The Effects of Hands-on and Minds-on Activities among Grade 7 Students Academic Performance and Motivation to Learn Towards Biology

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

The Grade 7 students having difficulty in their biology topics which is one of the major concern of the researcher in conducting this study. The identified least mastered skills based on students' achievement the previous year, which guided the researcher to develop lessons and activities in biology following the k to 12 Curriculum Guide of Grade 7 Science using hands-on and minds-on activities. The study focused on the effects of Hands-on and Minds-on Activities among Grade 7 Students Academic Performance and Motivation to Learn Towards Biology. This study was conducted at Silway -8 National High School, Polomolok, Division of South Cotabato during the second quarter of the school year 2016-2017.

METHODS

A quasi-experimental non-equivalence static group comparison pretest-posttest design was used in the study, where two (2) intact classes participated in the study. One class was randomly assigned to the control group instructed by a conventional method using the k to 12 curriculum guide and the other class was randomly assigned to an experimental group instructed using Hands-on and Minds-on Activities.Inthe process, a researcher made a test and the lessons were validated by the experts and the adopted Students' Motivation towards Biology Learning Questionnaire (SMTBL)by ndressa et al. (2015) was also used in this study. Researcher-made test in Biology with the reliability of 0.796 was administered as pretest and posttest for both groups to assess the academic performance. The data were treated with mean, standard deviation and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) at the 0.05 level of significance.

RESULTS

The Results revealed that the academic performance of the Grade 7 students in Biology taught with the hands-on and minds-on activities is higher compared with those who are taught with the conventional.

METHODS

There is a significant difference in the academic performance between the experimental group and the control group in favor of the experimental group. The students taught in Biology with hands-on and minds -on activities show a high level of motivation towards biology. This study has shown the instructional strategy that can be used to facilitate learners to be physically and mentally active in the learning process.

DISCUSSIONS

The results demonstrate that the use of hands-on and minds-on activities as evident for experiential learning enhances the academic performance and motivation to learn biology among the grade 7 students.