Effectiveness of Constructivist Approach Based Instructional Material on Reaction Achievement and Retention of Secondary Level Students

Abstract

Providing effective Science Education has emerged as a matter of great concern today among Science educators of National and International level. In order to make it effective and meaningful for the present generation, it is needed to reform our teaching practice and shift them from conventional approaches to the innovative approaches. Present research work has been carried out as an attempt to study the effectiveness of Constructivist Approach Based Instructional Material on Reaction, Achievement and Retention of secondary level students in Science subject. It was also attempted to study the effect of Daily Home Assignments (DHA s) on Achievement and Retention. Sample comprised of 99 IX- class students of Digambar Jain Inter College, Agra. School was selected purposively while the students were randomly assigned to groups. Self developed Tools employed for data collection were: Orientation Programme based on Constructivist Approach, Instructional Material based on Constructivist Approach, Reaction Scale towards Constructivist Approach in Science Teaching, Science Achievement Test and Science Retention Test. Randomized Solomon Three Group Design was employed to execute the research intervention. Data was analyzed by using Mann-Whitney U test. Results revealed the significant effect of Constructivist Approach Based Instructional Material on Reaction, Achievement and Retention. Traditional Approach supplemented with (Daily Home Assignments) DHAs found to have significant effect in terms of Achievement and Retention. Constructivist approach based Instructional Material was found to be more effective in terms of Retention in comparison to Traditional Approach supplemented with DHAs. Thus, the research work is primarily helpful for teachers to improve the quality of Science instructions in order to make it meaningful and interesting for the learners of present age. It will also facilitate wide range of implications for different personnel related to education. newline