The Assesment of Media Feasibility at Vocational School
S. Sriadhi, Syawal Gultom and R. Restu
Universitas Negeri Medan, Medan, Indonesia
Keywords: Instructional Media, Learning Quality.
Abstract: This study is aimed at evaluating the feasibility of instructional media which is a determinant of the learning
quality, particularly in the field of vocational technology. The study was carried out at Vocational School of
Technology of North Sumatra Province involving 218 teachers as respondents in three groups namely BS,
CS, and ES. Media feasibility analysis refers to the criteria of Alessi and Trollip. The results of the study
indicate that SB teachers used the most media in comparison with SC teachers and SE teachers, and the most
widely used form of visual media compared to video, media miniatures and animation. The overall media
usage only fulfilled 46% of ideal requirements, and the animation medium was considered to be the least
adequate miniature media, video and visual media. From the feasibility aspect, supplementary information is
the lowest compared to other aspects while the pedagogy aspect is the highest. The overall average media
feasibility is low. The findings of this study reinforces the results of previous studies that lack of instructional
media leads to lower learning outcomes. The study recommends greater attention to develop instructional
media as needed, especially animation for the effective learning process and the improvement of education.
1 INTRODUCTION
Vocational education as mid-level workers producer
receives great attention by the government
particularly in developing countries (Pavlova, 2009;
Mustapha, 2014). Vocational education plays a role
in developing science as well as providing vocational
skills to the students as a provision to enter the work
field (Abdullahi and Ehsanyar, 2014; Pavlova, 2009).
Therefore, the quality of vocational education will
determine the quality of the workers.
As a part of vocational education, vocational
school that serves to produce mid-level workers in
Indonesia have faced chronic problems due to the
graduates’ low competence (Ridwan, 2014; Kamdi,
2012). Various efforts have been made to overcome
these problems, but the results achieved are not
suitable (Ridwan, 2014; Sriadhi, 2015). Therefore, it
is necessary to conduct in-depth study related to the
low quality of graduates so that the low ability
problem of the workers can be addressed.
There are many factors which lead to poor quality
of vocational school graduates. The results revealed
that the low student learning outcomes is caused by
either lack of learning media and laboratory facilities
(Sriadhi, 2016; Malloch and Helmy, 2014) and
teacher professionalism (Ratnata, 2014). The low
abilities of vocational school graduates lead to the
addition of unemployment and the decline of people's
welfare. This problem must be addressed
immediately to avoid even worse damages. However,
multimedia-based learning is the most appropriate
alternative to improve students’ learning outcomes.
These problems include Availability of media in
comparison with the lesson needs; Types of media
used by teachers in teaching; Feasibility of teaching
media used by teachers and What the impact of
media-based learning on student learning outcomes.
This study is aimed at analyzing the adequacy of
media, type and feasibility of teaching media and
effect of media used by teachers.
1.1 The Role of Media in the Learning
Process
Teaching media is a tool that improves the
effectiveness of learning process. The use of various
media is also called multimedia. It contains a series
of teaching materials in the format of text, images,
graphics, audio, video or animation and is arranged in
a systematic way to create an effective learning
environment (Mayer, 2014). The use of teaching
multimedia has been proven to overcome the
students’ low learning outcomes. Eyup and Kemal
248
Sriadhi, S., Gultom, S. and Restu, R.
The Assesment of Media Feasibility at Vocational School.
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences (ICES 2017) - Volume 1, pages 248-252
ISBN: 978-989-758-314-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

(2013) proved that multimedia courseware can
improve students' attitudes and learning outcomes.
Research Bicen and Fezile (2014) proves the use of
multimedia teaching can improve student learning
outcomes both in online learning and blended
learning. Truong (2014) has also proved in his
research that learning using multimedia managed to
improve learning outcomes in the field of
engineering. Similarly, Moore (2014) who managed
to improve learning outcomes in the field of
electromagnetic through the use of multimedia
module.
Students' difficulties in understanding abstract
subject can be facilitated by using multimedia
(Sriadhi, 2015). This is in accordance with the
characteristics of multimedia that can visualize
abstract and conceptual events into concrete in order
to be easily understood (Wouters & Merriënboer,
2008). Effective teaching multimedia should be
developed in accordance with applicable rules and
theories, especially Cognitive Theory of Multimedia
Learning combined with Cognitive Load Theory
(Sweller, 2005), Dual Code Theory (Paivio, 2006),
and Working Memory Model (Baddeley, 2009).
In addition to the theory, the process of
multimedia development should be based on the
principles of the form, namely: multimedia principle;
split-attention principle modality principle;
redundancy principle; signalling principle; coherency
principle; spatial contiguity principle; temporal
contiguity principle; segmenting and pre-training
principle; personalization principle (Mayer, 2014).
