This document summarizes the introduction chapter of a research study investigating the effectiveness of inquiry-based teaching on student motivation. The study aims to compare student motivation between inquiry instruction and traditional teaching. It hypothesizes that there will be no significant difference in student motivation between the two methods. The objectives are to study differences in student motivation as measured by a pre-and post-test questionnaire. The significance is that inquiry instruction may promote student motivation in science learning. Key terms like inquiry instruction, motivation, and traditional instruction are also defined.
This document summarizes the introduction chapter of a research study investigating the effectiveness of inquiry-based teaching on student motivation. The study aims to compare student motivation between inquiry instruction and traditional teaching. It hypothesizes that there will be no significant difference in student motivation between the two methods. The objectives are to study differences in student motivation as measured by a pre-and post-test questionnaire. The significance is that inquiry instruction may promote student motivation in science learning. Key terms like inquiry instruction, motivation, and traditional instruction are also defined.
This document summarizes the introduction chapter of a research study investigating the effectiveness of inquiry-based teaching on student motivation. The study aims to compare student motivation between inquiry instruction and traditional teaching. It hypothesizes that there will be no significant difference in student motivation between the two methods. The objectives are to study differences in student motivation as measured by a pre-and post-test questionnaire. The significance is that inquiry instruction may promote student motivation in science learning. Key terms like inquiry instruction, motivation, and traditional instruction are also defined.
Research Title: Investigating the Effectiveness of Inquiry Based Teaching on
Student Motivation
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ___________________________________________________________________________
1.0 Introduction
Science is a way of knowing and exploring the natural world. Science learning should not rest alone on the terminology, laws and equations memorized by the students. However, nowadays, science education is becoming completely perfunctory- people are studying not for knowledge but for the sake of examination grades. In the modern world, some knowledge of science is essential for everyone (Duschl et al., 2007). Learning science for daily life is an inevitable need in todays world. Learning science begins at elementary grades and should continue for a life-long time. The goal of science education is to enhance all students scientific literacy in grasping essential science concepts, to understand the nature of science, to realize the relevance of science and technology to their lives, and to willingly continue their science study in school, or beyond school (National Research Council [NRC], 1996).
While science education research has devoted extensive attention to students misconceptions or naive theories, students motivation in learning science in school should also be given attention. Motivation is related to an individuals inner force and interest to accomplish 2
a learning task. When individuals acknowledge themselves as capable of performing successfully and can control the task given in meaningful ways then they will be intrinsically motivated. Learning science through inquiry instruction is seen as one of the best way to let students learn science with motivation as the students are not only memorizing factual information but are also applying the facts to the development of meaningful questions. In science learning, motivation is a key element, and this is especially critical with inquiry activities. When inquiry instruction takes place, students will be eager to learn, fascinated by their discoveries, and enjoy asking questions. Hence, students will get motivated.
1.1 Background of the study
In science learning, science educators has realized that teaching all students science and cultivating them to be scientifically literate citizens through inquiry-based curriculum are the goals for many national science curriculum reform (American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1993; National Research Council (NRC), 1996; Ministry of Education (MOE), 2000). It has been the main concern for science educators to help students grasp essential science concepts, to understand the nature of science, to realize the relevance of science and technology to their lives, and to willingly continue their science study in school, or beyond school (National Research Council [NRC] 1996).
Hence, it is very important to take into account not only student cognition, but also the affective component to cognition. One of the affective components that are important is motivation because students motivation plays an important role in their conceptual change 3
processes, critical thinking, learning strategies and science learning achievement. In many research, students motivation towards science learning has been investigated in areas of self- efficacy (Joo, Bong & Choi, 2000; Schoon & Boone, 1998), learning goal (Shimoda et al., 2002), learning strategies (Chalupa et al., 2001), and learning environment (Hanrahan, 1998).
