Advisers

Ryan Christopher M. Villalon, PhD

Discipline

Education

Abstract

Educational innovations often promise to enhance learning outcomes, but their success can be inconsistent when put into practice. Diorama-based learning has been proposed as a promising method to improve student engagement and comprehension, particularly in subjects that require visualization of complex processes, such as science. In the context of teaching plant environments, dioramas can serve as a creative, hands-on way for students to understand abstract concepts by creating physical representations of ecosystems. Although the theoretical benefits of diorama-based learning are well-documented, there is limited empirical evidence on its actual effectiveness, particularly among elementary school students. A quantitative quasi-experimental design involved 240 Grade 4 students at San Gabriel Elementary School. The source states that students were randomly assigned to diorama-based activities but does not clearly describe the comparison condition, making the design classification inconsistent. The intervention lasted six weeks and involved creating dioramas about plant environments. After the six-week intervention, pretest results showed that 60% scored 1–5 (“not proficient”), with a mean of 5.24. On the posttest, 66% scored 6–10 (“low proficient”), 25% scored 11–15 (“proficient”), and 7% scored below 5. The posttest mean was 8.91. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicated a significant difference (Z = 12.3105, p = 0.000); the p-value should be reported as an inequality rather than as zero. The pretest–posttest improvement suggests that diorama activities supported understanding of plant environments through hands-on and visual representation.

Keywords

science, visual learning, dioramas, auditory learning, kinesthetic learning, plant environment, grade 4 students