October 2012 Volume 15 Number 4 - Educational Technology ...

During the learning activity, both groups of students were asked to answer the four questions concerning the Chiku
wetland described before. The time of this learning activity was 50 minutes. The students in the experimental group
employed the Library-Quest to search for data to answer the questions. On the other hand, the students in the control
group were asked to answer the questions via the traditional technology-enhanced learning approach; that is, using
common search engines to search for data from the web.
After the learning activity, all of the students took a post-test, which was developed by two experienced teachers for
evaluating the students’ learning achievement during the learning activity. The post-test consisted of 5 yes-or-no
questions, 5 multiple-choice questions, 2 check-all-that-apply questions and 2 question-and-answer items. The
perfect score of the post-test was 30.
The students in both groups were also surveyed for their attitudes toward the science learning activity both before
and after the treatment. The science learning attitude measure originated from the questionnaire developed by Hwang
and Chang (2011). It consisted of 7 items with a six-point Likert rating scheme, where “6” represented “strongly
agree” and “1” represented “strongly disagree.” The Cronbach's Alpha value of the science learning attitude measure
was 0.94. For example, two of the questionnaire items were “It is worth learning the natural science course well” and
“I will actively search for more information and learn about natural science.”
Experimental results for study 2
To evaluate the effectiveness of Library-Quest, ANCOVA is employed to analyze the post-test scores of the students
by using the pre-test scores as the covariate to exclude the impact of the pre-test. The non-significant interaction of
the independent variable and the covariate of the learning achievement test showed that F = 1.92 (p > .05), implying
that the use of ANCOVA was appropriate.
Table 5 shows that the ANCOVA result, showing that the two groups had significantly different learning
achievements with F = 15.17 (p < .001) after excluding the impact of the pre-test scores. The adjusted mean of the
experimental group scored was 20.67, which was higher than that of the control group (i.e., 17.63), showing that the
use of Library-Quest was helpful to the students in enhancing their learning achievement in this course.
Table 5. ANCOVA result of the post-test achievement scores
Group N Mean S.D. Adjusted Mean Std. Error. F
Experimental group
Post-test (achievement)
Control group
***
p < .001
31
31
20.58
17.71
3.95
2.31
20.67
17.63
.55
.55
15.17***
This study further employed ANCOVA to analyze the learning attitude post-questionnaire scores of the students
toward science by considering the learning attitude pre-questionnaire scores. The non-significant interaction of the
independent variable and the covariate of the learning attitude scale showed that F = 1.85 (p >.05), implying that the
use of ANCOVA was appropriate.
As shown in Table 6, the ANCOVA result was F = 7.38 (p < .01), showing that the learning attitudes of the two
groups were significantly different after excluding the impact of the learning attitude pre-questionnaire scores.
Moreover, the adjusted mean of the experimental group was 4.88, which was higher than that of the control group
(i.e., 4.60), suggesting that Library-Quest approach was able to foster the learning attitude of students toward science.
Table 6. The ANCOVA result of the learning attitude post-questionnaire toward science
Group N Mean S.D. Adjusted Mean Std. Error. F
Experimental group
Post-test (attitude)
Control group
**
p < .01
31
31
4.96
4.53
0.54
0.86
4.88
4.60
.07
.07
7.38**
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