Effectiveness of certain instructional strategies based on graphic organizers on achievement, retention and problem solving ability in geography among secondary school students

Abstract

Geography, as a subject, holds a unique position in secondary education, offering students a lens through which they can understand and engage with the complexities of the world. The effectiveness of instructional strategies in geography classrooms has been a subject of ongoing exploration, with an ever-growing emphasis on innovative approaches to enhance student learning outcomes. The integration of traffic graphic organizers provides students with dynamic representations that facilitate the organization and comprehension of complex information. This study intended to find out the effectiveness of certain instructional strategies based on graphic organizers such as Concept Map, Flowchart, Spider Map, Main Idea Web, Venn Diagram and Fishbone Diagram on achievement, retention, and problem solving ability in geography among secondary school students. Quasi- experimental method and pretest and posttest non-equivalent group design was used for the study.Sample consisted of 110 standard 1X students from Govt. Vocational Higher Secondary School Madapally, Kozhikode District. Achievement test (pretest) in Geography (Ramakrishnan and Reshma, 2018), Achievement test (postest) in Geography (Ramakrishnan and Reshma, 2018), Problem solving ability test (pretest) in Geography (Ramakrishnan and Reshma, 2018) and Problem solving ability test (posttest) in Geography (Ramakrishnan and Reshma, 2018) were prepared and administered for collecting data. Delayed posttest (achievement test) was used to assess retention in Geography. Statistical techniques user for the study were descriptive statistics, Mean difference analysis and Analysis of Covariance. The result of the study revealed that there exits a significant difference between the posttest scores on Achievement, Retention and Problem Solving Ability in Geography of the Experimental and Control Groups for the total sample and subsample based on boys, and girls.The mean values of exprimental group are found to be higher than that of the control group.It is inferred that the experimental group excelled in achievement, retention and problem solving ability in geograhy compared to the control group.The study demonstrated that the Instructional strategy based on Graphic organizers enhanced Achievement, Retention, and Problem solving ability in Geography among Secondary School students compared to Conventional Method of Teaching. The study implied that instead of the Conventional Method of Teaching, the instructional strategy based on selected Graphic Organizers such as Concept Map, Flowchart, Spider Map, Main Idea Web, Venn Diagram and Fishbone Diagram should be promoted as preferential pedagogical tools to deliver the geography curriculum among Secondary school students.