A study to compare the effects of discovery teaching and expository teaching upon the achievement and retention levels of matriculation grade ten students being taught some aspects of the quadrilateral

Abstract

The purpose of the study was twofold. It compared the effects of two different methods of teaching, namely discovery teaching and expository teaching, on the achievement and retention levels of two groups of students. -- A unit of work on some aspects of the quadrilateral was taught to two classes of grade ten matriculation students at Clarenville Integrated High School. Each class consisted of 30 students. One group was taught using the discovery package developed by the investigator; the other group was taught in an expository manner using the textbook. -- Three tests were used throughout the study--a pretest, a posttest and a retention test. The posttest was a parallel form of the pretest; the retention test was the same as the pretest. The pretest was administered to each group four days prior to the start of the study. A posttest was administered one day after completion of the instructional unit and the retention test was administered three weeks after the posttest. -- From the analysis of covariance using the pretest scores as the covariate, no significant difference in achievement on the posttest was found between those students being taught using the discovery method and those students taught using the expository method. However, a significant difference in retention in favor of the discovery treatment was found.