Outcome-Based Education (OBE) is a new paradigm in Information Technology (IT) education that is now being pursued in the Philippines. OBE is a student-centered teaching approach that focuses on developing observable student behavior, thus gearing towards empirically measurable performance called “outcomes” or what the students know, can do and can apply as a consequence of their learning.

Determining the appropriate and measurable outcomes in this new educational approach can be quite challenging for academicians who had been used to traditional norms of assessing students' academic performance. Since OBE approach requires IT educators to determine which IT knowledge and skills are critical to teach, they are also tasked to verify if their students are realizing these knowledge and skills. This calls for deep sense of commitment to IT professors in promoting engaged learning and more active, experiential, authentic, 'hands-on' learning, both individually and collaboratively. Hence, they must plan their sessions carefully, and from the perspective of students taking Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BSIT) degree.

The BSIT program includes the study of the utilization of both the hardware and software technologies involving planning, installing, customizing operating, managing and administering, and maintaining information technology infrastructure that provides computing solutions to address the needs of an organization. The program prepares the graduates to address various user needs involving the selection, development, application, integration, and management of computing technologies within an organization ( CHED, 2016). It is governed by Commission on Higher Education (CHED) through CHED Memorandum Order (CMO) 25, s. 2015 entitled, “Revised Policies, Standards, and Guidelines for Bachelor of Science in Information Technology Program”. The CMO 25, s. 2015 sets the requirements for program administration, faculty, curriculum, library, land, facilities and equipment, admission, retention and residency, graduate placement, and faculty development. The CMO 46, s. 2012 states the policies, standards, and guidelines in the establishment of an Outcome-Based Education (OBE) system in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), and to keep pace with the demands of global competitiveness ( CHED, 2016).

Thus, OBE approach will challenge the IT instructors and professors to engage and act as learners' facilitators rather than as conveyers of knowledge and information in order to get adapt with the new paradigm in education. This educational reform could lead to the development of certain attitudes amongst IT educators.

1.1 Understanding OBE

The main basis of OBE is producing outputs rather than inputs. The learning process is student-centered rather than lecture-based as in the conventional approach. OBE has three aspects, namely: the outcomes; the curriculum design process which starts from the exit level outcome downwards; and, the responsibility of the institution and educator/trainer to supply appropriate learning experiences for the success of all students. In simpler terms, learning outcomes in the context of OBE are the observable and measurable performance of the students ( Kaliannan & Chandran, 2012).

On the part of the curriculum design and implementation, there are several conditions which are controllable and they include:

1) where the instructional focus is placed,

2) how long, how often and when the time for learning is provided,

3) what learning is expected from whom and how it is rewarded, and

4) how the curriculum is designed and organized (Gerber, 1997 in Kaliannan & Chandran, 2012).

The most detailed articulation of the theory underpinning OBE is given in Spady (1994, and 1998 in Killen, 2000). As defined in Spady (1994 in Akir, Eng & Malie, 2012) outcome-based education means clearly focusing and organizing everything in an educational system around what is essential for all students to be able to do successfully at the end of their learning experiences. This means starting with a clear picture of what is important for students to be able to do, then organizing the curriculum, instruction, and assessment to make sure this learning ultimately happens. The premise of OBE is what the students learn, whether students learn successfully is more important than when and how students learn (Spady, 1994: 8 in Akir, et al., 2012).

In other words, in the process of designing program curriculum, the outcomes of the learning is emphasized and pre-determined, that is, what is expected from the learning after the students have graduated in order to equip them with the necessary skills and capabilities before they enter the workplace, then going backward with curriculum design, program outcomes and course outcomes, the development of instructions, delivery modes and appropriate assessment methodologies. One of the ways of complementing content delivery under OBE is through blended learning which can be carried out through technology support or via online. This is done to encourage active learning and discover new knowledge in the process of enhancing the understanding of the subject contents ( Glowa, 2013).

