Effect of Dialectical Constructivism on Second-Year Home Science Students’ Performance and Attitude towards Biochemistry at Mukuba University

Chibuye Bitwell, Mabo Josephine

Attitude, Dialectical constructivism, Performance.

The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of Dialectical Constructivist learning approach on the attitude and performance of second-year Nutritional Sciences students in Introduction to Biochemistry course. The sample size of the study was 75 students, 38 were in the control group, and 37 were in the experimental group. The research subjects were purposively sampled but randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. Two research instruments were used for data collection. The first was Attitude towards Biochemistry Questionnaire and the second was a Biochemistry Performance Test. The design of the study was pre-test post-test control group quasi experimental design. The students in the experimental group were taught Biochemistry course using Dialectical constructivist learning approach, whereas students in the control group were taught using the conventional approach. To assess attitude of the students towards Biochemistry, a Biochemistry Attitude Questionnaire was used. There was enhancement of attitude towards Biochemistry in the experimental group than in the control group owing to a significant change of attitude Mean. Therefore, using Dialectical constructivism in teaching Biochemistry was found to have a positive effect on enhancing Nutritional Science students’ attitude towards Biochemistry. Further, to assess the achievement of students towards Biochemistry, a Biochemistry achievement test was used. An independent samples t-test at an alpha (α) = .05 was conducted to analyze the results of the pre-test and post-test scores. There was a significant difference in the scores for experimental (M=58.9189, SD=15.01551) and control (M=43.4474, SD=13.92392) groups; t (73) =4.629, p = 0.000 The magnitude of the differences in the means was large (eta squared =.227). Therefore, using Dialectical Constructivism in teaching Introduction to Biochemistry course was found to have a positive effect on enhancing students’ performance in the course.

https://doi.org/10.31871/WJRR.14.2.9