Rao, M. (1996). An Evaluative study of Radio Kannada Lessons Broadcast for Secondary School Children in Karnataka. Unpublished. Ph.D., ICT in Education. Mangalore University.

Objectives of the study were: (1) To understand the significance of Educational Radio in making teaching learning process an interesting act. (2) To understand the content, form of presentation and style of language of Radio Kannada lessons for secondary school children in Karnataka. (3) To analyze and assess the quality and utility of the Radio Kannada lessons broadcast for secondary school children in Karnataka. (4) To understand and appreciate the audience response (both teachers and pupils). (5) To understand the responses of the expert teachers and critics in the field of language and literature. (6) To gauge the utility of these lessons when made use of in Non-formal Centres. (7) To make Qualitative suggestions, based on the study for the qualitative improvement of these lessons.

Questionnaires for Teachers, Questionnaire for pupils, Questionnaire for Experts, Interview Schedules, Group Discussions and Recorded Audio Cassettes were used as tools of study. The study was experimental as well as survey type.

The findings were: (1) Subject experts committee meeting is held only once in a year. This is highly unsatisfactory from the point of view of improvement of the lessons. (2) The script writers are experienced classroom teachers. But many of them are not exposed to Radio medium. They do not have programme production skill either. (3) The position and quality of listener responses from the schools is very dismal, on an average, AIR, Banglore receives only 300 responses for 175 broadcast lessons in a year. (4) One month time is given to script writers (School teachers) to prepare the Radio lessons. But at the eleventh hour they come up with the substandard stuff leaving no scope for the AIR producer to improve upon the script. (5) AIR Bangalore has discontinued the publication of the teacher s manual for the last few years. Even the printed programme schedule copies are not sent to all schools in the state of Karnataka. (6) AIR Educational broadcast unit of AIR Bangalore does not have sufficient staff in comparison with the amount of workload and responsibility. (7) The audience research unit of AIR Bangalore has not done any significant study on Educational Broadcast lessons for the last one decade.  (8) The planning of Radio Kannada lessons for secondary schools has become mechanical, and redundant. (9) The instructional objectives in terms of knowledge, comprehension, appreciation, attitude are neither specified in the teachers manual nor the instructions given to script writers.  It was found that most of the Kannada lessons broadcast covered the areas of knowledge and understanding. Not many lessons were designed to develop pupils attitude and appreciation. (10) The lesson titles are very attractive, but the researcher has observed that there is no harmony between the title and the content of the lesson. Many of the lessons lack accurate information. A few lessons fare stuffed with too much information. A few script writers have not understood the scope and significance of the topics. (11) Most of the lessons broadcast during this year are above the level of high school children. The prose and poems that were found in the school textbooks were neither made use of nor mentioned in the programme. (12) In more than 50% of the lessons, technique of conversation was made use of, feature dramatization and discussion formats were very minimum. (13) Voice of the participants was found to be satisfactory. But the delivery was not very appropriate. The delivery was either slow or very fast sound effects were not used properly. A few lessons were full of pronunciation mistakes. Radio teachers also committed such mistakes. It is found that no care was taken by the AIR officials to avoid such mistakes. (14) The conversations and situations created in the radio lessons were highly artificial and devoid of naturalist. The prototypes of intelligent urban children were projected in the lessons. Rural situations, rural children and the language of the rural folk were not at all presented in the programmes. (15) About 50% of the lessons Textual or Bookish Kannada were made use of. The language various, like, Dharwad Kannada, Raichur Kannada, Bidar Kannada etc. were not used in the lessons. (16) In most of the lessons, the size of the sentences used was appropriate in some of the lessons, complex sentences above the level of students comprehension were made use of. (17) Out of the 27 recorded lessons, more than 65% of the lessons were quit satisfactory. The quality of the remaining lessons was unsatisfactory. Only two lessons were outstanding. (18) The radio Kannada lessons do kindle interest among children to learn more about Kannada language and literature. (19) It was the opinion of the teachers, experts and pupils that the radio Kannada lessons and the classroom are complimentary to each other. (20) The radio Kannada lessons instill more interest among pupils to undertake activities, like, collateral reading and collection of pictures of writers, artists, scientists etc. (21) The pupils like to listen to more and more radio lessons produced in the format of features, drama, Narration and conversation. (22) The pupils liked the stories, songs, dramatization and lively conversation as the best parts of the radio lesson. (23) There is a growing interest among teachers to use the recorded audio-cassettes in the classrooms. AIR stations should give a serious thought in this direction.

Keyword(s): Evaluative study, Radio