EVALUATION OF EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE AND PAPER-BASED RESOURCES FOR TEACHING LOGICAL-THINKING SKILLS TO GRADE SIX AND SEVEN STUDENTS

Year 2016, Volume: 5 , 434 - 454, 01.09.2016

Peter Fenrich

Abstract

To determine whether there
were any differences between the effectiveness of educational software and
paper-based materials in teaching the logical-thinking skills of
classification, analogical reasoning, sequencing, patterning, and deductive
reasoning, a quantitative assessment was conducted using a pre-test, post-test,
experimental design. One-way ANOVAs were used to compare an experimental group
learning from educational software (32 students), an experimental group
learning from paper-based materials (32 students), and a control group (32
students). Tukey HSD Post Hoc Tests were performed since a significant
difference was found between the groups. For each test, the subjects taught
through educational software and those taught through paper-based materials
scored significantly higher in logical-thinking ability than the control group,
except for the subskill of deductive reasoning for both experimental groups.
There were no significant differences between subjects taught through
educational software and those taught through paper-based materials on any
test. Results from paired samples t-test results showed that the subjects
learning from educational software and those learning from paper-based
materials had significant percentage gains on all of their pre-test to
post-test scores, except the subjects learning through paper-based materials
showed no significant gains on the subskill of deductive-reasoning.

Keywords

Logical thinking, instructional design, educational software

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