An alternative m-learning scoring approach to automatically evaluate Iqro’s pronunciation based on pitch, volume, and rhythm features

Abstract

<span lang="EN-US">The </span><em><span lang="EN-US">Iqro’</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> has been proven as an effective method to improve literacy for reading </span><em><span lang="EN-US">Hijaiyah</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> letters which are the fundamental skill for reading the Qur’an. The </span><em><span lang="EN-US">Iqro</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> method relies on a mentor to evaluate the accuracy of the student’s pronunciation of the </span><em><span lang="EN-US">Hijaiyah</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> letters. With the advancement of mobile technology, many mobile apps are available to assist the learning process. However, the existing solution that is available on the market only provides a one-way learning experience where users only focus on enhancing vocabulary, writing, and reading ability with a simple true-false assessment. Although enhancing the vocabulary and reading ability is important, training the correct </span><em><span lang="EN-US">Makhraj</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> (Arabic pronunciation) is also essential in fundamental </span><em><span lang="EN-US">Hijaiyah</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> learning. This paper presents the feasibility investigation of the usage of the pitch, volume, and rhythm as the more comprehensive audio assessment parameters in the voice recognition module to evaluate the student's ability to pronounce the </span><em><span lang="EN-US">Hijaiyah</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> letter in an m-learning implementation. Instead of just presenting the true-false output, the proposed method will calculate the </span><em><span lang="EN-US">Makhraj</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> correctness in the range 0 to 100. Experimental results with 10 respondents show that the sample correlation coefficient using Pearson between a manual assessment by </span><em><span lang="EN-US">Ustaz</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> and the application result for </span><em><span lang="EN-US">Iqro’</span></em><span lang="EN-US"> level 1 is 0.51 which means this approach is acceptable for future implementation.</span>