INSTRUCTIONAL SCAFFOLDING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS IN SECONDARY EDUCATION: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The study under discussion explored the usefulness of instructional scaffolding in improving the problem-solving abilities of students in the secondary school setting in mathematics. The research was based on the socio-cultural theory of Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development and aimed to establish the effect of scaffold instruction on the learners in terms of their ability to interpret and translate problems, apply mathematical concepts and perform logical thinking and multi-step problem solving. Quantitative experimental research design was applied which comprises upon pre-test & post-test. The students of a ninth grade from a government high school in Vehari, Punjab, Pakistan were the population of the study; the sample was split into two groups; control group and experimental group. An experimental design that was undertaken was a pre-test & post-test, in which two intact groups of secondary school students were chosen. The pre-test results indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups (p> 0.05), which ensued baseline equivalence. However, the result of the post-test showed a very significant difference (p< 0.001) in favor of the experimental group on all three domains. The students who were subjected to the scaffold instruction gained a better understanding, better conceptual application and higher logical reasoning when compared to students who were taught under the normal instructional method. These results support the usefulness of scaffolding to increase the mathematical problem-solving ability of the students. Conclusively, instructional scaffolding has extensive pedagogical value, including critical thinking, conceptual learning and self-directed learning. The implications of these results on mathematics teachers and curriculum developers were that scaffold teaching methods must be adopted systematically in mathematics to encourage learners in acquisition of problem-solving skills.