Last modified: 2018-07-07
Abstract
Learning motivation is the main principal of students to achieve 21st-century skills such as self-learning direction and creativity [1]–[3]. The challenges of achieving 21st-century skills are not supported by the students' motivation. The preliminary study that has conducted in an undergraduate program of primary school teacher education in STKIP PGRI Tulungagung, showed that the students' motivation is still very low. This fact is supported by PISA findings [4], TIMMS 2015 [5], and UNESCO [6] that indicating low student’ motivation. The low student’ motivation also indicated from those who are not motivated in the educational environment in school [7]–[9]. Based on the description above, the researcher develops a natural sains learning materials that are able to fulfill the criteria of validity, practicality, and effectiveness. Generally, the purpose of this research is to describe the effectiveness of ARICESA-based learning material to improve students’ motivation on the basic concept of natural science.
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The research subjects of the implementation of ARICESA-based learning material on basic science concepts (Force and Motion, Temperature, Heat, Energy and Changes, Light, and Sound) are 34 students who are 2nd graders of the undergraduate program of primary school teacher education, STKIP PGRI Tulungagung. The development of learning material are adapted from Plomp design [10]. The developed learning material in this research consists of the lesson plan, student worksheet, and learning book. The stages in research and development method include preliminary research, prototyping stage, and assessment phase. However, this research is limited to the stage of prototyping stage. The learning material that is implemented in this research has passed the validity test stage with “very valid†category.
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This research was conducted in 6 weeks by employing a pre-experimental research, that is one group pre-test and post-test design [11]. The experimental design was used to investigate the effectiveness of ARICESA-based learning material. The data to seek for the effectiveness was obtained through students’ motivation questionnaire that consists of 5 aspects (choice of tasks, effort, persistence, self-confidence, and achievement). Then, the data that were obtained were analyzed descriptive and inferential statistics. The scores of students’ motivation are categorized based on the following criteria: very less, less, good, and very good. The differences in students’ motivation scores before and after the treatment were analyzed using N-gain. The significant of motivation improvement were analyzed using dependent t-test.
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The results of this research showed that the students’ motivation are significantly different after implementation of ARICESA-based learning material. The ARICESA-based learning material is effective to improve the students’ motivation on basic science concepts learning by getting N-gain score with medium category. This improvement caused by the developed learning material such as lesson plan, student worksheet, and learning book were categorized as very valid. In addition, each of the learning phases in lesson plan has been well implemented. Table 1 shows the improvement of the final motivation (post-test) from the initial motivation (pre-test) based on the N-gain calculation results.
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Table 1. Motivation Scores and N-gain Each Aspect of Learning Motivation.
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Aspects of Motivation
Initial Motivation
Final motivation
N-gain
Score
Criteria
Score
Criteria
<g>
Category
Choice of Tasks
1.92
Very Less
3.95
Good
0.66
Medium
Effort
1.86
Very Less
3.94
Good
0.66
Medium
Persistence
1.89
Very Less
3.88
Good
0.64
Medium
Self-Confidence
1.97
Very Less
3.96
Good
0.66
Medium
Achievement
1.89
Very Less
3.83
Good
0.62
Medium
Mean
1.91
Very Less
3.91
Good
0.65
Medium
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Based on Table 1 it can be explained that the implementation of the ARICESA-based learning material can improve the mean scores of student's motivation in all aspects. The pre-test and post-test results show that the application of ARICESA learning tools can improve to a higher level of motivation in each aspect. The mean scores of student's motivation before joining learning process with ARICESA-based learning material (initial motivation) is still in “very less†criteria in each aspect of motivation. The mean scores of student's motivation after following the learning (final motivation) increase in “good†criteria. The increase was shown quantitatively with a normalized gain (N-gain) mean of 0.65 in the medium criteria. The dependent t-test results showed p-value (significance) of 0.000 (<0.05). This means that there is a significant difference between initial and final students’ motivation in an undergraduate program of primary school teacher education for basic science concept learning.
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Therefore, it can be concluded that the ARICESA-based learning material are effective to improve students’ motivation on basic science concepts in undergraduate program of primary school teacher education.