School On Wheels and Multimedia-Aided Instructions as Mediators of Students’ Local Cultural Heritage Awareness

Countless stories are told about local heritage sites. Because these stories are one-of-a-kind, they present a significant challenge to students' knowledge and awareness of their cultural background. Furthermore, literature is scarce on students' historical and architectural knowledge of local cultural heritage places. This study determined the level of local cultural heritage sites knowledge of sixty (60) students through school on wheels and multimedia-aided instructions. The study made use of a duly-validated researcher-made Local Cultural Heritage Sites Questionnaire. Frequency count, mean, and standard deviation were the descriptive statistics used while t-test was used for inferential statistics set at 0.05 level of significance using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The results revealed that the level of students' historical and architectural knowledge of local cultural heritage sites was "moderate" and shifted to "high" when school on wheels and multimedia-aided instructions were introduced. There were significant differences in the historical and architectural knowledge of the students on local cultural heritage sites. Students' knowledge is improved via teaching and learning activities that give experiential and meaningful learning. Increased local cultural heritage knowledge of students is a step forward in promoting cultural heritage conservation and preservation.

The goal of this action research is to determine the level of students' local cultural heritage awareness as mediated multimediaaided instruction and school-on-wheels. It was expected that after the interventions, students' local cultural heritage awareness will be significantly different. Furthermore, the findings of this research will shed light on how the combination of technology and an immersive approach to teaching and learning about local cultural heritage might benefit students. Similarly, this could open up research prospects for improving the local tourism economy, promoting cultural assets, and influencing legislation.

Literature Review
Most history teachers and educators are concerned about how to teach history effectively. This is because most history teachers do not use effective teaching approaches when teaching the topic. As a result, the majority of students regard History as a tedious and boring subject (Boadu, 2015). According to Fogo (2014), effective history education is less likely in a traditional History classroom setting "where curriculum spans long periods, teachers deliver content-heavy lectures, and students take notes and scour texts to memorize data" (p. 153). It requires History teachers to be proactive and goal-oriented in the discipline, rather than simply knowing how to teach "anything." Therefore, experiential learning and learning aided with technology is inevitable among the younger generation to study history, especially lessons on local cultural heritage.
According to a study conducted in Turkey, multimedia techniques improved students' academic progress in social studies lessons when compared to traditional classrooms (Ilhan & Oruç, 2016). Multimedia-Aided Teaching is also more effective than traditional teaching, according to a study conducted in Pakistan (Shah & Khan, 2015). According to a study conducted by Narzoles in Bahrain (2013), students who received multi-media instruction performed better than students who received traditional instruction. As Gilakjani (2012) presented three justifications and arguments for employing multimedia in the classroom, its use, he argues, increases students' involvement, comprehension, and memory capacity.
Furthermore, Moore and Jospeh (2016) discovered that students enjoyed the field trips but were concerned about the time and distance. They were able to make critical connections to course content, but they objected to the field trips' embrace of diversity. Yeşilbursa and Barton (2011) discovered that all of the registered pre-service teachers enjoyed the trip and were able to make links to heritage education in a social studies course. They also established linkages to their future teaching practices by expressing a desire to employ historical sites as teaching resources. Historic sites are particularly valuable in teaching since they are concrete and make history engaging, according to the teacher candidates. Students will learn about lessons in architecture as they learn about history through cultural heritage sites, according to Atalan (2018), who discussed the importance of cultural heritage and conservation concepts in architecture education, as well as the adequacy of conservation and cultural heritage courses in the curriculum.

Intervention
The researcher used School on Wheels and multimedia-aided instruction for class discussion as interventions to the existing problem in an action research project to see if they help students learn more about local Cultural Heritage.
Text, color, graphical graphics, animation, audio-sound, and full-motion video concerning the Iloilo Cultural Heritage Sites were included in the multimedia-assisted training. Five multimedia-aided presentations focusing on the architectural and historical context of the several Iloilo Cultural Heritage Sites were developed. These five presentations were validated by a five-person jury consisting of a computer programmer and tourism educators. Suggestions for modifications and improvements were taken into account and incorporated into the final presentations. On the other hand, School On Wheels was designed for students to visit various local Cultural Heritage Sites around the city's seven (7) districts. School on Wheels activity, short lectures on the cultural heritage site's historical and architectural context were given.