Students motivation toward science has been decreased after they enrolled in school (Tuan & Chin, 2000), thus it is important for science educators to boost students motivation towards science regardless the learning style of each student. Inquiry-based teaching provided an open learning environment with opportunities for students to explore and construct meaningful knowledge through hands-on experiences, problem solving and laboratory-based investigation that is followed by exercises related to expand the activity. It also can build up students abilities to learn science beyond school. It is very important to investigate how students have their motivation affected by inquiry science teaching. Inquiry instruction can enhance students understanding of the nature of science, science achievement, science process skills, knowledge construction, and discourse communication (Ertepinar & Geban, 1996; Gibson and Chase, 2002)
1.2 Statement of problem
The teaching strategies being implemented in classroom today has been one of the causes that makes the students learn passively and less motivated towards the science learning. Teaching all students science and cultivating them to be scientifically literate citizens is the goals for many science curriculum reforms. However, students motivation toward science has been decreased after they enrolled in school (Tuan & Chin, 2000). Thus, it is very important for 4
science educators to enhance students motivation by providing inquiry-based learning environment.
In order to response to this issue, the study is to boost the students motivation towards science learning by encouraging them through inquiry instruction. Therefore, an inquiry laboratory investigation of Electricity topic will be exposed to the Year 4 elementary school students to see the benefit of inquiry teaching on students motivation. The difference in students motivation is measured through SMSTL questionnaire after they experience the inquiry instruction.
1.3 Objectives of the study
The problem addressed here is the deterioration in students motivation towards science learning after they enrolled in school. Hence, several objectives have been specified. The objectives of this study are as follows: 1. To study the differences on students motivation towards science learning between inquiry instruction and traditional teaching.
5
1.4 Research Questions
The research described here addressed some questions allied with the problem. The study mainly focuses on the following specific questions: 1. What are the levels of students motivation in pre-test? 2. What are the levels of students motivation in post-test? 3. What are the differences of students motivation towards science learning after they experienced inquiry and traditional science instruction?
1.5 Research hypothesis
H o : There is no significant difference in students motivation using the traditional science instruction and inquiry-based instruction.
1.6 Significance of the study
The result from this study suggests that inquiry instruction can promote all students in their motivation toward science learning. This study will provide new perspectives of nature science learning environment in school by which to encourage the science educators to provide opportunities to students in exploring the science concepts responsibly.
6
This study has significant implications for educational practice. It is appropriate for educators to provide students the inquiry-based teaching that can also help students appreciate better about the nature of science learning, reduce students addressing on comparing with other peers and get attention from the teacher which they will shift their goal to address their own learning. Finally, students self-fulfilment will also be increased after participating in the inquiry activity.
This study point out new teaching strategy needs to address on different learning styles of students cognitive and affective perspectives. The inquiry instruction able to provide students more challenging and meaningful tasks to engage in that increase students motivation. This study suggests that inquiry instruction can promote all students in their motivation toward science learning.
1.7 Conceptual and operational definitions
There are some definitions need to be clarified to avoid any perplexity in this study.
1.7.1 Inquiry instruction Conceptual definition: Inquiry instruction is a process where students are involved in their learning, formulate questions, investigate widely and then build new understandings, meanings and 7
knowledge. That knowledge is new to the students and may be used to answer a question, to develop a solution or to support a position or point of view. Operational definition: Inquiry instruction in this study indicates a teaching that starts with questions or problems in scenarios to provide opportunities for students to participate in generating research questions, conduct laboratory investigation, generate their own conclusions and communicate their findings with fellow pupils.
1.7.2 Motivation Conceptual definition: According to Pintrich and Schunk (1996) motivation is the process whereby goal- directed activity is instigated and sustained. Motivation outcome is operationally indicated in term of self-efficacy, science learning value, active learning strategies, performance goal, achievement goal and learning environment stimulation (Tuan et al., 2005). Motivation is related to an individuals inner force to accomplish a learning task Operational definition: In this study, motivation highlights the ability of students to get engaged throughout the learning process and capable of performing successfully and can control or regulate the situation in meaningful ways. When students pay attention to the learning task and have learning strategies to relate new knowledge to their previous knowledge, then they are motivated. 8
1.7.3 Traditional instruction Conceptual definition: Traditional instruction is concerned with the teacher being the controller of the learning environment. Power and responsibility are held by the teacher and they play the role of instructor and decision maker. In short, the traditional teacher views that it is the teacher that causes learning to occur. Operational definition: In this study, traditional instruction refers as a teacher-centered teaching strategy in which the teacher delivers information through multimedia presentation. The instruction begins with teachers lectures and presentation, students taking notes and end with students answering exercises based on the topic.
