The Effectiveness of Various Instructional Medium in Improving Students’ Science Process Skills

Abstract

In the teaching and learning process, the medium used to educate plays an essential role in achieving the educational goals. This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the usage of various instructional media (VIM) based on constructivism in the process of science teaching and learning in order to improve the students’ basic science process skills (SPS). This study consists of 5 sub SPS, namely observation (SPS 1), categorization (SPS 2), prediction (SPS 3), communication (SPS 4) and inference (SPS 5). This study developed four printed and multimedia learning modules consisting of 8 sub-topics. The research design was non-equivalent control group design quasi experimental involving two treatment groups and one control group. The first treatment group used ICT module and the second treatment groups used the environmental module. On the other hand, the control group followed the conventional teaching and learning module. The study was conducted on a group of 96 students at a secondary school in Riau, Indonesia. The instrument used in this research is Science Process Skills (SPS) test, consisting of five constructs. Descriptive quantitative analysis was employed on the findings followed by subsequent inferential analysis using ANOVA and MANOVA. The findings showed significant differences in science process skills between groups of students enrolled in ICT and environmental module with the conventional group. The study concludes that the teaching and learning by using VIM integrated with ICT and the environmental modules have a positive impact on the development of science process skills among students