think: Disciplinary perspectives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Forman, E. A. (2000). Knowledge building in discourse communities. Human Development, 43, 364-368. Hewitt, J., Brett, C., Scardamalia, M., Frecker, K. & Webb, J. (1995). Schools for thought: Transforming classrooms into learning communities. Paper Presented at the American Educational Research Association, Annual Conference. San Francisco. Kothari (2004) Research methodology New Age international (p) limited, publishers Krumsieg, K., & Baehr, M. (2000). Foundations of learning. Lisle, IL: Pacific Crest. Mugenda, O.M. & Mugenda, A.G. (2003). Research Methods, Acts Press, Nairobi. Norma J.M (2001) Managing People, Foulks Lynch Ltd., London Scott, J.K., Johnson, T.G and Mundell, M. (2000) Community Memory: An Internet-Based Approach to Enhancing Community Learning, Knowledge Management and Public Participation in Local Governance, Paper Presented at the Conference on “Which Public administration in the Information Society”, Brussels 5.0 APPENDICES 5.1 APPENDIX A: Time schedule Table 1: Work plane for the entire study ACTIVITIES Ajun-11 Sjuly-11 Oaug-11 Nsept-11 Doct-11 Jnov-11 Fdec-11 Mjan-12 Afeb-12 Mmar-12   Defining the problem                       Proposal writing                       Proposal presentation                       Piloting the instruments                       Validating the instruments                       Data collection                       Data analysis                       Thesis writing                       Thesis presentation                       5.2 APPENDIX B: Budget for the whole study Table 2: Expected expenditure during the study. ITEM NO. DESCRIPTION ESTIMATED COST ($) 1 Writing research proposal 1000 2 Stationery for the proposal writing and presentation 800 3 Travelling to pre- test the questionnaires 2500 4 Travelling to technical institutions to collect data 3200 5 Stationary for test instruments 2000 6 Accommodation while collecting data 3300 7 Data Analysis 6000 8 Writing Thesis 200 9 Subsistence Allowance 1800 1 Overheads 1400   TOTAL 24000 Read More