The Impact of Employing Blended Learning Strategy to Increase Tenth Grade Students’ Motivation towards Learning Biology in Jordan

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of using the blended learning strategy to increase the motivation of students in the tenth grade towards learning biology in Jordan. This study was limited to students of the tenth grade in northern Amman in the UNRWA schools in Jordan and applied to the Wadi Al-Seer Preparatory School in the second semester of the academic year 2016/2017. The study subjects were of two groups, experimental group and control group. The first group consisted of 17 members, whereas the second group consisted of 16 members.  To achieve this objective, two tools were used after checking their validity and reliability. The tools were the educational material designed with the blended learning strategy and the motivation scale and the learning patterns.  In order to answer the study questions, means, standard deviations and ANCOVA were calculated. The results showed there were statistically significant differences (α = 0.05) due to the effect of the teaching strategy on increasing the motivation of the experimental group, in favor of the blended learning strategy. However, there were no statistically significant differences (α = 0.05) due to the effect of interaction between the teaching strategy and learning patterns. In light of the results, a number of recommendations were presented, including the activation of the blended learning strategy in teaching biology due to its effectiveness in education. Teachers' attention should also be drawn to the need of using the blended learning strategy to benefit from its characteristics in enriching the curriculum with modern and advanced techniques. Keywords: Blended learning strategy, Motivation, Learning patterns.