The effect of the integrated lecture-laboratory approach on the achievement in biochemistry and science process skills of science majors

The study investigates two points: the difference in the achievement in Biochemistry of two groups of science majors - one taught using the Integrated Lecture-Laboratory (ILL) approach and the other subjected to the Traditional Lecture-Laboratory (TLL) approach and which of the two teaching methods used produced significant gains in the science process skills of science majors. Two intact classes composed of thirty-three (33) BS Nutrition and Dietetics students and seventeen (17) BS Biology students of the Philippine Normal University were used as the experimental and control groups, respectively. To determine whether the teaching method used produced a significant difference in the achievement in Biochemistry of the two groups after the treatment, an analysis if covariance (ANCOVA) was performed. The scores in the achievement test were used as the dependent variable with the final grades in Chemistry 1 and Chemistry 3 as covariates. The F-ratio obtained was found to be significant at the 0.05 level, indicating that students had higher achievement when taught using the ILL approach. The effect of the ILL teaching method on the science process skills was also assessed using a science process skills test. The Integrated Science Process Skills Test (Hiura, 1991) was administered to both groups as pretest and posttest. The significant gains in the science process skills after the treatment were determined by computing the t-values. Results revealed that the experimental group gained significantly as evidenced by a very high t-value of 12.489. The control group had a computed t-value of 1.153 indicating no significant gains in the science process skills. It was found out further that the experimental group had significant gain scores in all the five integrated science process skills. Students of the control group did not improve significantly in all the five science process skills.It is evident that the use of the Integrated Lecture-Laboratory approach in teaching Biochemistry resulted in higher achievement and a significant improvement in the science process skills of science majors of the Philippine Normal University