Investigating students' attitude and achievement in organic chemistry using interactive application

The "fourth wave" transformed our society into "mobile society" which focuses on cyber-physical systems. It also redirected higher education practices from the traditional classroom setting to e-learning system. The purpose of this action research is to investigate the impact on the use of an interactive application on students' performance and attitude towards chemistry in an Organic Chemistry class. The study was conducted on and confined to first-year BS Food Technology students of the Mariano Marcos State University, Ilocos Norte, Philippines. The research problem was identified through the experience of the researcher supported by the literature. An intervention was carried out with the use of an interactive mobile application - Chirality 2, a game-based application designed to teach fundamental concepts of organic chemistry. Stereochemistry Concept Inventory (SCI) and Attitude toward the Subject Chemistry Inventory (ASCIv2) were utilized in the conduct of pre- and post-strategy tests. Students' scores were described using means and standard deviation. Paired t-test was used to determine significant differences between the students' pre-test and post-test scores, both in their examination performance and attitudes. After the intervention, the post-test results revealed a significant improvement in the test scores of students. There was also a significant change in the attitude of the students, both on affective and cognitive sub-dimensions. The significant difference between the pre-test and post-test suggests that interactive mobile application enhances the performance of students and develops students' attitude. Results of the Pearson's correlation showed that there was no significant association between the attitude towards chemistry and achievement of students.