The Effectiveness of Inquiry-Based Learning Module to Improve the Cognitive Learning Outcomes

The needs of the 21st century in education need the creating of young people to have life skills. The life skills can be trained through the learning process and identified through student learning outcomes. Learning outcomes are one of the factors in successful learning. Therefore, a solution is needed to optimize student learning outcomes in the learning process by using the teaching material in the form of the module. The objective of this research is to know the effectiveness of inquiry-based learning module to improve learning outcomes. This research was conducted in one of high school in Surakarta, Indonesia. The research method is quasi-experiment, used pretest and posttest design by using two randomly selected classes those were experimental class used an inquiry-based learning module and control one used modules made by biology teachers in Surakarta. The results showed that there were significant differences of learning outcomes between the control and the experimental classes based on the independent samples t-test test results, also seen with the n-gain scores that obtained at 0.390 (middle) in the control class and 0.749 (high) in the experimental class. Based on the research result, it can be concluded that an inquiry-based learning module is effective to improve the learning outcomes.