The effects of technology-assisted contextualized inquiry instruction (TACII) on Malaysian form two students scientific literacy

Abstract

This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of a technology-assisted contextualized inquiry-based instruction (TACII), designed as an integrated approach to teach science concepts, on Form Two students’ PISA-aligned science competencies and overall scientific literacy. It adopted the pretest-posttest non-equivalent control group design involving 1,380 Form Two students in nine selected mainstream and high performing schools in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. The intervention covered the topics of friction, force, and motion with TACII being used to teach the treatment group (n = 738), while the traditional method of science learning was used with the control group (n = 642). The intervention took four (4) weeks to complete, and the treatment teachers were trained to use TACII over a cumulative period of one week. A set of parallel tests were used before (pre-test) and after the intervention (post-test) as the instruments to assess the subjects’ overall scientific literacy and mastery of the science competencies. The data were then analyzed using independent samples t-tests and a hybrid Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Statistically significant differences were further tested with Cohen’s d effect size estimation. The results indicate that TACII was able to affect substantial and statistically significant increases in students’ abilities to explain natural phenomena scientifically (Cohen’s d = .68), evaluate and design scientific inquiry (Cohen’s d = .77), and interpret data and evidence scientifically (Cohen’s d = .70), all of which showed practical but moderate effects of the intervention. The SEM results point to the significant role of prior knowledge in influencing students’ scientific literacy, but ruled out gender, school locality (rural versus urban) and school type (mainstream versus high performing) as moderating variables. In fact, prior knowledge was discovered to be significantly more influential than TACII in determining students’ scientific literacy. With these results, the study has provided a compelling body of evidence on the importance of teaching science through technology-assisted inquiry and contextualization and students’ having the right amount of prior knowledge for science learning, as well as on the importance of training teachers to use these integrated strategies to deliver meaningful science lessons that meet the standards of PISA.