Journals Proceedings

Abstract

This aim of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of lab activities on the performance of elementary school students in learning science concepts. The study was conducted on 50 students of grade 6th studying general science comprising two groups of 25 students each i.e. control group and experimental group. The students were from poor socio-economic background and had no chance of taking part in experimental work before. Control group was instructed through traditional lecture-based teaching method while experimental group got a chance of performing lab activities. The posttest-only control group research design was opted for the collection of data. Students t-test was performed for data analysis. The results showed that there was significant difference in the academic achievement of students of both groups. The students of experimental group had a great understanding of the concept and performed well in this domain as specified by t-value of 5.06 at df=48 which is statistically significant. But the students of control group outperform the experimental group in content learning exam with t-value 2.26 at df=48 which is also statistically significant. It can be concluded from the results that activity-based teaching methods are effective in building students understanding of the general science concepts. Results also revealed that traditional teaching approaches are also beneficial in terms of memorizing and writing content. As our examination system requires the students to perform both in concept based and rote-memorization demanding questions. So, it is necessary to incorporate the activity-based teaching strategies with the traditional teaching methods as both have their own significance in respective examination.