The principles of forming multimedia will support the
creation of a viable instructional medium.
Furthermore, the feasibility of instructional media
includes nine criteria, namely subject matter;
auxiliary information; affective considerations;
interface; navigation; pedagogy; invisible features;
robustness; supplementary materials (Alessi &
Trollips, 2001).
A good instructional medium can improve the
achievement of understanding of what is learned,
while reducing the cognitive load in students'
thinking processes. Technological and vocational
subjects require instructional multimedia that is able
to visualize abstract events concretely and accurately
for students so that they can understand more easily
(Gilbert, 2008). For the reason aforesaid, the use of
multimedia in technology and vocational schools is
importantly needed to improve students’ learning
outcomes.
2 METHODOLOGY
This research was conducted at Vocational School
(VS) in North Sumatra Province, which is limited to
VS of Technology and Engineering. The study took a
sample of 218 teachers proportionally random,
consisting of teachers who taught subjects group
Basic Skills (SB), Competence Skills (SC) and
Expertise Skills (SE) used proportional sampling
technique. There were four studied variables, that is
media quantity (X1), media form (X2) and media
feasibility (X3) and effect of media (X4). Media
feasibility assessment instrument was developed with
reference to nine criteria by Alessi and Trollip (2001),
Subject matter, Auxiliary information, Affective
considerations, Interface, Navigation, Pedagogy,
Invisible features, Robustness, and Supplementary
materials. The effect of media assessment instrument
used ARCS Model (Keller,1987). Data analysis
applied descriptive and comparative used Anova.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The study involved 218 respondents from 82
vocational schools. The results of data processing
from three groups of respondents namely teachers
Basic Skills (SB), Skills Competence Skills (SC) and
Expertise Skills (SE) states the availability of
instructional media such as Table 1.
Table 1: Media availability level.
Teacher
Group
Availability of Instructional Media
Mean
Model
Visual
Video
Animation
SB
0.42
0.92
0.53
0.26
0.53
SC
0.31
0.86
0.52
0.22
0.48
SE
0.26
0.74
0.34
0.17
0.38
Mean
0.33
0.84
0.46
0.22
0.46
The availability of media by teacher group is
obtained by mean of 0.53 in SB group of teachers. It
means only 53% instructional media are available
from the appropriate requirement. The type of widely
used media is the visual media form of power point
that reaches 92%. Animation and video media have
very few in number although it is most needed by
students. This not only happened to the SB teacher
group but also the SC and SE teacher groups. From
the three types of media used, the overall use of
animation media only meets 22% of the needs, while
the most widely used media is the visual type in the
form of a power point slide. The smallest group of
teachers using the media is the SE teacher group
The Assesment of Media Feasibility at Vocational School
249

which uses only 38% of the needs, while the SB
teacher group is the most 53% of the needs.
The lack of media and the low ability of teachers
are the cause of the low level of feasibility of
instructional media used. Teachers tend to use only
makeshift media obtained from others that are not
developed according to the needs of the subjects as
well as the rules and principles of the required form.
The media form data used by the teacher.
Table 2: Source of instructional media.
Teacher’s
efforts
Media Types
Model
Visual
Video
Animation
Adoption
0.82
0.27
0.61
1.00
Adaptation
-
0.48
-
-
Self Creation
0.18
0.25
0.39
-
Table 2 shows that the media used by teachers is
largely the adoption of existing media, both on model
(82%) and video (61%), and animation (100%),
whereas adaptation is developing from existing media
only 48% on visual media form a power point slide.
Media made by teachers is very small, that is only
18% for media type model, 25% visual media and
39% media video, while animation does not have
adaptation or artificial by the teacher. This fact
becomes reasonable if the level of media feasibility is
low, because teachers do not have sufficient ability to
develop their own media according to the needs of the
subjects they develop, while the school and
government do not pay proper attention to the
weaknesses of this media.
The absence of media in the teaching process is
caused by the difficulty of getting media models,
videos and animations, while the ability of teachers to
develop such media is very low. This also causes less
effective learning so that the results of learning in
vocational high schools become low. Lack of training
activities in media development makes teachers
unable to make their own teaching media on their
subject matter. Some teaching mediums obtained
from others are largely inconsistent with the teachers’
lesson needs.
Based on the media feasibility level which is
measured by using the feasibility instruments referred
to Alessi and Trollip (2001), it is generally low except
on the robustness aspects of the media model, subject
matter on visual media, interface and pedagogy
aspects of the animation media. Table 2 below
presents the results of data processing media
appropriateness used by 218 vocational teachers.
