EFFECT OF BRAIN-BASED LEARNING ON STUDENTS’ MATHEMATICS PERFORMANCE AT ELEMENTARY LEVEL

Abstract

Brain-Based Learning (BBL) is an instructional approach that addresses students’ achievement and learning goals from the perspective of the human brain. It entails specialised learning procedures centred on how human memory, attention, motivation, and conceptual cognitive learning work. The current experimental study was designed to investigate the effect of BBL approach on elementary students’ academic performance in mathematics. The study employed a single subject A-B-A research design. The participants under investigation were eighth graders of a public school selected using an intact group. During the treatment phase (B), the principal researcher taught students the concepts related to financial arithmetic, polynomials and factorisation focusing activities; visual storytelling, back-to-board, role play, i-Think maps brainstorming and visual imagery. These activities were based on 12 BBL principles. During the course of the study, the researchers collected data nine times using one-tier MCQs based tests. The data were analysed using visual analysis and one-way repeated measure ANOVA. Partial eta value (.317) revealed that BBL significantly affects students’ academic performance. To improve students’ mathematics performance, the researchers recommended practitioners to teach elementary level mathematics using BBL principles-based activities. Keywords: Academic performance, brain-based learning, one-tier MCQs, visual analysis, visual storytelling.