The Comparative Instructional Effectiveness of Face-to-Face Communication versus Television-Aided Communication for Teaching General Science: An Experiment among Freshman Students of Cauayan National High School

Abstract

Since its introduction as an alternative medium for conveying messages, television has become a popular teaching aid in the academe. The familiar scenario that depicts the teacher talking in front of the class while the students listen and jot down important points and ideas has been transformed into one that is similar to that of a theater. With the use of a 21-inch television and a video compact disc, teaching is deemed possible. The class which was formerly viewed as highly interactive, due to the many social dynamics between the teacher and the students, has been transformed to just one direction--between the television and the students. One may even doubt if there is any social interaction at all ina classroom that uses television. Television-aided classroom communication has been studied by educational experts in the past. Their common findings reveal that television-aided communication is a promising tool, especially in science teaching. However, when these findings are analyzed from a communication perspective, the weaknesses of using television do emerge. As communicators claim, feedback plays a vital role in the success of any communication process. If feedback is neglected, communication becomes less interactive and therefore, less effective. To establish the claimed strengths or weaknesses of television as an instructional communicative aid, this research aimed to compare the performance of high school students in science lessons when taught in both face-to-face and television-aided ways. The pre-test and post test quasi~experimental research design was used. Two classes of high school students from Cuayan National High School were involved who were found to be generally aged 12 to 13 years, mostly females, honor students in their elementary grade, and residents of the same city. The only factors or variables that were held constant were the teacher, the lessons, the classroom setting, the number of test items and the duration of the study. The lessons during the experiment which were alternately taught using face-to-face and television-aided communication were about the earth and space exploration. The statistical tests used to analyze the pre-and post-test results in order to compare the mean gain in knowledge among the students was the test of significance between mean gains. The analysis of the pre-test and post test scores of the students revealed that the average score of students who were taught using face-to-face communication was significantly higher than those taught in the television-aided way. Even though both classes scored higher during the post-test, either of them consistently scored higher than the other whenever they were taught using face-to-face communication. On the whole therefore, it is concluded that faceto- face communication is better than television-aided communication in teaching general science to the freshman students of Cauayan National High School