9
CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
There is an important to motivate students in learning processes. Learning processes affected by teaching processes. Teaching process must be construct students motivation to learn without felt bored. When they process of teaching success, then the learning process will be smooth and students able to understand concept of learning. From the study of some research, researcher get know that scientific inquiry helps students to motivate themselves to learn science concept.
2.1 Scientific Inquiry
According to the National Science Education Standard (NSES p.23), scientific inquiry is the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work. 10
Its also known as the activities through which students develop knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas, as well as an understanding of how scientists study the natural world. Scientific inquiry is the best ways to understand science content as well as conduct an investigation and collect evidence from a variety of sources.
2.2 Motivational in Science Inquiry
According to the Blumenfeld, Soloway, Marx, Krajcik, Guzdial, & Palincsar, 1991 said that one of the objectives for inquiry based science is to promote students motivation for science, not just in the classroom but as an area of interest and enjoyment outside academic.
Attitudes and beliefs such as interest, confidence in ones ability to learn, and perceived value in the task have been associated with greater attention, behavioural engagement, thoughtfulness, comprehension, and memory (Printrich & De Groot, 1990; Schiefele, 1991; Tobias, 1994).
Futhermore, Blumenfeld et al., 1991 said that inquiry based science aims to foster both personal and situational interest. Personal interest is being interested in science or in particular science topic. Meanwhile situational interest means finding specific classes interesting.
11
Turner & Patrick, 2008 stated that students must be interested and motivated to learn before learning will take place and the success can lead to motivation to learn more. From their research they provides some evidence that teachers instructional behaviours can contribute to the development of students work habits by encouraging and supporting them to participate in classroom activities.
Rachel Mamlok-Naaman and Avi Hofstein (2011) had a research on Inquiry Teaching in Israel: The Case of High School Chemistry Laboratories. In their research, teachers indicated that this scientific inquiry reduced their anxiety and increased students confidence. Participants (students) felt that they more involved in the learning processes. This statement is related to some noted that stated these experiences provided them with opportunities to develop independent thinking, make sense of chemical concepts and enjoy a group learning environment (Hofstein, Levi Nahum & Shore, 2001).
When there is no motivation to learn, there is no learning (Wlodowski, 2008). So that teaching science by inquiry will leads to the students motivation in understanding science concepts.
12
CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction
This chapter presents the research design and methodology employed in the present study, which has aim to investigate the effectiveness of inquiry based teaching on student motivation.
3.1 Design of study
The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of inquiry based teaching on student motivation. For this purpose, a pretest-post test control group and experimental group design was used.
3.2 Selection of sample
Two class of year 4 consist of 43 students from Sekolah Kebangsaan Tanjung Keramat will be selected as a sample. These students participate in 60 minutes inquiry science lesson of topic conductors and non-conductors. Twenty two of Year 4 students were involves in experimental group, this group of students will experience inquiry instruction. Another twenty 13
one of Year 4 students are involve in control group, they will be taught by traditional science method. The sample choose in this study are regular class with mix abilities and genders. Each pairs of control and experimental classes have similar science achievement.
Sekolah Kebangsaan Tanjung Keramat is located in Kuala Selangor town at the state of Selangor and primarily serves residents of Kuala Selangor old town and Tanjung Keramat village. The school has a current enrolment of 243 students.
3.3 Instruments
The study use quantitative methods in collecting data. Questionnaire is the sources of data collection .In this study, questionnaire is use to seek view of their motivation before and after the inquiry based lesson. Students motivation towards science learning questionnaire (SMTSL) is used to collect data.
SMTSL will be implementing in both group in the beginning and at the end of the study. SMTSL was developed by Tuan, Chin & Shieh (2005). They used classroom observation, interview and survey to verify important motivation scales form students science learning. There are two uniqueness of the SMTSL, one is the item statements are related to science learning, another is the scales (active learning strategies, science learning value and learning environment stimulation) can illustrate students science learning which is new than other traditional psychology motivation questionnaires. SMTSL consist 35 items allocated in six scales: self-efficacy, use of active learning strategies, science learning value, performance goals, 14
achievement goals, and learning environment stimulation. We used this questionnaire to collects students motivation changes in the study. The Cronbach alpha was 0.89 for the entire questionnaire and the subscales ranged from 0.70 to 0.89 which Nunnaly (1978) has indicated to be an acceptable reliability.
