A Comparison of the Effectiveness of Use of Transmitter of Knowledge and Inductive Inquiry Models on Students Academic Achievement

The study was designed to explore the comparative effectiveness of transmitter of knowledge model and inductive inquiry model on students academic achievement. The main objectives of the study were to expose each of the two experimental groups to the transmitter of knowledge model and inductive inquiry model respectively and to compare the effectiveness of these models in the teaching of Pakistan Studies. The pretest posttest control group experimental design was chosen for the experiment. It was hypothesized that there would be significant difference between mean achievement scores of the two experimental groups and a control group on the posttest. The population of the study consisted of all the students of 10th class studying in the Government High Schools located in Rawalpindi city. The sample of the study consisted of 90 students of 10th class studying in Govt. High School DAV College Road, Rawalpindi. They were divided into three groups, each group consisted of 30 students. These groups were formed through matching on the basis of their pretest scores. One of these groups was randomly chosen as control group and other two as experimental groups. The independent variable in the study was model of teaching and the dependent variable was the academic achievement of students. The dependent variable was measured through a self constructed 50-item achievement test that was used both as a pretest as well as a posttest. The experimental groups were exposed to the treatment of teaching models while the control group was provided with conventional teaching. The material used for teaching the experimental groups consisted of the lesson plans prepared in the light of each teaching model according to Hunter seven planning steps. After the treatment of eight weeks duration, the obtained data was analyzed by using the statistical techniques such as mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, simple analysis of variance Scheffe test and Tuckeys test in order to find out whether the difference in the mean achievement score of the comparison groups was statistically significant. The level of significance used in the study was .05. The main results of the study confirmed the research hypotheses. It was, therefore, concluded that students taught through inductive inquiry model showed superior achievement than those students taught through transmitter of knowledge model and through conventional teaching. The study results are in line with previous studies conducted by Schaffer (1989) Farrell and Hesketh (2000) but the results do not support the results of Nagata (1995), Rose and Fong (1997), Kalia (2005), Nina Panjunan (2007), Patrick and Elizabeth (2008). Though results of present study need further confirmation, it is recommended that inductive inquiry model may tentatively be used by teachers of social studies while teaching the subject to secondary classes. Therefore, in future studies a blend of models may be used because there is no single model which is exclusively best for teaching all the subjects at all levels to all students.