Philippine E-Journals

CAIMESTRY: DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPUTER AIDED INSTRUCTION ON CHEMISTRY FOR COLLEGE FRESHMEN STUDENTS

Aida A Escorial | Aloha May H Ambe

 

Abstract:

The use of technologies has provided multiple pathways in learning where learners are provided with immense opportunities to engage in a variety of learning modalities, whether auditory, visual, kinaesthetic, or combinations of these. Chemistry subject is one of the subjects being taught in tertiary education. Accordingly, several studies showed that students fail to understand Chemistry due to the difficulties in comprehending theories and formulas since teaching the subject involves clear demonstrations and visualization especially in dealing with abstract models, figures and diagrams. Also, one of the useful parts of instruction in Chemistry is dealing with laboratory experiments. With this, a Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI) was implemented in this study that serves as a supplementary tool in teaching selected Chemistry topics to make the learning of the students more interactive by integrating virtual process in performing laboratory experiments, animation, graphics, sounds, mini games, and voice over. During the development process, interviews were conducted to the subject matter expert (SME) to determine the initial requirements of the CAI particularly on the manner of presenting the topics. In addition, survey was also made to the students to determine the user design preferences, learning styles, and their computer literacy. CAI has undergone series of iterations and testing particularly on the design and implementation specific to the needs of the learners and the recommendations of the subject matter expert. The results of assessment testing made showed that the CAI plays an important role in understanding the selected topics in teaching Chemistry subject where it provides an interactive way of learning particularly in performing virtual laboratory experiments. Moreover, the study showed that the use of CAI gives students the opportunity to learn the contents at their own capacity and speed and able to repeat the tasks if not understand by the learners.