The use of electronic conceptual scaffolding to increase students’ ability to understand the concept of work and energy

Abstract

Conceptual scaffolding has an important role in building students' concepts. Especially during the pandemic, conceptual scaffolding designed in the computer program will be needed to help the student learning process. We conducted this research to see the effectiveness of the implementation of Electronic Conceptual Scaffolding in improving the work and energy conceptual understanding. This research is experimental research with One-Group Pretest-Posttest Design. The study was conducted on 67 physics undergraduate students who were taking the Basic Physics I course. The effectiveness of using electronic conceptual scaffolding is measured by 11 questions in a reasoned multiple-choice format. We analyzed the data by determining descriptive statistics, performing paired sample t-test, calculating N-gain and d-effect size. The results of data analysis showed that the average score of students' conceptual understanding increased from 44.10 to 71.64. Based on the results of the paired-sample t-test, obtained t = -101.56 and sig.(2-tailed) = 0.000. This shows that students' conceptual understanding at the pretest and posttest is significantly different. The N-gain = 0.493 indicates that the increase in the upper-medium category and the d-effect size = 2.222 indicates that learning has a strong influence on changes in student's conceptual understanding. The use of electronic conceptual scaffolding has a positive impact on increasing work and energy conceptual understanding, especially in determine the work by the force in the opposite direction to the displacement and at a certain angle to the horizontal direction.