Production of Digital Game for Teaching Solar System under Integrated Science and its Effects on Pupils’ Learning in Junior High Schools in Kumasi
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Date
2018-06
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KNUST
Abstract
Education is vital to national development, and Science education to a ground breaking economy. Therefore, academic performance is of utmost importance and its
decline a source of worry to all stakeholders, necessitating efforts to determine its
causative factors. However the greatest cause of decline presently has been attributed
to educating today’s technology driven learners in old ways which are no more
operative. Solar System is a challenging topic that must be taught in a way that will
arouse admiration and incite the attention of learners. Conversely, Digital Game Based Learning have been proven an effective way of stimulating and optimizing
students’ learning performance. Thus, this study investigated the traditional methods
adopted for teaching Solar System under Integrated Science and their effects on
learning, pupils’ knowledge and skills in digital games and devices, to produce a
Digital Game to adjunct the teaching of Solar System and evaluated its effects on
learning in two Junior High Schools in Kumasi. The study was guided by the
descriptive and quasi-experimental research approach under the mixed method
research design, with observation, interviews and questionnaire as research
instruments. Convenience and purposive sampling techniques were adopted to sample
two JHSs, 94 respondents– 90 form three pupils, 2 teachers and 2 head teachers. The
study revealed lecture as the main teaching method employed for Solar System in both
schools, which did not allow interaction, participation or hands-on activities, and made
lessons uninteresting and boring leading to low performance. The developed digital
game on the difficult-to-teach topic ‘Solar System’ proved pupils’ interest when active
learning was pursued and improved their performance. It was therefore recommended
that pupils’ knowledge and skills in digital games should be tapped on to deliver
engaging, interesting, fun and active learning through digital games. It suggested that
digital games be developed for all topics in Integrated Science to be used by teachers
as supplementary tools during lessons.
Description
A Thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY IN ART EDUCATION