The impact of PjBL integrated STEAM on students’ communication skills and concept mastery in high school biology learning

Abstract

Communication skills are one of the 21st century skills that are important for students as their career and future development needs. Communication skills can be taught in learning that is not only oriented to the development of cognitive skills (minds on) but rather hands on. Based on the results of the preliminary test conducted at SMA Negeri 8 Malang, the average percentage of students’ communication skills is above the minimum completeness criteria of 44.83% and the mastery of concepts in ecosystem and environmental changes material is 48.28%. This shows that communication skills and mastery of students’ concepts are still below the minimum completeness criteria. This study aims to examine the effect of biology learning based on PjBL integrated STEAM on communication skills and mastery of students’ biology concepts based on PjBL integrated STEAM. The study was conducted in February to May 2020. The implementation phase uses quasi experiment with nonrandomized control group pretest - posttest design. Data analysis were analyzed using one way analysis of covariance (Ancova). The results of this study indicate that; 1) biology learning based on STEAM PjBL proven have a positive effect on improving students communication skills (p = 0.003 <α (0.05)) with a mean correction of 80.13 in the experimental class and 75.48 in the control class; 2) biology learning based on STEAM PjBL proven have a positive effect on the students’ mastery of concepts (p = 0.002 <α (0.05) with a mean correction of 84.38 in the experimental class and 75.38 in the control class.