Instruction of learning strategies: Effects on conceptual learning, and learning satisfactions

The descriptive statistical information regarding the students’ pretest and posttest scores from CLOET, and SSS sub-scales is presented in Table 5.

Table 5. Descriptive statistics regarding CLOET, and SSS scores

Dependent variable		Pretest						Posttest
		SG (n 1=18)			CG(n 2=18)			SG (n 1=18)			CG(n 2=18)
		M	MD	SD	M	MD	SD	M	MD	SD	M	MD	SD
CLOET		19.72	15.00	11.82	17.78	15.00	8.78	74.44	75.00	14.34	60.83	60.00	15.93
SSS	EL	44.67	44.00	4.70	46.05	45.00	7.14	44.94	45.50	6.36	44.50	45.50	6.33
	QT	25.89	26.00	2.42	26.05	26.00	2.15	23.61	24.50	4.07	23.88	24.00	4.27
	TA	15.50	15.00	2.81	16.05	15.50	3.40	15.33	15.50	2.52	13.55	14.00	2.83

The effects of summarizing strategy instruction on students’ conceptual learning in physics

It was checked whether there was a significant difference between the SG and the CG students’ rate of conceptual understanding in electricity and magnetism before and after the test. In order to do so, considering both their pretest and posttest scores, the Mann-Whitney U test was used with independent samples. To do this, students’ mean ranks and sum of ranks have been determined in view of their Conceptual Learning Open-Ended Test (CLOET) pretest and posttest scores. Statistically, there is no important difference between the SG and CG students’ pretest mean ranks regarding the CLOET (Mann-Whitney U=152.50 z=-0.307, p>0.05); however, the difference between their posttest mean ranks was extensive in favor of the SG (Mann-Whitney U=82.50 z=-2.545, p<0.05 two tailed).

The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was used in order to test the significance of the difference between the pretest and posttest median scores of the SG and CG students. There was a considerable increase in both the SG (from 15.00 to75.00) and CG’s CLOET median scores (from 15.00 to 60.00) as it moves from pretest to posttest (z=-3.746, p<0.05; z=-3.728, p<0.05, respectively).

The effects of summarizing strategy instruction on students’ learning satisfaction in physics

The difference between the SG and traditional method group students’ pretest and posttest scores respecting their learning satisfactions towards physics course was checked and it was determined whether this difference was an important one or not. For this reason, a series of Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted. There was no significant statistical difference between the SG students and CG students’ pretest and posttest mean ranks regarding the all subscales (EL, QT and TA). For pretests: Mann-Whitney U=142.00 z=-0.634, p>0.05; Mann-Whitney U=160.00 z=-0.064, p>0.05; Mann-Whitney U=155.50 z=-0.207, p>0.05, respectively. For posttests: Mann-Whitney U=152.50 z=-0.302, p>0.05; Mann-Whitney U=155.00 z=-0.223, p>0.05; Mann-Whitney U=107.50 z=-1.738, p>0.05, respectively.

The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was used in order to test how significant the difference between the pretest and posttest median scores of the SG and CG students was. There was a slight increase in the SG’s EL and TA median scores as it moved from pretest (MD=44.00; MD=15.00, respectively) to posttest (MD=45.50; MD=15.50) (z=-0.480, p>0.05; z=-0.457, p>0.05, respectively); while, there was a slight decrease between their QT median scores (from MD=26.00 to MD=24.50) (z=-1.595, p>0.05).

According to the values, there was no significant change between the CG’s El and QT median scores as they move from pretest to posttest. There was a slight increase in the CG’s EL median scores as it moved from pretest (MD=45.00) to posttest (MD=45.50) (z=-0.181, p>0.05); while, there was a slight decrease between their QT median scores (from MD=26.00 to MD=24.00) (z=-1.564, p>0.05). However, there was a substantial decrease in the CG’s TA median scores as it moved from pretest (MD=15.50) to posttest (MD=14.00) (z=-1.996, p<0.05).