A COMPARISON OF LEARNING ACHIEVEMENT BEFORE AND AFTER STUDYING THAI LANGUAGE ON FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE USING THE COOPERATIVE LEARNING PROCESS (GROUP INVESTIGATION: G.I.) COMBINED WITH CONCEPT MAPS FOR MATTHAYOMSUKSA 3 STUDENTS AT THUNGFON WITTAYAKARN SCHOOL, UDON THANI PROVINCE

Abstract

This study aimed to 1) compare students’ learning achievement before and after studying Thai language on the topic of figurative language, and 2) examine students’ satisfaction with the cooperative learning process using the Group Investigation (Group Investigation: G.I.) approach integrated with concept mapping. The participants were 38 Mathayomsuksa 3/1 students from Thungfon Witthayakhan School, Udon Thani Province, selected through cluster random sampling. The research instruments included: 1) five lesson plans on figurative language, 2) a 20-item multiple-choice achievement test, and 3) a student satisfaction questionnaire. Data were analyzed using mean, percentage, standard deviation, and dependent t-test. The results revealed that: (1) students’ post-test scores (=16.71) were significantly higher than their pre-test scores (=8.79), with a mean difference of 7.92 at the 0.5 level of statistical significance; and (2) students reported a high level of satisfaction with the cooperative learning process using the G.I. approach integrated with concept mapping, with an overall mean score of 4.09. These findings suggest that the integration of the G.I. model and concept mapping can effectively enhance students’ learning achievement and engagement in Thai language instruction.