The Role of Collaborative Learning Based STSE in Acid Base Chemistry: Effects on Students’ Motivation

Abstract

Designing learning environment that leads on the improvement of students’ motivation becomes crucial for chemistry teachers. The objective of this research was to investigate the effects of collaborative learning-based Science, Technology, Society, and Environment (STSE) towards students’ motivation in acid base chemistry lesson. A pre-test post-test non-equivalent control group design was adopted in this quasi-experimental research. Two classes who enrolled in science programme from a public senior high school in Sleman Regency, Yogyakarta, Indonesia were used as the research sample of this study. Through cluster random sampling, one group was devoted as experimental class (N=30) receiving collaborative learning based STSE while the other one as control class (N=32) taught by traditional teaching. A Chemistry Motivation Scale (CMS) was administered as data collection tool of students’ motivation before and after the teaching intervention. These data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis, and Wilcoxon tests. The findings of this research revealed that there was significantly difference of students’ motivation among experimental and control classes. This difference was occurred in favour of experimental class. Moreover, the data of students’ motivation on experimental class signified a higher improvement than the control class. Thus, it can be highlighted that collaborative learning based STSE has an effect in improving students’ motivation. The result of this study recommends to implement collaborative learning based STSE since it is promising in order to promote students’ motivation in learning chemistry.