Analogy Supported-Scientific Explanation Text to Improve High School Students’ Understanding of The Concept of Heat Transfer

Low understanding of concepts is one of the classic problems faced in learning physics in senior high schoolls. This research was conducted to test the use of analogy supported scientific explanatory text (AS-SEText) in learning physics to obtain depiction about its effectiveness in improving senior high school students' conceptual understanding of the heat transfer concepts. Scientific Explanatory text is written in computer format and analogy used to support text in the form of dynamic analogies packaged in a video analogy. The method used in this study was pre-experiment with a one group pretest-posttest design. The research subjects were 40 students from one high school in West Java Province. The data collection instrument used in this research was the conceptual understanding test related to the concept of heat transfer. The results showed that the use of AS-SEText could facilitate more than 70% of senior high school students to achieve an understanding of the concept of conduction, convection and radiation at the sound understanding level. These results indicate that the use of analogy supported scientific explanatory text has a high effectiveness in facilitating senior high school students to achieve sound understanding levels related to concept of heat transfer. There is no gender bias in achieving a level of sound understanding through the implementation of AS-SEText in heat transfer concept.