The effect of socioscientific issues embedded in explanation-driven inquiry (EDI) learning model on high school students’ conceptual understanding of reaction rate

This study aimed to examine the effect of learning chemistry using the Socioscientific Issues (SSI) embedded in the Explanation-Driven Inquiry (EDI) model, the EDI model, and Conventional on students' conceptual understandings of reaction rate. The research design was a quasi-experimental post-test only control group. The subject consisted of 81 students majoring in science, chosen by convenience sampling, from a private high school in Indonesia. There were three static groups, namely, 27 students in the control group taught using conventional, 27 students in the experiment group I taught using EDI-SSI, and 27 students in the experiment group II taught using EDI. The research instrument consisted of 20 two-tier items on reaction rate with the reliability of 0.818. The post-test was administered after 12 meetings (@ 90 minutes) within six weeks. The data were analyzed using the one way ANOVA test. The results of analyses showed that there were differences in the conceptual understandings amongst the three groups. Students in the EDI-SSI group were performed best (M= 15.11) compared to the two other groups, while the students in EDI was performed better (M=12.81) compared to students in the Conventional group (M=10.67). The effect size of the treatment was highest between EDI-SSI and Conventional groups (ES= 1.42). This study implies that chemistry teachers or pre-service teachers can consider and design Socioscientific Issues as a context in any chemistry topic to improve students’ conceptual understanding.