The Effects of a Web-based Guided Inquiry Approach on Students' Achievement

Although Web technology is widely used in today’s classrooms, educationists are still unsure of its capability to generate meaningful learning. As the numbers of web-based learning (WBL) materials keep increasing tremendously, more students will rely on such resources in their learning process. WBL is always seen as a platform to deliver information, and as such, most of its learning materials are linear and tutorial-based. A WBL that applies a guided inquiry approach offers an alternative as it allows the users to explore the environment based on a given problem. This study investigated the effectiveness of two learning approaches in a WBL environment (guided inquiry, GIA and tutorial, TuA) on the achievement of students with different cognitive styles (Field Independent, FI and Field Dependent, FD). Two versions of a WBL material (TuA and GIA versions) were developed for this purpose. The findings revealed that: (1) the GIA group performed significantly better than the TuA group, (2) the FI students performed significantly better than the FD students did, (3) the FI students in the GIA group performed significantly better than did the FI students in the TuA group, (4) a significant difference in achievement was reported between the FI and the FD students in the GIA group, and (5) among the FD students, no significant difference in achievement between those who received GIA and those who received TuA approaches. These findings suggest that Guided Inquiry has the potential to be an effective learning approach in a web environment. Index Terms Guided Inquiry, Web-based Learning, Constructivism