Measuring effect of interactive learning application on student engagement of secondary school students

Abstract

In this study, we investigate outcome of incorporating an interactive learning application into a curricular education and then access its effectiveness on student engagement. The main goal of this study is to investigate if there is a significant difference in student engagement when interactive learning applications were used in their classroom. Traditional classroom environment fails to incorporate multidimensional engagement among students. In traditional school system setup, students listen to the lectures in classroom, take notes and seldom ask questions or make comments. Very often they are given a chance to perform physics experiments on their own. This process leads to little active learning on students. Students are less engaged in this environment and lose their motivation to learn. As they think that physics is all about only memorization and not related to real life. As a result of traditional class room setting students are not motivated to attend school and learn. Teachers also find it hard to cater to learning needs of each and every student. Teachers also have the load of class administrative issues, which makes it extremely difficult for the teacher to attend to every student in the class and make sure that every student has understood the concept being taught. A learning application with right use of pedagogy and interactive elements was first tested on users with diverse background and then deployed in a model school located in Islamabad, Pakistan. The learning application was developed on constructivist learning theory. Following that learner will construct their knowledge based on their own experience. Two groups of 60 students were selected for the purpose of the study. The same topic of “work and energy” has been taught to both the groups while a group of 60 students had their lecture in technology supported class having interactive physics learning application for 3 weeks, the other group of 60 students had their lectures in traditional way. This research has been conducted in a private school in Islamabad, Pakistan. The main resources of this research are the data collected through surveys, walkthrough checklist, and student achievement test and focused group discussion. The survey and walkthrough checklist is a result of the literature and suggestions of the experts on the topic. Data collected was coded in to the SPSS software and statistical vii analyses were conducted. In order to test the significant difference between the mean scores of both the groups’ independent t-test was utilized. The significance level chosen was 0.05. As the result of those analysis significant difference was found in the student engagement, their interest and participation in class and achievement of both the control and experimental group. In the view of literature review and the statistical analysis it was found that lectures supported by interactive learning application in physics subject not only increase student’s understanding of those particular topics but make learning fun and enjoyable.