TEACHER-DEMONSTRATION AND STUDENT HANDS-ON EXPERIMENTS IN TEACHING INTEGRATED SCIENCES

Abstract

The widely explored but still unresolved question about the contribution of the application of different ways of performing experiments in the integrated natural sciences is addressed in this research. The aim was to determine the contribution of demonstration hands-on experiments (DHE) and student hands-on experiments (SHE) in relation to conventional teaching method (CTM) on the quality and durability of 3rd grade students (between 9 and 10 years of age) from primary school. The research involved 180 students, further divided into three groups: E1 (experimental group 1, where content was learned through DHE), E2 (experimental group 2, where content was learned through SHE) and C (control group, where content was learned through CTM). The results of the research point to the fact that priority should be given to the DHE and SHE over the CTM in the realization of air-related content in the 3rd grade. SHE should be used more than DHE when it comes to teaching this specific content. Keywords: demonstration hands-on experiments, student hands-on experiments, integrated sciences, primary school, quality of knowledge