Comparison of the effects of model - based and computer - based instruction on 9th grade studennts' spatial abilities and conceptual understanding of ionic lattice

Abstract

This study was designed for two main purposes. The first one is to develop and carry out two different instructional activities which were computer based modeling and physical modeling for two different treatment groups by switching the treatment order. The second one is to improve the spatial ability and conceptual understanding of ionic lattice structure of students during the 9th grade chemistry lesson. This study was performed using crossover research design where the same group of students with the same teacher received a sequence of different treatments. In order to analyze the effect of computer based modeling with ChemSense and physical modeling with play doughs on the spatial ability and the conceptual understanding of ionic lattice structure, the quantitative data was collected from conveniently selected 43 ninth grade students. Five different instruments were administered to collect the data which were the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Rotations, Conceptual Tests, Drawing from Text Tests, Writing from Picture Tests and ChemSense &Physical Models. Three different inferential statistical methods were used for the analysis of data which were paired samples t-test, independent samples t-test and chi square. The results of the analysis indicated that mixing the two modeling tools improved statistically significant the spatial ability and the conceptual understanding of the ionic lattice form pretest to the posttest-2. The results of the study also indicated that regardless of the treatment order, the spatial ability and the conceptual understanding of the both treatment groups promoted statistically significant.