1.2 OBE in International Setting

Outcome-based education as a pedagogical approach has been widely accepted and implemented in many countries, including Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, and United States, with Germany, Singapore, and Malaysia admitted as provisional members of the Washington Accord 1989 (Basri, et al., 2004 in Akir, et al., 2012). The Washington Accord is an international accreditation agreement for academic degrees, between the bodies responsible for accreditation in its signatory countries. These are thirteen (13) member countries and lately five (5) countries have provisional signatory status and may become member signatories in the future. These are: Germany, India, Pakistan, Russia, and Sri Lanka. Membership ensures that signatory country undergraduate academic degrees would be awarded an equal status in all member countries and their graduates are recognized as academic degree holders of high international standards ( Hanrahan, 2008). OBE has also been successfully implemented in one university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and it uses learning outcomes as a basis to design its Information Technology Curriculum (Bouslama, et al., 2003 in Akir, et al., 2012 ).

1.3 OBE in the Philippines

In the Philippines, the concept of OBE and its implementation has just started in most of the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This was really unpopular concept until the Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has finally released a series of memoranda for compliance by all colleges and universities offering baccalaureate degree programs. The CHED Memorandum Order (CMO) mandated the Philippine HEIs to follow a new set of policies, standards, and guidelines for all baccalaureate degree programs that defined the needed competencies for the practice of each field, and a set of program outcomes that the college students in the different fields are expected to possess by the time they graduate. This demands for curricular revisions to meet the desired learning outcomes (i.e., skills) required in the ever-changing and global standard workforce ( Bay & Bernardo 2013).

In a study conducted by a State University in the Philippines, Laguador and Dotong (2014) found a high level of knowledge and practice of OBE among the faculty members of the College of Engineering. However, they found a moderate level of understanding of faculty members on the appropriate assessment method to be utilized. Furthermore, faculty members with high level of knowledge and understanding on the implementation of OBE have also higher possibility to contribute in the realization of the objectives of OBE through practice ( Laguador and Dotong (2014)).

Another study in an Asian University found OBE being implemented in terms of practices and environment ( Borsoto, Lescano, Maquimot, Santorce, Simbulan, & Pagcaliwagan, 2014 ). Faculty and students believed that OBE is useful in terms of academics, attitude, and instructions. Basically, a significant relationship between the status of OBE implementation and the level of usefulness of outcomes-based education was found in the Engineering Department of a state university ( Borsoto, et al., 2014).

Similarly, a study on determining educators' attitude towards outcomes-based educational approach in English as Second Language Learning, Ortega and Ortega-Dela Cruz (2016) found positive relationship between selected demographics of faculty and their attitude towards OBE.

This study is concerned mostly on determining the IT educators' attitude towards the OBE. Determining their attitude towards the OBE is essential for the success of any undertaking to shift to the OBE approach since it would consequently determine readiness, knowledge, and acceptance levels towards the new approach.

The school's leadership would then be able to provide ample adjustments based on the stated factors that formulate their attitude towards the OBE. Consequently, the IT educators would be able to realize what needs to be done to adapt to the OBE since the study provides the framework for self-assessment regarding the new approach.

The students, as a result of the self-assessment of the school's attitude towards the OBE, would be the utmost beneficiaries. The OBE would be able to prepare the students for the real-world demands, as aimed for. Such educational approach will get the students to engage in learning activities are likely to result in their achieving the desired outcomes. It is helpful to remember that what the student does is actually more important in determining what is learned than what the teacher does.

Future researches on OBE could in some way be helped by this study as it provides already the hindsight on some attitudinal matrices for OBE studies.

The study reported in this paper seeks to determine to what extent IT educators are accepting or resisting the new paradigm in education (i.e., OBE) and/or what attitudes they may foster towards the success of its implementation at a Local University in Laguna, Philippines.

The study specifically answered the following research questions:

1. What are the demographics of IT professors in terms of age, highest educational attainment, number of years in teaching, and number of seminars/training attended for the past five years?

2. What is their attitude towards outcome-based IT education?

3. Is there significant relationship between educators' demographics, and their attitude towards outcomebased IT education?

4. What conclusions could be drawn from the findings of the study?

The following null hypotheses guided the study and were tested at 95% level of significance:

H₀₁ : There is no relationship between educators' age and their attitude towards outcome-based IT education;

H₀₂ : There is no relationship between educators' sex and their attitude towards outcome-based IT education;

H₀₃ : There is no relationship between educators' education and their attitude towards outcome-based IT education;

H₀₄ : There is no relationship between educators' teaching experience and their attitude towards outcomebased IT education; and

H₀₅ : There is no relationship between educators' training and their attitude towards outcome-based IT education.

This section presents the research design, sampling technique, data gathering instrument, procedure, and statistical tools used in the study.

