The Effect of Constructivist Teaching on Interest in Lessons, Academic Vitality and Enthusiasm for School

The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating The effect of constructivist teaching on interest in lessons, academic vitality and enthusiasm for school. Quantitative research design and research method was a quasi-experimental type with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of the research includes male elementary school students of Juybar city in the academic year of 2021-2022. 25 people were selected as sample from 6th grade students of the Navaei school.

Sampling method based on selective or alternative method, in which a group of 12 students was selected as an experimental group and another group of 13 students was selected as a control group. In this study, the social studies course book of the sixth grade of primary school in the academic year of 2021-2022 was used, which was taught in 10 one-hour sessions.The intervention in this research was that the experimental group was taught with the constructivist teaching method during ten sessions and the control group was taught with the usual teaching methods such as lectures.The study instrument was three standard questionnaires including interest in lesson belongs to Keller & Sobia (1993), academic engagement for Dehghanizadeh and Hossienchari (2011) and school engagement for Wang (2011). Quantitative data extracted from questionnaires in two sections, descriptive and inferential statistics with SPSS20 software.

The findings of the research showed that teaching in a constructivist way had a significant effect on interest in the lesson (F=19.36). Also, based on the results of the research, teaching in a constructivist way has a significant effect on academic engagement (F=6.14) and school engagement. (F=23.94).

In explaining the findings of the research, it should be acknowledged that the role of the environment and the constructivist teaching method in creating and strengthening interest in lesson, academic engagement and school engagement is significant. What’s that seen a lot in the constructivist teaching method is the interaction and communication between teacher and students. The relationship between students and teachers has a direct effect on their interest in lesson, academic engagement and school engagement and increases their motivation. Therefore, teachers are recommended to address this through the use of active listening techniques, active teaching and learning methods such as constructivism.