EFFECT OF BRAIN-BASED LEARNING ON CRITICAL THINKING OF GENERAL SCIENCE STUDENTS AT ELEMENTARY LEVEL
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of based on brain-based learning to teach General Science for enhancing students critical thinking. The study was experimental in nature and used pretest posttest control group design. The target population for this experimental study was all General Science students from Kotli district. The study conducted by using two groups that was experimental group and control group and thirty students in each group were randomly selected. Four units (9,10, 11 and 12) were selected from General Science textbook of 8th class published by Azad Jammu and Kashmir Text-book Board, 2023 for this experiment. The researcher developed 32 lesson plans from theses selected units to treat the control and experimental groups. The critical thinking test developed by Alson King was adapted as research instruments were applied before and after intervention as pretest and post-test respectively. The control group of students was taught through traditional method and experimental group of students was taught through brain-based method for eight weeks. After the last session of intervention same pretest was administrated as posttest. Collected data was analyzed by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23. The researcher used paired sample t-test for testing the research hypotheses. The findings of the study confirmed that brain-based method was effective to improve critical thinking of students in General Science subject. It was concluded that using brain-based method to teach General Science subject has significantly better results in improving critical thinking of students than traditional method. Moreover, critical thinking of students can be improved in General Science subject at elementary level if teachers apply brain-based method in classrooms.
Keywords: Brain-based method, Traditional method, Critical thinking, and Academic achievement, Elementary level.