The Amazing Mole: Invisible Yet Incredible! -An Effective Teaching-Learning Tool in Increasing the Mastery Level in Science of Grade 9 Students in Camarines Norte National High School

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Teachers were confronted by the dilemma of low mastery level of students that lead to their overall poor performance in class. This problem gave rise to the conceptualization of this Strategic Intervention Material to help students develop mastery level and improve their academic performance in Science. The SIM provided the students with unique and easy tool to learn the desired KSAs on in the "Determination of percentage composition of a compound given their chemical formula" , which they were not able to master during regular classroom teaching.

METHODS

This work utilized the descriptive qualitative-quantitative approaches. Identified Grade 9 students with failing grades in the second periodical examination, SY 2016-2017 were purposely selected as participants. The principal sources of data were the results of the survey questionnaires and results of pretest and post-test administered but the SIM served as the key instrument to address the problems in this study.

RESULTS

A pattern of preference was observed among the participants as to the effectiveness of the SIM. The material was rated with a 3.84 weighted mean which indicated that the concepts presented were clearly understood. The pretest and post-test MPLs showed that the mastery level of the respondents increased from 21.22 to 36.48. Further, the t-test showed a significant difference in the mean scores as evident by the higher calculated z-value of 21.583 over the tabulated p-value of 0.5286.

DISCUSSIONS

The findings of this study implied that the SIM truly helped students in increasing the mastery level thus improving their academic performance in Science. These findings conformed to the study conducted by other authors. This study recommends that teachers must use SIM as teaching innovation to provide students with a better tool in understanding the concepts being taught. Teachers were encouraged to conduct more related studies to further validate its effectiveness. Further, this study recommends that Department of Education officials and school administrators should provide assistance and support to the teachers in the preparation of well-crafted SIMs through conduct of seminar-workshops and the likes.