• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.29-40
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• 1999

The purpose of the present study was to test hypothesis that, because it uses tri-dimensional sensory pathway which have been showed a higher rate of neural activities than uni- or bi-dimensional's, lab-activity-based instruction is more effective teaching strategy in learning science than verbal-based instruction. In the present study, manipulative teaching strategy that uses visual, somatosensory and auditory information pathway was regarded as a mode of tri-dimensional sensory inputs. In addition, verbal teaching strategy that uses mainly auditory and a little visual information pathway was used as a mode of bi-dimensional sensory inputs. Fifty-six students who failed to successfully solve two proportional reasoning tasks (i.e., pouring water tasks) were sampled for this research from a junior high school. The subjects were randomly divided into a manipulative or a verbal teaching group, and given manipulative or verbal tutoring on the use of proportional reasoning strategies and a test of proportional reasoning during instruction. The results showed that manipulative group's performance on the test of proportional reasoning during instruction showed significantly higher performance than verbal group's (t=2.45, p<0.02). The present study also discussed some educational implications of the results.