Malaysian Journal of Educational Technology
Volume 12, Number 1, March 2012
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF 3D ALKENE ISOMERISME COURSEWARE (3D-AI) AT MRSM TERENDAK, MELAKA
Norasiken Bakar1, Zilawati Roslinda Mat Zain2, Syariffanor Hisham3
Faculty of Information and Communication Technology
Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM)
Melaka, Malaysia1,2,3
norasiken@utem.edu.my1, zrmz176@yahoo.com2
Abstract-The usage of multimedia courseware in education field is one of the methods that can be used to increase the motivation and
interest of student towards the subject that being taught. This research is about the development and effectiveness of courseware title
3 dimensional (3D) Alkenes Isomerism. This courseware is specifically developed for a topic in chemistry subject for form five
students in Malaysia. The topic chosen are Alkenes and Isomerism which is a part of hydrocarbon topic in chemistry secondary
syllabus. The research was done at Maktab Rendah Sains MARA Terendak Melaka involving Form five Students who took Sijil
Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) in year 2010.The questionnaires is the instrument used in this research to determine the problem
statement. Based on the questionnaires, Alkenes and Isomerism are identify as the most difficult topic and suggested a courseware is
developed and then tested for its effectiveness. The courseware used MAYA software version 2010 to develop the 3D molecules of
Alkenes structure. Two group of students called Experimental group (EC) and Control group (CG) involved in this process and a set
of questionnaires is used during pre-test and post test for this purpose. A pilot study is running to determine the effectiveness of the
courseware before post test is carried out. From this research the researcher finds out that courseware titled 3 dimensional (3D)
Alkenes Isomerism(3D AI) is suitable to used during teaching and learning process as teaching aid. This is also because it can help to
increase student’s performance for topic Alkenes Isomerism.
Keywords-component; Courseware, 3D AI, Alkene Isomerisme, Chemistry
I. Introduction
Teaching and learning is an important process that happens in a classroom. Many studies have been carried out to
identify the learning strategies and learning technique that is suitable to be implemented in classroom. This is to ensure that
teaching and learning process reach its goal which is student get the knowledge and student is inspired to find the knowledge even
they are not in the classroom.
Teaching and learning become more adventurous in 21st century. The progressing in ICT field expresses the big impact towards
education process. Many researches show that ICT give positive effect to the teaching and learning process whether for the student
or the process itself. ICT help to fasten the government agenda in education long term plan.
The science education become more important in Vision 2020 through it sixth challenges Rose Amnah et al. 2004. The
sixth challenge of Vision 2020 is the challenge of establishing a scientific and progressive society, a society that is innovative and
forward-looking, and one that is not only a consumer of technology but also a contributor to the scientific and technological
civilization of the future. Teacher’s role is vital in implementing ICT literature to students. Teacher becomes facilitator or
instructor that not only preparing the suitable environment for learning process but also help and instil good value in students for
their future. Teacher play important role to guide students to surf internet, finds website, chose the right courseware also collect
and review information (Norrizan, 2011). Based on Mateer (2011), instructor can engage students and produce more meaningful
and deep learning experiences by using films, television shows, popular music, new stories, literature, documentaries and videos
from sources such as YouTube.
II. Problem Statement
Chemistry has been regarded as a difficult subject for young students by chemistry teachers, researchers, and educators
(Kirkwood & Symington, 1996; Lorenzo, 2005; Nakhleh, 1992). Students view chemistry as one of the most difficult subjects to
study at all levels of schooling (Özmen, 2005). Many students reported to have trouble with the conceptual nature of chemistry
(Rhoda, 2011).
Chemistry is a difficult subject for certain students because it is a conceptual subject. Student should have high
imaginary in order to understand the concept of chemistry better. According to (Johnstone, 1997) chemistry consists of three
forms which can be thought of as corners of a triangle. No form is superior to another, but each one complements the other. These
forms of the subject are: (i) the macro and tangible: what can be seen, touched and smelt; (ii) the sub micro: atoms, molecules,
ions and structures and (iii) the representational: symbols, formulae, equations, morality, mathematical manipulation and graphs.
Student should be able to think at the molecular level and explain changes at macro level in term of interaction between individual
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Malaysian Journal of Educational Technology
Volume 12, Number 1, March 2012
atoms and molecule. It is true that one of the most difficult challenges in teaching and learning chemistry at secondary level
involves conveying to students the three dimensional structures and dynamics interaction of atoms and molecules (Abdoolatiff &
Narod, 2009). The main problem in Chemistry is the abstraction of facts in order to understand the 3D arrangements and
properties of the molecules, Alonso et al. 2011.
