Research Title: �The effectiveness of the blended learning strategy in science for the primary school students towards their academic success and motivation.

By, Prema Marimuthu

The Research Problem

• Electronic learning has expanded in popularity
• It is difficult for teachers who utilise the traditional face-to-face teaching and learning method to persuade their students to grasp science.
• are still apprehensive about incorporating blended learning into science education and are having trouble deciding on the best teaching approach.
• No study was carried out to check the effectiveness of BL in science education for the primary schools.

Objective

• It is important to investigate the usefulness or efficacy of blended learning in primary science education
• This study was conducted for the purpose to discover if incorporating blended learning into science education for grade-6 students would improve their academic performance and their motivation towards learning science.

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Research Questions

1. What is the difference in the pre-test mean scores between control and experimental groups for the grade-6 students in learning science?
2. What is the difference in the pre-test and post-test mean scores between control and experimental groups for the grade-6 students in Science?
3. What is the difference between post-test and retention-test mean scores for the grade-6 students in experimental group in learning science?
4. What are the opinions of the grade-6 students on blended learning applications in science education?

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Significance of the study

• The current research contributes to our knowledge of how blended learning affects student motivation in a primary school science classroom.
• Based on the findings of this study, teachers who teach science to primary students would be able to overcome the challenge of choosing the more relevant and effective teaching technique for science education.

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Limitation of the study

• Conducted in a home-school
• This study cannot be extended to students in other grades since this study do not explain the overall achievement of students in multiple grades.
• The blended learning strategy was only used for one topic due to the limited time.

Literature Review

Overview of the research study

• Malaysia's Ministry of Education, is still debating on how to implement a blended learning teaching paradigm in primary and secondary schools, since many stakeholders are confused with which learning model to apply
• D.Akgunduz (2017, p.69-90) claims that, the blended learning has many advantages such as providing flexibility and convenience in the learning environment; increase in the learning level and success

Technology and it’s impact on education sector

• According to Kintu M.J. (2017), most students had the heighest opinion of the blended learning model.
• According to Graham (2014), face-to-face learning is expected to drop owing to a variety of issues as technology and the internet have evolved, resulting in an increase in information accessibility on a daily basis.

Perceptions of online learning and teaching

• Pure online learning, according to Won Kim (2007), has its own set of restrictions that vary based on the sorts of online learning and how they are constructed.
• Veena.D (2012) states that, a few studies on participants’ satisfaction comparison between online learning with face-to-face learning has been reported that generally participants reported higher satisfaction with face-to-face courses.

Effectiveness of Blended learning as a pandemic pedagogy – Covid 19

• the learning environment to shift from largely offline to mostly online.
• E.g: India's Education Ministry has shifted to blended learning in order to have a good influence on education, such as encouraging teachers and students to be more technology-savvy and to maintaining learning progress throughout epidemic seasons.

Research Method

• Explanatory mixed pattern was used in the current investigation
• The quasi-experimental research technique with post-tests and pre-test for the experimental and control groups was employed to validate the usefulness of the blended learning model in science education.
• An Action Research Method was adopted for this study in the qualitative manner, to examine the students’ motivational level.

Samples

• This study was carried out with a total sample of 40 students from grade-6.
• Chosen based on their past examination percentages and constituted a homogeneous group.
• Students were separated into two groups: the experimental group and the control group, each with 20 students.
• The experimental group was given the blended learning approach, whereas the control group was given the traditional learning method.

Data Collection Techniques

1. Teaching tools and Observation
2. Achievement Test
3. Interview
4. Questionnaire

Teaching tools and Observation�

Control-group:

• teacher-students discussion, problem solving, group work and so on were employed, with the aid of the resources which is including the course book, student workbook, other material like posters, and laboratory supplies.
• The students' classroom interactions and their attitudes toward learning science, which were carefully observed and documented.
• At the end of each lesson, students were assigned homework from the course book and student workbook so that they would be well-prepared for the following class.

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Experimental-group:

• face-to-face learning activities were carried out in the same way as the control group
• Some web-based activities were carried out during the lesson in the classroom setting for internet-supported activities (online-learning), such as activities based on Nearpod and YouTube by working independently and in groups.
• A virtual classroom, such as Google Classroom and the Educeed education portal (web-application) was utilised in addition to the course book, student work book

Achievement Test�

• A pilot study was carried out with 15 students at another branch of this home-school which is consist with 45 Multiple Choice Questions.
• At the end of the pilot study only 36 questions was finalized out of the 45 questions.
• The pre-test was administered at the begining of the treatment to both experimental and control groups and the testing time was allocated for 45minutes.

• Then, the Blended Learning model was conducted on the experimental group and Traditional Learning model was conducted on control group for the 4 weeks.
• At the final day of the treatment, experimental and control groups participants were responded to the post-test.
• After one month from the treatment, a retention-test was conducted for both groups to determine the retention level of the participants

Interview

• A well-structured interview was used to obtain information from the experimental group's students.
• To know their experiences during the treatment period and opinion on BL technique in science has been influenced their motivation or not.
• The interviews were conducted with 4 students and one-on-one, with each session lasting between 30 and 40 minutes.

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Questionnaire

• A likert scale was prepared inorder to get to know the students attitude towards learning science in blended way and to examine their motivation level when the blended learning imply on science education –grade 6.
• Questionnaire was set at 20 minutes and applied on experimental group only.

Ethical Considerations

• All participants were assured that all information acquired from them would be kept confidential and utilised solely for the purposes of this study.
• The name of the participants and the school is not revealed in this study.

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Data Analysis- quantitative

• All the hypothesis were tested at the 0.95 confidence interval.
• The arithmetic means and the standard deviations, an independent sample t-test was used to measure the statistical differences in means between the experimental and control groups in the results of the pre-test, post-test and retention-test.

Data Analysis- qualitative

• Data were evaluated using the mannual coding technique followed by themetic analysis.
• The reason for employing both approaches is that some findings needed personal assessment of the information obtained from people, while some conclusions needs statistical and mathematical approaches such as percentages, mean and tabulation.

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