2023 Volume 63 Issue 3 Pages 527-536
In this study, we assumed the “Manabi-ni Mukau Chikara, Ningensei Tou” (motivation to learn and humanity) model, including its seven types of competencies related to the awareness of scientific literacy as well as proactive and collaborative attitudes among the learners, and aimed to develop and test a teaching method for enhancing all the competencies. The method is comprised of two processes. Process I has pupils determine their own action goals independently before problem solving, with the expectation that this will facilitate their proactive and collaborative attitudes and that their level of self-efficacy will thus improve. Process II teaches the relationship between learned content and daily life as its application, with the aim of making pupils aware of the “utility”, “importance”, and “relevance to occupation” of science learning, and to thus become more interested in science. As the results of test lessons in the sixth-grade unit on “levers” in an elementary school revealed that the experimental class, using the teaching method devised, demonstrated statistically significant positive effects in six of seven competencies as well as achievement scores, as compared to those in the control class. These positive results suggest the effectiveness of the method in enhancing the “Manabi-ni Mukau Chikara, Ningensei Tou” (motivation to learn and humanity) in elementary school science lessons.