Table 3: Feasibility of instructional media.
Criteria of
Feasibility
Model
Visual
Video
Animation
Mean
Subject matter
0.41
0.92
0.55
0.28
0.54
Auxiliary
information
0.58
0.86
0.18
0.25
0.47
Affective
considerations
0.72
0.72
0.53
0.86
0.71
Interface display
0.84
0.65
0.76
0.92
0.79
Pedagogy aspect
0.75
0.58
0.84
0.94
0.78
Invisible features
0.38
0.26
0.37
0.66
0.42
Robustness
0.94
0.59
0.65
0.57
0.69
Sepplementary
material
0.24
0.64
0.16
0.27
0.33
Mean of
Feasibility
0.54
0.58
0.45
0.53
0.59
The feasibility of the instructional media from the subject
matter aspect averaged only 54% of the suitability of the
learning needs. Visual media has the highest feasibility of
subject matter that is 92% of the teaching needs while the
animation media has the lowest feasibility of 28%. In the
aspect of auxiliary information video, the lowest feasibility
rate of 18%, although overall media type has an average
suitability of 47%. Of all media types, effective
consideration aspect has the highest feasibility (79%)
followed by pedagogy aspect. However, the supplementary
material aspect is the lowest level of feasibility (33%)
followed by invisible features (42%) and auxiliary
information (47%).
Figure 1: Feasibility of media.
This implies that instructional media used by
teachers has a low level of eligibility with an average
of 59%. The feasibility of instructional media in some
aspects is still very far from the requirement as shown
in Figure 1 shows that the lowest level of media
feasibility is video and animation. The biggest
disadvantage of the video media lies in the
supplementary aspects of material that has only 16%
ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences
250

feasibility of the need. This is caused by the video
used is the work of others. It does not contribute much
to the teaching materials as required in curriculum.
This also makes the instructional media form of video
less feasible to use. Animated media is also very low
in the feasibility aspects of supplementary materials
so it is less effectively used. The weakness in this
aspect causes the media failed to provide teaching
materials to broaden students' insight so that the
contribution towards understanding improvement is
very low.
Eligibility from the pedagogy aspect for video and
animation media is very large with 84% eligibility
rate on video media and 94% in animation media.
However, because the feasibility of these two media
types is low, the students' learning outcomes also do
not increase significantly.
Furthermore, media influence on student
satisfaction (ARCS) by comparison test using Anova
presented in Table 4.
Table 4: Anova of teacher group ARCS.
Sum of
Squares
df
Mean
Square
F
Sig.
Between Groups
40.09
2
1.29
2.33
.00
Within Groups
103.21
186
.55
Total
143.30
217
The test results, F = 2.33 and p < .00 which gives
meaning significant difference on student's
satisfaction level (ARCS) based on the three groups
of teachers. Mean score of SB group 53.22; SC 60.66
and SE 51.72. Thus it is concluded that the level of
student satisfaction in the Competence Skill learning
group is higher than the Basic Skill and Expertise
Skill. This satisfaction caused by the representation
of learning materials in the media. Although the SB
group achieved the highest adequacy mean score
compared to SC and SE (.53> .48> .38) but the
representation of lesson content was more important
than the quantity of media adequacy in determining
the level of student satisfaction. Therefore, media
development should consider the relevance of the
content with the competencies to be achieved
according to the curriculum. This is in accordance
with the rules of media development as confirmed by
Mayer (2014), Alessi and Trollip (2001).
Referring to the processing of research data, the
quality of the media becomes a high determinant of
the low effectiveness of learning. Students find it
difficult to achieve optimal learning outcomes by
using inappropriate media. This fact supports some
previous research which proves that instructional
media is the cause of the low learning outcomes of
students in technical subjects in vocational schools
(Sriadhi, 2015; Ridwan, 2014; Kamdi, 2012). The
difficulty of students in understanding the abstract
and conceptual learning materials should be avoided
by using appropriate media. However, the low level
of using instructional media (which only meets 46%
of the requirement), and media feasibility (56%) of
ideal conditions cause the students’ problem is
unavoidable. This is relevant to theoretical studies of
roles and functions and the advantages of
instructional media in learning (Mayer, 2014;
Sweller, 2005; Baddeley, 2009). The low
understanding of teachers about the media, the
inability to create instructional media, and the lack of
attention of schools and governments brings about the
chronic problem in vocational schools improvements.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The quality of the media will determine the quality of
learning. Technology and vocational secondary
schools require instructional media especially for
engineering subjects. Media types are widely used is
visual media, while students need more video and
animation. The media feasibility level used by
teachers is also low, because teachers do not have the
ability to create good instructional media. On the
other hand, the school and government give no
serious attention to the lack of learning media in
vocational schools. This makes the learning process
less effective so that student learning outcomes are
still far from being expected.
