Development of a hands-on model embedded with guided inquiry laboratory to enhance students’ understanding of law of mechanical energy conservation

The statistical analysis revealed that the developed learning laboratory based on guided inquiry approach along with a hands-on model has enhanced the conceptual understanding of the law of mechanical energy conservation. On doing a pair sample t-test, the means of the pretest (M=13.43, SD=3.766) and posttest (M=21.67, SD=2.893) were significantly different by 10.73 with the p-value less than the alpha level (α=.05). This indicated that the treatment due to a guided inquiry laboratory has enhanced the conceptual understanding of the participants. The teaching of science using the inquiry-based method is widely regarded as an effective method (National Research Council, 2000; Duran et al., 2004). In an inquiry-based approach teachers and students collaborate in the pursuit of ideas but it is the student who works to investigate the hypothesis, collect data, generate knowledge and justify their findings for the generalizability while the teacher guides and encourage them in all stages (National Research Council, 1996). The students carry out the task and solve them giving a great deal of experience in learning and problem-solving. Even in the case of this study, students were contented with the developed laboratory that gave them the firsthand experience in problem-solving. This is clearly understood from the analysis of the LAQMEC that more than 60 percent of the students possessed sound understanding in all the items. This further supported that the conceptual understanding of the participants was enhanced using a guided inquiry laboratory approach.

Similarly, the individual mean and standard deviation of each item in LAQMEC revealed that the students have positive attitudes towards the developed guided inquiry-based laboratory. The average mean score for all the six constructs ranged from 4.59 to as high as 4.98 indicating the positive attitude towards the developed learning laboratory. The highest average mean score was towards the construct of the hands-on model. The lowest mean of the items in the construct of the hands-on model was 4.97 while the highest was 5.0 showing a strong positive attitude towards the developed hands-on model, which formed the main component of the guided inquiry laboratory. This can be attributed to the fact that hands-on model provides learners to directly involve and learn by doing. By doing the hands-on activity, the learners become active doers (Flick, 1993; Haury & Rillero, 1994) which can consequently enhance their own learning and retrieval for a longer period of time. The findings of this study were in consistent with Ateş and Eryilmaz (2011) where it observed that the understanding of the students was enhanced and have developed positive attitudes toward learning science due to hands-on activities. Science by doing aims to work on the principle that doing leads to understanding and excitement (Tytler, 2007) as hands-on science particularly uses physical materials to give students firsthand experience in scientific methodologies (Triona & Klahr, 2007). The guided inquiry approach, on the other hand, encouraged the students to carry out the investigations that were challenging because when complex matters were encountered, the teachers always facilitated and guided them in acquiring and interpreting information (National Research Council, 1996). This approach allows the students to manifest the characteristics of scientists in focusing challenge for gathering new idea, experience the process of knowing and the justify the knowledge (Abdi, 2014).