6.1 Research Design

The study used descriptive-correlational research design to examine the educators' attitude towards outcome-based IT education.

It considered the background characteristics of the faculty who handles or teaches IT subjects particularly the major ones, their knowledge, beliefs, feelings or willingness/ acceptance level and readiness towards implementing the outcome-based IT education at a Local University in Laguna, Philippines.

These involve issues that relate to teaching a specific course, such as how a teacher understands and believes what to teach in each subject under the course, given the current curriculum, how competent they are to teach in order to transfer specific skills to IT students, and correspondingly to what extent they agree and are willing to adapt OBE in its entirety.

6.2 Sampling Technique

The researcher used purposive sampling of IT educators of the College of Information Technology and Engineering (CITE) for the first semester of the academic year 2016- 2017. This was the semester when the University has just started implementing the guidelines prescribed by the OBE system. A total of 23 respondents participated in answering the survey questionnaire. The questionnaire was validated by subject specialists. The instrument was pilot tested by four IT professors who were not part of the research respondents.

6.3 Data Gathering Instrument

The study used researcher-made questionnaire which determines the demographics of the respondents in terms of age, highest educational attainment, number of years in teaching, and number of seminars/training attended for the past five years. In addition to inquiry on the demographics, the questionnaire is also made up of 50 statements that help the respondents in examining their attitude towards this newly implemented educational system. These attitudinal statements include 13 items reflecting the knowledge and beliefs, 11 items for feelings, another 11 for competence, and 13 items that help quantify the readiness, and acceptance levels of IT educators towards OBE. These are measured using fourpoint Likert scales ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

The researcher also asked one open-ended question that synthesized the respondent's overall impression on OBE.

6.4 Data Analysis

Quantitative data gathered was analyzed using SPSS software. Descriptive statistics, such as the mean, frequencies, and percentages were used in tabular presentations of the results. Pearson's chi-square test was utilized to determine the relationship between categorical variables.

This section presents the detailed discussion of all data gathered which were organized according to the objectives of the study. Quantified data were tabulated, analyzed, and interpreted.

Table 1 shows the distribution of the respondents in terms of age, sex, highest educational attainment, number of years in teaching, and number of seminars/training attended for the past five years. Most of their ages range from 20-40 years old which is 69.5 percent of the total population. A total of 23 respondents participated in filling out the survey questionnaire. Majority are male, which is about 60.9 percent of the respondents. Thirty-nine percent are Bachelor's Degree holder while 30.4 percent have earned their Masters' degree. Thirty percent (30%) of them have been into teaching from five to nine years in the service. While 47.8 percent of the respondents have more than 12 seminars/trainings attended for the past five years.

Table 1. Demographic Profile of IT Educators

7.1 Educator's Attitude towards Outcome-Based IT Education

Attitude is measured using a self-administered questionnaire consisting of 50 attitudinal statements/items reflecting the IT educators' knowledge, beliefs, feelings, competence, willingness/acceptance level and readiness towards outcome-based IT education.

Table 2 presents the result based on the order of overall frequencies from the highest to lowest value/s computed in each of the categories/concepts that quantifies the educator's attitude.

Table 2. Educator's Attitude towards Outcome-Based IT Education

Based on the data gathered, the IT educators have positive attitude towards OBE in terms of their knowledge, belief, feelings, acceptance level and readiness in handling and facilitating an outcome-based IT class. Considering that the majority of the respondents are male and their ages are ranging from 20-40 years old or within the middle adulthood stage, educators are more likely to be optimistic, positive, and are open to curricular reform. Most of them strongly believe that OBE will require them to be a specialist in their subject field, thus will require more responsibilities from them. They believe that OBE approach to IT education would prepare the student better for the workplace as it raises the standards of students' academic achievements particularly the competencies needed in the field of work or industry.

When asked about their overall impression on OBE, IT educators affirmed that this educational approach will be truly helpful both for teachers and learners as it makes the process more systemic, organized, integrative, goal, and outcome-oriented while providing fun and holistic learning experiences. They are in one mind to indicate that such approach requires adjustment and intense training to IT educators, thus it requires adequate time period for its full implementation. The fact that it gears towards excellence in education, it therefore requires every professor to be excellent/expert all the more in his/her field. This pursuit of excellence poses greater challenge as they view it professionally.

