ACTION RESEARCH REPORT KOLEJ MARA BANTING

ACTION RESEARCH REPORT
KOLEJ MARA BANTING

Title : Effectiveness of KMB Announcement Telegram Channel in Delivering
Informations Towards Students of Kolej MARA Banting.
Farhan Aisar Bin Mes Ewan
Nur Khairun Najwa Binti Kamarudin
Daniel Hakeem Bin Mohd Suhaimi
Muhammad Aiman Afiq Bin Mohd Arif
Laeticia Rachel Liawas
Nur Liyana Batrisyia Binti Alfian

Introduction

Methods of transmission of information have changed in this modern age. Announcements for
sales in stores, roadblocks or traffic jams on a highway and upcoming competitions can be made
effortlessly and are able to reach an audience quickly using digital means, such as social media
and online messaging channels. When compared to old methods such as handing out flyers and
posting notices on information boards, clearly these new methods are more efficient and
effective. As such, every institution should make use of these modern means, including colleges.
Our college has made use of the ‘channel’ feature in a messaging app called ‘Telegram’ to easily
and quickly pass on information given to the Student Representative Council (SRC) to students.
It was established by the Council members of the 2019/2020 session, and is currently being
maintained by the members of the 2020/2021 session.

In order to ensure the students are satisfied with this method of information delivery and how it
is being handled, the opinions of the student body must be heard. Therefore we have decided to
survey the effectiveness of using this Telegram channel, named ‘KMB Announcement’ in
delivering information and problems that should be rectified. By conducting the survey regarding
the use of our “KMB Announcement” Telegram channel, we will be able to prove and justify the
efficacy of our channel in executing it’s cardinal purpose which is conveying urgent and crucial
information to the students. Other than that, the survey also allows us to improve our information
delivery system to better suit the usage of the students. Furthermore, we are able to lay out the
critical and major impacts of our Telegram channel towards the students, the Council and also
the community of the college since the survey was answered by individuals from all bodies that
exist in the college such as students, teachers and also staff.

Objectives

The main objective of “KMB Announcement” Telegram channel is to effectively deliver or
convey any crucial information that is associated to the students such as academic matters,
meetings and any events that will be held in the future. This action is very important especially
during the pandemic outbreak that occurs in our country as it is difficult to gatherer around to
spread information. Other trivial information such as the menu of the dining hall are also
delivered through the channel. The reason behind this is first, to allow information to be received
by the students as fast as possible. This is because the majority of the information is very critical
in helping the students to keep striving in their studies at ease such as the timetable, exam
schedule, subjects workshop and so on. It is believed that the information was able to be
retrieved by students in a short time because all sorts of electronic devices are widely used by
students such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops. Students use these devices on numerous
occasions, so it is expected that students were able to accrue a great number of information as
soon as it is relayed to them through the Telegram channel.

Next, the use of “KMB Announcement” Telegram channel is expected to carry out adaptations
on educational processes occurring in the college. This is because in the outbreak of the COVID-
19 pandemic, many learning processes were halted to allow standard operating protocol (SOP) to
take place and effectively reduce the number of infections. Therefore, variance of alternatives
were used by the educators to aid all students to keep striving in their lessons. It is also known
that earning by the means of virtual educational platforms offer many advantages such as
flexibility of schedules, diversity of resources, the possibilities to collaborate and to change
experiences,the development of specific digital competitions and organization strategies to
supplement with successes a learning process. Hence, our Telegram channel is used as a hub to
store,assort,compile and give out a variety of learning materials such as tutorials, slides and extra
exercises to assist students in their studies.

Equally important, the use of the Telegram channel is intended to replace the old and generic
ways of delivering information. These methods include hanging out notice papers, fliers for
events, events booklet and so on. All of the important information can be easily compiled in the
channel and shared to all people. By using the Telegram channel, huge savings of time can be
achieved and crucial and important information can be transmitted more accurately and more
conveniently to the students. A research on the effectiveness of Telegram channels stated that
explanations of certain matters can be done with a great result when using Telegram applications
rather than explanations on papers. Other than that, Telegram applications focusing on instant
and secure message, simpler method of information distribution and all conversation can be
synchronized seamlessly across multiple devices. Hence, all information that was delivered can
be accessed conveniently with ease.

Research Methodology

A survey was conducted to analyze the students’ opinions on the effectiveness of the KMB
Announcement Telegram Channel as the students were the main recipients of any information
broadcast through this platform. The survey was distributed via telegram and students were
required to answer some questions in the Google Form provided. There were three questions
included in the survey.

1)On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective does KMB Announcement convey information to the
students? (1 is very poor and 5 is very effective)

2)Why do you think so?

