The effectiveness of a cognitive-conflict-based conceptual change approach versus a collateral learning approach

Abstract

The study sought to determine whether or not there would be a statistically significant difference in performance between learners taught through a cognitive conflict-based conceptual change approach and versus those taught through a collateral learning approach. To establish this, the two respective post- test mean scores were compared. The result was that although some gains had been made by both groups, there was no statistically significant difference between the post- test mean scores for the two groups. However, when pre-test mean scores were used as baseline, a statistically significant difference between the pre- and post-test mean scores for the collateral learning group was established. This suggests that there could be some merit in favour of the collateral learning approach. Hence, this result also suggests that more research still needs to be carried out to give clarity to the issue.