Although their motivation to adopt OBE approach to IT education seems to be high, there is still some hesitation as they realize the myriad factors to consider for its successful implementation. This talks about internal and external factors, which if not properly addressed and considered, may result to major constraints along the process.

IT educators noted that the existence of large class size (i.e., more than 40 students per group) might be a challenge to an OBE facilitator besides not knowing where to start with an OBE approach. Another concern is the availability and adequacy of resources and other support system ranging from material including books and other reference materials to emotional and professional support in the form of mentorship in using OBE approach.

Responses on the level of acceptance and readiness show how their experiences in teaching and their engagement to continuing professional development including their graduate studies and attendance to seminar-workshops help them to adapt to an OBE approach.

On the other hand, the statement that speaks to the time and schedule of educators is another area that needs to be considered. IT educators mainly acknowledge the current loading system of their institution, which they believe might affect the sufficiency of time being allotted for individual student consultation.

7.2 Relationship between the Educator's Demographics and Attitude towards Outcome-Based IT Education

From Table 3, results reveal a significant relationship between education and attitude x² (4, n=23) = 9.826^c , p<.05 as well as a highly significant relationship between training and attitude x² (4, n=23) = 16.348^c , p<.01. This statistical findings clearly reject the H₀₃ and H₀₅ . This further implies that educator's attitude towards OBE changes (either increase or decrease) as the level of his/her educational attainment and number of trainings/seminarworkshops attended changes. IT educators who have higher educational attainment as well as more exposure to seminar or trainings relevant to their field find their attitude towards OBE approach more favorable than those who have lower education and number of trainings attended. Their education and trainings basically increase their knowledge, and competence. Such increase in awareness and capacity helps shape their overall attitude towards any educational reform as manifested by their willingness to adopt innovative practices towards more efficient learning. Such statistically significant findings can now be generalized to a larger population of educators as they find OBE useful and innovative.

Table 3. Relationship between the Educator's Demographics and Attitude towards Outcome-Based IT Education

This supports the findings of Ortega and Ortega-Dela Cruz (2016) on positive relationship between educational attainment of English professors and their attitude towards outcomes-based English Second Language learning.

However, result of chi-square test between other variables reveals no relationship between age and attitude x² (2, n=23) = .348^a , p>.05; sex x² (1, n=23) = 1.087^b ,p>.05, and teaching experience x² (4, n=23) = 5.913^c , p>.05); thus failure to reject the H₀₁, H₀₂, and H₀₄. This signifies that these selected educators demographics have nothing to do with their attitude towards outcome-based IT education.

This study substantiates how educators need to become responsive to this ever-changing, fast-pacing world of teaching and learning process. This calls for renewing of mind set as the traditional role of educators from merely instructors or directors has changed to being facilitators, guiders, advisers, coordinators, encouragers, evaluators, idea persons, co-communicators among others. Essentially, the focus of education has already shifted from the educator to learner. However, this shift requires change within the educational system in order to facilitate learning. Realizing the fact that establishing an OBE system for education is the best way for a particular learner to reach the desired outcomes helps strengthen educators' crucial role in the society. Nonetheless, this pivotal role of the educators should be backed up with considerable actions and support from those who are in authority to better implement the desired curriculum and its approaches. While the study helps explicate those areas that need much attention, it still appeals for further investigation to help address other concerns, especially those which were not covered in this research undertaking. The study therefore recommends including a broader perspective in terms of other possibilities to include the student's attitude towards OBE systems. It is interesting to note the perceptions of the end-users of the system against and direction of the implementers' viewpoints and direction of the implementers' reform and policy as had been experienced in other parts of the world (for instance, in Western Australia and South Africa) that opposed the idea of OBE.

In the same way of viewing OBE as an innovation to education system of this new generation of learners or the so-called iGen, it is not just a simple recipe that is ready to be applied in an instant. Indeed, OBE requires efficient use of time as it calls for a strong personal and professional commitment from educator and from the institution it serves. Where all other virtues come to life, professional commitment will lead to greater competence. Thus, educational leaders must be there to continually support such innate professional commitment of IT educators who aspire for excellence in IT education. For if the outcomebased IT education will entirely be the country's ultimate educational institutions' mission and goals, the local university needs to make a leap forward in its successful implementation that will set the pace for other state universities, and colleges to follow.