Many studies all level of schooling to determine student’s ideas about basic chemistry concepts suggest that students
who did not acquire satisfactory understanding of scientific concepts occurred because of traditional teaching method. In
traditional teacher-centred classroom the students become listeners and the teachers gives out the facts and defines important
ideas. Traditional teaching method in science means students may understand the subject but only at a ‘knowledge level’memorizing the fact (Lewis, 2006).
One of the problems when student learn chemistry is students do not understand the topic well because it needs students
to imagine the formation of the structure and their arrangement (Sun, 1997). By developing this courseware, it is use to stimulate
student’s interest in some content of the learning and as a supplement to classroom teaching, the graphics and animation make the
subject come alive, so that learning the subject is much easier, animation and voice are used to implement various teaching
strategies such as tutorials, activities and games. Besides that, the simple animation can be use in this courseware to make the
learning of content in the class more interactive. With the development of computer technology, multimedia methods are been
increasingly used in teaching practice. A multimedia courseware can combine sound and pictures with knowledge. This reinforces
the fact that students retain 50% of what they see and hear, as the use of multimedia technology gives students more information
than just writing on the blackboard and increase the chance of active learning (Huo, 2006).
III. Multimedia in Chemistry Education
The well-known aim of science education is to teach the science concepts meaningfully and make students become
aware of how these concepts can be used in their daily lives (Çepni, 2004).With the rapid development in science and technology,
chemistry which is the fundamental to many disciplines, it becomes increasingly important (Saeed et al. 2011). Chemistry is often
regarded as a difficult subject for students (Johnstone, 2000; Rhoda, et al. 2011). Chemistry subject at secondary level contain
various topics, some of these are considered as difficult by various students (Rhoda, et al. 2001). The conceptual understanding in
chemistry includes the ability to represent and translate chemical problems using macroscopic (observable), molecular
(particulate) and symbolic forms of representation. Students are required to think at the molecular level and explain changes at
macroscopic level in terms of interaction between individual atoms and molecules (Abdoolatiff & Narod, 2009). Visualization
skills or the skills necessary to describe microscopic phenomena need to be developed as an integral part of chemistry teaching
and learning (Steenberg & Bradley, 2009). Student learning and understanding has the potential to improve with the use of
computer-based multimedia environments (Akili, 208). ICT-integrated environmental learning in experimental chemistry show
positive and scientific perspective for academic research (Su, 2011).Students agreed to a larger extent that integrating ICT in
teaching and learning of Chemistry enhances conceptual understanding of Organic Chemistry (Bhukuvhani, 2011). Thus, the
Chemistry multimedia courseware prepared by the Ministry of Education is most welcome and right at the time. The materials
were in the form of browser-based courseware, teachers’ guides, student worksheets, and sample lesson plans to guide the
teachers in integrating the courseware in their lessons. 87.5% of the respondents felt that the multimedia courseware supplied by
the Ministry to teach science and mathematics is well planned and effective in terms of content (Ong, 2008). This shows that
multimedia courseware is one of the right tools to use in teaching and learning.
IV. Implication of multimedia in education for 3D AI courseware
Teachers today are encouraged to use technology-driven teaching and learning aids to enhance students learning (Rahimi
et al. 2007). They need to ensure that, the educational software used as part of their classroom instructions is appropriate and
effective in producing the intended outcome and achieving educational goals (Lim & Tay, 2003; Rahimi et al. 2007).This research
is about to develop a multimedia courseware for secondary school students. The courseware choose a topic from form five
chemistry syllabus as the topic has been chosen as one of the difficult topic among the students. Multimedia element is embedded
in the courseware is in lined with the current technology pattern in education that approve the usage of ICT facilities in education.
Text, graphic, animation and audio are used to make the 3D AI courseware is accepted as one of the adequate teaching aid. It also
attracts student’s attention and use maximally to understand the content effectively. The presence of multimedia technology is an
important for distributing information in teaching and learning process thus the teachers are the key factor for the success of
multimedia application technology in the classroom (Arsat & Hasnisham, 2011).