There are several steps that need to be done to
overcome the problem of low student learning
outcomes due to lack of instructional media. The
improvement of teachers' ability to develop
instructional media should be improved, through
workshops and specialized training on media
development. Information technology facilities
should also be upgraded to support an effective
learning process. The school and government should
pay serious attention to address the lack of
instructional media both in quantity and quality or
eligibility. These three main efforts are expected to
minimize the existing weaknesses in order to improve
the quality of technology and vocational education.
REFERENCES
Alessi, S. M., Trollip, S. R., 2001. Multimedia for
Learning: Method and Development, Allyn & Bacon,
Inc. Boston, 3
rd
edition.
The Assesment of Media Feasibility at Vocational School
251

Abdullahi, S., Ehsanyar, A. S., 2014. Relevance of current
vocational curriculum in Afghanistan to market. 3rd
UPI International Conference on Technical and
Vocational Education and Training. Bandung,
Indonesia, November 12-15
Baddeley, A., Eysenck, M. W., Anderson, M. C., 2009.
Memory, Psychology Press. New York.
Bicen, H., Fezile, O., Bicen, U. 2014 Online and blended
learning approach on instructional multimedia
development courses in teacher education. Interactive
Learning Environments. 22 (4), 529-548.
Eyup, Y., Kemal, O., 2013. The effect of multimedia
software coursware on student attitudes. Journal of
Theory and Practice in Education. 10(2), 31633.
Gilbert, J. K., 2008. Visualisation: An emergent field of
practice and inquiry science education, Springer.
Netherlands, John, K., Gilbert edition.
Kamdi, W., 2012. Integrating academic and vocational
education in Indonesia. International Seminar:
Reformulating The Paradigm of Technical and
Vocational Education. Makassar, Indonesia.
Keller, J. M., 1987. IMMS: Instructional materials
motivation survey, Florida State University. Florida.
Mayer, R. E., 2014. Multimedia Learning, Cambridge
Univ. Press. New York, 2
nd
edition.
Malloch, M., Helmy, A., 2014. TVET teachers, a
comparison of trends in Indonesia and Australia. 3rd
UPI International Conference on Technical and
Vocational Education and Training. Bandung,
Indonesia, 12-15 November.
Moore, J. C., 2014. Efficacy of multimedia learning
modules as preparation for lecture-based tutorials in
electromagnetism, Department of Chemistry and
Physics, Coastal Carolina University. Conway, Physics
edition.
Mustapha, R., 2014. TVET personnel professional
development in the asia pacific: challenges and
prospects. 3rd UPI International Conference on
Technical and Vocational Education and Training.
Bandung, Indonesia, November, 12-15.
Paivio, A., 2006. Dual coding theory and education.
Pathways to Literacy Achievement for High Poverty
Children. The University of Michigan School of
Education, September 29-October 1.
Pavlova, M., 2009. Technology and vocational education
for sustainable development, empowering individuals
for the future. International Centre for Technical and
Vocational Education and Training. Australia: Griffith
University.
Ratnata, I. W., 2014. Effort to enhance the TVET teachers
competencies through apprenticeship approach pattern
in industry. 7th National Convention of the Indonesian
Association of Technical and Vocational Education.
Bandung, Indonesia, 12-15 November.
Ridwan, 2014. Application of component display theory in
the design and development of technology and
vocational education in electrical subjects. 7th National
Convention of the Indonesian Association of Technical
and Vocational Education. Bandung, Indonesia,
November 12-15.
Sriadhi, 2015. The Effect of Exploratory Multimedia
Learning Towards Learning Outcomes of Electrical
Power Generation Based on Difference of Students’
Spatial Ability. Journal of Education Science. 1(1).
Sriadhi. 2016. Multimedia Learning: Inovasi dan
Peningkatan Mutu Pendidikan Teknologi Kejuruan.
Konvensi Nasional VIII Aptekindo. 8 Juli 2016.
Universitas Negeri Medan, Indonesia.
Sweller, J., 2005. Implication of cognitive load theory for
multimedia learning, Cambridge University Press. New
York.
Truong, M. T., 2014. Multimedia teaching methods in
positive course of engineering. 3rd UPI International
Conference on Technical and Vocational Education
and Training. Bandung, Indonesia, 12-15 November.
Wouters, P. F. P., Jeroen J. G. M., 2008. How to optimize
learning from animated models: A review of guidelines
based on cognitive load. Review on Educational
Research. 78, 645.
ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences
252