3)What do you think can be improved?

Based on the students’ answers to the first question, the ratings would then be evaluated
according to the highest choice percentage. This would allow us to gauge the current platform’s
adeptness to relay messages and the satisfaction of students towards it. The second question
would be able to clarify their ratings. This would further allow us to detect the positive aspects
and also shortcomings of the present medium. The response to the third question will
additionally help us improve and figure out the best MO in fully enhancing the KMB
Announcement’s function.

Results and Impacts
As for the survey that was conducted on 12th December 2020, the total respondents for the
survey are 106 respondents. All of the respondents have given out positive feedback on the use
of KMB announcement Telegram channel in their response. Two charts are included below to
represent the data collected from the survey. Figure 1 below shows that 50% of respondents or
53 out of 106 respondents agreed with the effectiveness of “KMB announcement” during the
Covid-19 outbreak by giving out a rate 5 out of 5. While 33% of the respondents rate the
effectiveness of “KMB Announcement” 4 out of 5. Out of 106 respondents, only 1 person which
represents 0.9% of the respondents is not satisfied with the telegram channel by rating the
effectiveness 2 out of 5. From this chart, it shows that our Telegram channel needs to go through
some improvement to ensure all information is transmitted effectively especially when facing the
hardship of the SOP during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Figure 1

In Figure 2, the chart shows the reasons and justifications to support the respondents’ rate on
how effective our “KMB Announcement” Telegram channel works. 68.9% from the total
respondents which represent 73 person out of 106 respondents agree that the information that
was delivered through the Telegram channel was clear and understandable without any
misleading properties on the information. Next, there are 12 out of 106 respondents which
represented the 11.3% in the chart who believed that our broadcasting time for all
announcements were convenient enough to keep them well informed earlier in the day. This was
able to be achieved as we have already made a schedule to make all sorts of announcements at a
fixed time which is 8.00 AM everyday. Only special occasions or urgency that allow us to make
sudden announcements to inform all the students. From all data that was collected in this chart,
we were able to identify some flaws in our system and came out with improvement ideas.

Figure 2

The first improvement that we would like to carry out is to allow faster feedback from the
students regarding any inconvenience. In the past, students were only able to voice out their
inquiry by directly contacting members of the SRC. This is proven to be an issue as the
responses towards students' inquiry usually take more time than it should. Hence, the hurdle can
be overcome by implementing the new features of Telegram which is channel comments. This
new feature allows students to include their inquiries as soon as the information delivered to
them. The second improvement to be made is a better template for the announcements. Based on
the survey, there were some suggestions to improvise our templates into a more friendly and
convenient for the readers as some information was quite long. Therefore, we agreed to further
enhance our templates by using bullet form, bold crucial points and creating several templates
for different types of information.

The usage of KMB Announcement in transferring important and urgent information has brought
a lot of impact into the KMB community. Firstly, easy connectivity to every student in KMB.
Example given,when there are crucial changes in school schedules, all of the students will be
informed right away as everyone in KMB has to subscribe to KMB Announcement in order to
receive daily information. Other than that, communication between the management and students
is made easier as any instructions given by the teachers can be passed through this Telegram
channel. A lot of time and energy can be saved because there is no need for the traditional way
such as having an assembly just to inform news or any important announcements. The
effectiveness of KMB Announcement has been proven by the chart that has been made which
shows 68.9% of the students responded that the information given is very clear and easy to
understand. This reason later supports the 50% of people who rate solid 5 out of 5 on how
effective does KMB Announcement convey information to the students. It is clear that “KMB
Announcement” has affected students in a very positive way especially in receiving important
and urgent announcements.

Conclusions

KMB Announcement has not only affected students, it's also helped us to improve our
leadership and soft skills. Due to pandemic, gathering or any meeting are not allowed , so this
social media platform has been used to pass any important messages. Since the SRC members
are the authority who are responsible for managing the channel, we need to deliver the messages
on time to make everybody stay alert about upcoming events. For example, the activities during
homeroom sessions and reminders from administration. Subsequently, by conducting the channel,
it helps us to manage our time efficiently, to balance between academic and SRC responsibilities.
As this is an official channel , we always discuss between SRC members on how to deliver a
good or meaningful message before posting it. From here, it can be seen that our professionalism
is growing , plus it improves our soft skills indirectly. As a leader, we need to be able to convey
messages to gain trust and respect from other people, and this channel made us manage to do so.

Citations

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2. Ruas, Octavio O.. (2020). WhatsApp Telegram COVID 19 during - 2020.
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3. Muntaha Ali Mohammad Al Momani. (2020). The Effectiveness of Social Media
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