Participants
There sixty (60) randomly chosen participants determined through the use the Slovin's formula. The fishbowl technique was used in choosing the participants which consisted of thirty (30) male and thirty (30) female participants. These students were students of a local institution.

Data Gathering Instrument
The researcher-made Local Cultural Heritage Questionnaire was employed in this study. It included a 40-item multiple-choice test on historical and architectural-related items. The questionnaire was presented to a panel of five experts in the fields of curriculum and instruction, as well as tests and measurement. The comments and recommendations of the jurors were incorporated into the final form of the Questionnaire on Local Cultural Heritage Sites. Every correct answer received one point.

Procedures
The students were given the Local Cultural Heritage Questionnaire by the researcher. The intervention was given to the participants for six (6) weeks which started with a pre-test. The treatment which included multimedia-aided instruction and School On Wheels began in the second week of January and lasted until the third week of February. After six (6) weeks of intervention, the participants were given the posttest to determine if there is an improvement in their local cultural heritage awareness.

Steps in the Collection of Data
The Dean was asked for permission to conduct action research. The researcher personally distributed and delivered the test questionnaires to the study participants as soon as authorization was obtained. The individuals were given a pretest and a posttest after six (6) weeks by the researcher. The answers of the students were double-checked, and the results were collated, computed, and recorded. The pretest and posttest mean values were compared. The following scale is used to determine the level of historical and architectural knowledge of students.

Data Analysis Procedure
The computer software utilized for data analysis was the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Continuous data was given in means and standard deviations, whereas categorical data was provided in frequency counts. A t-Test for related samples was used to examine the significance of the variations in the students' historical and architectural knowledge acquired from the pre-test and post-test mean scores. If the p-value was smaller than .05, the outcome was significant in this study.  Table 1 shows the level of students' historical knowledge before and after the School On Wheels and multimedia-aided instructions were introduced. In the pre-test, the level of students' historical knowledge was moderate (M=9.22, SD=3.14). It shifted to high (M=16.12, SD=2.27) in the posttest.

