Instructional practices in physics and their influence on interests and achievement among secondary school students

Abstract

Physics as a separate subject is introduced at high school level, and the subjectis considered to be the toughest among science subjects. Toughness of the subject isusually accompanied with students’ lack of interest, and hence, they underperform inthe subject. Meanwhile, the literature shows that instructional strategies employed bythe physics teachers can be a core factor that can aid tackling such issues. The studyexplores the extant Instructional Practices of physics teachers at secondary level invarious teaching-learning situations and then analyses the influence of these practiceson the types of Interests, namely, Domain Interest, Situational Interest and IndividualInterest, and Achievement in Physics among secondary school students. Theseobjectives are also substantiated in the case of the transaction of major concepts inphysics, viz., Equations of Motion and Gravitation, which students perceive to bedifficult while learning. Two-phase quantitative survey design is employed for thisstudy. Phase-I of the survey is conducted on a sample of 623 students and Phase-II on913 students. Percentage analysis, Test of Significance of Difference Between theMeans for Large Independent Samples and Effect Size (Cohen’s d) are used to fulfillthe objectives. The results showed that, in secondary school physics teaching,irrespective of the difficulty level of the concepts the same pattern of instructions ispracticed by teachers within each of the identified teaching-learning situations ofphysics. The frequently used instructional practices are Teacher Dominant Instruction(while introducing a concept and its consolidation, mathematical problem-solving),working-out problems related to graph, Formative Assessment, Test Previewing andReviewing Strategies. The Instructional Practices that favour both Interest andAchievement in Physics are Teacher Dominant Instruction while Introducing NewConcepts and Working-out Mathematical Problems, Transacting Methodical Tacticsof Mathematical Problem-solving, Introducing Graph and Related problems,Addressing Misconceptions, Formative and Mastery Oriented Assessment, StudentParticipatory Individual Instruction while Providing Follow-up Activities, Directingto take part in Science Club Activities, Test Previewing and Reviewing Strategies forExamination Preparedness. The Instructional Practices that favour both Interest andAchievement in difficult concepts are Transacting Methodical Tactics ofMathematical Problem-solving and Introducing Graph and Related Problems. Thestudy provides valuable insights for educational interventions, emphasizing theimportance of employing situation specific practices to enhance interest andachievement among students.