Improving the Eighth Graders’ Motivation Toward Science Learning Through Inquiry-Based Teaching

Abstract

This study aimed to improve the eighth graders' motivation toward science learning through inquiry-based teaching and provide various evidences through cross-comparisons regarding the students' classroom environment perceptions. The quasi-experiment design was adopted for this study with the subjects being the eighth graders from four classes of a junior high school in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. Two of the classes were assigned to the experiment group (74 students) and the other two were the control group (75 students). The inquiry-based teaching was applied to the experiment group while the traditional textbook teaching with cookbook experiments was applied to the control group. The teaching duration was the first semester for the eighth graders with a total of six learning units being taught in this period of time. The multi-variate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was applied with the dependent variables being motivation toward science learning and classroom environment perception and alpha being set to 0.05. It was found that the students in the experiment group were more likely to perceive the supportive inquiry-learning environment. And two of their intrinsic motivations-science learning value and learning environment stimulation, were stronger than the students in the control group. However, the extrinsic motivation-performance goal, of the students in the control group was stronger.