Scaffolding Strategies in Promoting Attitudes of Saudi Middle School Science Students

Abstract

Developing teaching strategies has become the cornerstone of education. The most successful educational strategies are those that adhere to their vital role to students as they focus on raising the students' attitude towards learning. This research shed some light on the impact of scaffolding strategies on middle school students' attitudes towards the science subject. Specifically, the aim of this research is twofold: to examine students' attitudes towards learning and enjoying science and to emphasise their attitudes towards science teachers and their teaching methods in the classroom. A quasiexperimental research design was implemented to achieve the research objectives involving pre-and post-test for the experimental and control groups. The research population consisted of 84 ninth-grader science students in Saudi. A questionnaire of 24 items was developed to cover the major dimensions of the study after being validated by relevant experts. After conducting the questionnaire, data were collected accordingly and then analysed using descriptive analysis and inferential statistics. Findings showed a significant difference in the science student's attitude in favour of students who were taught using scaffolding strategies compared with those taught using conventional teaching methods. Based on the findings, the research proposes that scaffolding strategies should be applied as educational venues of learning autonomy to students in classrooms that directly and indirectly promote students' positive attitudes towards learning science. The research concluded with a recommendation that scaffolding strategies should be applied when teaching science for better outputs. Therefore, policymakers and curriculum planners need to adopt scaffolding as a typical teaching strategy for the art of teaching in general and science in particular.

Assessment of Student Learning Needs Fulfillment and Autonomy in Teacher Teaching Practices

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“…No one outside the students can force students to think. Students interpret all the information they receive from the environment in their cognitive structure (Alrawili et al, 2022;Suardana, 2012). The teacher's task is only to create an environment that can stimulate students to think so that the learning process occurs in students.…”

The Effectiveness of the Short Story Writing Program in Developing Students' Creative Writing Skills

“…Given the importance of creativity and writing skills, teachers must pay attention to aspects of the learning process that can increase creativity in writing. These aspects include learning strategies, learning models, learning methods and teaching materials (Alrawili et al, 2022;Saffran, 2018). All of these aspects will support students to cultivate aspects of creativity in writing skills.…”

Appropriate Scaffolding Format in Physics Learning through Lesson Study on Improving Students' Problem Solving Skills

“…Providing scaffolding in the classroom needs to be evaluated to obtain maximum results. Lesson study is very appropriate for improving the quality of learning through an evaluation system (Alrawili et al, 2022;Saputro, 2018). Lesson study is characterized by continuity between lessons to obtain learning quality and towards positive learning outcomes (Jamaluddin et al, 2019;Susyla & Syofiana, 2019).…”