Abstract:

It has been suggested that individuals show a different preference in making use of each hemisphere’s cognitive capacity, a tendency which has been termed hemisphericity or hemisphere preference. This research investigates possible differences in the correct understanding of biology concepts between students with different hemisphericity, who attended two different instructional approaches. Participants were 97 seventh grade students (age range 12-13 years) divided in two groups. A quasi-experimental research design using pretest and posttest involving an experimental group, which attended a course based on the principles of Brain Based Learning and a control group, which attended the same course based on traditional way of instruction. Participants completed a hemispheric preference test and tool for conceptual understanding of biological concepts. The results revealed that there wasn’t any differentiation in the mean score of in the correct answers on biology concepts among the students with right hemispheric dominance and those with left hemispheric dominance for both instructional approaches. These findings provide evidence against the neuromyth of hemisphericity, which indicates that information is processed in different ways in the two brain hemispheres, and those who falsely believe that there are left-brain or right-brain learners.

Keywords:

Brain hemisphericity, biology concepts, Brain Based Learning.