A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. Johannesburg, February 2013. / This case study supports the National Department of Education’s (DoE) strategy of integrating information and communication technologies (ICTs) into the curriculum delivery in all South African schools to enhance teaching and learning.
It examined the influence of a Mindset’s multimedia digital versatile disk (DVD) instruction of chemical systems core knowledge area, a section in the grade 11 Physical Science curriculum. The main emphasis was directed at examining the influence that the DVD material would have on learners’ understanding of scientific processes and concepts in that particular section. Secondary to this objective, it looked at the attitudes and perceptions of learners and their teacher towards the classroom integration of the DVD material, also taking note of the challenges and benefits attributed to the integration itself.
This study was based on the distributive cognition framework which has its roots in the socio-cultural and situated learning theories. The framework suggests that the learning process of the scientific concepts by learners is situated in a social learning environment, where learning is mediated by technological tools and artifacts (Valanides & Angeli, 2008). Under this cognitive theory the learner is positioned at the centre of the learning environment that is formulated by other people (i.e. other learners, the teacher and the community), the learning material (i.e. the content) and learning resources (i.e. physical and technological tools).Learning therefore is regarded as a social process where other people and the learning resources actively interact (Hollan, Hutchkins & Kirsh, 2000). Through the DVD’s visuals and explanations, the artificial mining environment was brought into the classroom enabling learners to be exposed to the scientific processes involved in the mining industry as a social real world activity which learners could associate with. That on its own could enhance the comprehension of content. A quasi experimental design was adopted with two grade 11 Physical Science classes from the same school, one used as an experimental group and the other one as a control group. The study sample consisted of 56 learners, 24 in the control group and 32 in the experimental group. Both classes were taught the same content by the same teacher without using the DVD lessons for a period of three weeks. Thereafter, the experimental group was exposed to the multimedia-supported lessons for three more weeks (i.e. the teacher used the DVD lessons to supplement his traditional teaching methods) while during the same period the control group was taught the same content for the same duration using the traditional teaching methods only. The pre-test and post-test measures were administered on both groups using the same instruments in order to check if the difference in the teaching approach had a positive impact or not. In addition, the data was collected in the form of questionnaires and interviews for attitudes and perceptions about using the DVD material for teaching and learning. The null hypothesis tested was: “the mean result of the experimental group would be the same or lower than that of the control group”. The t-test results showed that there was no statistical difference between the performances of the two groups hence upholding the null hypothesis. Descriptively, the results showed that learners regarded a multimedia-supported learning environment as an exciting one. They mentioned that it posed more benefits than challenges. The teacher also displayed positive attitude and perceptions about using the DVD material for teaching and learning as he indicated that it is a useful teaching tool.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/13025 |
| Date | 08 August 2013 |
| Creators | Mngenela, Portia |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
Page generated in 0.0029 seconds