A study of effect of multimodal instructional approaches on students’ performance in integrated science

Abstract

The study took place in Winneba Senior High School. The study involved a whole class of first year Home Economics One students in Winneba Senior High School, Winneba, selected through purposive and convenience sampling technique, totalling forty (40) students (thirty-nine female and one male). Test, questionnaire and interview were the main instrument used to collect data for the study. The researcher developed Multimodal Instructional Approaches to teach some selected topics in integrated science for five weeks. The topics were relative atomic mass and relative molecular mass, mole as a unit, measurements of concentrations and preparation of standard solution dilution and dilution factor. The students wrote a series of five pre-intervention tests on the selected topics before each lesson after which the students were taught using the Multimodal Instructional Approaches. The approaches involve teaching using the video mode, aural mode, read or write mode and finally kinesthetic mode. The students then wrote a similar test but different in content as a post intervention-test. Statistical Product and Social Science (SPSS), version 20.0, for windows and Richard Hake normalized gain were used to analyze the data. The findings from the average normalized gain of the post intervention and pre intervention test scores showed a gain of 0.77, indicating effectiveness of the multimodal instructional approaches on the students’ performance. Furthermore, a greater percentage of students had a positive perception about multimodal instructional approaches to teaching and learning. The study recommends the use of multimodal instructional approach in teaching Integrated Science lessons at Winneba Senior High School. This could help the students have better understanding of scientific concepts