Constructivist Learning Environments and Academic Achievement: A Study of Iranian TEFL Students

Abstract

The present study scrutinized the probable interaction between effectiveness of designing constructivist learning environments and academic achievement of Iranian students. The further concern was to explore the degree to which constructivist learning environments affected the students’ achievement. To this end, 40 students, doing Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course at Islamic Azad University of Neyshabur, participated in this study and were assigned to experimental and control groups. To accomplish the purpose of the study, the participants were given a pretest and posttest, and few parts related to Developments in English for Specific Purposes course were chosen and designed based on Jonassen’s model for designing constructivist learning environments. At this point, the experimental group attended the classroom and did those selected parts. And the control group studied those parts in traditional learning environment, too. To evaluate the effectiveness of the course, the students’ achievement was analyzed and compared with control group. The quantitative data were subjected to a set of descriptive statistics. The findings reflected that constructive learning environments can influence on the process of learning. Also, training of the constructive group was found to be more effective than that of the systematic one.