Effects of Differential Approach on Motivation and Performance of Diverse Learners at Secondary Level in Punjab

Abstract

The present study determines the impact of differentiated instructional strategy on motivation and performance of diverse learners at the secondary level in terms of socioeconomic backgrounds, abilities & learning styles. The study was experimental, and the design of the study was Pre-test, Post-test control group. For this purpose, 70 students of class IX were selected randomly out of 175 students at Government Girls High School who were selected from District Rawalpindi. Two heterogeneous groups having an equal number of students were made. The students in the control group were taught by a conventional approach whereas differential technique was applied in the experimental group. For data collection, two instruments "Learning Style Inventory" by Brett Bixler (1998) and Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) by Valleranad (1992) were adopted by the researcher. Learning Style Inventory was used to know the learning style of the students and AMS was administered to measure the motivational level of the diverse learners. The Alpha reliability coefficient was .82 for learning style Inventory and .88 for AMS. Data were analyzed on SPSS by applying means, standard deviation, t-test, and multiple linear regressions. The study showed that there were statistically non- significant differences between the pre-test and post-test on motivation of the control group. However, there were statistically significant differences between the pre-test and post-test on motivation and academic achievement of the experimental group. It was recommended that the use of differentiated instruction by the teacher be adopted for increasing motivation and improving academic scores of diverse learners at the secondary level.