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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 21, Issue 1, Article 2 (Dec., 2021) |
Pretest-posttest scores descriptive analysis of critical thinking skills
The descriptive analysis of the pretest-posttest results for the critical thinking skills is presented in the following Figure 2.
Figure 2. Mean pretest-posttest scores for the critical thinking skills indicators including recognizing (C4), evaluating (C5), and creating (C6) for LP 4, LP 5, and LP 6.
Figure 2 shows the descriptive analysis results of critical thinking skills before and after the treatment was provided. This was considered important to determine the effect of the AFL on the critical thinking skills, hence it is believed effective when the posttest results are better than the pretest results and vice versa.
The intervention was conducted through online learning with the AFL model consisting of three topics which were LP 4, LP 5, and LP 6. The subtopic for LP 4 was temperature and changes in the state of matter, LP 5 was heat propagation with conduction and convection, and LP 6 was radiation heat propagation. The students were accompanied by a family member that acted as the observer during the learning process. It is important to note that the observer was familiarized with the tasks to be conducted by the teacher before the online learning process which involved providing online information related to the student learning activities during and after the process.
Students were provided with an experimental video which included two beakers, each with different masses of ice cubes in learning with LP 4 material which includes temperature and changes in the state of matter. Each of the beakers was also provided 50 ml of water and the initial temperature was recorded, and the changes in the temperature it was heated by a spirit burner were recorded every two minutes. The observational data and questions provided to the students are indicated in the following table.
Figure 3. Observational data and questions concerning LP 4 which was focused on temperature and changes in the state of matter.
The answers provided by the students to answer the questions are presented in the following Figure 4.
Figure 4. Students' answers to LP 4 questions.
The learning activities associated with LP 5 which is heat propagation by conduction and convection included the provision of experimental video on iron, aluminum, and wood rods which have almost the same size followed by glued butter with the same size and tacks on the ends of iron, aluminum, and wood. The rods were placed in a beaker and the beaker was with a spirit burner. The time/sequence the tacks were falling were observed, and the students were provided the following observational data and questions as indicated in Figure 5.
Figure 5. Observational data and questions on LP 5 learning which was focused on heat propagation by conduction and convection
The answers provided to the questions by the students are presented in the following Figure 6.
Figure 6. Students' answers to LP 5 questions.
The learning activities associated with LP 6 which was focused on radiation heat propagation include an experimental video on three thermometers wrapped in thick plastics having the same type but different colors including black, red, and white. The end of the thermometer reservoir was placed on the spirit burner at the same distance, and the temperature of the three thermometers was recorded every 3 minutes. The observational data and questions provided to the students are presented in the following Figure 7.
Figure 7. Observational data and questions on LP 6 which was focused on radiation heat propagation.
The answers provided to the questions by the students are presented in the following Figure 8.
Figure 8. Students' answers to LP 6.
The observation from LP 4 showed that the students have started understanding Toulmin's argumentation in relation to data, evidence, support, qualifications, refutation, and acknowledgment. This was associated with the previous preparation of Toulmin's arguments by the students in LP 1 which was focused on expansion in solids, LP 2 on expansion in liquids, and LP 3 on heat and temperature changes. These topics were used to determine the practicality of learning AFL but the students were observed to be confused between data and evidence, and the teacher tried to explain the differences by paying special attention to the compilation process of each of these concepts.
The observation from the LP 5 showed most of the students were able to distinguish between data and evidence, and they attempted to compile them without the assistance of the teachers. Moreover, the observation from LP 6 also indicated all the students were able to compile data and evidence from Toulmin's argument without any significant confusion. It is important to note that the teacher functioned as the companion and mentor.
The posttest was conducted after the completion of the learning process and its results were discovered to be higher than the pretest. This means the students' critical thinking skills were lower before treatment compared to after the treatment.
The ANOVA on students' critical thinking skills
ANOVA was used to determine the difference between the pretest and posttest critical thinking skills. It is important to note that prerequisite tests such as normality which was determined using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and homogeneity through Levene test were conducted before the ANOVA, and the results showed the pretest and posttest scores of critical thinking skills were normally distributed and homogeneous. This led to the conduct of further tests in the form of ANOVA, and the results are also presented in the following Table 3.
Table 3. The result of the ANOVA test on students' critical thinking skills.
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Between Groups
49.749
5
9.950
19,116
.000
Within Groups
45.283
87
.520
Total
95.032
92
The ANOVA results showed the F-calculated was 19.116 with a significance of 0.000 which is lesser than 0.05 (p<0.05). Therefore, H0 was rejected, and the research hypothesis which states that the model of AFL is effective to improve students' critical thinking skills was accepted. This indicates the AFL model can be used to improve the critical thinking skills of the students as indicated by the differences in the results between the pretest and posttest. The significance of the effectiveness of the model was later determined by testing the effect size.
The n-gain analysis results of pretest-posttest scores of critical thinking skills
The pretest-posttest scores were used to determine the level of improvement in the critical thinking skills of the students after the treatment, and the results obtained using the n-gain analysis are presented in the following Figure 3.
Figure 9. N-gain critical thinking skills test according to indicators on LP 4, LP 5, and LP 6.
Figure 9 shows the n-gain for analyzing (C4) in LP 4, LP 5, and LP 6 is greater or equal to .7, and this means it is in the high category. A similar trend was observed for evaluating (C5) while creating (C6) was found to be in the medium category.
Analysis Result of Effect Size test
The effect size from the ANOVA was calculated manually using a calculator through the following equation:
Eta Squared = sum of squared between groups/sum of the squared total.
The Eta Squared was found to be 0.52 and this means the use of the AFL model was able to increase the students' critical thinking skills by an effectiveness level of 0.52.