Results
In the pre-test, students have prior knowledge about the historical significance of the different cultural heritage sites through the books that they read and stories shared with them by people which guaranteed a moderate historical knowledge. However, students' visits to the heritage sites perhaps influenced students' high historical knowledge in the post-test. Through the School on Wheels to museums, ancestral houses, and churches helped students relate their prior knowledge of historical events by seeing the clothing of different eras, touching the transportation used, and reading about the era in the context of who the people of that era were related to the heritage sites.
On the other hand, students' historical knowledge improved as they became interested and entertained by the multimedia-aided presentations which included videos, pictures, and animated texts which paved the way for a lively class interaction in learning historical events.  Table 2 shows the level of students' architectural knowledge before and after the School On Wheels and multimedia-aided instructions were introduced. In the pre-test, the level of students' historical knowledge was moderate (M=11.28, SD=3.14). It shifted to high (M=15.73, SD=2.18) in the posttest.
In the pre-test, students might find it difficult to understand the architectural designs of the different cultural heritage sites as they only read those from the book. Their way of learning was perhaps to memorize the verbatim definition of technical terms which they might have forgotten during their exams. It became high in the posttest by having actual observation of the building designs through School On Wheels and which might be strengthened the teachers' additional information.
It is possible that students' architectural knowledge increased through the use of multimedia-aided instruction because video clips, pictures, and animated texts were included in the multimedia-aided presentation that provided students with computer-generated three-dimensional (3D) images. The inclusion of promotional videos of the cultural heritage sites allowed students to closely appreciate the architectural designs of cultural heritage sites in the course of class discussion.  Table 4 shows a significant difference in students' historical knowledge after the School On Wheels and multimedia-aided instruction were introduced, t(59)=22.60,p<.0.05.
The result was perhaps influenced by how School on Wheels made students learn history beyond the four walls of the classroom. Furthermore, students might be very appreciative of learning historical events through School on Wheels that made history tangible rather than abstract as they became interactive with museum exhibits. On the other hand, the use of multimedia-aided instruction in the teaching of heritage sites was likely the most appreciated teaching strategy aside from the traditional lecture method. The combination of animated text, pictures, and video clips might be the language of students to be more motivated in learning historical information as students today are technological savvy.
Moreover, students' historical knowledge could be brought by a very stimulating discussion through the multimedia-aided presentation while seeing photos of prominent people, places, clothing, transportation, and video that retell historical events.  Table 4 shows a significant difference in students' architectural knowledge after the School On Wheels and multimedia-aided instruction were introduced, t (59) = 27.42, p<.0.05).
The School on Wheels might give students opportunities to closely observe and appreciate heritage buildings, old houses, churches, and museums. Thus, students learned architectural designs unique to the heritage site and broadened their architectural knowledge through seeing simple to intricate wall carvings, roof designs, and decorative pillars that would pose a distinct architectural character to a particular heritage site. Through this, students remembered the details efficiently thus, a significant difference in students' architectural knowledge was exposed.
Likewise, multimedia-aided instructions provided students with videos and pictures to further appreciate the architectural designs of churches, museums, buildings, and old mansions. Moreover, architectural designs perhaps came very handily to the students as they were closely shown during the multimedia-aided class discussions. Photos of different churches that show different architectural designs presented in the multimedia-aided presentation allowed students to differentiate one design from the other. It could also be possible that students were highly entertained by the multimedia-aided presentation that showed the unique architectural designs of different heritage sites.

Discussion
Because cultural heritage awareness is such an important part of heritage preservation and management (Srivastava, 2015), developing cultural awareness takes time and requires the commitment and assistance of the local community (  (Carbone et al., 2012). As a result, this action research looked into students' awareness of local cultural heritage as mediated by the School On Wheels and multimedia-aided instruction.
After School On Wheels and multimedia-aided instruction were introduced, the level of students' local cultural heritage awareness shifted from moderate to high, with a significant difference. The findings of this study implied that to raise students' local cultural heritage awareness of students, teachers should use a variety of tools to teach cultural heritage (Boxtel et al., 2011). Onsite visits to heritage sites are an effective link for students (Smith, 2003) (Marquès, 2013). Furthermore, field trips create tangible links between field experiences (Sevier, 2005) and teaching culture and history, strengthening students' identities through the use of technology toward academic, social, and political empowerment (Wu, 2011). Students' local cultural heritage awareness will not only increase through School On Wheels and multimedia-assisted instruction, but they will also gain skills, learn to examine the history and be prepared as citizens who embrace democratic ideals (Lobovikov-Katz, 2019). Furthermore, future generations will be better able to comprehend the facts of the situation (Pedroso, 2021), allowing them to cherish, care for, and protect the culture (Pedroso, 2020)

Conclusion
Local cultural heritage sites are efficient teaching and learning resources. When multimedia-aided instruction and the School on Wheels are effectively utilized, students learn more about their local cultural heritage sites. As School on Wheels gives a unique chance to learn about local cultural heritage sites, both students and teachers look forward to something to look forward to as a change from the typical classroom-based teaching and learning approaches. Multimedia-assisted instruction, on the other hand, is significant assistance in improving students' higher learning with the aid of technology. Once teachers successfully integrated multimedia-aided presentations in class discussions, students became more interested in learning about their local cultural heritage sites. The more we become knowledgeable of our local culture, the more we are connected as a people. As we take conscious efforts of protecting our local cultural heritage, the more that our future generations will benefit as a nation.