3.4 Procedure
I. Two classes of year 4 consist of 43 students from Sekolah Kebangsaan Tanjung Keramat will be selected as a sample. One class of twenty two students are select as an experimental group and another one class of twenty one students are select as control group.
II. Students in both control and experimental groups take 20 minutes to fill out students motivation towards science learning questionnaire (SMTSL) in the beginning of the class. This questionnaire represents pre test scores
III. Experimental groups participate in 60 minutes of inquiry lesson of topic conductors and non conductors. Another class select as control group, they will be taught in 60 minutes lesson by regular science teaching method.
IV. At the end of the lesson, students both in control and experimental group take another 20 minutes to fill out SMTSL questionnaire which represent post test scores. Data analyze using descriptive statistics and t-test. 15
3.5 Data analysis
In order to answer the previous research questions on the difference between students learning motivation in inquiry instruction and traditional science teaching, data will be analysis included descriptive statistic analysis, t-test between pre- and post-test to compare the difference of six scales (self efficacy, active learning strategies, science learning value, performance goal, achievement goal and learning environment stimulation) in SMTSL. T-test used to compare different learning styles changes before and after inquiry lesson.
16
REFERENCES American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (1993).Benchmarks for science literacy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Blumenfeld, Soloway, Marx, Krajcik, Guzdial, Palincsar (1991). Project Based Learning. Retrieved from http://mathforum.org/sarah/Discussion.Sessions/Blumenfeld.html on 2011.
Chalupa, M., Chen, C. & Charles, T. (2001). An analysis of college students motivation and learning strategies in computer courses: A cognitive view.Delta Pi Epsilon, 43(4),185199.
Duschl, R. S., Schweingruber, H. A., & Shouse A. W. (2007). Taking science to school: Learning and teaching science in grades K-8.Washington, DC: National Academic Press.
Gibson, H. & Chase, C. (2002). Longitudinal impact of an inquiry-based science program on middle school students attitudes toward science.Science Education, 86, 693705.
Hanrahan, M. (1998). The effect of learning environment factors on students motivation and learning.International Journal of Science Education, 20(6), 737753.
Joo, Y.J., Bong, M. & Choi, H.J. (2000). Self-efficacy for self-regulated learning, 17
academic self-efficacy, and internet self-efficacy in web-based instruction.Educational Technology Research and Development, 48(2), 517.
Ministry of Education (MOE) (2000).Curriculum standards for nine-year curriculum: Science and living technology field. Taipei: Ministry of Education.
National Research Council (NRC) (1996).National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Nunnaly, J. (1978). Psychometric theory. New York: McGraw-Hill
Printrich & De Groot (1990). Motivational and Self-Regulated Learning Components of Classroom Academic Performance. Retrieved from http://www.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/projects/ireport/ articles/self-regulation/self- regulated%20learning-motivation.pdf
Rachel Mamlok-Naaman, Hofstein (2011). Inquiry Teaching in Israel: The Case of High School Chemistry Laboratories. Retrieved from http://www.ejmste.com/v8n1/EURASIA_v8n1_Mamlok-Naaman.pdf
Schoon, K.J. & Boone, W.J. (1998). Self-efficacy and alternative concepts of science of preservice elementary teachers.Science Education, 82(5), 553568.
18
Shimoda, T.A., White, B.Y. & Frederiksen, J.R. (2002). Students goal orientation inlearning inquiry skills with modifiable software advisors. International ScienceEducation Journal, 88, 244263.
Tuan, H.L. & Chin, C.C. (2000).Promoting junior high school students motivation toward physical science learning (III). Report for National Research Council
Tuan, H.L., Chin, C.C., Tsai, C.C. & Cheng, S.F. (2005). Investigating the Effectiveness of Inquiry Instruction on the Motivation of Different Learning Styles Students. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 3, 541- 566.
Tuan, H.L., Chin, C.C. & Shieh, S.H. (2005). The development of a questionnaire for assessing students motivation toward science learning. International Journal of Science Education, 27, 639654.
Turner, Patrick (2008). Motivational Influences on Student Participation in Classroom Learning Activities.