Research on Learning Effectiveness of Learner-Oriented Teaching Strategies Used on the Subject of “Interior Wiring Practice”

Abstract

Interior wiring work is a practical skill as well as a part of power system configuration planning which apply to housing, factory, business building and even theme park…etc. besides that it is also a certain pre-service training for electrical technicians. However, it is not easy to learn practical skill at school because the traditional learning environment is based on teacher-centered, mostly teachers do not focus on students’ individual learning difference and specific proficiency level who provide theory explanation in either implicit or explicit ways but less practice demonstration in lectures. In this situation, students do not have enough input to acquire background knowledge and experience of specific professional to do practices hence they may have gaps between theory and practice. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of two types of instruction on the vocational high school students’ learning performance of interior wiring work. Specifically, it was designed to test whether leaner-centered instruction and traditional instruction had any effects on these students’ learning performance. The participants were 36 students in one class from electrical engineering major who was randomly and equally assigned to the two instructional groups. Both of these two groups received six hours per week for nine weeks (54hours) and a pretest was administered to the participants to measure their professional competence and trouble-shooting ability of interior wiring work. After the instruction completed, a practice of interior wiring work was given to evaluate students’ overall performance and trouble-shooting ability as the posttest. The results indicated that leaner-centered instruction have a greater effect on students’ overall performance (M=79.33) and trouble-shooting ability (M=72.89) of interior wiring work. These findings suggest that learner-centered instruction is helpful for vocational high school electrical engineering major students in interior wiring work both practice and trouble-shooting performance and they have positive correlation.