Enhancing Students' Knowledge of Environmental Issues through Problem-Based Learning: An Experimental Study
Keywords: environmental education, problem-based learning, quasi-experiment method
Abstract
The current natural damage has triggered concerns from various parties and aroused awareness for education actors. To overcome this, a massive environmental care movement is needed, including providing education to students as the next generation. However, unfortunately, students' knowledge of this aspect is very weak. This is evidenced by various findings that confirm that student learning outcomes on environmental topics are still very low. Based on this, learning is needed so that we can construct environmental concepts well. The study aimed to investigate the influence of the PBL model on student outcomes using a quasi-experiment method involving 60 students from two target classes, namely experimental and control classes. The learning outcomes of the two classes were in the form of pre-test and post-test scores, and then the gain score was calculated for further analysis. The measurement data was then analyzed using the t-test with the help of SPSS 27.0. The results of the study show that the PBL model has a significant effect on student learning outcomes. The average gain score of the experimental class was 42.73, while the control class was 28.86. The results of the analysis using an independent sample t-test showed the difference ρ-level value of 0.001. The ρ-level value is less than 0.005 (ρ<0.005). In conclusion, the model used has a significant effect on student learning outcomes.