V. Reasults and Analysis
Researcher use pre and post test questions in evaluating the significant difference in term of student’s performance
between student who use 3D AI courseware and student who study using text book. In the pre-test, questions about Alkene and
Isomerism topic are given to all students then they would answer the question using paper based. Students have to answer the
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Malaysian Journal of Educational Technology
Volume 12, Number 1, March 2012
questions before learning the topic to get their pre understanding before they learn in class. Both subtopics are continuous and
related to each other. Hydrocarbon topic consist of subtopic Alkanes, Alkenes, Isomerism, Alcohols, Ester and Carboxylic Acids.
The pre-test consisted of 20 objective questions with four choices of answer covering topic Alkene and Isomerism and 3
subjective questions with total mark 20.
The post-test questions consisted of the similar number of questions from the same topic. After both experimental and
control group finish with pre-test, they start learning the topic. For experimental group, they learn both topics using the 3D AI
courseware. From observation of the researcher, students are able to use the courseware and study on their own with minimum
help form the teacher. After finish learning the topics using 3D AI, they answer the post test questions. For control group, they
learn the topic in class as usual and answer the post test questions on question paper that distributed to them. The effectiveness of
3D AI courseware is measured by the performance of students in pre and post testing. Students were labeled from S1-S50 which
is S1 to S25 is from control group while S26 to S50 is from experimental group.
According to the Table 1.1, the result shows that for the control group, the highest percentage of the mark distributions is
60% in which the mark range is 61-80. It can be concluded that majority students in conventional method scored around 61-80.
On the other hand, the highest percentage of the mark distributions using 3D AI courseware is 56% in which the range of the
mark is also around 61-80.However, the number of students who score higher marks is greater in experimental group compared to
control group. There is increment of 40% for marks range 81-100 for experimental group. This shows that 3D AI courseware
effective to increase student performance in term of the achievement of student during test. It means that the students from
experimental group tend to understand much better compared to students who takes conventional method. Figures 1.1 and Figure
1.2 shows the frequency histogram for control group and experimental group during post test.
Regarding to the Table 1.2, the highest score for the pre-test is achieved by the student by S6 and with the score 72% and
the lowest is gained by the 2 students, S7 and S8 with30%. Post-test is done after they learn Alkene and isomerism topics in class.
The highest score is S14 with 85% and the lowest is by S13 with score 43%. The table proves that all of the students have
achievement in their result with the lowest achievement is 1% and the highest achievement is 34%. Table 1.3 shows the
achievement of pre and post-test for the experimental group.
Table 1.1: Marks Distributions for Control and Experimental Group in the Post Test
Mark
0-20
21-40
41-60
61-80
81-100
Control Group
Number of
Percentage
student
%
0
0%
0
0%
9
36%
15
60%
1
4%
Experimental Group
Number of
Percentage
student
%
0
0%
0
0%
1
4%
14
56%
10
40%
Table 1.2: Pre and Post Test Result for Control Group
Student
S1
S2
S3
S4
S5
S6
S7
S8
S9
S10
S11
S12
S13
S14
S15
S16
S17
S18
S19
S20
Testing result %
Pre test
Post test
66
76
58
70
51
74
64
77
59
62
72
74
39
49
30
53
49
57
53
55
46
49
47
53
42
43
79
85
51
53
65
76
59
72
45
68
60
60
67
68
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Achievement
(%)
10
12
23
13
3
2
10
23
8
2
3
6
1
6
2
11
13
23
0
1
Malaysian Journal of Educational Technology
Volume 12, Number 1, March 2012
S21
69
72
3
S22
S23
S24
S25
Mean
66
68
65
59
57.16
74
70
72
64
65.04
8
2
7
5
7.88
Table 1.3: Pre and Post Test Result for experimental group
Student
S26
S27
S28
S29
S30
S31
S32
S33
S34
S35
S36
S37
S38
S39
S40
S41
S42
S43
S44
S45
S46
S47
S48
S49
S50
Mean
Testing result %
Pre test
Post test
15
65
24
84
17
63
23
70
33
87
26
91
13
59
32
74
16
66
26
81
22
78
31
76
39
89
45
86
29
79
40
85
25
76
25
77
28
88
30
90
22
72
19
79
20
71
27
79
21
83
25.92
77.92
Achievement
(%)
50
60
46
47
54
65
46
42
50
55
56
45
50
41
50
45
51
52
60
60
50
60
51
52
62
52.0
Figure 1.1: Histogram for Control and Experimental Group
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Malaysian Journal of Educational Technology
Volume 12, Number 1, March 2012
Figure 1.2: Frequencies for Control and Experimental Group
Based on the result of students’ achievements, researcher found that experimental group performance get higher mean
compared to control group. Hence, learning using 3D AI courseware is more effective to learn Alkene Isomerism topic.
