Designing a Better Scaffold of Learning in Teaching Economic Principles through Graphical Simulations

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Currently, there is a general consensus that inquiry-based approaches in learning incorporate students' active investigation and experimentation are necessary to motivate students. Instructional scaffolds are to support students in accomplishing new tasks they could not achieve on their own. The main purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of a designed scaffold of learning to the performance of students.

METHODS

This action research utilized an experimental design. Two groups were taught the same lessons in economics which was divided into two parts the conceptual part for the lesson discussing the economic concepts and the procedural part for the lesson discussing the economic computations. The control group was taught using the single teaching with modular activity approach while the experimental group was taught using the designed scaffold of learning through graphical simulations.

RESULTS

The predictor "objectives" had a verbal interpretation of Significant which implies that the designed scaffold of learning meets the goals of the lesson. The "usefulness" indicator registered an interpretation of Significant evidently the designed scaffold of learning can be applied to the varying attitude and abilities of the students. While the indicator of clarity and organization registered a partial significant effect on the performance of both groups. A cursory analysis of findings tends to point out that level of effectiveness of designed scaffold of learning had a partially significant effect to the level of performance of students in knowledge-based test in terms of procedural and conceptual knowledge of both groups. The recent study revealed that whatever method has been used to the students they will still perform averagely in the assessment.

DISCUSSIONS

The six (6) teacher respondents of this study revealed that all four (4) indicators of the designed scaffold of learning were indeed effective. A higher number of students from the experimental group perform better than the students in the control group in terms of the conceptual test while the control group performs better than the experimental group in terms of procedural items. As revealed by 1.8775 computed t-a value which fell on the rejected region signifies that there is no significant difference between the performances of two groups in the knowledge-based test. Through the use of simple regression analysis the designed scaffold of learning had a partial significant effect in the performance of two groups in the knowledge-based test.