Abstract
The research aims to explore the effectiveness of interactive teaching on the academic achievement and spatial thinking skills acquisition of tenth-grade scientific stream students in physics. The sample consisted of 124 male and female students selected randomly from four secondary schools for boys and girls in Zakho city for the academic year 2019-2020. They were divided into four equally matched groups based on various variables: 33 males and 30 females for the two experimental groups (taught using interactive teaching), and 32 males and 29 females for the two control groups (taught using traditional methods). To achieve the research objective and test its hypotheses, the researcher designed an objective achievement test consisting of 23 multiple-choice items. Additionally, the researcher used Al-Jubouri's spatial thinking test (2017), comprising 18 subjective items distributed across six basic skills. Both instruments demonstrated reliability, validity, and psychometric properties.
Subsequently, the researcher implemented the research experiment by instructing physics teachers in the selected schools, administered the tests to the primary research sample, collected and statistically analyzed the data using Two-Way ANOVA. The results indicated:
There is a significant difference at the level (0.05) in the mean academic achievement of the research groups in physics based on the teaching method in favor of interactive teaching. and the same moral significance in the interaction between the variables (the method and the gender), while there are no significant differences in the variable of the gender.
There is a significant difference at the level of 0.05 between averages of formal thinking skills acquired by members of research groups according to the variable method and for the mutual teaching and gender of females, while there is no interaction between them.
In light of these results, the researcher drew several conclusions, provided recommendations, and suggested future research directions.
