Impact of Domestic Information Management (DIM) on Students’ Achievement – Action Research in a Sri Lankan Community

Abstract

This paper explains how Domestic Information Management (DIM) impacts on the students’ achievement level in school education. Amongst the twenty five districts of Sri Lanka, Monaragala is considered one of the poorest and most disadvantaged districts in the state. Therefore, the researchers decided to carry out a DIM program in the Monaragala district as a pilot project, in order to rectify this situation. The action research methodology was used in this study. Eight students from the grade ten class in the “Dodamgolla” senior school, and their parents, were chosen as a sample. Four PGTL students, six MTL students and one PhD student participated as a research team. The action research was launched as a two day workshop for the school in February 2015. On the first day, the research team introduced a domestic information skills program to the pupils. Parallel to this program, the researchers introduced a similar plan for the principal and teaching staff. In the evening, the proposed DIM agenda was discussed with selected parents and village officers. Next, two members from each research team visited two houses of the sample, and demonstrated how to gather and organize the family information needs for their personal, professional, and pedagogical life. After that, the family members followed the given instructions and advice. The research team monitored and evaluated the plan for one month. Data was collected using pre and post test marks, observing primary sources, conducting individual and group interviews. Comparing the pre and post test marks, it was observed that the students had obtained a substantial positive change. According to these results, it can be deduced that the student, teacher and parent triangulation in the child’s achievement level could be developed using DIM programs.