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

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of summarizing instruction, on pre-service teachers’ conceptual learning in electricity and magnetism, and learning satisfaction towards an introductory physics course. In the light of the analysis results, it may be deduced that summarizing strategies instruction impacted students’ conceptual learning positively. However, it has been determined that summarizing strategies instruction has no impact on students’ learning satisfaction.

The first result of the study is consistent with the findings of strategy instruction research in physics education literature (Gaigher et al., 2007; Harper et al., 2003; Leonard et al., 1996; Numan & Sobolewski, 1998; Zieneddine & Abd-El-Khalick, 2001). During this research, it could clearly be seen that the instruction applied in the strategy group was far more effective than that applied in the control group. This was evident in class observations where it was observed that students in the summarizing group reviewed the learning materials; actively participated in the summarizing process; and always read the texts very carefully identifying the main points, terms and concept; drew figures and wrote the important formulas. During the summarizing process, students are required to use their prior knowledge and find their shortcomings in learning.

In the research, it was determined that there were significant differences in the progress of both groups from pretest to posttest. Although it was expected that students in the control group would make some progress, in this context, this result can be interpreted as a result of the students willingness to study in order to pass the course or to get higher scores. During the research, it was observed that the students in the control group also actively participated in the traditional lectures by taking notes and asking questions.

In the study, it was observed that teaching a summarizing strategy did not create an important difference between both groups’ learning satisfaction towards physics courses. Likewise, Sue (2005), in her research, did not observe any significant difference between the learning satisfaction of the students in online statistics classes and the ones in face-to-face statistics classes. In the same way, Ryan (2000) also claimed that there was no significant difference between the quality perception by the students attending online classes and the ones attending traditional classes.

However, unlike there afore mentioned studies, in the literature, almost all of the studies that have applied either a teaching method or a teaching strategy such as cooperative learning, PBL or web-based learning (Khaki et al., 2007; Sezgin Selçuk & Çaliskan, 2010a) or that investigated the influence of teaching learning strategies on students’ learning satisfaction (Brown, 2009; Kaenin, 2004), inferred that teaching students learning strategies definitely has a positive effect on their learning satisfaction.

In the study, at all levels in the SG, there was no significant difference between the students’ level of learning satisfaction from the pretest to the posttest. Yet, it has been observed that there was a dramatic decline at TA level in the CG starting from the pretest up to the posttest. The decline regarding the students’ satisfaction with the teaching activities might have resulted from the fact that the students in the control group were taught with traditional methods and also that no extra activities were conducted other than problem solving. In this context, in other words, the reason for the regression in satisfaction towards TA in the control group can be attributed to the style of instruction which did not include instructional tasks where the students felt satisfied in terms of teaching activities (e.g. summarizing or strategic problem solving).