THE EFFECT OF THE DIFFERENTIATED SCIENCE INQUIRY (DSI) LEARNING MODEL BASED ON THE TEACHING AT THE RIGHT LEVEL (TARL) APPROACH ON STUDENTS’ COMMUNICATION SKILLS

This study aims to identify: 1) the levels of students’ communication skills; 2) the improvement in students’ communication skills in the experimental and control classes; 3) whether the TaRL-based DSI learning model has an effect on students’ communication skills. This study employs a quasi-experimental design using the “Nonequivalent Control Group Design.” The population consisted of all 11 VIII grade classes at Makassar State Junior High School 1, totaling 435 students. The sample was selected using purposive sampling: VIII grade class 3 (experimental class) with 40 students and VIII grade class 4 (control class) with 33 students. The research instrument was a communication skills questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of this study indicate: 1) the communication skill levels of students in the experimental class before and after the intervention were 51.68 (moderate) and 60.73 (high), respectively. Meanwhile, the control class’s scores were 49.70 (moderate) and 56.27 (moderate), respectively; 2) the increase in communication skills for students in the experimental and control classes was 0.33 (moderate) and 0.21 (low), respectively; 3) the DSI learning model based on the TaRL approach had an impact on the communication skills of VIII grade students at SMP Negeri 1 Makassar.