A Study of Grade Eleven Student's Representations of Electricity Through Model-Based Inquiry

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close and transition online. The authors are interested in whether students have a higher level of representation after learning via an online learning platform through the Model-Based Inquiry (MBI) method and how they can be supported. This study took place in a school in a western province of Thailand, with thirty-two students studying in grade eleven. The study was conducted in an online classroom, implementing an action research strategy with two action research loops. The first loop consisted of three lessons, followed by another three lessons in the second loop, all aimed at improving the students' representations. To collect data, a representation test was used after both loop one and loop two implementations. The students' representations were then interpreted and grouped into five levels. The quality of each answer was assessed using criteria which included fair, good, and very good categories. The results demonstrated that students' representations were enhanced through model-based inquiry. There was a noticeable improvement in the students' representations from loop 1 to loop 2 of the action research at all three levels, consisting of the macroscopic level, microscopic level, and symbolic level.