T-test is used to prove the null hypothesis H01, H02 and
test has been carried out to evaluate if there is any significant
difference in term of student’s performance between student who
AI courseware which is Experimental group(G) and student who
using text book which is Control group(C). The data is analyzing
SPSS version 16. Table 5.8, Table 5.9 and Table 5.10 shows all the
collected.
Mean
Standard Deviation
(SD)
t-test
p-value
Control Group Testing
Pre test
Post test
57.16
65.04
11.600
10.937
2.471
0.017
2.471
0.017
H03.Tuse 3D
study
using
data
H01: There is no significance different in term of achievement in pre and post-test for Control group.
Table 1.4 shows the result of t-test and p-value for the Control group based on pre and post test result. Based on the result,
it shows that t-value is 7.160 and the significant of two tailed value, p is 0.00. Because of the p <0.05, thus the null hypothesis
H01 is rejected.
Table 1.4: Mean, SD and t-test for pre-test and post-test for Control Group
There is a significant difference in the result (t=2.471, df=48, p<.05). Null hypothesis is rejected because there is
different in term of student’ marks between pre-test and post-test group. The different mean value score (7.88) between both pretest and post-test is enough to reject the null hypothesis.
H02: There is no significance different in term of achievement in pre and post-test for experimental group.
Table 1.5 shows the result of t-test and p-value for the
Experimental Group based on pre and post test result. The testing is
paired sample t-test since the same group has been used for two times
variables). Based on the performance of the students in t-test using pre
post-test, the t-value is 21.949 and the significant of two tailed value, p
The result shows p<0.05, thus there is a significant difference between
post-test. Hence the null hypothesis H01 is rejected.
Mean
Standard
Deviation (SD)
t-test
p-value
Experimental Group Testing
Pre Test
Post test
25.92
77.92
7.889
8.836
21.949
0.000
21.949
0.000
using
(two
and
is 0.00.
pre and
Table 1.5: Mean, SD and t-test for pre and post-test for experimental group
The research result show a significance (t=21.949, df=48, p<.05). There is a different mark obtained by students between
pre-test and post-test result for Experimental group. Null hypothesis is rejected because there is difference of student’s
performance in pre-test and post-test. The difference’s mean value, 52.00 shows that Experimental group post-test result has
greater performance in term of marks obtained by the student compared to the marks that they get during pre-test.
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Malaysian Journal of Educational Technology
Volume 12, Number 1, March 2012
H03: There is no significance different in term of achievement in post-test between Experimental group who use 3D AI
courseware and controlled group who learn using text book.
Based on the result of student’s achievement, researcher found that post-test perform higher mean compared to pre-test
result. Hence, it shows that Experimental group that using 3D AI courseware in their teaching and learning session in had
achieved higher marks during post-test.
Mean
Standard Deviation
(SD)
t-test
p-value
Testing – Post Test
Control Group Experimental
Group
65.04
77.92
10.937
8.836
4.580
0.000
Table 1.6: Mean, SD and t-test for post-test for Control and Experimental
Group
4.580
0.000
The result is significant (t=4.580, df=48, p< .05). Null hypothesis is rejected because there is different in term of the
marks for Control and Experimental group result in the post-test. The different mean score value (12.880) for both group is
sufficient to reject null hypothesis. This is caused by the standard error mean (2.812) that exist in the research data.
VI.
Conclusion
This research covers the development and effectiveness of 3 dimensional (3D) Alkene Isomerism (3D AI) to achieve the
objectives of the research. The starting of the research covers the background of study that explains the focus of the research and
the use of ICT in education. This research is focus on secondary school which case study is at Maktab Rendah Sains MARA
Terendak Melaka. The research focuses on the 3D AI courseware and its effectiveness in chemistry subject at secondary school. It
is suggested to be an alternative of teaching material to be used in classroom. The study evaluates student’s achievements in both
conventional and experimental method in the same topic which is Alkene and Isomerism topics. A courseware named 3D AI has
been developing using ADDIE model. A systematic framework is being used to investigate the effectiveness of the courseware.
The testing has been done with the involvement of 50 students who in Science stream that taken Chemistry subject.
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