Eureka: A Panacea in Students’ Procedural Fluency along Concepts of Forces and Motion

Abstract

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of a teacher-created intervention strategy, known as Project EUREKA, in enhancing students' procedural understanding of forces and motion. The study focuses on promoting mastery of concepts and procedural skills through the utilization of the 3-Tiered Instructional Model, hands-on science through digital lab activities and real-life model to facilitate students' learning process. The mixed-method research design was employed to assess the effectiveness of a researcher-initiated intervention program in the context of forces and motion. The study utilized both quantitative and qualitative data to examine the participants' experiences and the impact of the program. The quantitative analysis, conducted using the One Group Pretest-Posttest Design (OGPPD), demonstrated that students made greater improvements in conceptual understanding compared to procedural fluency. These findings underscore the importance of conceptual understanding in fostering procedural fluency and highlight the reciprocal relationship between these two types of knowledge. Statistical analyses further confirmed the significance of the results, with p-values less than .001 for both procedural fluency and conceptual understanding, indicating a high level of significance. The provisions of Project EUREKA successfully unleashed the thrill and joy of learning, ignited boundless curiosity during experimentation, and demonstrated a transformative power in enhancing students' procedural fluency. Owing to the results, this study provides valuable insights for theory and practice emphasizing the significance of conceptual understanding, supporting the effectiveness of the intervention program, and suggesting the adoption of engaging and transformative educational approaches to enhance students' learning outcomes.