COMPARISON OF LEARNING CYCLE AND TRADITiONAL TEACHING APPROACHES ON STUDENTS' UNDERSTANDING OF SELECTED CONCEPTS IN ELECTRICITY

ABSTRACT

This study was purported to compare the learning cycle approach which is

based on the constructivist theory to the traditional approach on senior secondary

school students' understanding of selected concepts in direct current electricity.

Two intact science classes from two of the six senior secondary schools

offering physics as elective in the New Juaben Municipality were randomly

sampled using the computer generated random numbers to participate in the

study. In all 101 students participated in the study. The experimental group

consisted of 59 students and the control group had 42 students.

The main instruments used for data collection were Current Electricity

Concept Achievement Test (CECAT) which comprised 30 itcrns and students'

learning cycle activity sheets. The t-test for independent and dependent samples,

regression, percentages and thematic content analysis were used to analyze data.

The results of the study showed that the experimental group which was

instructed using the learning cycle approach performed better on the posHest

compared to the control group who were instructed using the traditional approach.

The results also revealed that the learning cycle approach was more effective in

teaching most of the interrelated concepts and a number of different aspects of the

selected concepts in direct current eleciricity than the traditional approach. It also

revealed that the learning cycle activities were effective in identifying students'

preconceptions about concepts in direct current electricity.

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As a result of these findings, it was suggested that in teaching concepts in

direct current electricity, the learning cycle approach should be adopted.