The effectiveness of experiential learning – STEM model with formative assessment in building students’ mastery on fluid dynamics

Abstract

Fluid dynamics is related to science, technology, and daily lives, but students' understanding of the topic is considered not optimal yet. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of experiential learning (EL) - STEM model with formative assessment (FA) in building the mastery of fluid dynamics and explore students' difficulties. This is a mixed-methods research with an embedded experimental design with 34 grade XI students of high school in Malang, Indonesia, as subjects, which were chosen with purposive sampling. This research used dynamics mastering test instrument in the form of 18 reasoned multiple-choice question items with a reliability of 0.65. The data were analyzed with Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test, N-gain, and the description of students' answers. The result showed that EL-STEM with FA is effective to build the mastery of fluid dynamics with the effectiveness of the subtopic of Bernoulli's law is higher than the subtopic of Continuity. Before learning, students had difficulties to understand almost all material of fluid dynamics. However, after learning, students only had difficulties to understand certain things, which are the relationship between physical quantities in Bernoulli's law, the distance between the water reservoir and the water jet, the speed of air under or above the wing of an aeroplane, and the shape of aeroplane's wing design.