Comparative effect of teaching approaches on selected science concepts in integrated science

Abstract

Studies have shown that students in science courses often have difficulty gaining a robust understanding of physical concepts such as linear momentum and direct current. Almost the same issues have been reported on teacher trainees of Colleges of Education in Ghana, i.e., most teacher trainees of colleges of education in Ghana face performance problems in some science concepts such as direct current, and linear momentum in integrated science. In order to address theses difficulties in teacher trainess, the study went through two phases, i.e., need analysis and intervention phases. With the need analysis, where 100 teacher trainees and 5 integrated science tutors were used, the study showed most teacher trainees faced challenges in direct current and linear momentum concepts. Again, most integrated science tutors employ combination of traditional and computer aided instructional approaches and that integrated science tutors face challenges with usage of computer aided combination of traditional and computer aided instruction approaches. With the intervention phase, where 20 teacher trainees were used in each Colleges of Education through two group non-equivalent quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. The findings were that any of the three approaches, i.e., traditional, computer aided instruction 1 and computer aided instruction 2, could be used in teaching teacher trainees’ concept of momentum, applications of (momentum, change in momentum, conservation of momentum, collision, current, voltage, resistance in series, current in parallel circuit connection, and resistance in parallel circuit connection).