THE IMPACT OF EXPERIMENT-BASED TEACHING ON LEARNING THE SUBJECT CHEMISTRY IN LOW SECONDARY EDUCATION

Abstract

Experiment-based teaching is a learning strategy by which students gain knowledge and skills through investigating, answering questions, collaborating, self-managing, and solving problems through communication, while the traditional method serves ready-made information to students that vanish very quickly. Therefore, in this paper, the topic of experiment-based teaching in chemistry and the role of incorporating experiments in students’ learning and development of their skills and abilities have been closely examined. This research implies an action research methodology, with a quasi-experimental design, and is conducted in Primary school ⹂Dardania” in Municipality of Pristina, from which students of two seventh grades participated. The pre and post-test method was used in the classroom where the lesson instructions were based on experiments, while in contrast, in another classroom with a group of students who served as a control group, the teaching was realized by applying the traditional teaching methods. Overall, the techniques and instruments of the research included the following: pre-test, observation of students during the learning process, checklist, and post-test. The research results showed that in the classroom where the learning is based on experiment-based teaching, the students are more motivated and active and show higher results in learning chemistry compared to students who have learned the same units based on traditional methods without integrating experiments. The practical value of this research relies on providing valuable results in encouraging teachers to use experiment-based teaching more often so that students can gain practical knowledge and skills to practice experimental work as the results indicated that students who learn in classes where teaching based on experiments is used, achieve higher results and show higher performance in the subject chemistry than those who have completed the lessons in classes where traditional methods are used without applying experiments.