Computational thinking (CT) is a problem-solving process and argued to be one of the more important skills for the 21 st century. This study aimed to identify the effectiveness of the Science Module on achievement in science subjects. A quasi-experimental research design was used that involved 67 students in the first form in secondary schools (students aged 13) in the Kunak district of Malaysia. The students were divided into a treatment group (n = 36) and a control group (n = 31). The instrument used in this study was the Science Achievement Test for Matter. The treatment group received an intervention of 3-week instruction using the Science Module and the control group received conventional instruction. Both groups took a pre-test before treatment. After the treatment, a post-test was administered. The study's results were analyzed with inference statistics and using a t-test. The study revealed that there was a significant improvement in science achievement after using Science Module. The study indicated that the effectiveness of Science Module is an effective step toward enhancing achievement in science and thus should be applied in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics teaching and learning to solve complex problems.
This study aims to explore the design and development process of the Matter module for secondary school students. The needs analysis shows a similar perception between students and teachers who described the matter topic as complex due to the abstract nature of the Matter topic. This module emphasises the use of animation in visualising particles in different matter states. The module was designed to make learning more active and meaningful by integrating computational thinking skills through cooperative and project-based learning. Through this approach, students are actively involved in building animation projects to visualise the movement of particles by applying computational thinking concepts (abstraction, decomposition, generalisation, algorithm, and evaluation) as they engage with programming in Scratch. Thus, to systematically design and develop the Matter module, the ADDIE model was employed. The design and development of the module comprise five phases, Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. The module was evaluated by experts using a formative evaluation approach. The results show that the validity of the Matter module is high and can support the integration of computational thinking skills.
The revolution of the fourth industrial has impacted most aspect of our life and demanding a paradigm shift including education. It has become to our attention that there is a need to inculcate complex problem-solving skills among youth to equipped them to face the challenges in the era of digital technology. To fulfill the needs, computational thinking was introduced in school curriculum in Malaysia in 2017. It is still rather new, and this creates opportunity to understand how computational thinking can best be integrated in teaching and learning. In this study, we developed a module for a science topic, Matter and examine its impact on computational thinking skills on 65 students at secondary level. The computational thinking skills integrated in this study were abstraction, decomposition, algorithm, generalization, and evaluation. A quasi-experimental method was employed, and the ANCOVA result showed that there was no significant difference between control and treatment group on computational thinking skills. However, the score means for each of the computational thinking skills for both groups, showed that three skills in the treatment group were higher than the control group. The three computational thinking skills were decomposition, evaluation, and algorithm. This study suggested that CT involved mental process and proper planning is crucial to integrate computational thinking skills as teaching and learning is very contextual in nature.
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